Chapter XIII
Emperor John, having to abandon his campaign in Italy to deal with rebels in Roman Georgia, would come to successfully confront and defeat the Georgian rebels outside of T’blishi. The battle wasn’t much a battle, as much as it was a slaughter. The Roman army hit the rebels before properly forming up, having learned from centuries of fighting the Mohammedans and their hit and run and unprofessional war tactics filled with ambushes, the Romans applied the same methods learned through four centuries of military defeats against the seasoned Georgian rebels.
Ever since the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 AD, the Roman armies and their prestige and performance on the battlefield had slacked. While they periodically remained victorious in battle, particularly during the period of the Komnenian Recovery, the Roman forces themselves could never match the lure and attraction – indeed the mythology of the Roman armies of old. Yet, in the last 40 years, the Roman army and navy had performed extremely well in military situations all things considered. Returning to Constantinople having defeated the Neapolitans and warded off a rebellion in Georgia, John IX was riding a wave of ecstasy and excitement like no emperor – save for Michael VIII, after he triumphantly re-entered Constantinople ending the Latin occupation of the city, would have felt.
In Roman history however, it is natural for all good things to come to an end. On July 22, 1484, John IX suddenly died. He was succeeded by his son, Theodoras I. Some saw John’s death as untimely and unfortunate. Others saw his death suspiciously, perhaps even having been perpetrated by his son Theodoras to quickly ascend to the throne as there were additional rumors that John IX was preparing to name Theodoras's younger brother, and John's unequivocal favorite son, John (naturally named after himself to inflate both their egos) as the new heir.
The entertainment theories of John’s death hold little credibility outside of mere coincidence. It is true that during John’s reign he had tried to combat the growing power of the despotates and the local nobles in Greece and Asia Minor who were effectively running the empire without imperial jurisdiction or consult. It makes little sense that the nobles, as sometimes theorized, would have killed an emperor who opposed them because John’s bids to halt the growing power of the despotates failed, and repeatedly failed.
The strong ally he believed he had in the Church was never a true oppositional force to the growing power of the despotates. The Church possessed lands, this much is true, and as long as the Church owned these lands the nobles would never be able to acquire them, but the Church would never be able to take the lands away from the Roman nobles – the true source of the power among the despotates. In addition, despite military success in Italy and Asia Minor, his military triumphs were small in scale, and properly misplaced. Rather than uniting Thrace (Constantinople) with either Asia Minor or Greece, thus creating a coherent and unified empire logistically, his conquests, especially in Southern Italy, only furthered created a disunited empire. Magna Graecia, as Southern Italy had been historically called after Greek colonization in Classical Antiquity, was but another serious problem in the political development of the empire. Far away from the halls of the imperial palace in Constantinople, Magna Graecia risked becoming another independent despotate in its own right, much like Albania or Cyprus. The larger despotates of Greece (formerly known as the Morea) and Trebizond were central points of local power politics.
The Church was John's strongest ally during his reign, and he also empowered the Church as well. This icon depicts Christ's "Harrowing of Hell," when Christ descended into Hell after his crucifixion and entered as the conquering liberator of death itself. Specifically, we see Christ leading the procession out of the jaws of Hell and into the new paradise (Heaven), with Adam and Eve at his immediate left. The "Harrowing of Hell" is a central theological moment in both the Catholic and Orthodox Church's understanding of soteriology and salvation history.
The serious problems created in the wake of John VIII’s reign were still readily apparent, and neither of his successors – Constantine XI or John IX had successfully solved, or even resolved to effectively solve the problem of logistical disunity and the power held within the despotates. Constant obstructionism was common practice, and always served as a thorn in the side of the emperor. The nobles had his ear, whether he liked it or not and never had much authority or ability to shake off their shackles.
