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RADAGAISUS. See RAETIA.

RAETIA. Roman alpine province that included parts of modern Switzerland, Bavaria, and the Tyrol. It provided a buffer for Italy until the northern part was abandoned to the Alemanni after 389. In 401 the barbarian chieftain Radagaisus invaded Raetia. It was recovered around 430 by Aetius, but lost again around 450, after Aetius’s death.

RASAFAH. See SERGIOPOLIS.

RAŠKA. See SERBIA; STEFAN NEMANJA; ZETA.

RASTISLAV. See CYRIL AND METHODIOS; GLAGOLITIC; MORAVIA.

RAVENNA. City in northeastern Italy near the coast of the Adriatic Sea. Honorius transferred his court from Milan to Ravenna in 402, making it the capital of the West. It was the capital of Odoacer’s regime, as well as that of the Ostrogoths. The Exarchate of Ravenna was itself created in response to the Lombard invasion of Italy (568); Ravenna fell to the Lombards in 751.

Perhaps the city’s most famous monument is the Church of Saint Vitale, with its mosaic wall panels depicting Justinian I, Theodora, and Maximian, archbishop of Ravenna from 546 to 556. Other monuments include the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia and the churches of St. Apollinare Nuovo and St. Apollinare in Classe. See also ARCHITECTURE; EUTYCHIOS.

RAYMOND OF AGUILERS. Historian of the First Crusade who participated in the First Crusade as chaplain of Raymond of Toulouse. His work, entitled Historia Francorum qui ceperunt Iherusalem (History of the Franks Who Captured Jerusalem), covers the years 1095–1099 and is one of the best sources for the later part of the Crusade, from the capture of Antioch onward. He is clearly antagonistic toward Byzantium.

RAYMOND OF POITIERS. Prince of Antioch (1136–1149). When John II Komnenos besieged Antioch in 1137, Raymond capitulated and accepted the Treaty of Devol. He swore homage to John II, gave John free entry into Antioch, and promised to return it to Byzantine hands. However, he reneged on his promise, which prompted John II to invade the region again in 1142. The problem resolved itself after the fall of Edessa in 1144. With Antioch more directly endangered, Raymond was forced to swear homage to Manuel I Komnenos. The alliance with Antioch was sealed in 1161 when Maria of Antioch, the daughter of Raymond of Poitiers, married Manuel I.

RAYMOND OF TOULOUSE. Military chief of the First Crusade; count of Toulouse in France. His relationship with Alexios I Komnenos was a model of cooperation and trust. He accepted Byzantine overlordship of his County of Tripoli, in return for material aid from Alexios I, sent to him from Cyprus. He also worked with Alexios I to ease passage of the Crusade of 1100–1101 through Constantinople. Raymond died in 1105 outside the walls of Tripolis while still besieging the city (it did not fall until 1109).

Anna Komnene in her Alexiad has only praise for Raymond, who appears to have personified the Byzantine vision of a Crusader: noble, courageous, and a willing client of Byzantium.

RED SEA. See CATHERINE, MONASTERY OF; CEYLON.

REFECTORY. (Trapeza, in Greek.) Dining hall in a monastery of the koinobion type.

RELICS. The bones of martyrs were prized for their miraculous powers, as were objects associated with the life of Christ, and with the holy family. The objects used in Christ’s passion (e.g., the crown of thorns, the Holy Lance, the True Cross) were particularly prized. Some relics, like the True Cross, were broken up into bits and pieces and scattered throughout Christendom, multiplying the miraculous powers of these relics.

At the martyria of saints, Christians purchased water and oil made holy by being placed on the saint’s tomb and put in pilgrim flasks. Soil from pilgrim sites was also considered holy by association, and was carried home by pilgrims either loose, or bought as pilgrim tokens. Constantinople rapidly became the repository for numerous important relics, which were stolen by Crusaders when the Fourth Crusade captured the city in 1204. Many ended up in church treasuries in Venice and other European cities. See also MAGIC; PILGRIMAGE; RELIQUARY.

