196-518: Theodosius I ( ‹See Tfd› Greek : Θεοδόσιος Theodosios ; 11 January 347 – 17 January 395), also known as Theodosius the Great , was a Roman emperor from 379 to 395. He won two civil wars and was instrumental in establishing the Nicene Creed as the orthodox doctrine for Nicene Christianity . Theodosius was the last emperor to rule the entire Roman Empire before its administration
392-517: A caste system , and land fell out of use in the East just as it had in the West. Yet the East stood its ground in the fifth century, fought back in the sixth, and even recovered some territory in the seventh. The East had only one apparent advantage: geography. It was less vulnerable, strategically, than the West. The narrowest sea crossing to its core territories was protected from the northern barbarians by
588-474: A Fall of empire. Like other Enlightenment thinkers and British citizens of the age steeped in institutional anti-Catholicism , Gibbon held in contempt the Middle Ages as a priest-ridden, superstitious Dark Age. It was not until his own era, the "Age of Reason", with its emphasis on rational thought, it was believed, that human history could resume its progress. He began an ongoing controversy about
784-577: A basis for coinages: anthropology , photography , telephony , isomer , biomechanics , cinematography , etc. Together with Latin words , they form the foundation of international scientific and technical vocabulary ; for example, all words ending in -logy ('discourse'). There are many English words of Greek origin . Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European language family. The ancient language most closely related to it may be ancient Macedonian , which, by most accounts,
980-484: A breakdown in society. For centuries, Theodosius was regarded as a champion of Christian orthodoxy who decisively stamped out paganism. His predecessors Constantine , Constantius II , and Valens had all been semi-Arians , whereas Theodosius supported Nicene Christianity which eventually became the orthodox version of Christology for most later Christian churches—his Edict of Thessalonica described Arian Christians as "foolish madmen". Therefore, as far as Ambrose and
1176-503: A central Roman rump state ; in 271, Rome abandoned the province of Dacia on the north of the Danube . The Rhine /Danube frontier also came under more effective threats from larger barbarian groupings, which had developed improved agriculture and increased their populations. The average stature of the population in the West suffered a serious decline in the late second century; the population of Northwestern Europe did not recover, though
1372-609: A collapsing field army, and the Empire divided between the warring ministers of his two incapable sons. Goths and other non-Romans became a force that could challenge either part of the Empire. Further barbarian groups crossed the Rhine and other frontiers. The armed forces of the Western Empire became few and ineffective, and despite brief recoveries under able leaders, central rule was never again effectively consolidated. By 476,
1568-541: A demoralized army, began his brief reign (363–364) while trapped in Mesopotamia without supplies. To purchase safe passage home, he had to concede areas of northern Mesopotamia , including the strategically important fortress of Nisibis . This fortress had been Roman since before the Peace of Nisibis in 299. The brothers Valens ( r. 364–378 ) and Valentinian I ( r. 364–375 ) energetically tackled
1764-558: A fairly stable set of consonantal contrasts . The main phonological changes occurred during the Hellenistic and Roman period (see Koine Greek phonology for details): In all its stages, the morphology of Greek shows an extensive set of productive derivational affixes , a limited but productive system of compounding and a rich inflectional system. Although its morphological categories have been fairly stable over time, morphological changes are present throughout, particularly in
1960-560: A faster, more convenient cursive writing style with the use of ink and quill . The Greek alphabet consists of 24 letters, each with an uppercase ( majuscule ) and lowercase ( minuscule ) form. The letter sigma has an additional lowercase form (ς) used in the final position of a word: In addition to the letters, the Greek alphabet features a number of diacritical signs : three different accent marks ( acute , grave , and circumflex ), originally denoting different shapes of pitch accent on
2156-482: A final battle near Frigidus in 394 is a romantic myth. Theodosius suffered from a disease involving severe edema . He died in Mediolanum ( Milan ) on 17 January 395, and his body lay in state in the palace there for forty days. His funeral was held in the cathedral on 25 February. Bishop Ambrose delivered a panegyric titled De obitu Theodosii in the presence of Stilicho and Honorius in which Ambrose praised
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#17327728761672352-540: A foreign language. It is also often stated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages. According to one estimation, " Homeric Greek is probably closer to Demotic than 12-century Middle English is to modern spoken English ". Greek is spoken today by at least 13 million people, principally in Greece and Cyprus along with a sizable Greek-speaking minority in Albania near
2548-474: A great increase in the purchasing power of gold, two and a half fold from 274 to the later fourth century. This may be an index of growing economic inequality between a gold-rich elite and a cash-poor peasantry . "Formerly, says Ammianus, Rome was saved by her austerity, by solidarity between rich and poor, by contempt for death; now she is undone by her luxury and greed (Amm. xxxi. 5. 14 and xxii. 4.). Salvianus backs up Ammianus by affirming that greed (avaritia)
2744-426: A guide to his own conduct throughout life. Theodosius is first attested accompanying his father to Britain on his expedition in 368–369 to suppress the " Great Conspiracy ", a concerted Celtic and Germanic invasion of the island provinces. After probably serving in his father's staff on further campaigns, Theodosius received his first independent command by 374 when he was appointed the dux (commanding officer) of
2940-618: A large regular army with logistics and training. The cursus honorum , a standardized series of military and civil posts organised for ambitious aristocratic men, ensured that powerful noblemen had the opportunity to become familiar with military and civil command and administration. At a lower level within the army, connecting the aristocrats at the top with the private soldiers, a large number of centurions were well-rewarded, literate, and responsible for training, discipline, administration, and leadership in battle. City governments with their own properties and revenues functioned effectively at
3136-489: A large and powerful group as Christians had now become. Julian prepared for civil war against Constantius, who again encouraged the Germans to attack Gaul. However Julian's campaigns had been effective and only one small Alemannic raid, speedily dealt with by Julian, resulted. Constantius died before any serious fighting and Julian was acknowledged as master of the entire Empire. He launched an expensive campaign against
3332-426: A letter offering what McLynn calls a different way for the emperor to "save face" and restore his public image. Ambrose urges a semi-public demonstration of penitence, telling the emperor he will not give Theodosius communion until this is done. Wolf Liebeschuetz says "Theodosius duly complied and came to church without his imperial robes, until Christmas, when Ambrose openly admitted him to communion". Washburn says
3528-402: A local level; membership of city councils involved lucrative opportunities for independent decision-making, and, despite its obligations, became seen as a privilege. Under a series of emperors who each adopted a mature and capable successor, the Empire did not require civil wars to regulate the imperial succession. Requests could be submitted directly to the better emperors, and the answers had
3724-492: A major centre for Jewish unrest. Nevertheless, it remained a culture based on an early subsistence economy , with only ineffective inklings of a germ theory of disease . Despite its aqueducts , the water supply did not allow good hygiene. Sewage was disposed of on the streets, in open drains, or by scavenging animals. Even in the Roman Climatic Optimum , local harvest failures causing famines were always
3920-545: A major part in the fall of the West". The Roman Empire reached its greatest geographical extent under Trajan (r. 98–117), who ruled a prosperous state that stretched from Armenia to the Atlantic Ocean . The Empire had large numbers of trained, supplied, and disciplined soldiers, drawn from a growing population. It had a comprehensive civil administration based in thriving cities with effective control over public finances. The literate elite considered theirs to be
4116-399: A master-slave relationship. An elaborate court ceremonial developed, and obsequious flattery became the order of the day. Under Diocletian, the flow of direct requests to the emperor rapidly reduced, and soon ceased altogether. No other form of direct access replaced them, and the emperor received only information filtered through his courtiers . However, as Sabine MacCormack described,
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#17327728761674312-644: A period of foreign invasions and court intrigues, which heavily weakened the empire. The descendants of Theodosius ruled the Roman world for the next six decades, and the east–west division endured until the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the late 5th century. Theodosius was born in Hispania on 11 January, probably in the year 347. His father of the same name, Count Theodosius , was a successful and high-ranking general ( magister equitum ) under
4508-406: A pious fiction". Wolfe Liebeschuetz says Ambrose advocated a course of action which avoided the kind of public humiliation Theodoret describes, and that is the course Theodosius chose. According to the early twentieth century historian Henry Smith Williams , history's assessment of Theodosius's character has been stained by the massacre of Thessalonica for centuries. Williams describes Theodosius as
4704-405: A popular charioteer tried to rape a cup-bearer, (or possibly Butheric himself), and in response, Butheric arrested and jailed the charioteer. The populace demanded the chariot racer's release, and when Butheric refused, a general revolt rose up costing Butheric his life. Doležal says the name "Butheric" indicates he might have been a Goth, and that the general's ethnicity "could have been" a factor in
4900-409: A possibility. And even in good times, Roman women needed to have, on average, six children each in order to maintain the population . Good nourishment and bodily cleanliness were privileges of the rich, advertised by their firm tread, healthy skin color, and lack of the "dull smell of the underbathed". Infant mortality was very high, and diarrhoeal diseases were a major cause of death. Malaria
