PicoBlog

Some people say that writers should include an opening paragraph, explaining why they’re looking at a particular subject this week. I say those people are all cowards.

Julian “the Apostate” (361-363)

Last pagan emperor – wanted to ignore all that newfangled Christanity stuff his uncle Constantine had introduced, in favour of the traditional Roman pantheon. This could have radically altered the history of Europe, but less than two years into his reign Julian died on campaign against Persia, and that was pretty much that for polytheism.

Leo I “the Butcher” (457-474)

Second puppet emperor running who’d been placed on the throne by Aspar, the Alan who commanded the army but couldn’t become emperor himself because he was the wrong sort of Christian. Got the nickname when it turns out he wasn’t really into this whole puppet thing and got the palace eunuchs to assassinate Aspar, his son and possibly other members of his family, too. Nice guy.

Leo II “the Little” (January-November 474)

Not a height thing: came to the imperial throne aged around six after his grandfather the Butcher died of dysentery. Leo I was also known as “the Great”, by the way, so perhaps “senior”/”junior” or “the elder”/”the younger” would be more natural translations. 

The Empire at its greatest extent under Justinian I in 555, back when it was still basically Rome. Image: Tataryn/Wikimedia/CC BY-SA 3.0.

Constans II “the Bearded” (641-668)

I have not been able to find anything to explain what was noteworthy about his beard. I have, however, discovered that he was murdered, in a bath, by a servant who hit him round the head with a bucket. 

Justinian II “the Slit-nosed” (685-695, 705-711)

Now we’re getting to the good stuff: after coming up with a policy platform perfectly calibrated to annoy rich and poor at once (very much the Rishi Sunak of his day), Justinian II was deposed, and the mob sliced off his nose. This, it was thought, would prevent him from returning to power (the Byzantine Empire, it turns out, not a great place to be disabled). Anyway, it didn’t work: Justinian just got a gold replica nose and retook the throne. Alas for the slit-nosed one, so great was he at ruling that he managed to inspire another up-rising six years later. This one killed him.

Leo III “the Isaurian” (717-741)

Not a race from Star Trek but an archaic name for a chunk of inland Anatolia.

Constantine V “the Dung-Named” (741-775)

Supported iconoclasm, hated monks, who consequently went round spreading the rumour he’d crapped himself during his own baptism. Lesson here seems to be “don’t offend monks while they’re the ones writing the history books”.

Leo IV “the Khazar” (775-780)

His mum was from the Khazar Khaganate, in what is today the Caucasus/eastern Ukraine/southern Russia.

Nikephoros I “the Logothete” (802-811)

Cool word, which it turns out was basically just Byzantine Greek for “Chancellor of the Exchequer”.

Michael III “the Drunkard” (842-867)

Self-explanatory. Possibly based on stories spread by his successor, Basil I, who had him killed and thus had a good reason to talk him down. I’m getting the vibe that the Byzantine court was not always a very nice place to be.

Constantine VII “the Purple-born” (913-959)

A nick-name given to assorted emperors from this point onwards, in reference to the fact they were born during the reign of their fathers. May have inspired the title of a 1994 episode of Babylon 5.

Basil II “the Bulgar-Slayer” (976-1025)

Conquered Bulgaria.

Michael V “the Caulker” (1041-42)

His dad was one, e.g. someone whose job it was to waterproof ships, before rising to become an admiral. (Michael V’s predecessor, Michael IV, was his uncle.)

Michael VII “Parapinakes” (1071-1078)

“Minus a quarter”, a reference to the devaluation of the imperial currency on his watch. There’s another Rishi Sunak joke here somewhere if you want it.

Sadly, after this, Byzantine nicknames, like their empire, seem to have gone into terminal decline, perhaps brought on by the invention of surnames, and although the Empire persisted until 1453 that’s pretty much it for the ones worth explaining in an online newsletter six and a half centuries later.

Incidentally, four emperors were known as “the Great”: Constantine I (324-337), who made Christianity the Roman state religion; Theodosius I (379-395), the last to rule the west as well as the east; the aforementioned Leo I; and Justinian I (527-565) who reconquered Italy, North Africa and part of Spain, and so might have gone down as the man who reunified the empire except that the plague that bears his name killed millions, wiped out the economy and may have opened the way for the Arab conquests of the next century.

Last but not least, there was one Byzantine Empress, Irene (797-802), who ruled first as regent for her son Constantine VI (780-797), then as co-ruler and then, after her partisans blinded and deposed him, in her own right. That would make her the only woman to ever officially rule any part of the Roman Empire in her own name. Cool.

That said, Ulpia Severina, the wife of the emperor Aurelian (270-275), appears on some coins suggesting she may have reigned in her own right for a few months after his death. Who knows.

Anyway, that’s enough of that.

I can be heard on the most recent edition of the Big Issue’s BetterPod podcast, talking about my new book Conspiracy: A History of B*llocks Theories, and Hot Not To Fall For Them, co-written with the lovely Tom Phillips.

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