Kaldellis_MichaelAttaleiatesByzantineArgumentEquivalenceAllReligions_2007

A Byzantine Argument for the Equivalence of All Religions: Michael Attaleiates on Ancientand Modern RomansAuthor(s): ANTHONY KALDELLISSource: International Journal of the Classical Tradition, Vol. 14, No. 1/2 (SUMMER 2007), pp.1-22Published by: SpringerStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25691144 .Accessed: 23/05/2014 07:03

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DOI 10.1007/sl2138-008-0005-2

A Byzantine Argument for the Equivalence of All Religions: Michael Attaleiates on Ancient and Modern Romans*

ANTHONY KALDELLIS

0 Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2008

This paper examines a comparison made by the eleventh-century Byzantine historian Michael Attaleiates between the ancient Romans of the Republic and their descendants, the Byzantines of Attaleiates' own time. In an effort to explain, during the course of a

theological argument, why the ancients were victorious despite being pagans while the Byzantines were losing despite being Christians, Attaleiates draws surprising con clusions. Arguing "between the lines/' he suggests that all religions aire equivalent in certain fundamental respects. It is in human virtue that one must trust for victory, and God does not care about our exact theological beliefs. The paper also considers one

aspect of the reception of the Roman tradition in Byzantium (a civilization usually cast in terms of its Greek and Christian legacy), arguing that the Republic remained an im

portant source of inspiration.

Had

a western writer of the eleventh century - or for that matter of any pe

riod between Augustine and Pomponazzi -

argued seriously with refer ence to the events of his own time that there is no fundamental difference

among religions, whether Islam, paganism, Christianity, or other, with respect to having a good life, there would have been a small library's worth of schol

arly discussion of his thought and historical background. Had he, in addition, been a legal scholar and classically educated writer, a high official of a Chris tian empire and advisor to its rulers, and a sober and exacting historian of

contemporary events who was read and imitated by many and whose work drew upon a knowledge of the history of Republican Rome to propose a cor

* I thank Warren Treadgold, Wolfgang Haase, and the journal's readers for sugges tions that improved my argument on many points.

Anthony Kaldellis, Department of Greek and Latin, The Ohio State University, 414

University Hall, 230 North Oval Mall, Columbus, OH 43210-1319, U.S.A.

International Journal of the Classical Tradition, Vol 14, No. 1/2, Summer 2007, pp. 1-22.


2 International Journal of the Classical Tradition / Summer 2007

rective for the failures of the Roman empire of his time, well, historians would have proclaimed on the basis of this one person a new Age of Western

Thought or, at least, an "Eleventh-Century Renaissance."1 But Michael Attaleiates was a Byzantine, which means that any original

thoughts he may have had remain trapped in a text that few read, and even there are occluded by the prejudicial notion that Byzantine writers were inca

pable of originality on serious ideological matters. His History has not been translated into English, French, Italian, or German. This means that he is en

tirely unknown to historians of medieval Christianity as well as to most

Byzantinists. The field has devoted to him only a handful of preliminary arti cles of modest scope.2 Like Xenophon, who was overshadowed in his own time by Thucydides as a historian and by Plato as a philosopher, as both a ju rist and historian Attaleiates is eclipsed by his own contemporaries. Byzantine legal scholarship of the eleventh century has usually been overshadowed by the twelfth-century canonists, while even within its own century Attaleiates'

1. For a parallel statement about Psellos, see A. Kaldellis, 'Thoughts on the Future of Psellos-Studies, with Attention to his Mother's Encomium/ in C. Barber and D. Jenkins (eds.), Reading Michael Psellos, The Medieval Mediterranean 61 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2006), 229-245, here 226-227. For the notion of comparative religion in the

medieval West, see now J. H. Arnold, Belief and Unbelief in Medieval Europe (Lon don: H. Arnold, 2005), 229-231.

2. The standard edition of the History was for long that by W. Brunet de Presle and I. Bekker in the Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae (CSHB) series: Michaelis Attaliotae Historia (Bonn: E. Weber, 1853). Citations to the text refer to the page numbers of this edition. Textual emendations were

incorporated into the modern

Greek translation (with text) by I. Polemis, MixarjX ArraXeiaTric: loropia (Athens: Kanaki, 1997). There is now a new edition and translation (with valuable notes) by I. P?rez Martfn, Miguel Ataliates: Historia, Nueva Roma 15 (Madrid: Con sejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientfficas, 2002), reviewed by L. R. Cresci in Byzantinische Zeitschrift 96 (2003), 759-764; it reached me after I had completed this paper, though I have checked the Greek passages that I quote against it. A partial French translation was published by H. Gr?goire, 'Michel Attaliate, Histoire/ Byzantion 28 (1958), 325-362. A new edition has long been in preparation by E. Tso lakis for the Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae (CFHB). For studies on At

taleiates, citing what previous bibliography there is, see the articles by M.

Hinterberger ('o/3cp Karaoeiodeic Tec TraSrj tou av8pcoTrou kcci tt]C auTOKpa

xopiac otov MixarjA ATTaXEiaTrj. To amoAoytKo ouoTrjua evoc ioTopioypa

Kaldellis 3

legal treatise, the Ponema nomikon, has failed to compete for attention with the new law school established by Konstantinos IX Monomachos and its official

exponents, Ioannes Xiphilinos (later a patriarch) and Konstantinos (later Michael) Psellos.3 Also, as a historian of his times Attaleiates stands in the shadow of the chattier, literary, and more philosophically ambitious narrative of Psellos' Chronographia, which now enjoys the advantage of multiple trans lations. Psellos pays scant attention to military matters, which are the strong point of Attaleiates' History. But only a few factual statements about battles and armies were culled from the History for the modern reconstructions of

Byzantine history; these have been recycled in later surveys, but that initial se lection shows no signs of broadening and never included his startling thoughts on God and history in the first place.4 The prevailing assumption that all Byzantines were orthodox in an uncomplicated way has also pre vented even those few who have read his work from appreciating the radical

implications of his argument. But now that the tide within the field is turning against generalizing assumptions, it is possible to approach long-neglected authors with a new set of questions.

The aim of the present essay is to identify and explicate one of the key ideas in Attaleiates' History and relate it to the reception of ancient Roman his

tory in his thought. The two major themes of the History, which are also the two major problems facing its interpreter, are, first, its extravagant praise for the mediocre emperor Nikephoros III Botaneiates (1078-1081), to whom the

work is dedicated; and, second, the explanation that Attaleiates offers for the sudden decline of the empire in the third quarter of the century. Here we will set aside the question of Botaneiates and focus on the role of God and religion in the argument that Attaleiates develops about imperial decline, though ul

timately the two themes are probably related.5 The prevailing interpretation

3. Attaleiates' Ponema nomikon is in I. and P. Zepos, Jus graecoromanutn, v. 7 (Athens: G. Phexe and son, 1931), 409-497. The standard survey of eleventh-century legal studies, by W. Wolska-Conus, 'L'ecole de droit et l'enseignement du droit a

Byzance au Xle si&cle: Xiphilin et Psellos/ Travaux et Memoires 7 (1979), 1-107, de votes few pages to it (97-101). For the involvement of the treatise in contemporary debates, see M. Angold, The Byzantine Empire, 1025-1204: A Political History (Lon don and New York: Longman, 1984), 84. For a rehabilitation of eleventh-century legal studies, see K. G. Pitsakis, 'Mtittgoc "le grand si&cle de la science du droit canonique" oto Bu^ccvtio r)Tccv ott\v TrpaynaTiKOTriTa 6 Hoc alcovac;' in V.

Vlyssidou (ed.), H avroKparopia as Kplarj(;) (above, n. 2), 231-266; see also I. Grigoriadis, Linguistic and Literary Studies in the Epitome Historion of John Zonaras, Vyzantina keimena kai meletai 26 (Thessaloniki: Kentro Byzantinon Erevnon,

1998), 23. 4. Not one of those thoughts is mentioned in the entry of H. Hunger, Die hochsprach

liche profane Literatur der Byzantiner, Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaft 12

(=Byzantinisches Handbuch).5 (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1978), v. 1,382-389. A few are mentioned, albeit without much analysis, by M. Hinterberger,

' (poflo?

KCXTcxoEiodeic? (above, n. 2), 157-158.

