Journal of Medieval History

ISSN: 0304-4181 (Print) 1873-1279 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rmed20

In search of God's only emperor: basileus in

Byzantine and modern historiography

Alexander Angelov

To cite this article: Alexander Angelov (2014) In search of God's only emperor: basileus
in Byzantine and modern historiography, Journal of Medieval History, 40:2, 123-141, DOI:
10.1080/03044181.2014.902398

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03044181.2014.902398

Published online: 03 Apr 2014.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 222

View related articles

View Crossmark data

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rmed20

Download by: [University of Toronto Libraries] Date: 24 November 2016, At: 13:23
Journal of Medieval History, 2014
Vol. 40, No. 2, 123–141, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03044181.2014.902398

In search of God’s only emperor: basileus in Byzantine and modern

historiography
Alexander Angelov*

Department of Religious Studies, The College of William and Mary, P.O. Box 8795, Williamsburg,
VA 23187–8795, United States of America
(Received 19 March 2013; final version received 5 March 2014)

The notion that Byzantine political ideology centered on the basileus (βασιλεύς), understood
as God’s direct representative on earth, has become almost synonymous with Byzantium.
Numerous studies have depicted the Byzantine basileus as an unquestionable ruler who
supposedly rested his authority on God Himself. One God in heaven, the modern
convention maintains, led to a single legitimate Christian basileus on earth. This article
focuses on historical sources from the early Byzantine period and argues that the title and
office of the basileus lacked the extensive sacred rights that scholarship traditionally tends
to emphasise. Byzantine intellectuals applied the title to various foreign rulers without
concern for Christian theological notions at all. By challenging the prevalent modern
doctrine of Byzantine titular exceptionalism, the article is an invitation for new and more
precise evaluations of the meaning of rulership and the ideology of political power in the
Byzantine state.
Keywords: Byzantine imperial ideology; basileus; foreign rulers; Christian notions of power;
theocracy

That the Byzantines supposedly viewed the title basileus (βασιλεύς) as a sacred right reserved
primarily for their own supreme ruler is one of the most entrenched scholarly conventions to
greet us at the door of Byzantium. Evoking such sources as inscriptions, panegyrics,
diplomatic exchanges and imperial coinage, scholars have traditionally acknowledged the
Persian shāh as the only exception to the exclusive Byzantine claim on the title basileus in the
early period.1 Generally after the official recognition of Persia, we are quickly taken into a
world where the Byzantine monarch ‘is the only legitimate emperor on earth, being the
Chosen of God and the successor of Roman emperors’.2 In Byzantium, ‘the idea that there
may be only one single legitimate empire is the basic principle, the alpha and omega of all

*Email: [email protected]
1
For a recent study on cross-cultural relations between Persia and early Byzantium that deals with the
political language of kingship and power in the two polities, see Matthew P. Canepa, The Two Eyes of the
Earth: Art and Ritual of Kingship between Rome and Sasanian Iran (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 2009), 101.
2
George Ostrogorsky, ‘The Byzantine Emperor and the Hierarchical World Order’, Slavonic and East
European Review 35, no. 84 (1956): 5. Ostrogorsky’s views on the political and social history of
Byzantium have been instrumental for the field and have shaped several generations of Byzantinists.

© 2014 Taylor & Francis

124 A. Angelov

Byzantine political doctrines.’3 Moreover, ‘to the Byzantines, and also to all those living in the
Middle Ages, this seemed as natural and incontestable as the belief that there could be only
one true Christian Church.’4

The basileia [emperorship] derives from God and implies the imitation of God. As there is a hierarchy
in nature that places the sun over all, so there is a hierarchy in mankind that places the basileus, man as
he is, on a level with the Heavenly King.5