RELIQUARY. A container for relics, typically for the bodily remains (perhaps a fragment) of a saint after his or her death, as well as for objects that the saint may have worn or used. Reliquaries were also used for pieces of the True Cross.

Such containers could be placed under altars, hidden from view, or could be elaborate gem-studded receptacles meant for viewing. An enkolpion (Greek for “on the chest”), which was worn around the neck, was a type of jewelry that could contain a fragmentary relic (amulet or inscription) to protect the wearer.

RHETORIC. Byzantine society was predominantly an oral society in which public careers, including those in the church, required rhetoric, which is to say eloquent speaking, above all else. This included the ability to give formal speeches, for which clarity and style, based on ancient models like Demosthenes, were available for study in handbooks. It also included the ability to make logical arguments that were persuasive. Rhetoric also included the study of elegant written expression.

There were professors of rhetoric in all major cities, many of whom became exceedingly famous. Since to speak and write well required a sound knowledge of classical Greek literature, rhetoric necessarily included the study of ancient Greek literature, even a basic understanding of classical mythology. Thus, it was chiefly by rhetoric that one’s education and refinement were expressed.

RHINE. The Rhine River (1,320 kilometers long) comprised the northern frontier of the Roman Empire, along with the Danube River farther to the east. The Rhine’s defenses (limes) were abandoned in 406 in the face of massive numbers of invading German barbarians who included Vandals and Alans.

RHODES. Island in the Aegean Sea off the southwest coast of Asia Minor. In 654 Muawiya briefly occupied the island, destroying the famous Colossus of Rhodes. Despite this and subsequent attacks, the island remained in Byzantine hands. Its strategic importance increased during the period of the Crusades when it was one of the chief points of call for ships going between Italy and Syria.

After the capture of Constantinople in 1204 it came under the control of the Gabalas family, who had a long history of service with the Byzantine fleet. Leo Gabalas was succeeded by John Gabalas in 1240, and not until 1249 was the Empire of Nicaea, under John III Vatatzes, able to retake the island. Thereafter, it was ruled by Genoa, and, after 1309, by the Hospitallers, who held it until the Ottomans conquered it in 1522. See also MARTINA; RHODIAN SEA LAW; TAFUR, PERO.

RHODIAN SEA LAW. The Nomos Nautikos (Maritime Law), or, as it is sometimes called, the Nomos Rhodios (Rhodian Law), is a collection of maritime law dating from the seventh or eighth century, and appended to the Ecloga. It deals with diverse aspects of commercial navigation, including liability for losses in case of piracy or storm, and punishable offenses. See also NOMOS STRATIOTIKOS.

RHODOPE MOUNTAINS. The most impenetrable mountain range of the Balkan Peninsula, densely wooded and rugged. Only a few passes aid communication between the coastal plain of Thrace and the upper Hebros River valley. The theme of Strymon was created partly to defend those passes. See also IVANKO.

RHOMAIOI. Greek term meaning “Romans,” which is how the Byzantine state referred to its citizens. The imperial title Basileus ton Romaion (Emperor of the Romans) was jealously guarded from the time of Charlemagne onward. “Rum” is how Muslim writers referred to the empire, and, thus, the Sultanate of Rum was what the Seljuks called their conquests in Asia Minor.

After 1265, as Byzantium contracted to something approaching the confines of ancient Greece and as scholars during the Palaiologan Dynasty became seriously interested in ancient Greek civilization, the term Hellenes (Greeks) was also used to designate the inhabitants of Byzantium.

RICHARD I LIONHEART. See CYPRUS; ISAAC KOMNENOS; THIRD CRUSADE.