5. For Botaneiates, see C. Amande, 'L' encomio di Niceforo Botaniate nelT historia di Attaliate: modelli, fonti, suggestioni letterarie/ Serta historica antiqua 2 (1989), 265 286.



is that his "general explanations are hackneyed: the Byzantines were being punished by God for their sins."6 There is some truth in this reading as At taleiates does ascribe some events to God and asserts that imperial decline

manifested God's anger at the sins of the Romans. Many Byzantines held such beliefs. Yet, as I will argue, this reading of the evidence wrongly assimilates At taleiates to those dominant modes of thought by occluding all that is original in his version of the argument, in fact potentially radical in comparison to the

most conventional outlook of most Byzantines whose views are known. Attaleiates' History is some 300 printed pages long without divisions into

books, covering the period from Michael IV (1034-1041) to the reign of Botaneiates (ca. 1080). Events before ca. 1060 are treated summarily, but there after the narrative becomes progressively more detailed. The bulk of the text is devoted to a critical account of the campaigns of Romanos IV Diogenes (1068-1071), a hostile account of the disasters that occurred under the passive

Michael VII Doukas (1071-1078), and a panegyrical (if hollow) account of Botaneiates. The major historical event that Attaleiates was called upon to nar rate and explain was the rapid decline of the Byzantine empire that effectively began in the 1060s, for all that its roots lay in the immediate past. By 1081, when the throne was seized by Alexios I Komnenos (d. 1118), the empire's po litical system had collapsed, its finances were in shambles, and its armies de feated and demoralized. Asia Minor was lost to the Turks while new and

deadly enemies threatened across the Danube and Adriatic. These disasters were later highlighted by Komnenian writers to contrast with the restoration effected by Alexios.7 But at the time they were a matter of grave concern. The

patriarch of Antioch Ioannes Oxeites believed that defeat was divine punish ment for the sins of the Romans and specifically the sins of Alexios. He noted with some exaggeration that when Alexios took the throne the empire held

sway in the west as far as the Golden Gate and in the east as far as the acrop olis (i.e., the territory of the city of Constantinople).8 Attaleiates, of course, did not formulate his thesis in terms of Alexios I, whether for or against, but rather

attempted to explain a decline that he had personally witnessed from the high est levels of power. "We were pressed

on all sides by the bonds of death

(rrepiEOXOV yap ripac cofrivec Bavaxou)," he declared (198; alluding to 2 Kings 22.6; Psalm 17.5-6).

It is uncontroversial to say that most Byzantines of the period believed that this almost unprecedented disaster represented divine anger at the sins of the Romans. In many passages, Attaleiates certainly gives the impression that he subscribed to this belief. But what is interesting is that he does not leave the matter at that level of generality, where the thesis of divine anger cannot easily be scmtinized, confirmed, or refuted by the historian, given that it lacks precise content. After all, what is it exactly that God punishes and re

wards? One possible answer is a doctrinal one, namely that God punishes heretics or the nonorthodox in general. Attaleiates firmly rejects this solution.

6. Angold, The Byzantine Empire (above, n. 3), 85. 7. E.g., Alexios Komnenos, Muses 1.282 ff., in P. Maas, 'Die Musen des Kaisers Alexios

1/ Byzantinische Zeitschrift 22 (1913), 348-369, here 356-357; Anna Komnene, Alexiad 1.1.2,1.4.4, 3.9.1, 6.11.2-3.

8. P. Gautier, 'Diatribes de Jean l'Oxite contre Alexis Ier Comn&ne,' Revue des etudes

byzantines 28 (1970), 5-55, here 35.


Kaldellis 5

He notes in connection with the accession of Romanos IV that many attributed the Turkish invasions in the East to God's wrath against the heretics, namely the Armenians, Nestorians, and the others who inhabited those regions.

But when the misfortune also struck the orthodox, all those who

worship in the manner of the Romans fell into perplexity

ettcxv ?e kgi xcov 6p0o5o?cov t^oto to Seivov, eic ajjrjxaviav rjaav ttccvtec 01 ra Pcopaicov SpnoKEuovTEc (96-97).

It is interesting that Attaleiates is not content to merely say that the misfortune struck without regard to creed. He makes sure to ascribe that belief to some

contemporaries in order to refute them, almost finding satisfaction in their

"perplexity (amechania)," which indicates that he is engaging in religious polemic of sorts. He will not let common notions rest but will bring the facts of history to bear against them.

When God decides to punish, we infer, he is not primarily interested in

theological belief, and is perhaps not interested in it at all (which raises broader implications). Otherwise, why would the orthodox suffer along with heretics and why, we must also wonder, would he allow the victors to be Mus lim Turks? In this way Attaleiates distances himself from a key aspect of

Byzantine popular piety and imperial orthodoxy. Even more interestingly, he

immediately goes on to note, in the passage cited above, that Romanos IV Dio

genes had long since realized that the Turks were winning because of the fail ure of Roman leadership. In particular, Romanos believed that Roman affairs were not governed according to logos, or logic, reason (97). The rejection of doctrinal allegiance as an explanation is followed by a passage that refers us to the practical failures of government, ideas about which are scattered

throughout the History.9 To gain a comparative view of Attaleiates' ideological predicament, let

us consider the disaster that had struck the empire in the seventh century, which had also been viewed by many as divine punishment for Roman sins, among them the doctrinal controversies stirred up by the dynasty of Herak leios. But few had then been able or willing to explain its logical corollary, namely why Muslim Arabs were rewarded by God with such victories when their "sins" were greater than those of the Romans.10 The logic of punitive the

9. See now the study by D. Krallis, Michael Attaleiates (above, n. 2), for a systematic treatment.

10. On this theme, see J. F. Haldon, Byzantium in the Seventh Century: The Transformation of a Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 353-354, 364; W. E. Kaegi, Byzantium and the Early Islamic Conquests (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer sity Press, 1992), 206, 210-218. For responses in later Byzantium, see S. Vryonis, The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor and the Process oflslamization from the Eleventh through the Fifteenth Century (Berkeley et al.: University of California Press, 1971), 421-427; and Alexios Makrembolites in D. M. Nicol, Church and Society in the Last Centuries of Byzantium (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 99. The problem of how to explain the free will of the people sent by God to punish the Romans is noted in some sources, e.g., The Chronicle of Pseudo-Joshua the Stylite 5, tr. R R. Trombley and J. W. Watt, Translated Texts for Historians 32 (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2000), 5; and Isidorus of Seville, History of the Kings of



ology here broke down, casting the Arabs as passive instruments of divine will who only happened to benefit from God's overriding imperative to pun ish the Romans. But no one could persuasively explain why infidel Muslims

were rewarded with such gains. This logic faltered again in Attaleiates' time when the Turks advanced beyond the Monophysite communities of the East into Asia Minor.11 But Attaleiates avoids this trap. According to him, this event

was as much a matter of the Turks being positively rewarded as it was of the Romans being punished. In his account of the aftermath of the battle of Manzikert (1071), the defeat which precipitated the final phase of Roman de

cline, Attaleiates notes that the Turks behaved with humanity and composure, neither boasting of nor even taking credit for their victory, but rather ascribing it to God. The sultan treated the emperor with such kindness and moderation that Romanos and many others acknowledged that God's judgment was just and that

the Sultan (Alp Arslan) had deserved to win given that, even though he was not subject to the law of loving one's enemies, unawares he followed that divine rule out of his own natural and virtuous dispo sition. For the All-Seeing Eye gives power not to the arrogant but to the humble and compassionate, given that, according to the divine

Paul, God is no respecter of persons

c!?iov Eivcn vikcxv ccutov aTTE({)r)vaTO, ei vojjov \it\ e'xcov ayairav touc

EX9pouc, avETTato0r)Tcoc ttoieI tov 0e7ov vojjov ek

Kaldellis 7

wrong. Their proposed solution has the merit, from a Christian standpoint, of continuing to affirm the superiority of Christian virtues. Alp Arslan pre vailed because he was more Christian than the Christians themselves. We may conclude from this that although doctrine and belief do not matter much in God's eyes, virtue, defined loosely in Christian terms, does. But Attaleiates has additional surprises in store for us; he will take us beyond even this stand

point. Let us then turn directly to a subsequent digression that he has inserted into his account of the reign of Michael VII (193-197), which expands the scope of his heterodoxy. The remainder of the analysis will focus on these pages of the History, though possible connections will also be explored between what Attaleiates says there and other sections of his work.

