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Collatio Lustralis
The ''collatio lustralis'' was a tax on "traders in the widest sense"''Oxford Classical Dictionary'', 2nd ed. 1970. p. 263 in the Roman Empire. It was instituted by Constantine, although there are some indications that such a tax existed during the reign of Caligula (see Suetonius, ''Lives of the Twelve Caesars''). It applied to both the Western and Eastern Empire. It was originally collected in both gold and silver, but only in gold beginning in the late 4th century. Like many Roman taxes, it was collected not annually, but (originally) every four years. It applied to all merchants, money-lenders, craftsmen, and others who received fees for their work, including prostitutes. The only initial exemptions were physicians, teachers, and farmers selling their own produce. Western Empire The tax continued in the West in the Ostrogothic and Visigothic kingdoms that succeeded the Empire. Eastern Roman empire In the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire, this tax was known as the ''chrysarg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Constantine I
Constantine I ( , ; la, Flavius Valerius Constantinus, ; ; 27 February 22 May 337), also known as Constantine the Great, was Roman emperor from AD 306 to 337, the first one to convert to Christianity. Born in Naissus, Dacia Mediterranea (now Niš, Serbia), he was the son of Flavius Constantius, a Roman army officer of Illyrian origin who had been one of the four rulers of the Tetrarchy. His mother, Helena, was a Greek Christian of low birth. Later canonized as a saint, she is traditionally attributed with the conversion of her son. Constantine served with distinction under the Roman emperors Diocletian and Galerius. He began his career by campaigning in the eastern provinces (against the Persians) before being recalled in the west (in AD 305) to fight alongside his father in Britain. After his father's death in 306, Constantine became emperor. He was acclaimed by his army at Eboracum (York, England), and eventually emerged victorious in the civil wars against emperors ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Augustan History
The ''Historia Augusta'' (English: ''Augustan History'') is a late Roman collection of biographies, written in Latin, of the Roman emperors, their junior colleagues, designated heirs and usurpers from 117 to 284. Supposedly modeled on the similar work of Suetonius, ''The Twelve Caesars'', it presents itself as a compilation of works by six different authors (collectively known as the ''Scriptores Historiae Augustae''), written during the reigns of Diocletian and Constantine I and addressed to those emperors or other important personages in Ancient Rome. The collection, as extant, comprises thirty biographies, most of which contain the life of a single emperor, but some include a group of two or more, grouped together merely because these emperors were either similar or contemporaneous. The true authorship of the work, its actual date, its reliability and its purpose have long been matters for controversy by historians and scholars ever since Hermann Dessau, in 1889, rejected ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Solidus (coin)
The ''solidus'' (Latin 'solid'; ''solidi'') or nomisma ( grc-gre, νόμισμα, ''nómisma'', 'coin') was a highly pure gold coin issued in the Late Roman Empire and Byzantine Empire. Constantine I, Constantine introduced the coin, and its weight of about 4.5 grams remained relatively constant for seven centuries. In the Byzantine Empire, the solidus or nomisma remained a highly pure gold coin until the 11th century, when several Byzantine Empire, Byzantine list of Byzantine emperors, emperors began to strike the coin with less and less gold. The nomisma was finally abolished by Alexius I in 1092, who replaced it with the hyperpyron, which also came to be known as a "bezant". The Byzantine solidus also inspired the originally slightly less pure Dinar (coin), dinar issued by the Muslim Caliphate. In Western Europe, the solidus was the main gold coin of commerce from late Roman times to Pepin the Short's Carolingian Renaissance#Carolingian currency, currency reform, wh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edessa, Mesopotamia