In this sense, much like John VIII, John IX is yet another failed emperor. While he certainly deserves credit in a rather poor attempt to challenge the power of the despotates through the medium of the Greek Orthodox Church, and while his military campaigns ended in victory – his inability to effectively overturn the power and prestige of the local nobles was his great mistake or failure during his reign. To this degree, Theodoras would fair little better, as his reign was marred wars with the Turks, Italians, and rebellions in Greece.
However, the relative security afforded to the empire under John IX would hasten and bring about the Greek Renaissance – a great cultural, philosophical, and scientific revolution across the Roman Empire not seen since the Macedonian Renaissance. Although this Greek Renaissance more or less began to ascend during Theodoras’s reign, and climaxed with the reign of John’s nephew (John X), he is deserving of recognition for the foundations and slow development of the Greek Renaissance.
In the annals of historians and emperors, John therefore falls into an equivalent category akin to Diocletian. At the surface a successful and competent emperor who had the best interests of the empire at his heart. However, like Diocletian, the failures of his reign would become more pronounced as time went on. While Diocletian had solved the increased burden of empire by dividing it in two, the creation of the Tetrarchy effectively laid the path for the brutal Civil Wars of the Tetrarchy to follow, and the split of the empire along its Latin-Greek lines, the Greek half being the more prosperous and economically developed portion than the Western Latin-Barbarian half, ensured that the Western half of the Roman Empire was set up to fail, rather than succeed (Diocletian even made himself emperor of the eastern half, knowing full well that even though Rome itself was the spiritual capital of the empire, it was the eastern Greek half of the empire that the future of Roman civilization lay). The decline and fall of the Roman Empire in the east can be attributed to political disunity and a non-existence centralized authority, although the future emperor John X did bring the despotates to their knees during his remarkable reign.
Lastly, despite diplomatic dealings with the Habsburgs in Vienna, the Roman Empire was still isolated with few friends and many jealous, angry, or weak (Orthodox) neighbors. John’s failed administrative policies and successful military campaigns took away from the needed diplomacy of the empire. Theodoras would look to a weakened Servia and a former enemy in Naples to secure the Roman frontier and possible allies to ward off, or throw off, Mohammedan rule.
Thus, the death of John is truly a true Greek tragedy. He knew of the problems of the empire and tried, although he failed in doing so, to solve the empire’s many problems. His enthusiasm and commitment to the right of the empire seemed to physically drain his health until his death. He had the best interests of the empire at heart, and his military triumphs, from the re-acquisition of Athens, Southern Italy, and warding off a rebellion in Georgia showed his military competency. The Council of Constantinople, convened at his behalf, was also an important moment in the history of the Greek Orthodox Church. The Council also served as a catalyst for the religious renaissance that occurred within the larger scope of the Greek Renaissance of the last years of the fifteenth century and into the early decades of the sixteenth. Unlike John VIII and Constantine XI, who never attempted to solve the problems of the despotates, John IX blazed a path for future emperors to follow, and although Theodoras was preoccupied to do so, it wouldn’t be until John X would follow in the road map to centralize the empire, but he himself had unsavory hallmarks of his human existence that I shall delve deeper into in Volume 2. In that sense, when looking in the schools, the churches, and the palaces to find a soul worthy of salvation from their impending oblivion, John IX would be the only soul worthy of such rescue.
An icon of John IX, depicted as an unofficial saint for his work with the Orthodox Church during his reign.
However, despite his accomplishments, a final shortcoming was his refusal to pursue a Hellenizing campaign in the conquered territories. The Italians who were now under Roman jurisdiction from afar, still retained their Catholicity and Neapolitan identity. This however, is not wholly to be condemned. For, in many ways, the Roman Empire was the first cosmopolitan empire in the world, a society and nation akin to the values championed by even our more modern liberal democratic states. While the body politic was certainly aristocratic and they held their power with an iron fist, the multitude of peoples of different ethnic backgrounds and religions coming together to form a civil society that was generally peaceful to one another, Catholics, Orthodox, Jews, and Mohammedans all under one roof, is something the empire should be commended for.