RICIMER. Magister militum who made and unmade western emperors from 456 to 472. He was a barbarian (grandson of Wallia, king of the Visigoths) who defeated the Vandals at sea, off Corsica (456), and fought the Ostrogoths and Alemanni in defense of Italy. In 456 he deposed Avitus, made Majorian emperor in 457, then deposed Majorian in 461. He accepted Leo I’s nominee Anthemios as emperor (467–472), but he replaced him with Olybrius in 472.

RILA MONASTERY. See JOHN OF RILA.

ROADS. See HIGHWAYS AND ROADS.

ROBERT CRESPIN. See HERVÉ FRANKOPOULOS; ROUSSEL DE BAILLEUL.

ROBERT GUISCARD. Robert the “Crafty” (Guiscard), the Norman adventurer who conquered Byzantine southern Italy from 1057 to 1071. In 1059 Pope Nicholas II legitimized his rule in return for an alliance, recognizing him as Duke of Apulia and Calabria. In 1071 his forces conquered Byzantium’s last stronghold, Bari. Palermo in Sicily fell in 1072 to the Normans. Robert and his son Bohemund invaded Byzantine possessions in northern Greece in 1081–1082, hoping to march eastward on the Via Egnatia. Alexios I Komnenos eventually succeeded in stemming their assault, reconquering Dyrrachion after the death of Robert Guiscard in 1085. See also KOUROPALATES; TARANTO; WILLIAM OF APULIA.

ROBERT of CLARI. Author of an eyewitness account of the Fourth Crusade. Robert’s viewpoint as a lowly knight stands in contrast to that of Geoffrey de Villehardouin, whose work more closely reflects the Fourth Crusade’s leadership.

Robert’s account supports the view that the Crusade’s diversion to Constantinople had more to do with accident than conspiracy. Nevertheless, Doge Enrico Dandalo and Conrad of Montferrat are viewed as playing decisive roles in the decision to divert the Crusade. Also valuable in his work is the description he provides of monuments and relics in Constantinople.

ROBERT OF COURTENAY. See LATIN EMPIRE.

ROBERT OF FLANDERS. See FIRST CRUSADE.

ROBERT OF NORMANDY. See FIRST CRUSADE.

ROBERT THE MONK. See GESTA FRANCORUM ET ALIORUM HIEROSOLIMITANORUM.

RODANTHE AND DOSIKLES. See EUGENIANOS, NIKETAS; PRODROMOS, THEODORE; ROMANCE.

ROGER II. Norman king of Sicily from 1130 to 1154 who attacked Byzantium in 1147 while Manuel I Komnenos was preoccupied with the Second Crusade. Roger’s fleet captured Kerkyra, and pillaged Euboea, Thebes, and Corinth, carrying off silk weavers to Palermo to support the fledgling silk industry there. Hostilities continued into 1149, when Byzantium recaptured Kerkyra, and Roger’s fleet made a vain attack on Constantinople. Modern visitors to Sicily connect his name to two great monuments that he constructed, the Capella Palatina in Palermo and Cefalù, the mosaics of which were executed by Byzantine craftsmen. Cefalù has one of the great images of Christ Pantokrator in the semidome of its apse.

ROGER DE FLOR. Commander of the Catalan Grand Company, a band of professional Spanish mercenaries hired by Andronikos II Palaiologos in 1303 to fight the Ottomans in western Asia Minor. He offered Andronikos his several thousand mercenaries for nine months, in return for which he demanded double the usual pay, the hand of Andronikos’s 16-year-old niece Maria, and the title of megas doux. Andronikos accepted these terms. By the spring of 1303 the Catalans had achieved some victories against the Ottomans in western Asia Minor. At Philadelphia that year they defeated an Ottoman army, slaughtering some 18,000 Turks, and by 1304 the Catalans had recovered much of western Asia Minor.