In his account of the reign of Michael VII, Attaleiates steps back from his narrative of defeat to consider in a digression the causes of Roman decline in the eleventh century. He begins by comparing the wretchedness and dejection of contemporary Roman generals to "the glorious and laurel-wreathed tri

umphs once celebrated by the Romans of old (avxi tou rrpiv teAoumevou toIc rraAaif Pcopcuoic AanTrpou kcci aTEavr)4>6pou SpiocpPou)" (193). At first sight it is not certain which past Romans he has in mind, whether pagan or Chris tian, though the laurel-wreaths tend to indicate that he has the ancients in

mind. The contrast, he concludes, proves that our current misfortunes have been sent by God. In fact, he continues, tempering this strongly pietistic posi tion, the emperors of the Romans today have under their command men who know all history and can verify that the causes (aitiai) of prosperity and defeat come in part from the anger of God and in part from bad planning (bouleumata), but still these emperors do nothing to discover the true causes (aitiai) of defeat. This twofold explanation, we note, tones down the view that would ascribe all the responsibility for events to God. In accordance with these two kinds of causes, then, Attaleiates goes on to say that modern Romans take no decision (boule) that pleases God and that restores the ancestral laws (patriot nomoi) and, in addition, they thoughtlessly (aboulos) rush into great wars. "The ancient Romans (oi rrocAair Pcopouoi)," by contrast, were victorious in great wars even

though they knew nothing about the logos of God or the Incarnation and could therefore not be truly pious or virtuous or zealously follow the laws of benev olence, piety, and purity. Still, on account of their "natural greatness of mind" (Tfj uotiqj uEyaAo^poouvr)) they learned from their defeats (193-194).

We are then clearly dealing with pagan Romans, whose glorious victories are contrasted to the dismal defeats of the Christian Romans of Attaleiates' own times. Let us pause and note that the digression so far supports the con clusions that we drew from Attaleiates' discussion of the Turkish victory at

Manzikert. Belief in Christ is unnecessary to be granted victory by Attaleiates' God. Even unknowingly practicing Christian virtues

- as Romanos and others believed Alp Arslan did

- is not necessary, as the ancient Roman model im

plies. According to the digression, which is made in Attaleiates' own voice, to win one needs rather a "natural greatness of mind" that promotes an under

standing of the causes of events, precisely the kind of understanding that a historian might have, such as those nameless historians whom today's Roman

emperors have at their disposal but fail to consult. We should add that in the dedication of the History Attaleiates states that the aim of the work will be to uncover the causes (aitiai) of events, to whatever degree that was possible (5),



while in his introduction he declares that its chief subject-matter will be the deeds of those in power, specifically how some of them failed while others were victorious to the degree that they were prudent and planned their actions well (7). It would help the empire, then, if its rulers paid more attention to his torians like Attaleiates.13 But this leaves the role of God in the causal schema somewhat ambiguous: what is it exactly that God favors or punishes?

Returning to his "ancient Romans," Attaleiates now goes on to discuss their religion. His decision to do so is crucial, for it signifies that Attaleiates does not intend to shirk the difficult theological questions that his analysis entails. It also means that our analysis of his work is buttressed against the

charge of "over-interpreting" a Byzantine work. A Byzantine high official would not attempt to rehabilitate the paganism of the ancient Romans unless he were making a very serious point. For a moral and theologically orthodox

reading of providence to work in relation to the ancient Romans, their religion or conduct would have to have been pleasing to the Christian God, as was that of Alp Arslan (assuming that Attaleiates is thinking of the Christian God to begin with). Yet, as it turns out, their religion had little to do with morality, at any rate as a Christian would see it. When the ancient Romans were de feated in battle or observed a bad omen, Attaleiates explains, they took care to scrupulously perform the proper rituals, such as those regarding the de filement of the Vestal Virgins (which could involve burying an offending Vir

gin alive, as Attaleiates, a scholar of Roman law, surely knew). Confident in the belief that they had taken all religious precautions, the ancient Romans

went to battle in high spirits and defeated their enemies. Their religious virtue, we see, was utterly unlike anything promoted by Christianity, but it secured

victory for them nonetheless. Ancient religion, in other words, did not secure divine favor in any kind

of metaphysical sense, for we would then have to believe in the existence of the ancient gods or, at least, of a Christian God who is indistinguishable from them for all the intents and purposes of divine intervention. No, it was rather that the scrupulous performance of traditional rites bolstered the ancient Ro

mans' morale and this confidence in turn led them to victory. So when At taleiates declares that ancient generals cleansed their armies of pollution and

injustice in the belief that it would help them defend their country, he identi fies a subjective psychological state conducive to victory and not, a Byzantine reader must conclude, a method for securing God's actual favor (194-195). By extension, then, Attaleiates' concern throughout the History to exhort modern Romans to follow the precepts of their own religion and piously perform its rites does not necessarily stem from a belief that the One True God wants peo ple to behave in precisely the way set forth by His Church on the basis of ab solute and universally binding theological reasons. The efficacy of religion

may have as much (or more) to do with morale than with the metaphysically active power of providence. (This raises the broader question of the role of

morale, or the lack of it, in the decline of the eleventh century.)

13. For the theme of the wise advisor in Attaleiates, see L. R. Cresci, 'Categorie auto

biografiche in storiri bizantini/ in U. Criscuolo and R. Maisano (eds.), Categorie lin

guistiche e concettuali delta storiografia bizantina (Naples: M. D'Auria Editore, 2000), 125-147, here 137-138.


Kaldellis 9

In short, the twofold causal attribution of victory to (a) proper planning and (b) God's favor that we found in an earlier passage of the work may now be reducible to (a) proper planning and (b) the confidence that stems from the belief that one enjoys God's favor because one has acted in accordance with tradition (pagan for them, Christian for us). Planning of course requires nat ural virtue. But whereas the sultan allegedly prevailed over Romanos on ac count of his natural humanity and humility and despite his ignorance of divine law, the ancient Romans were not only ignorant of Christ, they lacked all distinctively Christian virtues. As we saw, Attaleiates specifies in connec tion with them that they knew nothing about God's logos or the Incarnation and so could not be truly pious or virtuous or zealously follow the laws of benevolence, piety, and purity. It was rather from a "natural greatness of mind" that they learned from their mistakes, something that modern Romans have apparently forgotten to do, as Attaleiates' own History testifies. Histori ans know well that military victory is not a Christian prerogative, and that the virtues that secure it can be learned from pagans. Later in the work, when

Attaleiates praises Botaneiates' ancestors (including the Fabii, Scipiones, and Aemilius Paullus), he notes that those noble Romans did not fight out of greed (as do modern Romans) "but for glory, for the display

of manliness, and the salvation and splendor of their own country (aAAa Si'eukAeiccv \iovt\v koh

avSpsiac etti5ei|iv kcu xfjc iSiac rraTpiSoc ocorripiav te kou AapTTpoTriTa)" (220). These are not Christian virtues. Attaleiates, then, does not offer a Chris tian argument to explain the successes of the ancient Romans, as Romanos and his advisors had imagined to explain Alp Arlsan's victory at Manzikert. He promotes the ancients on their own terms, and does not apologize for their

religion.14 We must now ask: Why does Attaleiates use pagan Romans as a counter

example to his contemporaries in the first place and why does he draw so much attention to their paganism? Why not rather a successful Christian gen eral, such as Nikephoros II Phokas (reigned 963-969), whose glorious cam

paigns he does in fact discuss later as a model of Christian generalship (223-229)? (It is interesting that Attaleiates does not at this time use as a model the honorand Botaneiates himself.) The pagan model has the effect of precisely excluding the content of one's faith as well as God's actual intervention in his

tory as factors in success, unless, of course, we believe that God rewards all

people relative to their own traditions and regardless of whether those tradi tions conform to his logos as it is revealed in Scripture (but that would be no Christian God). Attaleiates, in short, wants to suggest that the particular reli

gious beliefs of the modern Romans are not necessary for victory, even though he wants them to live according to those beliefs for other reasons, for example to counter the arrogance, corruption, and brutality of high officials (212), and

partly, perhaps, because he believes that they are superior to those of the pa

14. Note that Skylitzes Continuatus, ed. E. Th. Tsolakis, H Zuve'xsia rfjc Xpovoypoxp'iac; rod Icodvvov IkvXitot] (Ioannes Skylitzes Continuatus) (Thessa lonike: Etaireia Makedonikon Spoudon, 1968), here 160-161, who summarized At taleiates7 comparison, got it entirely wrong and concluded that God helped the ancient Romans because of their Christian virtues. This is exactly what Attaleiates is not saying.



gans in terms of creating a decent society. On the surface, then, the History aims to reinvigorate orthodoxy, but a closer reading reveals a more complex theologico-historical argument. There are truths in the work for the few and truths for the many.