The Character of Emperor John IX, His Importance, and Death
Emperor John, having to abandon his campaign in Italy to deal with rebels in Roman Georgia, would come to successfully confront and defeat the Georgian rebels outside of T’blishi. The battle wasn’t much a battle, as much as it was a slaughter. The Roman army hit the rebels before properly forming up, having learned from centuries of fighting the Mohammedans and their hit and run and unprofessional war tactics filled with ambushes, the Romans applied the same methods learned through four centuries of military defeats against the seasoned Georgian rebels.
Ever since the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 AD, the Roman armies and their prestige and performance on the battlefield had slacked. While they periodically remained victorious in battle, particularly during the period of the Komnenian Recovery, the Roman forces themselves could never match the lure and attraction – indeed the mythology of the Roman armies of old. Yet, in the last 40 years, the Roman army and navy had performed extremely well in military situations all things considered. Returning to Constantinople having defeated the Neapolitans and warded off a rebellion in Georgia, John IX was riding a wave of ecstasy and excitement like no emperor – save for Michael VIII, after he triumphantly re-entered Constantinople ending the Latin occupation of the city, would have felt.
In Roman history however, it is natural for all good things to come to an end. On July 22, 1484, John IX suddenly died. He was succeeded by his son, Theodoras I. Some saw John’s death as untimely and unfortunate. Others saw his death suspiciously, perhaps even having been perpetrated by his son Theodoras to quickly ascend to the throne as there were additional rumors that John IX was preparing to name Theodoras's younger brother, and John's unequivocal favorite son, John (naturally named after himself to inflate both their egos) as the new heir.
The entertainment theories of John’s death hold little credibility outside of mere coincidence. It is true that during John’s reign he had tried to combat the growing power of the despotates and the local nobles in Greece and Asia Minor who were effectively running the empire without imperial jurisdiction or consult. It makes little sense that the nobles, as sometimes theorized, would have killed an emperor who opposed them because John’s bids to halt the growing power of the despotates failed, and repeatedly failed.
The strong ally he believed he had in the Church was never a true oppositional force to the growing power of the despotates. The Church possessed lands, this much is true, and as long as the Church owned these lands the nobles would never be able to acquire them, but the Church would never be able to take the lands away from the Roman nobles – the true source of the power among the despotates. In addition, despite military success in Italy and Asia Minor, his military triumphs were small in scale, and properly misplaced. Rather than uniting Thrace (Constantinople) with either Asia Minor or Greece, thus creating a coherent and unified empire logistically, his conquests, especially in Southern Italy, only furthered created a disunited empire. Magna Graecia, as Southern Italy had been historically called after Greek colonization in Classical Antiquity, was but another serious problem in the political development of the empire. Far away from the halls of the imperial palace in Constantinople, Magna Graecia risked becoming another independent despotate in its own right, much like Albania or Cyprus. The larger despotates of Greece (formerly known as the Morea) and Trebizond were central points of local power politics.
The Church was John's strongest ally during his reign, and he also empowered the Church as well. This icon depicts Christ's "Harrowing of Hell," when Christ descended into Hell after his crucifixion and entered as the conquering liberator of death itself. Specifically, we see Christ leading the procession out of the jaws of Hell and into the new paradise (Heaven), with Adam and Eve at his immediate left. The "Harrowing of Hell" is a central theological moment in both the Catholic and Orthodox Church's understanding of soteriology and salvation history.
The serious problems created in the wake of John VIII’s reign were still readily apparent, and neither of his successors – Constantine XI or John IX had successfully solved, or even resolved to effectively solve the problem of logistical disunity and the power held within the despotates. Constant obstructionism was common practice, and always served as a thorn in the side of the emperor. The nobles had his ear, whether he liked it or not and never had much authority or ability to shake off their shackles.