However, Andronikos II’s eldest son and co-emperor, Michael IX Palaiologos hatched a plot. Roger was invited to a formal state banquet at Adrianople, where he was assassinated (30 April 1305). His Catalan troops wreaked their vengeance around their encampment at Gallipoli, after which they marched through Thrace, looting as they went. In 1308 they pillaged northern Greece, then descended into central Greece where the French duke of Athens hired them. In 1311 the Catalans turned on the duke and defeated his army, then marched to Athens where they set up their own duchy. It lasted until 1385, when it surrendered to Nerio I Acciajuoli, the ruler of Corinth. The entire episode illustrates how utterly weakened and desperate the Byzantine state had become.

ROMAIOI. See RUM.

ROMANCE. This popular type of fiction, inherited from classical times, was revived in the 12th century. For example, the Achilleis, probably composed around the beginning of the 15th century, recalls Homer’s Trojan war, as do the main characters, a hero of chivalry named Achilles and his companion Patroklos. However, the setting, with its jousts and tournaments, is more that of Frankish feudalism. Certain features remind one of the Byzantine epic poem Digenes Akritas. Another example is Rodanthe and Dosikles by Theodore Prodromos. See also EUGENEIANOS, NIKETAS; LITERATURE; POETRY; PRODROMOS, THEODORE.

ROMANOS I LEKAPENOS. Emperor from 920 to 944. He was the first of a series of emperors, the last being Basil II, who legislated against powerful landed magnates, the dynatoi, by making it difficult for them to purchase peasant landholdings.

His first edict, the Novel of 922, made it difficult for the dynatoi to purchase peasant land except when they already owned property in the village. A subsequent edict in 934 expresses frustration that the dynatoi were circumventing the law and decreed the restoration of peasants’ properties. At the beginning of his reign, the Tome of Union ended the long controversy over the tetragamy.

Externally, the war with Symeon of Bulgaria ended in 927, after which General John Kourkouas began offensive operations in Armenia and northern Mesopotamia, having mixed results against Sayf al-Dawla until he captured Melitene in 934. Nisibis, Dara, Amida, and Martyropolis were captured in 943. In 944 he besieged Edessa, which was forced to relinquish its famous mandylion. Also worthy of mention is the failed attack on Constantinople by the Rus in 941. See also BULGARIAN TREATY; THEOPHYLAKTOS.

ROMANOS II. Emperor from 959 to 963, succeeding his father Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos. His second wife was the infamous Theophano. Like Romanos I Lekapenos he legislated against the dynatoi, attempting to protect the stratiotika ktemata against their encroachments.

Externally, his great general Nikephoros II Phokas reconquered Crete in 961, and he had great success against Sayf al-Dawla, capturing Anazarbos in Cilicia and Germanikeia. In 962 Aleppo, Sayf al-Dawla’s capital, fell after a determined siege. It was Nikephoros II Phokas who succeeded in gaining the throne after Romanos II died, despite opposition from Romanos’s parakoimomenos, Joseph Bringas. See also THEODORE DAPHNOPATES.

ROMANOS III ARGYROS. Emperor from 1028 to 1034, succeeding Constantine VIII. He held the prestigious office of Eparch of the City, and by marrying Constantine VIII’s daughter Zoe he established a connection with the Macedonian Dynasty. His reign is generally counted a disaster.

He abandoned Basil II’s policy of requiring the dynatoi to pay additional taxes for peasant holdings by rescinding the allelengyon. He lavished money on church construction, including the Peribleptos Monastery and the church at Blachernai in Constantinople, both of which he paid for out of state funds. His humiliating defeat before Aleppo in 1030 only added to the general feeling of dissolution about his reign. Zoe and others conspired to drown him in 1034.

ROMANOS IV DIOGENES. Emperor from 1068 to 1071. He is remembered for losing the Battle of Mantzikert to Alp Arslan in 1071, one of the most famous of Byzantine defeats, one that opened up Asia Minor to Seljuk expansion. Romanos IV also failed to properly defend Bari, which fell to the Norman Robert Guiscard in 1071, completing the Norman conquest of Byzantine Italy. Taken captive at the Battle of Mantzikert, Romanos IV was released only after making a treaty with Alp Arslan that promised an annual tribute and a personal ransom. However, upon reaching Byzantine territory he was deposed and blinded by palace conspirators.