5096-419: A reduced tax base. The business of subduing barbarian warbands also demanded substantial gifts of precious metal. At least one extra levy provoked desperation and rioting , in which the emperor's statues were destroyed. Nevertheless, he is represented as financially generous as emperor, though frugal in his personal life. By the end of the 380s, Theodosius and the court were in Mediolanum , and northern Italy
5292-423: A selective killing ... got out of hand". Doleźal says Sozomen is very specific in saying that in response to the riot, the soldiers made random arrests in the hippodrome to perform a few public executions as a demonstration of imperial disfavor, but the citizenry objected. Doleźal suggests, "The soldiers, realizing that they were surrounded by angry citizens, perhaps panicked ... and ... forcibly cleared
5488-403: A virtuous-minded, courageous man, who was vigorous in pursuit of any important goal, but through contrasting the "inhuman massacre of the people of Thessalonica" with "the generous pardon of the citizens of Antioch" after civil war, Williams also concludes Theodosius was "hasty and choleric". It is only modern scholarship that has begun disputing Theodosius's responsibility for those events. From
5684-507: Is a vice common to nearly all Romans". However, Lucius Calpurnius Piso Frugi (consul 133 BC) had already dated the start of Rome's moral decline to 154 BCE. Within the late Roman military , many recruits and even officers had barbarian origins. Soldiers are recorded as using possibly-barbarian rituals, such as elevating a claimant on shields. Some scholars have seen this as an indication of weakness. Others disagree, seeing neither barbarian recruits nor new rituals as causing any problem with
5880-804: Is also found in Bulgaria near the Greek-Bulgarian border. Greek is also spoken worldwide by the sizable Greek diaspora which has notable communities in the United States , Australia , Canada , South Africa , Chile , Brazil , Argentina , Russia , Ukraine , the United Kingdom , and throughout the European Union , especially in Germany . Historically, significant Greek-speaking communities and regions were found throughout
6076-773: Is an Indo-European language, constituting an independent Hellenic branch within the Indo-European language family. It is native to Greece , Cyprus , Italy (in Calabria and Salento ), southern Albania , and other regions of the Balkans , Caucasus , the Black Sea coast, Asia Minor , and the Eastern Mediterranean . It has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning at least 3,400 years of written records. Its writing system
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6272-479: Is an Indo-European language, but also includes a number of borrowings from the languages of the populations that inhabited Greece before the arrival of Proto-Greeks, some documented in Mycenaean texts ; they include a large number of Greek toponyms . The form and meaning of many words have changed. Loanwords (words of foreign origin) have entered the language, mainly from Latin, Venetian , and Turkish . During
6468-698: Is commemorated as ktetor of Vatopedi and donator of Vatopedi icon of the Mother of God. According to art historian David Wright, art of the era around the year 400 reflects optimism amongst the traditional polytheists. This is likely connected to what Ine Jacobs calls a renaissance of classical styles of art in the Theodosian period (AD 379–395) often referred to in modern scholarship as the Theodosian renaissance . The Forum Tauri in Constantinople
6664-468: Is created by aspects of these accounts contradicting one another to the point of being mutually exclusive. Nonetheless, most classicists accept at least the basic account of the massacre, although they continue to dispute when it happened, who was responsible for it, what motivated it, and what impact it had on subsequent events. Theodosius was not in Thessalonica when the massacre occurred. The court
6860-432: Is entirely covered with bas-reliefs documenting Theodosius's imperial household and the engineering feat of removing the obelisk to Constantinople. Theodosius and the imperial family are separated from the nobles among the spectators in the imperial box , with a cover over them as a mark of their status. From the perspective of style, it has served as "the key monument in identifying a so-called Theodosian court style, which
7056-547: Is fairly credited with presiding over a revival in classical art that some historians have termed a "Theodosian renaissance". Although his pacification of the Goths secured peace for the Empire during his lifetime, their status as an autonomous entity within Roman borders caused problems for succeeding emperors. Theodosius has also received criticism for defending his own dynastic interests at the cost of two civil wars. His two sons proved weak and incapable rulers, and they presided over
7252-519: Is protected and promoted officially as a regional and minority language in Armenia, Hungary , Romania, and Ukraine. It is recognized as a minority language and protected in Turkey by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne . The phonology , morphology , syntax , and vocabulary of the language show both conservative and innovative tendencies across the entire attestation of the language from the ancient to
7448-910: Is sometimes called aljamiado , as when Romance languages are written in the Arabic alphabet. Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Greek: Transcription of the example text into Latin alphabet : Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in English: Proto-Greek Mycenaean Ancient Koine Medieval Modern Fall of the Western Roman Empire The fall of
7644-526: Is spoken by at least 13.5 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey , and the many other countries of the Greek diaspora . Greek roots have been widely used for centuries and continue to be widely used to coin new words in other languages; Greek and Latin are the predominant sources of international scientific vocabulary . Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around
7840-763: Is still used internationally for the writing of Ancient Greek . In Greek, the question mark is written as the English semicolon, while the functions of the colon and semicolon are performed by a raised point (•), known as the ano teleia ( άνω τελεία ). In Greek the comma also functions as a silent letter in a handful of Greek words, principally distinguishing ό,τι ( ó,ti , 'whatever') from ότι ( óti , 'that'). Ancient Greek texts often used scriptio continua ('continuous writing'), which means that ancient authors and scribes would write word after word with no spaces or punctuation between words to differentiate or mark boundaries. Boustrophedon , or bi-directional text,
8036-650: Is the Greek alphabet , which has been used for approximately 2,800 years; previously, Greek was recorded in writing systems such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary . The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin , Cyrillic , Coptic , Gothic , and many other writing systems. The Greek language holds a very important place in the history of the Western world. Beginning with
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8232-533: Is usually described as a "renaissance" of earlier Roman classicism". It is traditionally stated that the Arian Controversy, a dispute concerning the nature of the divine trinity, and its accompanying struggles for political influence, started in Alexandria during the reign of Constantine the Great between a presbyter, Arius of Alexandria, and his bishop, Alexander of Alexandria. However, “many of
8428-669: The Consularia Constantinopolitana , a Roman triumph over the Gothic Greuthungi was then celebrated at Constantinople. The same year, work began on the great triumphal column in the Forum of Theodosius in Constantinople, the Column of Theodosius . The Consularia Constantinopolitana records that on 19 January 387, Arcadius celebrated his quinquennalia in Constantinople. By the end of the month, there
8624-565: The Consultationes Zacchei et Apollonii , re-dated to the 390s, reinforces the view that religion was not the key ideological element in the events at the time". According to Maijastina Kahlos , Finnish historian and Docent of Latin language and Roman literature at the University of Helsinki, the notion of pagan aristocrats united in a "heroic and cultured resistance" who rose up against the ruthless advance of Christianity in
8820-495: The Eastern Mediterranean , in what are today Southern Italy , Turkey , Cyprus , Syria , Lebanon , Israel , Palestine , Egypt , and Libya ; in the area of the Black Sea , in what are today Turkey, Bulgaria , Romania , Ukraine , Russia , Georgia , Armenia , and Azerbaijan ; and, to a lesser extent, in the Western Mediterranean in and around colonies such as Massalia , Monoikos , and Mainake . It
9016-539: The Forum Tauri , which became the biggest public square known in antiquity. Theodosius marched west twice, in 388 and 394, after both Gratian and Valentinian had been killed, to defeat the two pretenders, Magnus Maximus and Eugenius , who rose to replace them. Theodosius's final victory in September 394 made him master of the entire empire; he died a few months later and was succeeded by his two sons, Arcadius in
9212-579: The Huns . They were exploited by corrupt officials rather than effectively relieved and resettled, and they took up arms and were joined by more Goths and some Alans and Huns. Valens was in Asia with his main field army preparing for an assault on the Sasanian Empire. Redirection of the army and its logistic support would have required time, and Gratian's armies were distracted by Germanic invasions across
9408-516: The Indo-Iranian languages (see Graeco-Aryan ), but little definitive evidence has been found. In addition, Albanian has also been considered somewhat related to Greek and Armenian, and it has been proposed that they all form a higher-order subgroup along with other extinct languages of the ancient Balkans; this higher-order subgroup is usually termed Palaeo-Balkan , and Greek has a central position in it. Linear B , attested as early as
9604-477: The Muslim conquests represented a decisive break with antiquity. The more recent formulation of a historical period characterized as " Late Antiquity " emphasizes the transformations of ancient to medieval worlds within a cultural continuity. In recent decades archaeologically based argument even extends the continuity in material culture and in patterns of settlement as late as the eleventh century. Observing
9800-467: The Praetorian Prefect of Italy . In the summer of 384, Theodosius met his co-emperor Valentinian II in northern Italy. Theodosius brokered a peace agreement between Valentinian and Magnus Maximus which endured for several years. Theodosius I was based in Constantinople, and according to Peter Heather , wanted, "for his own dynastic reasons (for his two sons each eventually to inherit half of