Edessa (; grc, Ἔδεσσα, Édessa) was an ancient city (''polis'') in Upper Mesopotamia, founded during the Hellenistic period by King Seleucus I Nicator (), founder of the Seleucid Empire. It later became capital of the Kingdom of Osroene, and continued as capital of the Roman province of Osroene. In Late Antiquity, it became a prominent center of Christian learning and seat of the Catechetical School of Edessa. During the Crusades, it was the capital of the County of Edessa. The city was situated on the banks of the Daysan River (; ), a tributary of the Khabur, and was defended by Şanlıurfa Castle, the high central citadel. Ancient Edessa is the predecessor of modern Urfa ( tr, Şanlıurfa; ku, Riha; ar, الرُّهَا, ar-Ruhā; hy, Ուռհա, Urha), in the Şanlıurfa Province, Turkey. Modern names of the city are likely derived from Urhay or Orhay ( syc, ܐܘܪܗܝ, ʾŪrhāy / ʾŌrhāy), the site's Syriac name before the re-foundation of the settlement by S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joshua The Stylite
Joshua the Stylite (also spelled Yeshu Stylite and Ieshu Stylite) is the attributed author of a chronicle which narrates the history of the war between the Byzantine Empire and Persians between 502 and 506, and which is generally considered to be one of the earliest and most reliable historical documents to be preserved in Syriac. The work owes its preservation to having been incorporated in the third part of the '' Chronicle of Zuqnin'', and may probably have had a place in the second part of the ''Ecclesiastical History'' of John of Ephesus, from whom (as François Nau has shown) Pseudo-Dionysius copied all or most of the matter contained in his third part. The chronicle in question is anonymous, and Nau has shown that the note of a copyist, which was thought to assign it to the monk Joshua of Zuqnin near Amida ( Diyarbakir), more probably refers to the compiler of the whole work in which it was incorporated. In any case, the author was an eyewitness of many of the events which ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Belisarius
Belisarius (; el, Βελισάριος; The exact date of his birth is unknown. – 565) was a military commander of the Byzantine Empire under the emperor Justinian I. He was instrumental in the reconquest of much of the Mediterranean territory belonging to the former Western Roman Empire, which had been lost less than a century prior. One of the defining features of Belisarius' career was his success despite varying levels of available resources. His name is frequently given as one of the so-called "Last of the Romans". He conquered the Vandal Kingdom of North Africa in the Vandalic War in nine months and conquered much of Italy during the Gothic War. He also defeated the Vandal armies in the battle of Ad Decimum and played an important role at Tricamarum, compelling the Vandal king, Gelimer, to surrender. During the Gothic War, despite being significantly outnumbered, he and his troops recaptured the city of Rome and then held out against great odds during the siege ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ostrogoths
The Ostrogoths ( la, Ostrogothi, Austrogothi) were a Roman-era Germanic peoples, Germanic people. In the 5th century, they followed the Visigoths in creating one of the two great Goths, Gothic kingdoms within the Roman Empire, based upon the large Gothic populations who had settled in the Balkans in the 4th century, having crossed the Lower Danube. While the Visigoths had formed under the leadership of Alaric I, the new Ostrogothic political entity which came to rule Italy was formed in the Balkans under the influence of the Amal dynasty, the family of Theodoric the Great. After the death of Attila and collapse of the Hunnic empire represented by the Battle of Nedao in 453, the Amal family began to form their kingdom in Pannonia. Byzantine Empire, Byzantine Zeno (emperor), Emperor Zeno played these Pannonian Goths off against the Thracian Goths, but instead the two groups united after the death of the Thracian leader Theoderic Strabo and his son Recitach. Zeno then backed Theodori ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anastasius I (emperor)
Anastasius I Dicorus ( grc-gre, Ἀναστάσιος, Anastásios; – 9 July 518) was Eastern Roman emperor from 491 to 518. A career civil servant, he came to the throne at the age of 61 after being chosen by the wife of his predecessor, Zeno. His reign was characterised by reforms and improvements in the government, finances, economy, and bureaucracy of the Empire. He is noted for leaving the empire with a stable government, reinvigorated monetary economy and a sizeable budget surplus, which allowed the Empire to pursue more ambitious policies under his successors, most notably Justinian I. Since many of Anastasius' reforms proved long-lasting, his influence over the Empire endured for many centuries. Anastasius was a Miaphysite and his personal religious tendencies caused tensions throughout his reign in the Empire which was becoming increasingly divided along religious lines. He is venerated as a saint by the Syriac Orthodox Church on 29 July. Early life and family A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Libanius