Bold claims usually trigger academic battles and compel scholars to dig deeper in the
historical trenches of sources and qualifications. But the notion of the Byzantine emperor’s
political and titular exceptionality based on theological ideas has become so ensconced in
modern historiography that instead of battle cries there are mostly symphonic variations on a
theme. For example, one general study traces the notion of rulership as an extension of the
divine to the Hellenistic period and then depicts the Byzantine emperor as its heir. In this
view, Christianity simply strengthened the divine rights of the Byzantine emperor and codified
the ideology for subsequent centuries. The emperor ‘claimed to be “the equal of the Apostles”
and “the friend of Jesus Christ”. He wanted to inject a personal dimension into his relationship
with Christ.’6 Another scholar believes that ‘the empire functioned through a complex
political-theological system, in which the emperor was an autocratic ruler whose power
derived directly from God, and whose task was to maintain order and harmony in imitation of
the heavenly realm.’7 ‘As God represented the ultimate source of law,’ it is argued, ‘so the
emperor chosen by God was the ultimate source of earthly law.’8 In a recent book intended to
bring Byzantium to a wider audience, the emperor is a ruler who ‘maintained a god-like figure
on earth, even if his undisputed authority was sanctioned by God’.9
When it comes to drawing the ideological portrait of the Byzantine emperor, the scholarly
palette is sparse, and the strokes are bold and broad. Two basic characteristics are given to the
basileus. The first highlights the emperor’s privileged relationship to God. The second stresses
his exclusive rights and claims to the title basileus itself. A divine representative on earth, the
Byzantine emperor supposedly rested his authority and title on God Himself. One God in
heaven presumably led to a single emperor on earth.10
In light of the prevalent scholarly depictions, this essay focuses on the issue of Byzantine
titular exceptionality. However, rather than revisiting the official imperial documents,
theological orations and court panegyrics, on which our traditional view of the Byzantine ruler
is largely based, it explores references to basileus in the less-studied literary works of

3
Ostrogorsky, ‘Byzantine Emperor’, 5.
4
Ostrogorsky, ‘Byzantine Emperor’, 5.
5
Francis Dvornik, Early Christian and Byzantine Political Philosophy: Origins and Background.
Dumbarton Oaks Studies 9. 2 vols. (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies,
1966), 2: 691.
6
Michael Angold, Byzantium: the Bridge from Antiquity to the Middle Ages (New York: St Martin’s Press,
2001), 9.
7
John Haldon, Byzantium: a History (Stroud: Tempus, 2002), 10.
8
Haldon, Byzantium, 132.
9
Judith Herrin, Byzantium: the Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
2008), 31.
10
Art historians have generally been devout proponents of such interpretations. For a recent attempt to
reconsider Byzantine imperial power in relation to other cultures centred on the idea of the exotic, see
Alicia Walker, The Emperor and the World: the Exotic Elements and the Imaging of Byzantine Imperial
Power, Ninth to Thirteenth Centuries C.E. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012).
 Journal of Medieval History 125

Byzantine intellectuals.11 Given the long history of Byzantium and the variety of literary genres in
which basileus is encountered, the article draws attention to a sample of Byzantine authors
between the sixth and ninth centuries. The evidence challenges the modern doctrine that insists
on Byzantine titular exceptionalism based on Christian theological norms.
In investigating Byzantine literary sources, it is necessary to remember that the title basileus
from the fourth to the fifteenth century is commonly translated as ‘emperor’. Basileus when found
in classical sources, however, is translated as ‘king’. Although modern Byzantinists have largely
neglected the classical meaning of basileus, it is important to take it seriously since the Byzantine
intellectuals themselves were steeped in the classical tradition.
Even if the Byzantine writers were simply borrowing their terminology from pre-Christian,
classical sources, it is indicative that they found no reason to revise or explain how their
political vocabulary fitted a presumably new ideological context. When it comes to basileus, it
is certainly challenging to identify a specific and universal titular criterion, for the Byzantine
intellectuals did not elaborate on the issue. Moreover, different authors had their own
individual viewpoints. What is certain, however, is that neither lofty theology nor an overly
ambitious and unrealistic sense of boundless imperialism affected the political nomenclature
used by Byzantine intellectuals.12
In recent years, revisionist studies have brought us closer to the rich complexity of the
Byzantine state and the sophisticated, often subversive, erudition of the Byzantine intellectuals
on whom we largely rely to learn about Byzantium in the first place.13 By arguing that authors
such as Procopius, John Malalas, Theophanes the Confessor, George the Monk and Photius
did not frame the imperial office along theological and exclusivist norms, the present article,
too, is an invitation for more precise evaluations of the meaning of rulership and the ideology
of political power in the Byzantine state.