Lest we again incur the charge of "over-interpretation," we should note that at the very end of his digression comparing ancient and modern Romans ? the very place where he has cautiously revealed the depths of his hetero

doxy ?Attaleiates directly states that "these words will suffice for those men who are capable of understanding a lot from a little and can prudently take

thought for our interests (toutcc pev ikocvcx TTpoc avSpac uoAAa ek oAiycov SuvapEvouc voe7v kcci rrpovoEfv tou aup^EpovToc)" (198). In the preceding analysis we have accordingly tried to tease something, if not "a lot" out of the "little" that he says. In other parts of the work too, we may suspect, he means

more than he says directly. This closing statement reveals the inadequacies of a face-value reading of Attaleiates as a conventional orthodox/Byzantine thinker.

The final section of Attaleiates' digression (195-196) again confirms these

suspicions. Having divulged and defended the virtues of the ancient Romans, he now castigates their modern descendants for performing the most impious deeds under the cover of the public good and for never considering what is

practically beneficial for their country or conducive to its glory (eudoxia) - the

very traits that he will later ascribe to the ancient Romans (in 220). Instead,

they trade victory in for money and their soldiers likewise behave in the most

rapacious way toward civilians. How then can they trust in God? Attaleiates now testifies that in all his years at the court no decision he ever witnessed was influenced by a consideration of what might be pleasing to God, nor was any attempt made to avoid actions that would incur his displeasure, nor was God ever invoked at the beginning of a meeting or during its course. Attaleiates

thereby confirms what skeptics have long suspected about the reality of im

perial policy in the so-called Orthodox Christian Empire, and he is not alone.15 It is for these reasons, he adds, that God has brought about a decline in Roman fortunes (cf. 212). He concludes the digression with an astonishing statement that formalizes his previous hints and intimations and clinches our interpre tation of his deeper position.

It is said that even the foreign nations (ethne, or "gentiles") honor jus tice, preserve their ancestral customs (patria nomima) without change, and always assert that every piece of good fortune comes down upon them from the Creator, which behaviour is regarded as advantageous with all people and required by every religion (threskeia). But the true and blameless faith that we Christians hold is rather an indictment and an accusation, given that we have entirely abandoned our virtues.

OTl TOUT E0VEOI TipaaSai TO SlKCUOV AEYETai KCXl auvTnpE7a0ai to

TTaTpia vonipa toutoic a Traps yxe i pnxa Ken TTaoav ttjv eutuxicxv ek tou Srujioupyou KaTaTrraaav ccutoic ouvexodc ETTiAsyouaiv, qttep

15. Cf. Nikephoros Blemmydes, A Partial Account 1.75-79, in J. A. Munitiz (ed.), Nicephori Blemmydae Autobiographia sive curriculum vitae, Corpus Christianonim, Series graeca 13 (Turnhout: Brepols and Leuven: University Press, 1988), 37-39.


Kaldellis 11

Koiva rraai to7c avBpcorroic siai rrpoxEpriMcxTa Kai rrapa rraaric drraiTouvTai 0pr)ok?tac. r| yap dAr)0r|c Kai dpcopriToc ttiotic ripcov TGOV XpiOTiaVCOV, ETTEl tgcjv CXpETCJV TUyXOCVOHEV EKTTTCOTOl, KaTayvcooic paAAov eoti Kai KaraKpiaic (197).

All religions are pretty much the same, from a certain point of view. Christi

anity may be superior but here this is mentioned only to highlight the vicious ness of contemporary Romans.

This statement reflects a tolerant and open-minded outlook that is not undermined by Attaleiates' (few) general criticisms of the characters of other nations (e.g., 125: the Franks, 199: the Turks). The Saracens at Hierapolis, for

example, resisted Romanos IV "fighting on behalf of their religion (threskeia) and their city, as was their ancestral custom (Kara to rraTpiov auTcov vopipov Trie iSiac TTpoKivSuvEuaai 0pr]OKEiac Kai ttoAecoc)" (109-110). Here again we observe the link between faith and tradition on the one hand and the spirited defense of one's country on the other. Before the battle of Manzikert, At taleiates himself, an agent now in his narrative, wished to counter fears that the Skythian auxiliaries (Petchenegs) would switch sides.

So I made them swear, according to their own ancestral custom, that

they would without intrigue keep faith with the emperor and the Romans, thus made them faithful observers of their vows and did not fail in my purpose, for not one of them went over to the enemy during the war itself.

oukouv Kai kotoc to rraTpiov auTouc KaSopKcoaac, rj nrjv dvE7Ti(3ouAE\jTov TTjpfjoai TTjv sic tov ^aoiAsa TTIOTIV KOI TOUC

rPco|jaiouc, outcoc auTouc aKpi^elc xcov arrovScov 6iaTE0eiKa

4>uAaKac Kai ye tcov kotoc okottov ouk SirjpapTov, ouSeic yap ek TOUTCOV 0\j5' ev OUTGO TOO TToAeMCO TOIQ TToAe|JIOIC TTpOOETE0r| (158 159).

A Skythian oath is, apparently, as good as any other, if taken in good faith in accordance with Skythian tradition. Attaleiates was not the first or the last

Byzantine official to accept the validity of a pagan oath.16 Do his words suggest that he himself participated in a pagan ceremony? Be that as it may, it is likely that we have here an implicit rebuttal of Psellos. In the first edition of his

16. See Petros Patrikios and the Persians in Menandros Protiktor fr. 6.1.96-99, in R. C.

Blockley (ed. and tr.), The History ofMenander the Guardsman (Liverpool: Francis Cairnes, 1985), 58; Leon V and the Bulgarians in W. Treadgold, The Byzantine Re vival, 780-842 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988), 217, citing the relevant sources; a treaty with the Petchenegs in Nikolaos Mystikos, Letter 66, in R. J. H. Jenkins and L. G. Westerink (ed. and tr.), Nicholas I Patriarch of Constantinople: Let ters, Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae 6 (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks,

1973), 310-313. For the acceptability of non-Christian oaths, see A. E. Laiou, 'The Foreigner and the Stranger in 12th Century Byzantium: Means of Propitiation and Acculturation/ in M. T. Fogen (ed.), Fremde der Gesellschaft: Historische und social wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zur Differenzierung von Normalitat und Fremdheit (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1991), 71-97, here 88-89.



Chronographia (ca. 1060), Psellos painted a scathing picture of the Petchenegs, noting in particular that they never abided by their oaths, whether in peace or in war, since they held nothing to be divine.17 Attaleiates, among many con

temporaries, certainly knew the Chronographia, which was the latest and most relevant narrative of the Byzantine court, but the many points of contact be tween his History and the work of Psellos are only now beginning to be ex

plored.18 Attaleiates' argument for the equivalence of the religions of all nations in

terms of social and military efficacy dissents radically from prevailing modes of thought in Byzantium. Indeed, some may be tempted to believe, on the a

priori grounds that "the Byzantines did not think that way," that we have somehow misread the History and that any other interpretation is preferable, including that Attaleiates was confused and did not himself understand the

import of what he was saying. But this position rests on false assumptions. In

Byzantium, many had easy access to the writings of antiquity. "Byzantium" was never an ideologically water-tight compartment, unable to see beyond its horizons. To the contrary, its literary culture harbored stark antinomies,

which remain to be explored. In antiquity, the notion that most religions more or less embodied the dictates of the same natural law was a commonplace.

We find traces of it even in Julian, embroiled though he was in religious 1 19 polemic.