Mantzikert exposed the failure of Byzantium to defend its borders after the death of Basil II in 1025. Basil II’s aggressive expansionism had to be discarded as impractical, but his professionalization of the army might have been continued. In any case, undisciplined conscripts from the themes and unreliable mercenaries were not the answer.

ROMANOS THE MELODE. Creator of the Byzantine hymn. He was a church deacon from Emesa, in Syria, possibly of Jewish heritage, who settled in Constantinople during the reign of Anastasios I. He composed a thousand hymns. Only a fraction of these hymns survive under his name. He developed and promoted the kontakion, a sermon in verse, chanted by preacher and choir, that was the most popular form of hymn in the late fifth and sixth centuries.

Much modern discussion has focused on the authorship of particular hymns, for example, the Akathistos Hymn, as well as how much Romanos was influenced by Syriac religious poetry and Jewish psalmody. Subsequent hymnographers, including Kosmas the Hymnographer, were much influenced by Romanos, although his beloved kontakion was gradually replaced by another kind of church hymn, the kanon. See also MUSIC; POETRY.

ROME. Rome’s political decline began with the establishment of Constantinople, referred to as New Rome, in 324. The Visigoths pillaged Rome in 410, as did the Vandals in 455. It changed hands during Justinian I’s war against the Ostrogoths.

As Byzantine influence in Italy declined, beginning in 568 with the Lombard invasion, popes such as Gregory I were able to carve out an independent role for the papacy. This increased Rome’s political importance in the West, but not until the Italian Renaissance did the city regain its former glory. See also ALARIC; ATTILA; BATTLE OF THE MILVIAN BRIDGE; LEO I THE GREAT; MAXENTIUS; PAPAL PRIMACY.

ROMULUS AUGUSTULUS. Last western emperor, who reigned from 475–476. He came to power after the overthrow of Julius Nepos. His own overthrow by Odoacer in 476 long provided the traditional date for the end of the Roman Empire. In reality, the medieval Roman Empire (what modern scholars called Byzantium) survived in Italy until the Normans conquered Bari in 1071. In the East, of course, Byzantium survived until 1453.

ROSSANO. City in southern Italy that Byzantium controlled until the Normans conquered it ca. 1059. Rossano and its environs were a center of monasticism. Neilos of Rossano founded the monastery of St. Adrian near Rossano. Rossano is also known for the famous Rossano Gospels (Codex Rossanensis), the earliest known illustrated Greek Gospel texts. See also ART; CODEX; LIBRARIES.

ROSSANO GOSPELS. See ROSSANO.

ROUSSEL DE BAILLEUL. Commander of the Norman mercenaries at the Battle of Mantzikert in 1071. Previous Norman commanders Robert Crespin and Hervé Frankopoulos proved unreliable, as did Roussel, who sought to use the turmoil in Asia Minor as an opportunity to carve out a kingdom for himself, much the same as other Normans had in southern Italy. His rebellion of 1073 was successful in this regard, creating a brief Norman mini-state in the Armeniakon. Roussel was suppressed in 1075 by general and future emperor Alexios I Komnenos. See also DOUKAS, JOHN; KOUROPALATES; NIKEPHORITZES.

RUBENIDS. Fleeing from the Seljuks in the aftermath of the Battle of Mantzikert, this Armenian dynasty established itself in Cilicia from ca. 1073 to 1226. In Cilicia’s eastern coastal plain and mountains to the north, the Rubenids created a prosperous kingdom. In 1085 Thoros I captured Anazarbos and made it his capital. John II Komnenos recaptured Anazarbos in 1137, forcing the Rubenids back into the mountains for a while. Manuel I Komnenos recaptured Anazarbos again in 1158, forcing the submission of Thoros II. The Battle of Myriokephalon (1176) ended Byzantine influence in Cilicia, but the Rubenids continued to struggle with the principality of Antioch until the end of the dynasty in 1226. See also MOPSUESTIA.

