1. Introduction and Background:  The Nature of the Evidence: Surviving evidence for the Roman conquest of the lands south of the Danube Valley and the rugged northern stretches of the Balkan Peninsula is both limited and biased. The pre-Roman peoples were pre-literate and of marginal interest to Greek and Roman writers who saw them as […]

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Licinia Eudoxia was born in 422, the daughter of the eastern emperor Theodosius II (408-450) and Aelia Eudoxia. In 424 she was betrothed to the western emperor Valentinian III (425-455), and the marriage was performed in Constantinople in 437. She bore two children, Eudocia and Placidia. She received the title Augusta in 439. After Valentinian’s murder at Rome in 455, she was compelled to […]

Reigning only two months following the annihilation of the imperial army under Nicephorus I in Bulgaria, Stauracius has one of the shortest reigns in the history of the Byzantine Empire.  We possess very little information about the life or reign of Stauracius.  What little information we have comes from Theophanes, the main chronicler of the period, whose […]

SOURCES The only approximation of a connected account of the life of the emperor Anthemius is found in a verse panegyric delivered to him in Rome on 1 January 468 by the Gaul Sidonius Apollinaris, whose letters also discuss several of the events of his reign. The Life of St. Epiphanius by Ennodius of Pavia also includes […]

Very little is known about Firmus’ early life. He was one of the many children of the Moorish prince Nubel, who was also a Roman military officer and a Christian.[[1]] When Nubel died sometime in the early 370s, his children began fighting over his estate. Firmus killed his brother Zammac, an illegitimate heir but a favorite […]

ABRÉVIATIONS A                   Comté d’Asti (Italie) m                         Marquisat de Montferrat A.                  Principauté d’Anhalt (Allemagne) M                        Montenégro ANG.            Comté d’Angoulême MC                     Mac Carthy ARM.            Armagnac Mo                      Duché de Montefeltro B                   Bologne N                         Comté de Namur B                   Margravat de Bade N                         Seigneurie de Njegos B.LAN.         Bavière Landshut NAR.                   Franc-comté de Narbonne b1                  Barrois mouvant (du Royaume de France) NX                    Duché […]

It is not within the scope or ability of any single historian to claim that he or she has achieved a perfect portrayal of some event of the past. No matter how complete the gathering of evidence, there is a certain degree of judgement involved in deciding what to include in one’s narrative. This is […]

Justin II and Sophia Introduction Sophia, wife of Justin II (565-578), was the niece of Theodora, presumably being the daughter of one of Theodora’s sisters.[[1]] Since we hear nothing of the career of Theodora’s younger sister Anastasia, Sophia may well have been the daughter of Comito, the elder sister, who in 528 made a prestigious marriage with Justinian’s general Sittas.[[2]] True to her policy of […]