9996-602: The Roman Republic , controlling a smaller area than the western Empire, had been able to reconstitute large regular armies of citizens after greater defeats than Adrianople. That war had ended with the near-extermination of the invading barbarian supergroups, each supposed to have more than 100,000 warriors. ) The final Gothic settlement was acclaimed with relief, even the official panegyrist admitting that these Goths could not be expelled or exterminated, nor reduced to unfree status. Instead they were either recruited into
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#173277287616710192-543: The Senate sent the imperial insignia to the Eastern Roman Emperor Zeno . While its legitimacy lasted for centuries longer and its cultural influence remains today, the Western Empire never had the strength to rise again. The Eastern Roman, or Byzantine , Empire, survived and remained for centuries an effective power of the Eastern Mediterranean , although it lessened in strength. Additionally, while
10388-599: The crisis of the third century . Heavy mortality in 165–180 from the Antonine Plague seriously impaired attempts to repel Germanic invaders, but the legions generally held or at least speedily re-instated the borders of the Empire. From 376, massive populations moved into the Empire, driven by the Huns who themselves may have been driven by climate change in the Eurasian steppe . These barbarian invasions led ultimately to barbarian kingdoms over much of
10584-443: The diocese of Macedonia to their control. In 387 Maximus invaded Italy, forcing Valentinian II to flee to the East, where he accepted Nicene Christianity. Maximus boasted to Ambrose of the numbers of barbarians in his forces, and hordes of Goths, Huns, and Alans followed Theodosius. Maximus negotiated with Theodosius for acceptance as Augustus of the West, but Theodosius refused, gathered his armies, and counterattacked, winning
10780-489: The eastern empire as foederati , and Caucasian and Saracen auxiliaries , and marched against Eugenius. The battle began on 5 September 394, with Theodosius's full frontal assault on Eugenius's forces. Thousands of Goths died, and in Theodosius's camp, the loss of the day decreased morale. It is said by Theodoret that Theodosius was visited by two "heavenly riders all in white" who gave him courage. The next day,
10976-492: The nominal and verbal systems. The major change in the nominal morphology since the classical stage was the disuse of the dative case (its functions being largely taken over by the genitive ). The verbal system has lost the infinitive , the synthetically -formed future, and perfect tenses and the optative mood . Many have been replaced by periphrastic ( analytical ) forms. Pronouns show distinctions in person (1st, 2nd, and 3rd), number (singular, dual , and plural in
11172-454: The praetorian prefecture of Illyricum for the duration of the conflict, giving his new colleague full charge the war effort. Theodosius implemented stern and desperate recruiting measures, resorting to the conscription of farmers and miners. Punishments were instituted for harboring deserters and furnishing unfit recruits, and even self-mutilation did not exempt men from service. Theodosius also admitted large numbers of non-Roman auxiliaries into
11368-431: The sack of Rome in 410 , and the death of Julius Nepos in 480. When Gibbon published his landmark work, it quickly became the standard. Peter Brown has written that "Gibbon's work formed the peak of a century of scholarship which had been conducted in the belief that the study of the declining Roman Empire was also the study of the origins of modern Europe". Gibbon was the first to attempt an explanation of causes of
11564-470: The 3rd millennium BC, or possibly earlier. The earliest written evidence is a Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the world's oldest recorded living language . Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation is matched only by the now-extinct Anatolian languages . The Greek language is conventionally divided into
11760-486: The Christian literary tradition that followed him were concerned, Theodosius deserved most of the credit for the final triumph of Christianity. Modern scholars see this as a Christian interpretation of history. Theodosius did not stamp out paganism, which continued into the seventh century. Theodosius had to face a powerful usurper in the West; Magnus Maximus declared himself Emperor in 383, stripped troops from
11956-525: The East, but these failed. In the ensuing bloody civil war Magnentius marched against Constantius with as many troops as he could mobilize, stripping the Rhine frontier of its most effective troops. Magnentius died and so did many of his men. Meanwhile, Constantius sent messages to the German tribes east of the Rhine, inviting them to attack Gaul, which they did. In the next few years a strip some 40 miles wide to
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#173277287616712152-552: The Empire would largely fight for the Romans as a national contingent, as opposed to being fully integrated into the Roman forces. According to the Chronicon Paschale , Theodosius celebrated his quinquennalia on 19 January 383 at Constantinople; on this occasion he raised his eldest son Arcadius to co-emperor ( augustus ). Sometime in 383, Gratian's wife Constantia died. Gratian remarried, wedding Laeta , whose father
12348-598: The Frigidus (the Vipava ) on 6 September 394. On 8 September, Arbogast killed himself. According to Socrates, on 1 January 395, Honorius arrived in Mediolanum and a victory celebration was held there. Zosimus records that, at the end of April 394, Theodosius's wife Galla had died while he was away at war. A number of Christian sources report that Eugenius cultivated the support of the pagan senators by promising to restore
12544-512: The Goths out of the Diocese of Macedonia and Thessaly into the Diocese of Thrace , while, in the latter sector, Theodosius or one of his generals repulsed an incursion by a group of Sciri and Huns across the Danube. Following negotiations which likely lasted at least several months, the Romans and Goths finally concluded a settlement on 3 October 382. In return for military service to Rome,
12740-414: The Goths were allowed to settle some tracts of Roman land south of the Danube. The terms were unusually favorable to the Goths, reflecting the fact that they were entrenched in Roman territory and had not been driven out. Namely, instead of fully submitting to Roman authority, they were allowed to remain autonomous under their own leaders, and thus remaining a strong, unified body. The Goths now settled within
12936-486: The Greek alphabet since approximately the 9th century BC. It was created by modifying the Phoenician alphabet , with the innovation of adopting certain letters to represent the vowels. The variant of the alphabet in use today is essentially the late Ionic variant, introduced for writing classical Attic in 403 BC. In classical Greek, as in classical Latin, only upper-case letters existed. The lower-case Greek letters were developed much later by medieval scribes to permit
13132-425: The Greek language are often emphasized. Although Greek has undergone morphological and phonological changes comparable to those seen in other languages, never since classical antiquity has its cultural, literary, and orthographic tradition been interrupted to the extent that one can speak of a new language emerging. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than
13328-495: The Greek language was the Cypriot syllabary (also a descendant of Linear A via the intermediate Cypro-Minoan syllabary ), which is closely related to Linear B but uses somewhat different syllabic conventions to represent phoneme sequences. The Cypriot syllabary is attested in Cyprus from the 11th century BC until its gradual abandonment in the late Classical period, in favor of the standard Greek alphabet. Greek has been written in
13524-629: The Greek verb have likewise remained largely the same over the course of the language's history but with significant changes in the number of distinctions within each category and their morphological expression. Greek verbs have synthetic inflectional forms for: Many aspects of the syntax of Greek have remained constant: verbs agree with their subject only, the use of the surviving cases is largely intact (nominative for subjects and predicates, accusative for objects of most verbs and many prepositions, genitive for possessors), articles precede nouns, adpositions are largely prepositional, relative clauses follow
13720-685: The Greek-Albanian border. A significant percentage of Albania's population has knowledge of the Greek language due in part to the Albanian wave of immigration to Greece in the 1980s and '90s and the Greek community in the country. Prior to the Greco-Turkish War and the resulting population exchange in 1923 a very large population of Greek-speakers also existed in Turkey , though very few remain today. A small Greek-speaking community
13916-479: The Mediterranean region". A synthesis by Harper (2017) gave four decisive turns of events in the transformation from the height of the empire to the early Middle Ages: The loss of centralized political control over the West, and the lessened power of the East, are universally agreed, but the theme of decline has been taken to cover a much wider time span than the hundred years from 376. For Cassius Dio ,
14112-468: The Mediterranean regions did. The Empire survived the "Crisis of the Third Century", directing its economy successfully towards defense, but survival came at the price of a more centralized and bureaucratic state . Excessive military expenditure, coupled with civil wars due to unstable succession, caused increased taxes to the detriment of the industry. Under Gallienus (Emperor from 253 to 268)
14308-581: The Rhine. In 378, Valens attacked the invaders with the Eastern field army, now perhaps 20,000 men, probably much fewer than the forces that Julian had led into Mesopotamia a little over a decade before, and possibly only 10% of the soldiers nominally available in the Danube provinces. In the Battle of Adrianople (9 August 378), Valens lost much of that army and his own life. All of the Balkan provinces were thus exposed to raiding, without effective response from
14504-468: The Roman position in the East. These campaigns depended on effective imperial coordination and mutual trust—between 379 and 380, Theodosius controlled not only the Eastern empire, but also, by agreement, the diocese of Illyricum . Theodosius was unable to recruit enough Roman troops, relying on barbarian warbands without Roman military discipline or loyalty. (In contrast, during the Cimbrian War ,