Libanius ( grc-gre, Λιβάνιος, Libanios; ) was a teacher of rhetoric of the Sophist school in the Eastern Roman Empire. His prolific writings make him one of the best documented teachers of higher education in the ancient world and a critical source of history of the Greek East during the 4th century AD. During the rise of Christian hegemony in the later Roman Empire, he remained unconverted and in religious matters was a pagan Hellene. Life Libanius was born in Antioch, located near the modern-day city of Antakya, Turkey. He was born into a deeply cultured and once-influential family that had experienced substantial recent decline. In 303 AD, eleven years before his birth, his family had participated in resisting an insurrection by a local army garrison. In the end, Roman Imperial authorities were equally concerned by local aristocrats arming themselves as they were by the rebellious troops. Libanius' family fell out of favor and his grandfather was executed. Libanius' fa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Indiction
An indiction ( la, indictio, impost) was a periodic reassessment of taxation in the Roman Empire which took place every fifteen years. In Late Antiquity, this 15-year cycle began to be used to date documents and it continued to be used for this purpose in Medieval Europe, and can also refer to an individual year in the cycle; for example, "the fourth indiction" came to mean the fourth year of the current indiction. Since the cycles themselves were not numbered, other information is needed to identify the specific year. History Indictions originally referred to the periodic reassessment for an agricultural or land tax in the Roman Empire. There were three different cycles: a 15-year cycle used throughout the empire; a 14-year cycle used in Roman Egypt; and a five year cycle called the ''lustrum'', derived from the Roman Republican census. Changes to the tax system usually took place at the beginning of one of these cycles and at the end of the indiction Emperors often chose to forg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Evagrius Scholasticus
Evagrius Scholasticus ( el, Εὐάγριος Σχολαστικός) was a Syrian scholar and intellectual living in the 6th century AD, and an aide to the patriarch Gregory of Antioch. His surviving work, ''Ecclesiastical History'' (), comprises a six-volume collection concerning the Church's history from the First Council of Ephesus (431) to the emperor Maurice’s reign until Scholasticus' death. Life Evagrius Scholasticus was born in Epiphania, a Syrian town located next to the Orontes River in the heart of the Eastern Roman Empire. Controversy exists as to the date on which Evagrius was born, since historian G. F. Chesnut asserts that he was born in either 536 or 537, yet the researcher Whitby claims that he was born in 535. His first written work addressed the plague outbreak which infected a vast segment of the population. Evagrius himself was infected by the outbreak yet miraculously managed to survive this disaster during his youth. According to his own account, clo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Severus Alexander
Marcus Aurelius Severus Alexander (1 October 208 – 21/22 March 235) was a Roman emperor, who reigned from 222 until 235. He was the last emperor from the Severan dynasty. He succeeded his slain cousin Elagabalus in 222. Alexander himself was eventually assassinated, and his death marked the beginning of the events of the Crisis of the Third Century, which included nearly fifty years of civil war, foreign invasion, and the collapse of the monetary economy. Alexander was the heir to his cousin, the 18-year-old Emperor Elagabalus. The latter had been murdered along with his mother Julia Soaemias by his own guards, who, as a mark of contempt, had their remains cast into the Tiber river. Alexander and his cousin were both grandsons of Julia Maesa, the sister of empress Julia Domna, who had arranged for Elagabalus's acclamation as emperor by the Third Gallic Legion. Alexander's 13-year reign was the longest reign of a sole emperor since Antoninus Pius. He was also the second-young ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