In addition, the historians of early Byzantium, whom Attaleiates knew well, also expressed highly unorthodox views of God and history. In Proko

pios, Attaleiates would have found a deity unconstrained by the doctrinal def initions revered by Christians and, on one reading, entirely unconcerned about events in the world.20 In Agathias, whom Attaleiates cites in his discus sion of earthquakes (90), he would have found an esoteric argument about the cynical use of God by historians who aim to reform mankind morally but do not personally believe that God intervenes in history.21 Attaleiates would have encountered two more views in Agathias: first, that pagans should not be attacked for their beliefs because

they would all be deserving of pity rather than censure, and com

plete forgiveness, who fail to reach the truth. For they do not will

ingly stray and stumble, but in seeking the good, they form a

17. Psellos, Chronographia 7.69. L. R. Cresci, 'Michele Attaliate e gli E0vr| scitici/ Nea 'Pgjijti: Rivista di ricerche bizantinistiche 1 (2004), 185-207, here 198-200, does not note the possibilty of a direct response.

18. I have been unable to obtain J. N. Ljubarskij, 'Miguel Ataliates y Miguel Pselo (En sayo de una breve comparacion),' Erytheia 6 (1995), 85-95. See now D. Krallis, 'At taleiates as a Reader of Psellos,' in Barber and Jenkins (eds.), Reading Michael Psellos (above, n. 1), 167-191.

19. Julian, Against the Galilaians 152d. 20. A. Kaldellis, Procopius ofCaesarea: Tyranny, History, and Philosophy at the End of An

tiquity (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004), c. 5. 21. A. Kaldellis, 'The Historical and Religious Views of Agathias: A Reinterpretation/

Byzantion 69 (1999), 206-252; M. Meier, 'Prokop, Agathias, die Pest und das ?Ende? der antiken Historiographie: Naturkatastrophen und Geschichtsschreibung in der

ausgehenden Spatantike,' Historische Zeitschrift 278 (2004), 295-299.


Kaldellis 13

mistaken judgment and thereafter firmly hold to that opinion, what ever it happens to be

aAee'iaSai psv ouv m&AAov r\ xocAarra(vea6ai SiKaioi dv eIev Kai

ttAeiottic METaAayxdvEiv auyyvcoprjc drravTEC, 6001 8x\ tou dArjSouc d|japTdvouoiv. ou yap Srjrrou ekovtec eivai dAcovTai Kai

oAiaBaivouaiv, dAAd tou dya0ou ec|)iemevoi, etteito g^oAevtec tt\ KpiaEi to Aoirrov exovtoi tgov 5oKr)0EVTcov drrpi^, orroia otto Kai

TuxoiEv ovTa (1.7.3);

and, second,

it is obvious that each of the various nations of mankind, if they have

persevered under some ordinance (nomos) that is generally accepted among them, believes that it is excellent and sacrosanct, whereas if

something is opposed to it, then that seems to them to be something worth avoiding, ridiculing, and dismissing. But people in diverse

places have found diverse reasons and arguments in order to justify their own customs (nomima), of which some may happen to be cor

rect, but the rest are specious inventions

koi EuSrjAoV |jev OTl tgov dv0pcOTTElCOV E0VCOV coc EKaOTOl, e! yE otco

5rj ouv v6|jco ek ttAeiotou veviktikoti EnPioTEuaaiEv, toutov 5e dpio tov rjyouvTai Kai ?egttegiov, Kai e'i ttou ti rrap' ekeTvov rrpaTTOiTo,


The answer to the last question is probably beyond our reach. We cannot on a priori grounds rule out the possibility of radical heterodoxy on Attaleiates'

part: not all Byzantines were equally orthodox, and some were not at all. But he has invested considerable rhetorical capital in the reform and promulgation of Orthodoxy among his readers. We should, then, avoid both extremes,

namely of total cynicism and of uncomplicated piety. One may, for instance, be tempted to set aside the troublesome aspects of the digression on the

grounds that they are rhetorical, for one hortatory strategy frequently ex

ploited by orthodox writers was to shame their congregations by pointing out the piety, virtue, or harmony that prevailed among outsiders, whether pagans, Jews, or heretics.24 Attaleiates' comments on Alp Arslan and, more extensively, on the ancient Romans may be read in this way, and, indeed, there can be no doubt that his work is hortatory in this way. But it is hortatory only in part, and calling it that does not exhaust our hermeneutical task. Other Byzantines who employ this hortatory mode do not offer a detailed rehabilitation of

pagan religious practices nor follow it through by drawing general conclu sions about the comparative equality of all religious traditions. Attaleiates has, at the least, taken the logic of this mode of persuasion to a new level. He is cer

tainly rhetorical/hortatory, but there is more going on in this passage. This is shown also by the fact that his exhortation is closely tied to his analysis of mil

itary victory and defeat, which is, in turn, closely related to the chief themes of the History. Furthermore, the goal of religious exhortation is to make an au dience more orthodox, whereas this digression effectively makes available a set of virtues that belong to the ancient Romans. Preachers in church did not

typically highlight manliness, patriotism, and a natural greatness of mind for the winning of wars.

It is not strictly speaking incompatible with Orthodoxy to believe that

pagans can be more virtuous than Christians, that God does sometimes re

24. E.g., Constantine I in Eusebios, Life of Constantine 2.71: the harmony of pagan philosophers, but he reverses himself in his Oration to the Assembly of the Saints 9, 23; Ioannes Chrysostomos, Homily addressed to those who did not come to Assembly and on Romans 12.20 3, in Migne (ed.), Patrologia Graeca 51 (1862), 176: how the re

ligious devotion of the Jews puts Christians to shame; and idem, That one must not anathematize anyone 4, Patrologia Graeca 48 (1862), 950: pagans were pious by their

own standards and you ought to imitate them; Nikolaos Mystikos, Letter 5.126 163, in Jenkins and Westerink, Nicholas I Patriarch of Constantinople (above, n. 16), 32-35: the humanity and justice of a pagan king; Eustathios of Thessalonike, Preparatory Oration for Lent 50

= Or. 11 in Th. L. F. Tafel (ed.), Eustathii metropolitae Thessalonicensis Opuscula (Amsterdam: A. M. Hakkert, 1964; reprint of the Frank furt, 1832, ed.), 72: the piety of the pagan Greeks; Michael Choniates, Regarding the

Holy Martyr Leonides 1-2, in S. P. Lambros (ed.), MixccqX 'Akoliivcxtou tov Xcavidrov to) oco?oiJEva (Groningen: Verlag Bouma's Boekhuis N.V., 1968; reprint of the Athens, 1879-1880, ed.), v. 1,150: the piety of the pagan Greeks; idem, Ora tion Given When He Was at the Euboian Euripos 10, in ibid. v. 1,183: the order kept by western Christians in church; and idem, Catechetical Oration 14, in S. Lambros, 'MixariA 'Akomivcxtou cxv-ek5otoc KaTnxr|TiKr| opiAia,' Neoc 'EXXqvoiivqiicov 6 (1909) 3-31, here 25-26: demon-worshipping ancients built an altar to Mercy

whereas we do not obey God's clear commands; and Blemmydes, A Partial Ac count 1.60 (above, n. 15), 31: the lawfulness of foreigners and even atheists com

pared to the author's enemies.


Kaldellis 15

ward the virtue of pagans and infidels at the expense of Christians, that other

religions foster virtue, or that war is purely a function of leadership. However, these views were rare in Byzantium, and it is striking to find them all in one

work. Attaleiates had evidently thought about the problem and was not re

peating cliches. He also wanted his readers (we know there were many) to think hard for themselves, specifically to consider the merits of Roman war fare on the purely military level, free of Christian interpretation, and to think how such merits could be recreated in a Christian society. The digression, then, aims at a far-reaching reform of Byzantine imperial leadership. Attaleiates wants his contemporaries to take their religion seriously, for there is great virtue in it, especially with regard to the ordering of a decent society, but he also wants them to imitate the ancients with regard to the waging of war and statecraft, as so many others had done before him and would again after him.25 Unlike Psellos, Attaleiates was no prophet or philosopher; he wanted the Ro mans of his time to heed their faith. He does not repudiate Orthodoxy; indeed, he repudiates his contemporaries on (ostensibly) orthodox grounds. But he opens additional theoretical and practical possibilities when he praises the virtues ? and offers a dispassionate account of the religion

? of the ancient

pagan Romans. They can show us how to win wars, while it was Nikephoros II Phokas who had shown that Christian Romans could follow their example. If Christianity by itself is insufficient, then a combination of Roman and Chris tian virtues could pave the way for a glorious recovery.