14700-611: The Roman world was overwhelmed by a deluge of Barbarians. After a diligent inquiry, I can discern four principal causes of the ruin of Rome, which continued to operate in a period of more than a thousand years. I. The injuries of time and nature. II. The hostile attacks of the Barbarians and Christians. III. The use and abuse of the materials. And, IV. The domestic quarrels of the Romans. Modern historiography diverges from Gibbon. While most of his ideas are no longer accepted in totality, they have been foundational to later discourse and
14896-568: The Romans from Karnak to Alexandria in 13/12 BC. In 357, Constantius II had one (that became known as the Lateran obelisk ) shipped to Rome. Wirsching says the Romans had previously watched and learned from the Egyptians how to transport such large heavy objects, so they constructed "a special sea‐going version of the Nile vessels ... – a double‐ship with three hulls". In 390, Theodosius oversaw
15092-591: The Sasanian Persians . He succeeded in marching to the Sassanid capital of Ctesiphon , but, at the suggestion of a Persian agent, burned his boats and supplies to show resolve in continuing operations. The Sassanids then burned crops so the Roman army had no food. Finding himself cut off without supplies in enemy territory, Julian began a land retreat, and during the Battle of Samarra , he was mortally wounded. Julian's successor Jovian , acclaimed by
15288-532: The West refused to intervene in Christian controversy. In the East, Valens had to deal with Christians who did not conform to his ideas of orthodoxy, and persecution formed part of his response. He tolerated paganism, even keeping some of Julian's associates in their trusted positions. He confirmed the rights and privileges of the pagan priests, and confirmed the right of pagans to be the exclusive caretakers of their temples. Valentinian died of an apoplexy while shouting at envoys of Germanic leaders. His successors in
15484-528: The West were children, his sons Gratian ( r. 375–383 ) and Valentinian II ( r. 375–392 ). Gratian, "alien from the art of government both by temperament and by training", removed the Altar of Victory from the Senate House . He also rejected the pagan title of Pontifex Maximus . In 376, the East faced an enormous barbarian influx across the Danube, mostly Goths , who were fleeing from
15680-630: The West, the Frankish general Arbogast . According to the Consularia Constantinopolitana , Arbogast killed Flavius Victor ( r. 384–388 ), Magnus Maximus's young son and co-emperor, in Gaul in August/September that year. Damnatio memoriae was pronounced against them, and inscriptions naming them were erased. The Massacre of Thessalonica (Thessaloniki) in Greece was a massacre of local civilians by Roman troops. The best estimate of
15876-587: The Western Roman Empire , also called the fall of the Roman Empire or the fall of Rome , was the loss of central political control in the Western Roman Empire , a process in which the Empire failed to enforce its rule, and its vast territory was divided among several successor polities . The Roman Empire lost the strengths that had allowed it to exercise effective control over its Western provinces ; modern historians posit factors including
16072-489: The Western emperor Valentinian II, while Theodosius attempted to rule the entire empire from Constantinople. On 15 May 392, Valentinian II died at Vienna in Gaul ( Vienne ), either by suicide or as part of a plot by Arbogast. Valentinian had quarrelled publicly with Arbogast, and was found hanged in his room. Arbogast announced that this had been a suicide. Stephen Williams asserts that Valentinian's death left Arbogast in "an untenable position". He had to carry on governing without
16268-577: The ability to issue edicts and rescripts from a legitimate acclaimed emperor. Arbogast was unable to assume the role of emperor himself because of his non-Roman background. Instead, on 22 August 392, Arbogast had Valentinian's master of correspondence, Eugenius , proclaimed emperor in the West at Lugdunum. At least two embassies went to Theodosius to explain events, one of them Christian in make-up, but they received ambivalent replies, and were sent home without achieving their goals. Theodosius raised his second son Honorius to emperor on 23 January 393, implying
16464-481: The accession of the emperor Commodus in 180 CE marked the descent "from a kingdom of gold to one of rust and iron". Since the age of humanism , the process of the Fall has been thought to have begun with Constantine the Great , or with the soldier emperors who seized power through command of the army from 235 through 284, or with Commodus , or even with Augustus . Gibbon was uncertain about when decline began. "In
16660-404: The acute during the late 20th century, and it has only been retained in typography . After the writing reform of 1982, most diacritics are no longer used. Since then, Greek has been written mostly in the simplified monotonic orthography (or monotonic system), which employs only the acute accent and the diaeresis. The traditional system, now called the polytonic orthography (or polytonic system),
16856-554: The agricultural economy was generally doing well. On January 18 350, the imperial magister officiorum gave a banquet in Augustodunum while his master, Western Emperor Constans , was away hunting. During the feast Magnus Magnentius , commander of the imperial household troops , appeared in an imperial purple toga and announced himself to be the new Emperor. Constans was soon murdered and Magnentius took over most of his western domains. He made peace overtures to Constantius in
17052-515: The altar of Victory and provide public funds for the maintenance of cults if they would support him and if he won the coming war against Theodosius. Cameron notes that the ultimate source for this is Ambrose's biographer Paulinus the Deacon , whom he argues fabricated the entire narrative and deserves no credence. Historian Michele Renee Salzman explains that "two newly relevant texts – John Chrysostom's Homily 6, adversus Catharos (PG 63: 491–492) and
17248-402: The ancient language; singular and plural alone in later stages), and gender (masculine, feminine, and neuter), and decline for case (from six cases in the earliest forms attested to four in the modern language). Nouns, articles, and adjectives show all the distinctions except for a person. Both attributive and predicative adjectives agree with the noun. The inflectional categories of
17444-453: The army, even Gothic deserters from beyond the Danube. Some of these foreign recruits were exchanged with more reliable Roman garrison troops stationed in Egypt . In the second half of 379, Theodosius and his generals, based at Thessalonica , won some minor victories over individual bands of raiders. However, they suffered at least one serious defeat in 380, which was blamed on the treachery of
17640-582: The climate worsened further in the Late Antique Little Ice Age that may have directly contributed to the variety of factors that brought Rome down. The Roman Empire was built on the fringes of the tropics . Its roads and its pirate-free seas, which produced an abundance of trade, also unknowingly created an interconnected disease ecology that unleashed the evolution and spread of pathogens. Pandemics contributed to massive demographic changes, economic crises , and food shortages in
17836-430: The collapse are major subjects of the historiography of the ancient world and they inform much modern discourse on state failure . In 376, a large migration of Goths and other non- Roman people, fleeing from the Huns , entered the Empire . Roman forces were unable to exterminate, expel or subjugate them (as was their normal practice). In 395, after winning two destructive civil wars, Theodosius I died. He left
18032-528: The court culture that developed with Diocletian was still subject to pressure from below. Imperial proclamations were used to stress the traditional limitations of the imperial office, while imperial ceremonies "left room for consensus and popular participation". Official cruelty , supporting extortion and corruption , may also have become more commonplace; one example being Constantine 's law that slaves who betrayed their mistress's confidential remarks should have molten lead poured down their throats. While
18228-406: The court for government service. Great landowners took advantage of the court's need for food, "turning agrarian produce into gold", while repressing and misusing the poor who grew it and brought it in. According to Brown, modern scholars link the decline of the Roman empire to the avarice of the rich of this era. He quotes Paulinus of Milan as describing these men as creating a court where "everything
18424-400: The crucial area of taxation and the treatment of fiscal debtors, the late Roman state [of the 380s and 390s] remained impervious to Christianity". The peace with Magnus Maximus was broken in 387, and Valentinian escaped to the east with Justina, reaching Thessalonica ( Thessaloniki ) in summer or autumn 387 and appealing to Theodosius for aid; Valentinian II's sister Galla was then married to
18620-478: The damaging of several Hellenistic temples of classical antiquity, such as the Serapeum of Alexandria , by Christian zealots. During his earlier reign, Theodosius ruled the eastern provinces, while the west was overseen by the emperors Gratian and Valentinian II , whose sister he married. Theodosius sponsored several measures to improve his capital and main residence, Constantinople , most notably his expansion of
18816-591: The date is April of 390. The massacre was most likely a response to an urban riot that led to the murder of a Roman official. What most scholars, such as philosopher Stanislav Doležal, see as the most reliable of the sources is the Historia ecclesiastica written by Sozomen about 442; in it Sozomen supplies the identity of the murdered Roman official as Butheric, the commanding general of the field army in Illyricum (magister militum per Illyricum). According to Sozomen,
19012-536: The demise of classical civilization to the 8th century. He challenged the notion that Germanic barbarians had caused the Western Roman Empire to end, and he refused to equate the end of the Western Roman Empire with the end of the office of emperor in Italy. He pointed out the essential continuity of the economy of the Roman Mediterranean even after the barbarian invasions, and suggested that only
19208-519: The documents revealing the relationship between these two formidable men do not show the personal friendship the legends portray. Instead, those documents read more as negotiations between the institutions the men represent: the Roman state and the Italian Church. In 391, Theodosius left his trusted general Arbogast , who had served in the Balkans after Adrianople, to be magister militum for
19404-404: The early 19th century that was used for literary and official purposes in the newly formed Greek state. In 1976, Dimotiki was declared the official language of Greece, after having incorporated features of Katharevousa and thus giving birth to Standard Modern Greek , used today for all official purposes and in education . The historical unity and continuing identity between the various stages of