RUFINUS. The individual who served as the power behind the throne in the East from the death of Theodosios I on 17 January 395 until Rufinus’s own death on 27 November 395. He was magister officiorum from 388 to 392 and praetorian prefect from 394. After Theodosios’s death, Rufinus held sway over the mind of the child-emperor Honorios, becoming his trusted advisor. However, nothing could save him from his western rival Stilicho, who had the Gothic general Gainas arrange for Rufinus’s murder (a description of which is preserved in a poem by Claudian).

RUM. Arabic term for Byzantium, derived from the fact that the Byzantines, as they are called by modern scholars, referred to themselves as Romaioi, meaning Romans, and, until 1204 (when the Latin Empire appropriated the term), to their empire as Romania. The Seljuks of Anatolia used the term for their Sultanate of Rum, and the Ottomans later used Rumeli to designate their Byzantine territorial conquests in the Balkan Peninsula. Rumeli Hisar, for example, is the famous fortress built in 1451 by Mehmed II on the European side of the Bosporos.

RUM, SULTANATE OF. Seljuk state established in Anatolia after the Battle of Mantzikert, organized by its first ruler, Suleyman Ibn Kutlumush ca. 1078. Nicaea, its first capital, surrendered to the forces of Alexios I Komnenos in 1097, when it was besieged by the army of the First Crusade. After this, the capital was moved to Ikonion. The sultanate declined in the 13th century, following the appearance of the Mongols in Asia Minor, and it disintegrated in the early 14th century. See also EMIRATE; KARAMAN, EMIRATE OF; OSMAN; SARUHAN.

RUMELI. See PHILIPPOLIS; RUM.

RUMELI HISAR. See BOSPOROS; mehmet ii.

RUS. Name given to the Vikings (also called Varangians) who organized the first Russian state at Kiev, and who traversed the Dnieper to attack and trade with Constantinople. The first Rus attack on the city was in 860, according to a homily of Photios. An attack by Oleg in 907 was followed by a trading agreement in 911. Igor launched more raids in 941 and 943 (or 944), resulting in a renewal of trading privileges; the last Rus attack on Constantinople was in 1043. The growing power of the Rus is seen in Nikephoros II Phokas’s request for the Rus to invade Bulgaria. Svjatoslav did so in 968. The highpoint in this trajectory of Byzantine-Rus relations was Vladimir I’s marriage in 988 to Anna, sister of Basil II, followed by Vladimir’s conversion to Christianity. Vladimir’s loan of 6,000 Varangians to help Basil II fight against Bardas Phokas inaugurated a policy of using Varangians as mercenaries, most prominently in the elite Varangian Guard.

Byzantine civilization had a profound impact on the converted Rus. For example, Jaroslav the Wise remade Kiev in the image of Constantinople, with a Cathedral of St. Sophia and its own Golden Gate. After the demise of Byzantium the influence of Byzantine civilization continued in Moscow, the self-proclaimed “Third Rome.” See also AMASTRIS; CHERSON; COMMERCE AND TRADE; DIPLOMACY; GEORGE OF AMASTRIS; HETAIREIA; SARKEL.

RUSSIAN PRIMARY CHRONICLE. Conventional title for a compilation (dated to the second decade of the 12th century) that has been variously referred to as the Chronicle of Nestor, or The Tale of Bygone Years (this last derived from a phrase in the first sentence of the text). Part of the work’s importance is that it is the chief historical source for the early history of Rus-Byzantine relations, including treaties resulting from Rus attacks on Constantinople. Its authorship has been attributed to Nestor, a monk from Caves Monastery in Kiev. See also NOVGOROD.