This possibility is raised in a subsequent digression in the History, in fact in a digression within a digression. While praising the genealogy of

Nikephoros III Botaneiates, Attaleiates digresses to discuss the career of

Nikephoros Phokas, who is included here fictitiously among the honorand's ancestors. In his account of Phokas' conquest of Crete, Attaleiates highlights both the military virtue and the piety of the Byzantine general of the tenth

century, an age of conquests; in fact, Attaleiates specifically declares that the

conquest was successful because of Phokas' "piety with respect to God, great foresight in planning, and great courage as a general (Euae(3r)c 5e gov tcx rrpoc tov Geov Kai (3ouAEuaao0ai SiayvcoaTiKcoTaxoc Kai crrpaTriyoc dvSpEioxaToc)" (223). Phokas offers an example of how the imperial Roman and the Christian traditions may be joined to yield both a higher standard of

morality and victory in war. Careful readers of the History, however, may re alize that Christianity is but one of many religions, all of which have, from a

metaphysical point of view, more or less the same value with respect to mili

tary success. And one doubt begets another.

Having unfolded the theoretical component of Attaleiates' argument, let us make a digression of our own to consider its possible relation to the causal schema of imperial decline that informs the History. As we have seen, At taleiates cites divine favor and human skill as the two causes of success or fail ure, and on occasion seems to vacillate between them. Yet it is possible that he invokes God in order to promote moral reform, as does Agathias, and not be

25. See A. Kaldellis, 'Classicism, Barbarism, and Warfare: Prokopios and the Conser vative Reaction to Later Roman Military Policy/ American Journal of Ancient History n.s. 3 (2004).


16 International Journal of the Classical Tradition I Summer 2007

cause he literally believes in divine intervention in every instance. Classical

philosophy, after all, from Plato onward (and famously excepting the Epicure ans) often advocated the position that the fear of God promoted morality, even

when strong philosophical arguments in its favor were lacking: the true and the good were not necessarily the same. We must also not forget that socially prominent writers in Byzantium, especially those willing to consider hetero dox notions, would be concerned to at least appear to be orthodox. This may explain their inclusion of a miracle or pious exhortation here and there. On the other hand, it is possible that Attaleiates did believe in providence, even if his view of it was not exactly conventional. In any case, we can no longer main tain the view that he was a conventional Byzantine in his beliefs, even if he did

want to see orthodox piety strengthened. Furthermore, if we conclude that he did believe in some form of providence, we would have to admit some incon

gruities in his explanatory schema. These go beyond such odd problems as God rewarding the sultan at Manzikert for his behavior after the battle

(namely for treating the already-vanquished Romanos humanely).26 Referring to one of Romanos' tactical decisions, Attaleiates explains the

reason (logos) why it was made and declares that it was not irrational (alogos) nor contrary to military planning {logismos); however, it was opposed "by some Fate or rather by divine anger and a secret reason (el [ir\ TTETrpconEvn tic, paAAov Se 0e7oc xo^?^ ^ Aoyoc ccTToppnToc)," which overturned the em

peror's plans (150-151). Romanos, the historian adds, should not be criticized

by those who do not know the aition of his action because they also do not consider the higher aitia that human beings do not control. If we remember that as a historian Attaleiates is greatly concerned with aitia (5), and that as an

emperor Romanos was greatly concerned with logos in government (97), we see the

pressing need for a thorough study of those two key concepts in the

History. Here, at any rate, we have a God who acts for reasons that human

beings cannot fathom. Attaleiates does not in this instance say that God was

punishing Romanos for a moral infraction. The emperor's well-laid plans were thwarted for seemingly random divine reasons.

As we saw, Attaleiates vacillates between divine and human causes, both in connection with specific events and when talking generally about success and failure (and so by extension about imperial decline). In his narrative re

garding the barbarians who invaded during the reign of Konstantinos X Doukas and who were subsequently destroyed (though not by Roman forces), Attaleiates says that "those with their wits about them who examined events

(oi vouvEx?>c oumPcxAAovtec tcx TrpayMaTa)" ascribed success and failure to the virtues and vices of the emperor respectively. But, he goes on, "one would not fail against what is fitting (ouk av SianapToi tou ttpettovtoc)" by ascribing misfortune to divine anger at sin and ascribing good fortune "solely" to divine

pleasure at prayers and good conduct (86-87). But to say what is fitting is not

26. It may be thought that the sultan's behavior after the battle revealed what kind of man he was, suggesting that God gave him victory for his virtue in general. But

incongruities such as this are typical of historians for whom divine intervention

represents more than a "belief," for whom it is a launching-point for further think

ing; cf. Kaldellis, "The Historical and Religious Views of Agathias' (above, n. 21). 27. For the ran^e of causal explanations

in Attaleiates, see M. Hinterberger, '#o'/3cp KaraoEiodsic1 (above, n. 2).


Kaldellis 17

necessarily to say what is true, and to ascribe good fortune "solely" to divine favor undercuts Attaleiates' usual twofold explanation for success (divine favor and military skill). Moreover, one would naturally prefer to side with "those who examine events with their wits about them," who, it seems, posit human causes for human events. In fact, Attaleiates later roundly declares

?

using language that directly alludes to and therefore seems to correct this ear lier statement ? that one who ascribes the outcomes of battles, whether good or bad, to the generals themselves "would not at all miss what is right and the correct understanding (ou SiapdpToi ttocvtcoc tou 6p0ou Kai Trjc dXr|0ouc 5i

ayvcoaEcoc)" (108). This sounds like a careful allusion to and correction of the earlier formulation. And a few pages later he repeats and reinforces the same

point, stating that the events demonstrated clearly that in all cases command ers bear total responsibility for what happens (119). Presumably, if we have our wits about us, we will prefer to hear what those say who speak with true

understanding than those who speak fittingly. What we need in the future in connection with these problems is an

analysis of Attaleiates' notion of the synetoi, "those who think sensibly about current events," because they appear in a variety of contexts in the History. How justified are their beliefs in each case by the actual course of the narra tive? Does Attaleiates identify with them fully? Regarding his invocations of

providence, let us note that in his introduction he declares that the chief aim of his work is to show how some men failed while others succeeded depend ing on how well or poorly they took counsel and planned their actions. There is no mention there of God (7-8). Also, his invocations of God are balanced

throughout the History by astute analyses of the emperors' military and eco nomic policies, which analyses lack any divine or moral aspect. We need a historical analysis of those sections. For example, Attaleiates criticizes in detail the policies of Konstantinos X Doukas which weakened the army so much that it "could not accomplish anything brave or comparable to the former

magnificence and power of Rome (priSEvoc ysvvaiou KaTopBoujJEVou, Kai tt\q pcojjaiKrjc ttote MEyaXorrpErrEiac Kai ioxuoc dvdAoyov)," probably referring again to pagan Rome (79; cf. 81,102-103,113,114-116). This tallies nicely with his desire to see modern Romans imitate their pagan ancestors, at least in the

military sphere. Or, to take another incongruity, we saw above that Attaleiates

complained that his contemporaries took no thought for God in their councils of state, yet on the two occasions in the narrative when he himself, an agent in his own history, is given the opportunity to advise Romanos IV, his own boule also says nothing about God or morality and is limited to purely tactical and strategic matters (128-131 and 136). And yet he nevertheless calls this boule of his a syneton diatagma, a "prudent piece of advice."