19600-467: The eastern Roman emperor, Valens , had been killed at the Battle of Adrianople in August 378 against invading Goths . The disastrous defeat left much of Rome's military leadership dead, discredited, or barbarian in origin, to the result that Theodosius, notwithstanding his own modest record, became the establishment's choice to replace Valens and assume control of the crisis. With the begrudging consent of
19796-469: The eastern emperor at Thessalonica in late autumn. Theodosius may still have been in Thessalonica when he celebrated his decennalia on 19 January 388. Theodosius was consul for the second time in 388. Galla and Theodosius's first child, a son named Gratian, was born in 388 or 389. In summer 388, Theodosius recovered Italy from Magnus Maximus for Valentinian, and in June, the meeting of Christians deemed heretics
19992-450: The eastern half of the empire and Honorius in the west. Theodosius was said to have been a diligent administrator, austere in his habits, merciful, and a devout Christian. For centuries after his death, Theodosius was regarded as a champion of Christian orthodoxy who decisively stamped out paganism. Modern scholars tend to see this as an interpretation of history by Christian writers more than an accurate representation of actual history. He
20188-500: The effectiveness and numbers of the army , the health and numbers of the Roman population, the strength of the economy , the competence of the emperors , the internal struggles for power, the religious changes of the period, and the efficiency of the civil administration. Increasing pressure from invading peoples outside Roman culture also contributed greatly to the collapse. Climatic changes and both endemic and epidemic disease drove many of these immediate factors. The reasons for
20384-481: The effectiveness or loyalty of the army, at least while that army was effectively led, disciplined, trained, paid, and supplied by officers who identified as Roman. A. H. M. Jones has pointed out that the earlier scholarly views are Western. Most of the weaknesses discussed by scholars were "common to both halves of the empire", with Christianity even more prevalent in the East than the West. Religious disputes were bitter, bureaucracy corrupt and extortionate, it had
20580-456: The empire's established process of decision making, which required the emperor "to listen to his ministers" before acting. There is some indication in the sources Theodosius did listen to his counselors but received bad or misleading advice. J. F. Matthews argues that the Emperor first tried to punish the city by selective executions. Peter Brown concurs: "As it was, what was probably planned as
20776-482: The empire), refused to appoint a recognized counterpart in the west. As a result he was faced with rumbling discontent there, as well as dangerous usurpers , who found plentiful support among the bureaucrats and military officers who felt they were not getting a fair share of the imperial cake." Theodosius's second son Honorius was born on 9 December 384 and titled nobilissimus puer (or nobilissimus iuvenis ). The death of Aelia Flaccilla, Theodosius's first wife and
20972-533: The end of the fourth century, Christianity had become the religion of any ambitious civil official. The wealth of the Christian Church increased dramatically in the fifth century. Immense resources, both public and private, were used for building churches, storage barns for the grain used for charity, new hospitals for the poor, and in support of those in religious life without other income. Bishops in wealthy cities were thus able to offer patronage in
21168-459: The end of the fourth century. Constantine settled Franks on the lower left bank of the Rhine . Their communities required a line of fortifications to keep them in check, indicating that Rome had lost almost all local control. Under Constantius, bandits came to dominate areas such as Isauria , which were well within the empire. The tribes of Germania also became more populous and more threatening. In Gaul , which did not really recover from
21364-532: The entire Imperial era was one of steady decay of institutions founded in republican times. Theodor Mommsen excluded the imperial period from his Nobel Prize-winning History of Rome (1854–1856). As one convenient marker for the end, 476 has been used since Gibbon, but other key dates for the fall of the Roman Empire in the West include the Crisis of the Third Century, the Crossing of the Rhine in 406 (or 405),
21560-618: The epics of Homer , ancient Greek literature includes many works of lasting importance in the European canon . Greek is also the language in which many of the foundational texts in science and philosophy were originally composed. The New Testament of the Christian Bible was also originally written in Greek. Together with the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world , the Greek texts and Greek societies of antiquity constitute
21756-507: The estates of persons condemned for treason and other capital crimes . This practice reduced future, though not immediate, income; those close to the emperor also gained a strong incentive to encourage his suspicion of conspiracies . The new supreme rulers disposed of the legal fiction of the early Empire (seeing the emperor as but the first among equals ); emperors from Aurelian (r. 270–275) onwards openly styled themselves as dominus et deus , "lord and god", titles appropriate for
21952-450: The extremely bloody battle began again and Theodosius's forces were aided by a natural phenomenon known as the Bora , which can produce hurricane-strength winds. The Bora blew directly against the forces of Eugenius and disrupted the line. Eugenius's camp was stormed; Eugenius was captured and soon after executed. According to Socrates Scholasticus, Theodosius defeated Eugenius at the Battle of
22148-425: The first emperor to increase the arrogance of the military, raising their rank and power to excess, severely punishing the minor crimes of the common soldiers, while sparing those of higher rank who felt able to commit shameful and monstrous crimes. Despite a possible decrease in the Empire's ability to assemble and supply large armies, Rome maintained an aggressive and potent stance against perceived threats almost to
22344-555: The first paragraph of his text, Gibbon wrote that he intended to trace the decline from the golden age of the Antonines"; later text has it beginning about A.D. 180 with the death of Marcus Aurelius; while in chapter 7, he pushes the start of the decline to about 52 B.C., the time of Julius Caesar and Pompey and Cicero. Gibbon placed the western empire's end with the removal of the man Gibbon referred to as "the helpless Augustulus" in 476. Arnold J. Toynbee and James Burke argue that
22540-489: The fleets, and numbers may have increased later. With the limited communications of the time, both the European and the Eastern frontiers needed the attention of their own supreme commanders . Diocletian tried to solve this problem by re-establishing an adoptive succession with a senior ( Augustus ) and junior ( Caesar ) emperor in each half of the Empire, but this system of tetrarchy broke down within one generation and
22736-452: The following periods: In the modern era, the Greek language entered a state of diglossia : the coexistence of vernacular and archaizing written forms of the language. What came to be known as the Greek language question was a polarization between two competing varieties of Modern Greek: Dimotiki , the vernacular form of Modern Greek proper, and Katharevousa , meaning 'purified', a compromise between Dimotiki and Ancient Greek developed in
22932-476: The force of law, putting the imperial power directly in touch with even humble subjects. The cults of polytheist religion were hugely varied, but none claimed that theirs was the only truth. Their followers displayed mutual tolerance , producing a polyphonous religious harmony. Religious strife was rare after the suppression of the Bar Kokhba revolt in 136, after which the devastated Judaea ceased to be
23128-526: The former territory of the Western Empire. But the final blow came only with the Late Antique Little Ice Age and its aftermath, when Rome was already politically fragmented and materially depleted. Aurelian reunited the empire in 274, and from 284 Diocletian and his successors reorganized it with more emphasis on the military. John the Lydian , writing over two centuries later, reported that Diocletian's army at one point totaled 389,704 men, plus 45,562 in
23324-506: The fortifications and the sea and land forces of Constantinople , while the European frontier from the mouth of the Rhine to that of the Danube is some 2000 kilometres great-circle distance and could be crossed with much less difficulty. "The devastations of the barbarians impoverished and depopulated the [Western] frontier provinces, and their unceasing pressure imposed on the empire a burden of defense which overstrained its administrative machinery and its economic resources. ... [playing]
23520-409: The freedom of the republic, and afterwards violated the majesty of the purple. The emperors, anxious for their personal safety and the public peace, were reduced to the base expedient of corrupting the discipline which rendered them alike formidable to their sovereign and to the enemy; the vigour of the military government was relaxed, and finally dissolved, by the partial institutions of Constantine; and
23716-428: The future emperor Theodosius are likewise attested as being from there, and Theodosius himself was ubiquitously associated in the ancient literary sources and panegyrics with the image of fellow Spanish-born emperor Trajan – though he never again visited the peninsula after becoming emperor. Very little is recorded of the upbringing of Theodosius. The 5th-century author Theodoret claimed the future emperor grew up and
23912-403: The hereditary principle re-established itself with generally unfortunate results. Thereafter civil war became again the main method of establishing new imperial regimes . Although Constantine the Great (in office 306 to 337) again re-united the Empire, towards the end of the fourth century the need for division was generally accepted. From then on, the Empire existed in constant tension between
24108-487: The hippodrome at the cost of several thousands of lives of local inhabitants". McLynn says Theodosius was “unable to impose discipline upon the faraway troops" and covered that failure by taking responsibility for the massacre on himself, declaring he had given the order then countermanded it too late to stop it. Ambrose , the bishop of Milan and one of Theodosius's many counselors, was away from court. After being informed of events concerning Thessalonica, he wrote Theodosius