In this sense, much like John VIII, John IX is yet another failed emperor. While he certainly deserves credit in a rather poor attempt to challenge the power of the despotates through the medium of the Greek Orthodox Church, and while his military campaigns ended in victory – his inability to effectively overturn the power and prestige of the local nobles was his great mistake or failure during his reign. To this degree, Theodoras would fair little better, as his reign was marred wars with the Turks, Italians, and rebellions in Greece.
However, the relative security afforded to the empire under John IX would hasten and bring about the Greek Renaissance – a great cultural, philosophical, and scientific revolution across the Roman Empire not seen since the Macedonian Renaissance. Although this Greek Renaissance more or less began to ascend during Theodoras’s reign, and climaxed with the reign of John’s nephew (John X), he is deserving of recognition for the foundations and slow development of the Greek Renaissance.
In the annals of historians and emperors, John therefore falls into an equivalent category akin to Diocletian. At the surface a successful and competent emperor who had the best interests of the empire at his heart. However, like Diocletian, the failures of his reign would become more pronounced as time went on. While Diocletian had solved the increased burden of empire by dividing it in two, the creation of the Tetrarchy effectively laid the path for the brutal Civil Wars of the Tetrarchy to follow, and the split of the empire along its Latin-Greek lines, the Greek half being the more prosperous and economically developed portion than the Western Latin-Barbarian half, ensured that the Western half of the Roman Empire was set up to fail, rather than succeed (Diocletian even made himself emperor of the eastern half, knowing full well that even though Rome itself was the spiritual capital of the empire, it was the eastern Greek half of the empire that the future of Roman civilization lay). The decline and fall of the Roman Empire in the east can be attributed to political disunity and a non-existence centralized authority, although the future emperor John X did bring the despotates to their knees during his remarkable reign.
Lastly, despite diplomatic dealings with the Habsburgs in Vienna, the Roman Empire was still isolated with few friends and many jealous, angry, or weak (Orthodox) neighbors. John’s failed administrative policies and successful military campaigns took away from the needed diplomacy of the empire. Theodoras would look to a weakened Servia and a former enemy in Naples to secure the Roman frontier and possible allies to ward off, or throw off, Mohammedan rule.
Thus, the death of John is truly a true Greek tragedy. He knew of the problems of the empire and tried, although he failed in doing so, to solve the empire’s many problems. His enthusiasm and commitment to the right of the empire seemed to physically drain his health until his death. He had the best interests of the empire at heart, and his military triumphs, from the re-acquisition of Athens, Southern Italy, and warding off a rebellion in Georgia showed his military competency. The Council of Constantinople, convened at his behalf, was also an important moment in the history of the Greek Orthodox Church. The Council also served as a catalyst for the religious renaissance that occurred within the larger scope of the Greek Renaissance of the last years of the fifteenth century and into the early decades of the sixteenth. Unlike John VIII and Constantine XI, who never attempted to solve the problems of the despotates, John IX blazed a path for future emperors to follow, and although Theodoras was preoccupied to do so, it wouldn’t be until John X would follow in the road map to centralize the empire, but he himself had unsavory hallmarks of his human existence that I shall delve deeper into in Volume 2. In that sense, when looking in the schools, the churches, and the palaces to find a soul worthy of salvation from their impending oblivion, John IX would be the only soul worthy of such rescue.
An icon of John IX, depicted as an unofficial saint for his work with the Orthodox Church during his reign.
However, despite his accomplishments, a final shortcoming was his refusal to pursue a Hellenizing campaign in the conquered territories. The Italians who were now under Roman jurisdiction from afar, still retained their Catholicity and Neapolitan identity. This however, is not wholly to be condemned. For, in many ways, the Roman Empire was the first cosmopolitan empire in the world, a society and nation akin to the values championed by even our more modern liberal democratic states. While the body politic was certainly aristocratic and they held their power with an iron fist, the multitude of peoples of different ethnic backgrounds and religions coming together to form a civil society that was generally peaceful to one another, Catholics, Orthodox, Jews, and Mohammedans all under one roof, is something the empire should be commended for.
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