What also bears further analysis is the relationship between the virtues that Attaleiates endorses as conducive to victory and his notion of providence. If our theoretical interpretation is correct and there is a disjunction between the theological and the practical aspects of his argument

? the former serves moral exhortation while the latter is addressed to the synetoi

? we expect a

disjunction between his treatment of Christian and more practical "Roman" virtues. And that is exactly what we find. When God rewards or punishes in dividuals for specific vices or virtues the discussion is cast in explicitly Chris tian terms (e.g., 99, 152-153, 213-214). Yet, as we saw above, the virtues by



which the ancient Romans prevailed owed nothing to Christianity, nor does Attaleiates suggest that they were rewarded by God for practicing them. Fur thermore, in a passage that criticizes the policies of Konstantinos X Doukas,

Attaleiates notes that the emperor was pious, charitable, compassionate, and merciful. This was all well and good, he adds, for the emperor himself and a few others around him, but his avarice, arbitrary justice, and neglect of the army and frontier defenses proved ruinous to the majority of his subjects (76 77). Empires do not flourish on the basis of Christian virtues, a view with which his contemporary Psellos, for one, more cynically agreed.28

Let us return now to Attaleiates' theoretical argument about religion, with which we have been chiefly occupied. There is no question that the decline of the empire enabled him to see beyond the ideological horizons of his fellow Romans. Defeat had always led the Romans to think about their gods. In

pagan antiquity they scrupulously performed propitiatory rituals, Attaleiates

recognized, while in Byzantium they worried about sin. Attaleiates does worry about the sins of his contemporaries, but he is not greatly concerned about their theology or doctrine. Nor does he suggest that renewed support for institutions such as monasteries and bishops could offset decline, as monks and churchmen rushed to proclaim in times of crisis. In fact, Attaleiates takes a highly cynical view of monastic wealth, sarcastically suggesting that it should be confiscated by the state for the spiritual welfare of the monks them selves (61-62),29 and seems to have taken a dim view of most bishops, for he

says that an episcopal position better suited the character of the deposed Michael VII, who was naive, lacking experience in the affairs of life, and dis inclined to understand anything regarding imperial matters (303). In fact, At taleiates presents him as utterly incompetent and pettily vindictive.

Decline led Attaleiates to think hard about God and history. He seems to have wanted the Romans to practice their faith sincerely, but doubted that this alone would enable them to overcome the crisis. It would improve their soci

ety, but perhaps only careful planrung would save the empire. Instead of ral

lying uncritically around the traditions of his people and proclaiming that

they alone are pleasing to God ? a popular response to crisis

? Attaleiates confronts the realities of history head-on and admits that people with different beliefs can be more virtuous than the Byzantines and more successful. Those who cleave to a True Faith must come to terms with victorious pagans and heretics.

Attaleiates was not the first Roman to tliink along these lines. The same

problem had been tackled in a strikingly similar way by the priest Salvianus of Massilia, who experienced the ruin of the western empire in the fifth cen

28. Cf. Kaldellis, The Argument of Psellos' Chronographia (above, n. 12), c. 9; for Kon stantinos X in particular, see 80 n. 178.

29. For Psellos' similar stance, see Kaldellis, The Argument of Psellos' Chronographia (above, n. 12), c. 10. Attaleiates' foundation of a (family) monastery has been given an economic explanation by P. Lemerle, Cinq etudes sur le XI6 siecle byzantin, ser. Le monde byzantin (Paris: ?ditions du Centre national de la recherche scientifique, 1977), 65-112, esp. 111. Besides, "social orthodoxy" is often a different matter from

what one thinks or writes; see A. Kaldellis, 'The Religion of Ioannes Lydos,' Phoenix 57 (2003), 300-316.


Kaldellis 19

tury. His treatise On the Governance of God was addressed to those who had lost their faith in providence as a consequence of losing their cities and lands to heretical and pagan barbarians. Salvianus ascribes Roman decline to divine

anger at the sins of the Romans, of which he gives a very detailed account, fo

cusing on social injustices. But he does not flinch from the issue of barbarian

superiority. To be sure, barbarians are not paragons of virtue, but they are bet ter than the Romans. That is why God gave them dominion: they "merited" it despite their paganism and heresy.30 Like Attaleiates' Turks, Salvianus' bar barians are humble, ascribe all to God, and pray before "going into battle con fident that they have already merited victory by their prayers."31 Like Attaleiates, Salvianus contends that the superiority of the religion professed by Christian Romans only magnifies their vices, for pagans cannot by defini tion transgress divine law.32 Like Attaleiates, he held a positive view of the

pagan Romans of antiquity, and realized that his theologico-historical scheme had to accommodate their victories; unfortunately, his account of them was ei ther never written or lost.33 The glory and success of the empire of pagan Rome were bound to trouble any Christian who thought hard about God and

history. Attaleiates was neither the first nor the last Roman who turned to the

Republic to find a model of successful warfare and virtuous statecraft in hum ble recognition of religious difference.34 In the West, however, it was not until Machiavelli that paganism was discussed in such a dispassionate way and

recognized as a critical factor in the military and political successes of ancient Rome.35

Considering, then, the comparison of Attaleiates and Salvianus, we may say that in the eleventh century the eastern Roman empire was experiencing belatedly much the same that its western counterpart had in the fifth. At taleiates was, in this sense, the Byzantine Salvianus. The theological and eth ical problems posed by the defeat of a Christian and Roman empire were similar in both cases and so were the discourse and ideological concessions that were deployed in the responses of the two men. But the differences be tween them are also worth noting, for they reflect the broader differences be tween their intellectual cultures. Attaleiates, a legal scholar and bureaucrat and so typical of the ruling class of Byzantium, was interested chiefly in the

mechanisms and the efficiency of state institutions (see 79, 81, 102-103, 113 116). Salvianus, on the other hand, was a monk and was not interested in these

30. Salvianus, On the Governance of God 5.4.15 ff., 5.8.36, 5.11.57, 6.7.35, 7.6.23-8.29, 7.20.84-22.100, and passim, in G. Lagarrigue (ed. and tr.), Salvien de Marseille: (Eu

vres, v. 2: Du gouvernement de Dieu, Sources chretiennes 220 (Paris: Les fiditions du Cerf, 1975). For barbarian vices, see also 7.15.63-64. In general, see D. Lambert, 'The Barbarians in Salvian's De gubernatione Dei/ in S. Mitchell and G. Greatrex (eds.), Ethnicity and Culture in Late Antiquity (London: The Classical Press of Wales, 2000), 103-115.

31. Salvianus, On the Governance of God 7.9.38, 7.10.44. 32. Salvianus, On the Governance of God 4.12.54-14.70, 4.16.79, 4.19.91. 33. Salvianus, On the Governance of God 7.1.2; cf. 1.2.11, 5.11.60, 7.20.88. 34. See Kaldellis, 'Classicism, Barbarism, and Warfare' (above, n. 25). 35. Machiavelli, Discourses on the First Ten Books of Titus Livius 1.11-15, 2.2, 3.1; see V.

B. Sullivan, Machiavelli's Three Romes: Religion, Human Liberty, and Politics Reformed (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1996), esp. c. 5.



things at all. Attaleiates does claim (perhaps only prudently, perhaps sin

cerely) that Christianity is superior, but in practice he treats all religions as

equivalent. He may well have been among those who "lost their faith in prov idence" when he witnessed the events of his time, just as Salvianus (and Au

gustine) testify that many also did who witnessed the events of their time. We do not have to assume that no such lapsed Christian left a record of his

thoughts. In Attaleiates we have a perfect candidate for such a person, a class of men that has so far been treated as a vague and shadowy "background" against which to read their more pious "refuters." We see, for example, that in contrast to Attaleiates Salvianus does not fully confront the problems posed to his theology by the fact that heretics can be virtuous and may be rewarded

by God for their piety. And this failure is not unrelated to the fact that At taleiates is the only one of the two who indicates that he means more than he

says.

Finally, the fact that Attaleiates can be compared closely with Salvianus, who was separated from him by six hundred years, calls for comment. The one was a monk and spoke Latin; the other a secular high official who de

spised monks and spoke Greek. Yet what they had in common was that they were both Romans, or at least wrote for Romans from a Roman point of view. This should not cause surprise. Byzantium was the natural continuation of the ancient Roman empire, now in the eleventh century experiencing a belated decline. This aspect of Byzantine civilization has been downplayed in modern times in favor of its Greek and Christian components, for the Roman legacy is believed in its "essence" to be Latin and western. I have argued elsewhere that the Roman element should instead be regarded as a primary aspect of

Byzantine identity, and one to which Byzantium had a greater and more right ful claim than anyone in the West after Salvianus.36 To be sure, Byzantium was a complex civilization, a fusion of many cultural elements that were not al

ways in harmony. The result was that individual Byzantines could chose to

"specialize" in different sites of the culture, for instance to train in Attic rhet oric and master the conventions of what they called "Hellenism" or to devote themselves to monasticism and move in institutions that transcended "Roma nia" (as the Byzantines called their state). Professional Hellenists and Christian fundamentalists were never at ease with each other in Byzantium.