24304-482: The illegality of Eugenius's rule. Williams and Friell say that by the spring of 393, the split was complete, and "in April Arbogast and Eugenius at last moved into Italy without resistance". Flavianus , the praetorian prefect of Italy whom Theodosius had appointed, defected to their side. Through early 394, both sides prepared for war. Theodosius gathered a large army, including the Goths whom he had settled in
24500-457: The image of the mitered prelate braced in the door of the cathedral in Milan blocking Theodosius from entering is a product of the imagination of Theodoret who wrote of the events of 390 "using his own ideology to fill the gaps in the historical record". Peter Brown also says there was no dramatic encounter at the church door. McLynn states that "the encounter at the church door has long been known as
24696-444: The imperial forces, or settled in the devastated provinces along the south bank of the Danube, where the regular garrisons were never fully re-established. In some later accounts, and widely in recent work, this is regarded as a treaty settlement, the first time that barbarians were given a home within the Empire, in which they retained their political and military cohesion. No formal treaty is recorded, nor details of whatever agreement
24892-423: The imperial system. In this way many groups provided unfree workers ( coloni ) for Roman landowners, and recruits ( laeti ) for the Roman army . Sometimes their leaders became officers. Normally the Romans managed the process carefully, with sufficient military force on hand to ensure compliance. Cultural assimilation followed over the next generation or two. The Empire suffered multiple serious crises during
25088-439: The infinitive entirely (employing a raft of new periphrastic constructions instead) and uses participles more restrictively. The loss of the dative led to a rise of prepositional indirect objects (and the use of the genitive to directly mark these as well). Ancient Greek tended to be verb-final, but neutral word order in the modern language is VSO or SVO. Modern Greek inherits most of its vocabulary from Ancient Greek, which in turn
25284-585: The invasions of the third century, there was widespread insecurity and economic decline in the 300s, perhaps worst in Armorica . By 350, after decades of pirate attacks, virtually all villas in Armorica were deserted. Local use of money ceased around 360. Repeated attempts to economize on military expenditure included billeting troops in cities, where they could less easily be kept under military discipline and could more easily extort from civilians. Except in
25480-530: The issues raised by the controversy were under lively discussion before Arius and Alexander publicly clashed.” “The views of Arius were such as … to bring into unavoidable prominence a doctrinal crisis which had gradually been gathering. … He was the spark that started the explosion. But in himself he was of no great significance .” Greek language Greek ( Modern Greek : Ελληνικά , romanized : Elliniká , [eliniˈka] ; Ancient Greek : Ἑλληνική , romanized : Hellēnikḗ )
25676-467: The late 15th century BC, was the first script used to write Greek. It is basically a syllabary , which was finally deciphered by Michael Ventris and John Chadwick in the 1950s (its precursor, Linear A , has not been deciphered and most likely encodes a non-Greek language). The language of the Linear B texts, Mycenaean Greek , is the earliest known form of Greek. Another similar system used to write
25872-578: The long-disputed Kingdom of Armenia and secured a durable peace between the two powers. Theodosius was a strong adherent of the Christian doctrine of consubstantiality and an opponent of Arianism . He convened a council of bishops at the First Council of Constantinople in 381, which confirmed the former as orthodoxy and the latter as a heresy. Although Theodosius interfered little in the functioning of traditional pagan cults and appointed non-Christians to high offices, he failed to prevent or punish
26068-486: The long-established manner of Roman aristocrats. Ammianus described some who "enriched from the offerings of matrons, ride seated in carriages, wearing clothing chosen with care, and serve banquets so lavish that their entertainments outdo the tables of kings". But the move to Christianity probably had no significant effects on public finances. The large temple complexes, with professional full-time priests, festivals, and large numbers of sacrifices (which became free food for
26264-480: The loss of political unity and military control is universally acknowledged, the fall of Rome is not the only unifying concept for these events; the period described as late antiquity emphasizes the cultural continuities throughout and beyond the political collapse. Since 1776, when Edward Gibbon published the first volume of his The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire , Decline and Fall has been
26460-614: The machinations of a court faction led by Maximinus , a senior civilian official. According to another theory, the future emperor Theodosius lost his father, his military post, or both, in the purges of high officials that resulted from the accession of the 4-year-old emperor Valentinian II in November 375. Theodosius's period away from service in Hispania, during which he was said to have received threats from those responsible for his father's death, did not last long, however, as Maximinus,
26656-622: The masses), had also been expensive to maintain. They had already been negatively impacted by the empire's financial struggles in the third century. The numbers of clergy , monks , and nuns increased to perhaps half the size of the actual army, and they have been considered as a drain on limited manpower. The numbers and effectiveness of the regular soldiers may have declined during the fourth century. Payrolls were inflated, so that pay could be diverted and exemptions from duty sold. The soldiers' opportunities for personal extortion were multiplied by residence in cities, while their effectiveness
26852-588: The membership of Greece and Cyprus in the European Union, Greek is one of the organization's 24 official languages . Greek is recognized as a minority language in Albania, and used co-officially in some of its municipalities, in the districts of Gjirokastër and Sarandë . It is also an official minority language in the regions of Apulia and Calabria in Italy. In the framework of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages , Greek
27048-441: The modern period. The division into conventional periods is, as with all such periodizations, relatively arbitrary, especially because, in all periods, Ancient Greek has enjoyed high prestige, and the literate borrowed heavily from it. Across its history, the syllabic structure of Greek has varied little: Greek shows a mixed syllable structure, permitting complex syllabic onsets but very restricted codas. It has only oral vowels and
27244-453: The modern synthesis with archaeology, epidemiology, climatic history, genetic science, and many more new sources of history beyond the documentary sources that were all that was available to Gibbon. While Alexander Demandt enumerated 210 different theories on why Rome fell, twenty-first century scholarship classifies the primary possibilities more concisely: A recent summary interprets disease and climate change as important drivers of
27440-672: The mother of Arcadius, Honorius, and Pulcheria, occurred by 386. She died at Scotumis in Thrace and was buried at Constantinople, her funeral oration delivered by Gregory of Nyssa . A statue of her was dedicated in the Byzantine Senate . In 384 or 385, Theodosius's niece Serena was married to the magister militum , Stilicho . In the beginning of 386, Theodosius's daughter Pulcheria also died. That summer, more Goths were defeated, and many were settled in Phrygia . According to
27636-538: The need for two emperors and their mutual mistrust . Until late in the fourth century, the united Empire retained sufficient power to launch powerful attacks against its enemies in Germania and in the Sasanian Empire . Receptio of barbarians became widely practised: imperial authorities admitted potentially hostile groups into the Empire, split them up, and allotted to them lands, status, and duties within
27832-505: The new barbarian recruits. During the autumn of 380, a life-threatening illness, from which Theodosius recovered, prompted him to request baptism . Some obscure victories were recorded in official sources around this time, however, and, in November 380, the military situation was found to be sufficiently stable for Theodosius to move his court to Constantinople . There, the emperor enjoyed a propaganda victory when, in January 381, he received
28028-399: The noun they modify and relative pronouns are clause-initial. However, the morphological changes also have their counterparts in the syntax, and there are also significant differences between the syntax of the ancient and that of the modern form of the language . Ancient Greek made great use of participial constructions and of constructions involving the infinitive, and the modern variety lacks
28224-521: The obelisk was motivated by Theodosius's victory over "the tyrants" (most likely Maximus Magnus and his son Victor). It is now known as the obelisk of Theodosius and still stands in the Hippodrome of Constantinople , the long Roman circus that was, at one time, the centre of Constantinople's public life. Re-erecting the monolith was a challenge for the technology that had been honed in the construction of siege engines . The obelisk's white marble base
28420-536: The objects of study of the discipline of Classics . During antiquity , Greek was by far the most widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world . It eventually became the official language of the Byzantine Empire and developed into Medieval Greek . In its modern form , Greek is the official language of Greece and Cyprus and one of the 24 official languages of the European Union . It
28616-706: The older periods of Greek, loanwords into Greek acquired Greek inflections, thus leaving only a foreign root word. Modern borrowings (from the 20th century on), especially from French and English, are typically not inflected; other modern borrowings are derived from Albanian , South Slavic ( Macedonian / Bulgarian ) and Eastern Romance languages ( Aromanian and Megleno-Romanian ). Greek words have been widely borrowed into other languages, including English. Example words include: mathematics , physics , astronomy , democracy , philosophy , athletics , theatre, rhetoric , baptism , evangelist , etc. Moreover, Greek words and word elements continue to be productive as
28812-541: The only worthwhile form of civilization, giving the Empire ideological legitimacy and a cultural unity based on comprehensive familiarity with Greek and Roman literature and rhetoric . The Empire's power allowed it to maintain extreme differences of wealth and status. Its wide-ranging trade networks permitted even modest households to use goods made by professionals far away. The empire had both strength and resilience. Its financial system allowed it to raise significant taxes which, despite endemic corruption, supported