These two options have received considerable attention by scholars. Yet both may have constituted minorities in Byzantine society. It is possible that the culture's center of gravity is represented by men like Attaleiates, who

spent his life in public service, entangled in and maintaining the institutions of Romania. A Roman outlook came naturally to him, given that he had a legal training and career (the Byzantines regularly referred to law as "the science of the Romans" or "of the Italians"). In the preface to the legal treatise commis sioned by Michael VII in 1073-1074, Attaleiates traces the empire's laws back to the Republic. In the dedicatory epigram, he refers to the Romans as Ausones ? the classicizing term for the ancient inhabitants of Italy

? as he does in his

36. A. Kaldellis, Hellenism in Byzantium: The Transformations of Greek Identity and the Reception of the Classical Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), forthcoming c. 2.


Kaldellis 21

History with regard to the Romans of his own time.37 In the History he also

proffers a strong statement of Constantine's translatio imperii from Old to New Rome (217-218) and later traces the ancestors of Botaneiates back to the Repub lican families of the Fabii and the Scipiones, mentioning specifically Scipio

Africanus (maior), his brother Scipio Asiaticus, and Aemilius Paullus (217 220). When he claims (twice, so that we don't miss it) that they lived 92 gen erations before the Phokas family (so about 2300 years; in reality half that), we may suspect that he has worked some subversive numerical mischief into his encomium.38

The reception of the Republican tradition in Byzantium has barely begun to be studied and is not commonly recognized as a field in its own right. But

we have in Attaleiates a clear sense that the Byzantines' laws, customs, insti tutions, and political community in general were descended from ancient Rome. And in the encomium for Botaneiates, he experiments, probably cyni cally, with genealogical connections. Ancient Rome was an ancestral commu

nity, much as were Greece and Israel, each in its own way. Beyond such "connections," however, what is a more fruitful area for future research is the

reception of knowledge of ancient Rome, and of the Republic in particular, which contributed to the fashioning of new ideas about history, religion, free dom, and government. One can mention in this connection the anti-Christian historian Zosimos (ca. 500), who preferred the free Republic to the disastrous

monarchy that succeeded it; the Greek-writing professor of Latin Ioannes

Lydos (ca. 550), who exalted the Republic as the only period of freedom in Roman history and condemned the tyranny of his times; and then later the

deep interest shown in the Republic by the chroniclers Ioannes Xiphilinos (nephew of the patriarch of the same name and a near contemporary of At taleiates himself) and Ioannes Zonaras, a critic of the Komnenian regime in the twelfth century; and the twelfth-century classicist Ioannes Tzetzes, who loved Cato the elder most among all the ancients.39 Nor was the ideological dimen sion of the reception of Rome monolithic. For Zosimos, for example, it was a

matter of freedom and religion; for Lydos, of politics and freedom; for the chroniclers, of political and national continuity; while for Attaleiates, it was

mostly a matter of warfare and natural virtue.

37. Michael Attaleiates, Legal Treatise, ded. and prv in Zepos (ed.), pp. 411, 415-416; History 31, 214. For Attaleiates as a legal scholar, see Wolska-Connus, 'L'ecole de

droit' (above, n. 3), 97-101; Angold, The Byzantine Empire (above, n. 3), 107-108. Note the legal bias of the encomium of Botaneiates at History 312-318. For legal studies sparking an interest in ancient Rome, see also R. Macrides and P. Mag dalino, 'The Fourth Kingdom and the Rhetoric of Hellenism,' in P. Magdalino (ed.), The Perception of the Past in Twelfth-Century Europe (London and Rio Grande: The Hambledon Press, 1992), 117-156, here 131.

38. For Attaleiates' romanitas in general, see P. Magdalino, The Byzantine Background to the First Crusade (Toronto: Canadian Institute of Balkan Studies, 1996), 33-34.

39. For Zosimos, see F. Paschoud, 'La digression antimonarchique de la preambule de YHistoire Nouvelle/ in idem, Cinq etudes sur Zosime, ser. Collection d'etudes anci ennes (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1975), 1-23; and L. C. Ruggini, 'The Ecclesiastical Histories and the Pagan Historiography: Providence and Miracles/ Athenaeum 55 (1977), 107-126, here 118-122; for Lydos, A. Kaldellis, 'Republican Theory and Po litical Dissidence in Ioannes Lydos/ Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 29 (2005),



Attaleiates forms a key chapter in the unwritten history of the reception of Rome in Byzantium. In two works, he traced the laws and political institu tions of the empire of his own time to those of the Republic, and in fanciful ge nealogical praises traced the descent of whole Byzantine families to the

Republic. He cited Aemilius Paullus and Scipio as exempla of military virtue and statecraft, and his knowledge of their deeds was probably based on a

reading of Polybios, Plutarch, Kassios Dion, and possibly Appianos as well

(though we cannot be more precise about his sources at this stage). This was, then, a pagan Rome mediated through Greek sources, a key point.40 So it was

only natural that when he attempted to put the events of his time into some kind of historical perspective, he would turn not to Greece or the Bible but to the Roman past. Yet for all the continuities that he takes for granted, his point is to highlight precisely the profound discontinuities between the hypocrisy, corruption, and defeat of Christian Byzantium and the pagan piety, magna nimity, and triumphs of ancient Rome. He does not offer any explanation as to how this change came about. But in any case we are here in the realm of in tellectual history and not official ideology, for Attaleiates was willing to re nounce or at least to transcend some basic beliefs of his society in favor of an ancient model of war and society that seemed to him in retrospect, as to many others before and after, to have been vastly more admirable and successful. In

formulating this argument, he had to come to terms with the undeniable virtues of many other cultures who lived in his own time and who had differ ent faiths, including among them the chief enemies of his own fatherland.

1-16; for the later figures, P. Magdalino, 'Aspects of Twelfth-Century Byzantine Kaiserkritik,' Speculum 58 (1983), 326-346; N. Wilson, Scholars of Byzantium (London: Duckworth, 1983), 179; for Tzetzes, see Kaldellis, Hellenism in Byzantium (above, n. 36), c. 5. For a summary of some recent studies, see A. Markopoulos, 'Roman

Antiquarianism: Aspects of the Roman Past in the Middle Byzantine Period (9th 11th Centuries)/ in E. Jeffreys et al. (eds.), Proceedings of the 21st International Con gress of Byzantine Studies, London 21-26 August 2006 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), v. 1, 277-297.

40. Made by Magdalino, 'Aspects of Twelfth-Century Byzantine Kaiserkritik' (above, n. 39), 344.


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Issue Table of ContentsInternational Journal of the Classical Tradition, Vol. 14, No. 1/2 (SUMMER 2007), pp. 1-320Front MatterA Byzantine Argument for the Equivalence of All Religions: Michael Attaleiates on Ancient and Modern Romans [pp. 1-22]Martin's Martial: Reconsidering Luther's Relationship with the Classics [pp. 23-50]Versions of Victory: Ben Jonson and the Pindaric Ode [pp. 51-73]Sallust, Jugurtha 31 in a Pamphlet War of 1708-09 [pp. 74-99]Shelley and Plato's Symposium: the poet's revenge [pp. 100-129]Robert Lowell's Propertius [pp. 130-147]Black Orpheus, Myth and Ritual: A Morphological Reading [pp. 148-175]REVIEW ARTICLESLatin, Language Choice, and Identity [pp. 176-185]Constantine after Seventeen Hundred Years: The Cambridge Companion, the York Exhibition and a Recent Biography [pp. 185-220]Poetic Presences [pp. 220-227]The Paradox of Rudolf Borchardt: Antimodern Modernist, Anticlassical Classicist [pp. 227-232]

RESPONSEThe Christianization of the Late Roman Aristocracy bis: A Response to Michele Salzman's 'Rejoinder' to Ralph Mathisen's Review Article [pp. 233-247]

BOOK REVIEWSReview: untitled [pp. 248-250]Review: untitled [pp. 250-254]Review: untitled [pp. 254-259]Review: untitled [pp. 259-262]Review: untitled [pp. 262-265]Review: untitled [pp. 265-268]Review: untitled [pp. 268-271]Review: untitled [pp. 271-276]Review: untitled [pp. 276-279]Review: untitled [pp. 280-283]Review: untitled [pp. 283-287]Review: untitled [pp. 287-291]Review: untitled [pp. 291-296]Review: untitled [pp. 296-298]Review: untitled [pp. 298-302]Review: untitled [pp. 302-304]Review: untitled [pp. 304-307]Review: untitled [pp. 307-312]Review: untitled [pp. 312-316]

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED [pp. 317-320]

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