29008-474: The outlying regions of Roman Britain (probably replacing some with federate chieftains and their war-bands) and invaded Gaul. His troops killed Gratian and he was accepted as Augustus in the Gallic provinces, where he was responsible for the first official executions of Christian heretics . To compensate the Western court for the loss of Gaul, Hispania, and Britannia, Theodosius ceded the diocese of Dacia and
29204-418: The political collapse of the empire. There was a Roman climatic optimum from about 200 BCE to 150 CE, when lands around the Mediterranean were generally warm and well-watered. This made agriculture prosperous, army recruitment easy, and the collection of taxes straightforward. From about 150, the climate became on average somewhat worse for most of the inhabited lands around the Mediterranean. After about 450,
29400-411: The political reality of lost control (and the attendant fragmentation of commerce, culture, and language), but also the cultural and archaeological continuities, the process has been described as a complex cultural transformation, rather than a fall. The "perception of Late Antiquity has significantly changed: the period is no longer seen as an era of decline and crisis but as an epoch of metamorphosis in
29596-489: The position of Western Roman Emperor wielded negligible military, political, or financial power, and had no effective control over the scattered Western domains that could still be described as Roman. Barbarian kingdoms had established their own power in much of the area of the Western Empire. In 476, the Germanic barbarian king Odoacer deposed the last emperor of the Western Roman Empire in Italy, Romulus Augustulus , and
29792-503: The probable culprit, was himself removed from power around April 376 and then executed. The emperor Gratian immediately began replacing Maximinus and his associates with relatives of Theodosius in key government positions, indicating the family's full rehabilitation, and by 377 Theodosius himself had regained his command against the Sarmatians. Theodosius's renewed term of office seems to have gone uneventfully, until news arrived that
29988-496: The province of Moesia Prima in the Danube . In the autumn of 374, he successfully repulsed an incursion of Sarmatians on his sector of the frontier and forced them into submission. Not long afterwards, however, under mysterious circumstances, Theodosius's father suddenly fell from imperial favor and was executed, and the future emperor felt compelled to retire to his estates in Hispania. Although these events are poorly documented, historians usually attribute this fall from grace to
30184-471: The ranks of the Roman army . Theodosius held independent command in Moesia in 374, where he had some success against the invading Sarmatians . Not long afterwards, he was forced into retirement, and his father was executed under obscure circumstances. Theodosius soon regained his position following a series of intrigues and executions at Emperor Gratian 's court. In 379, after the eastern Roman emperor Valens
30380-399: The rare case of a determined and incorruptible general, these troops proved ineffective in action and dangerous to civilians. Frontier troops were often given land rather than pay. As they farmed for themselves, their direct costs diminished, but so did their effectiveness, and their pay gave much less stimulus to the frontier economy. However, except for the provinces along the lower Rhine,
30576-407: The remaining garrisons who were "more easily slaughtered than sheep". Cities were able to hold their own defensive walls against barbarians who had no siege equipment , therefore the cities generally remained intact, although the countryside suffered. Gratian appointed a new Augustus , a proven general from Hispania called Theodosius . During the next four years, he partially re-established
30772-427: The removal of the other to Constantinople. The obelisk with its sculpted base in the former Hippodrome of Constantinople is well known as a rare datable work of Late Antique art. A sixth-century source puts the raising of the obelisk in the year 390, and Greek and Latin epigrams on the plinth (the lower part of the base) credit Theodosius I and the urban prefect Proclus with this feat. Linda Safran says that relocating
30968-526: The riot, but none of the early sources actually say so. There are no contemporaneous accounts. Church historians Sozomen , Theodoret the bishop of Cyrrhus , Socrates of Constantinople and Rufinus wrote the earliest accounts during the fifth century. These are moral accounts emphasizing imperial piety and ecclesial action rather than historical and political details. Further difficulty is created by these events moving into legend in art and literature almost immediately. Doležal explains that yet another problem
31164-410: The role of Christianity, but he gave great weight to other causes of internal decline and to attacks from outside the Empire . The story of its ruin is simple and obvious; and, instead of inquiring why the Roman empire was destroyed, we should rather be surprised that it had subsisted so long. The victorious legions, who, in distant wars, acquired the vices of strangers and mercenaries, first oppressed
31360-428: The scale, complexity, and violence of government were unmatched, the emperors lost control over their whole realm insofar as that control came increasingly to be wielded by anyone who paid for it . Meanwhile, the richest senatorial families, immune from most taxation, engrossed more and more of the available wealth and income while also becoming divorced from any tradition of military excellence. One scholar identifies
31556-408: The senatorial aristocracy ceased joining the ranks of the senior military commanders. Its typical members lacked interest in military service, and showed incompetence at command. Under Constantine, the cities lost their revenue from local taxes, and under Constantius II (r. 337–361) their endowments of property. This worsened the existing difficulty in keeping the city councils up to strength, and
31752-420: The services provided by the cities were scamped or abandoned. Public building projects had declined since the second century. There is no evidence of state participation in, or support for, restoration and maintenance of temples and shrines . Restorations were funded and accomplished privately, which limited what was done. A further financial abuse was Constantius's habit of granting to his immediate entourage
31948-437: The stressed vowel; the so-called breathing marks ( rough and smooth breathing ), originally used to signal presence or absence of word-initial /h/; and the diaeresis , used to mark the full syllabic value of a vowel that would otherwise be read as part of a diphthong. These marks were introduced during the course of the Hellenistic period. Actual usage of the grave in handwriting saw a rapid decline in favor of uniform usage of
32144-714: The suppression of paganism by Theodosius. On 8 November 395, his body was transferred to Constantinople, where according to the Chronicon Paschale he was buried in the Church of the Holy Apostles . He was honored as: Divus Theodosius , lit. 'the Divine Theodosius';. He was interred in a porphyry sarcophagus that was described in the 10th century by Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus in his work De Ceremoniis . Theodosius
32340-477: The theme around which much of the history of the Roman Empire has been structured. "From the eighteenth century onward," historian Glen Bowersock wrote, "we have been obsessed with the fall: it has been valued as an archetype for every perceived decline, and, hence, as a symbol for our own fears." From at least the time of Henri Pirenne (1862–1935), scholars have described a continuity of Roman culture and political legitimacy long after 476. Pirenne postponed
32536-472: The third century. The rising Sassanid Empire inflicted three crushing defeats on Roman field armies and remained a potent threat for centuries. Other disasters included repeated civil wars , barbarian invasions, and more mass-mortality in the Plague of Cyprian (from 250 onwards). For a short period, the Empire split into a Gallic Empire in the West (260–274), a Palmyrene Empire in the East (260–273), and
32732-409: The threats of barbarian attacks on all the Western frontiers. They also tried to alleviate the burdens of taxation, which had risen continuously over the previous forty years; Valens in the East reduced the tax demand by half in his fourth year. Both of them were Christians, and re-confiscated the temple lands which Julian had restored. But they were generally tolerant of other beliefs. Valentinian in
32928-456: The time Edward Gibbon wrote his Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire , Ambrose's action after the fact has been cited as an example of the church's dominance over the state in Antiquity. Alan Cameron says "the assumption is so widespread it would be superfluous to cite authorities. But there is not a shred of evidence for Ambrose exerting any such influence over Theodosius". Brown says Ambrose
33124-461: The visit and submission of a minor Gothic leader, Athanaric . By this point, however, Theodosius seems to have no longer believed that the Goths could be completely ejected from Roman territory. After Athanaric died that very same month, the emperor gave him a funeral with full honors, impressing his entourage and signaling to the enemy that the Empire was disposed to negotiate terms. During the campaigning season of 381, reinforcements from Gratian drove
33320-443: The west of the Rhine was occupied by the Germans, and a further 120 miles into Gaul the surviving population and garrisons had fled. Julian ( r. 360–363 ) won victories against Germans who had invaded Gaul. He launched a drive against official corruption, which allowed the tax demands in Gaul to be reduced to one-third of their previous amount, while all government requirements were still met. In civil legislation, Julian
33516-454: The western Roman emperor Valentinian I , and his mother was called Thermantia. The family appear to have been minor landed aristocrats in Hispania, although it is not clear if this social status went back several generations or if Theodosius the Elder was simply awarded land there for his military service. Their roots to Hispania were nevertheless probably long-standing, since various relatives of
33712-492: The western emperor Gratian, Theodosius was formally invested with the purple by a council of officials at Sirmium on 19 January 379. The immediate problem facing Theodosius upon his accession was how to check the bands of Goths that were laying waste to the Balkans, with an army that had been severely depleted of manpower following the debacle at Adrianople. The western emperor Gratian, who seems to have provided only little immediate assistance, surrendered to Theodosius control of
33908-534: Was a consularis of Roman Syria . Early 383 saw the acclamation of Magnus Maximus as emperor in Britain and the appointment of Themistius as praefectus urbi in Constantinople. On 25 August 383, according to the Consularia Constantinopolitana , Gratian was killed at Lugdunum ( Lyon ) by Andragathius , the magister equitum of the rebel emperor during the rebellion of Magnus Maximus . Constantia's body arrived in Constantinople on 12 September that year and
34104-574: Was a distinct dialect of Greek itself. Aside from the Macedonian question, current consensus regards Phrygian as the closest relative of Greek, since they share a number of phonological, morphological and lexical isoglosses , with some being exclusive between them. Scholars have proposed a Graeco-Phrygian subgroup out of which Greek and Phrygian originated. Among living languages, some Indo-Europeanists suggest that Greek may be most closely related to Armenian (see Graeco-Armenian ) or
34300-451: Was actually made. When the Goths are next mentioned in Roman records, they have different leaders and are soldiers of a sort. In 391, Alaric , a Gothic leader, rebelled against Roman control. Goths attacked the emperor himself, but within a year Alaric was accepted as a leader of Theodosius's Gothic troops and this rebellion was over. Theodosius's financial position must have been difficult, since he had to pay for expensive campaigning from
34496-568: Was also used as the official language of government and religion in the Christian Nubian kingdoms , for most of their history. Greek, in its modern form, is the official language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population. It is also the official language of Cyprus (nominally alongside Turkish ) and the British Overseas Territory of Akrotiri and Dhekelia (alongside English ). Because of
34692-557: Was also used in Ancient Greek. Greek has occasionally been written in the Latin script , especially in areas under Venetian rule or by Greek Catholics . The term Frankolevantinika / Φραγκολεβαντίνικα applies when the Latin script is used to write Greek in the cultural ambit of Catholicism (because Frankos / Φράγκος is an older Greek term for West-European dating to when most of (Roman Catholic Christian) West Europe
34888-531: Was an uprising or riot in Antioch (modern Antakya ). The Roman–Persian Wars concluded with the signing of the Peace of Acilisene with Persia. By the terms of the agreement, the ancient Kingdom of Armenia was divided between the powers. By the end of the 380s, Theodosius and the court were in Milan and northern Italy had settled down to a period of prosperity. Peter Brown says gold was being made in Milan by those who owned land as well as by those who came with
35084-514: Was banned by Valentinian. The armies of Theodosius and Maximus fought at the Battle of Poetovio in 388, which saw Maximus defeated. On 28 August 388 Maximus was executed. Now the de facto ruler of the Western empire as well, Theodosius celebrated his victory in Rome on 13 June 389 and stayed in Milan until 391, installing his own loyalists in senior positions including the new magister militum of
35280-732: Was buried in the Church of the Holy Apostles on 1 December. Gratian was deified as Latin : Divus Gratianus , lit. 'the Divine Gratian';. Theodosius, unable to do much about Maximus due to ongoing military inadequacy, opened negotiations with the Persian emperor Shapur III ( r. 383–388 ) of the Sasanian Empire . According to the Consularia Constantinopolitana , Theodosius received in Constantinople an embassy from them in 384. In an attempt to curb Maximus's ambitions, Theodosius appointed Flavius Neoterius as
35476-425: Was educated in his Iberian homeland, but his testimony is unreliable. One modern historian instead thinks Theodosius must have grown up among the army, participating in his father's campaigns throughout the provinces, as was customary at the time for families with a tradition of military service. One source says he received a decent education and developed a particular interest in history, which Theodosius then valued as
35672-608: Was endemic in many areas, notably in the city of Rome itself, possibly encouraged by the enthusiasm of rich Romans for water features in their gardens. In 313, Constantine the Great declared official toleration of Christianity . This was followed over the ensuing decades by the search for a definition of Christian orthodoxy all could agree upon. Creeds were developed, but Christianity has never agreed upon an official version of its Bible or its doctrine; instead it has had many different manuscript traditions. Christianity's disputes may have effected decline. Official and private action
35868-481: Was experiencing a period of prosperity for the great landowners who took advantage of the court's need for food, "turning agrarian produce into gold", while repressing and misusing the poor who grew it and brought it in. Paulinus the Deacon , notary of Ambrose the bishop of Milan , described these men as creating a court where "everything was up for sale". Ambrose himself preached a series of sermons aimed at his wealthy constituents, asserting that avarice leads to
36064-408: Was in Milan. Several scholars, such as historian G. W. Bowersock and authors Stephen Williams and Gerard Friell, think that Theodosius ordered the massacre in an excess of "volcanic anger". McLynn also puts all the blame on the Emperor as does the less dependable fifth century historian, Theodoret. Other scholars, such as historians Mark Hebblewhite and N. Q. King, do not agree. Peter Brown points to
36260-458: Was in his 40s, had been emperor for 11 years, had temporarily settled the Gothic wars, and won a civil war. As a Latin speaking Nicene western leader of the Greek largely Arian East, Boniface Ramsey says he had already left an indelible mark on history. McLynn asserts that the relationship between Theodosius and Ambrose transformed into myth within a generation of their deaths. He also observes that
36456-643: Was initially styled "the Great" simply as a way to differentiate him from his grandson Theodosius II. Later, at the Council of Chalcedon in 451, the honorific was deemed merited due to his promotion of Nicene Christianity. Theodosius the Great is venerated in Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Churches: Emperor (king) Theodosius is commemorated in Armenian Anaphora with saint kings : Abgar , Constantine and Tiridates . In Eastern Orthodox Church he
36652-547: Was just one among many advisors, and Cameron says there is no evidence Theodosius favored him above anyone else. By the time of the Thessalonian affair, Ambrose, an aristocrat and former governor, had been a bishop for 16 years, and during his episcopate, had seen the death of three emperors before Theodosius. These produced significant political storms, yet Ambrose held his place using what McLynn calls his "considerable qualities [and] considerable luck" to survive. Theodosius
36848-483: Was killed at the Battle of Adrianople against the Goths , Gratian appointed Theodosius as a successor with orders to take charge of the military emergency. The new emperor's resources and depleted armies were not sufficient to drive the invaders out; in 382 the Goths were allowed to settle south of the Danube as autonomous allies of the empire. In 386, Theodosius signed a treaty with the Sasanian Empire which partitioned
37044-525: Was notable for his pro-pagan policies. Julian lifted the ban on sacrifices , restored and reopened temples, and dismantled the privileged tax status and revenue concessions of the Christians. He gave generous tax remissions to the cities which he favored, and disfavor to those who remained Christian. Julian ordered toleration of varieties of Christianity banned as heretical by Constantius; possibly, he would not have been able to persecute effectively such
37240-536: Was permanently split between the Western Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire . He ended the Gothic War (376–382) with terms disadvantageous to the empire, with the Goths remaining within Roman territory but as nominal allies with political autonomy. Born in Hispania , Theodosius was the son of a high-ranking general of the same name, Count Theodosius , under whose guidance he rose through
37436-522: Was reduced by concentration on extortion instead of military exercises . However, extortion , gross corruption , and occasional ineffectiveness were not new to the Roman army. There is no consensus whether its effectiveness significantly declined before 376. Ammianus Marcellinus , himself a professional soldier, repeats longstanding observations about the superiority of contemporary Roman armies being due to training and discipline, not to individual size or strength. He also accuses Valentinian I of being
37632-561: Was renamed and redecorated as the Forum of Theodosius , including a column and a triumphal arch in his honour. The missorium of Theodosius, the city of Aprodisias's statue of the emperor, the base of the Obelisk of Theodosius , the columns of Theodosius and Arcadius, and the diptych of Probus were all commissioned by the court and reflect a similar renaissance of classicism. According to Armin Wirsching, two obelisks were shipped by
37828-419: Was taken against heterodox Christians (heretics) from the fourth century up to the modern era. Limited action against pagans , who were mostly ignored, was based on the contempt that accompanied Christianity's sense of triumph after Constantine. Christianity opposed sacrifice and magic, and Christian emperors made laws that favored Christianity. Constantine's successors generally continued this approach, and by
38024-580: Was under the control of the Frankish Empire ). Frankochiotika / Φραγκοχιώτικα (meaning 'Catholic Chiot') alludes to the significant presence of Catholic missionaries based on the island of Chios . Additionally, the term Greeklish is often used when the Greek language is written in a Latin script in online communications. The Latin script is nowadays used by the Greek-speaking communities of Southern Italy . The Yevanic dialect
38220-507: Was up for sale". In the late 380s, Ambrose , the bishop of Milan took the lead in opposing this, presenting the need for the rich to care for the poor as "a necessary consequence of the unity of all Christians". This led to a major development in the political culture of the day called the “advocacy revolution of the later Roman empire". This revolution had been fostered by the imperial government, and it encouraged appeals and denunciations of bad government from below. However, Brown adds that, "in
38416-673: Was written by Romaniote and Constantinopolitan Karaite Jews using the Hebrew Alphabet . In a tradition, that in modern time, has come to be known as Greek Aljamiado , some Greek Muslims from Crete wrote their Cretan Greek in the Arabic alphabet . The same happened among Epirote Muslims in Ioannina . This also happened among Arabic-speaking Byzantine rite Christians in the Levant ( Lebanon , Palestine, and Syria ). This usage
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