Basileus in the mirror of modern historiography

Modern scholars, who have embraced the notion of Byzantine imperial exceptionality, have
largely relied on evidence drawn from rhetorical sources, descriptions of imperial ceremonial

11
Scholarship focused on official imperial diplomacy and court literature is abundant. Some classic
examples are Franz Dölger, Byzanz und die europäische Staatenwelt: ausgewählte Vorträge (Darmstadt:
Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1976); Louis Bréhier, Les institutions de l’empire byzantin (Paris:
A. Michel, 1949), especially 229–33; and Arnold Toynbee, Constantine Porphyrogenitus and His World
(London: Oxford University Press, 1973), especially 358–76 and 383–5.
12
For the classic scholarly view of Byzantine imperial exceptionalism, see Dimitri Obolensky, The
Byzantine Commonwealth: Eastern Europe, 500–1453 (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1971), 2: ‘The
Byzantines, for their part, believing that the political organization of this world was part of the divine
order, do not seem to have felt the need to reflect deeply on the actual mechanism of international
society. Most of them took for granted the idea that their emperor’s authority was universal.’ Note also
Obolensky’s conceptualisation of the medieval world depicted here, without any qualification, as ‘an
international society’. For a theoretical overview and discussion of the issues in the debates on the
emergence of ethnic groups and nation-states, see Geoff Eley and Ronald Grigor Suny, eds., Becoming
National: a Reader (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996).
13
For some notable examples, see Anthony Kaldellis, Procopius of Caesarea: Tyranny, History, and
Philosophy at the End of Antiquity (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004); Dimitris
Krallis, ‘“Democratic” Action in Eleventh-Century Byzantium: Michael Attaleiates’s “Republicanism” in
Context’, Viator 40, no. 2 (2009): 35–53; Leonora Neville, Heroes and Romans in Twelfth-Century
Byzantium: the Material for History of Nikephoros Bryennios (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2012); Dimiter Angelov, ed., Power and Subversion in Byzantium: Papers from the 43rd Spring
Symposium of Byzantine Studies (Farnham: Ashgate Variorum, 2013).
126 A. Angelov

and laudatory introductions in official imperial documents.14 According to this historiographical

view, the theoretical concepts of Byzantine emperorship became fixed under Constantine I
(r. 313–37) and remained essentially unchanged until the last emperor, Constantine XI
Palaeologus (r. 1437–53).15 The tradition underscores an undisputed imperial power granted
directly by God, apostolic functions of the emperor as a servant of Christ, and sacred rule over
a state understood as an earthly imitation of God’s realm in heaven.16 This is the most familiar
image of Byzantine imperial power, one that has largely prevailed in modern historiography
and is to be found today in most popular and general books on Byzantium. Comparisons of
Byzantium to a commonwealth that shared Christian ideology and Byzantine cultural influence
have derived from this view.17
Three recent studies have sought to modify the widespread depiction of the Byzantine
emperor as God’s only legitimate representative on earth whose multi-ethnic subjects were
supposedly united by their common Christianity. The first explores the charged relationship
between the Byzantine emperor’s political and religious duties. In Emperor and Priest, Gilbert
Dagron deepens and refines our understanding of the sacrality of the imperial office. Although
he does not specifically address the issue of Roman identity in Byzantium, he invites us to
remember:

The empire existed independently of the emperors who came to power and who attempted to found a
dynasty. It existed in the Roman form of a vast administrative and juridical construction which the
sovereign dominated and whose cohesion he ensured without ever becoming entirely identified
with it.18

The second study focuses on the later imperial period and examines the rich variety of
Byzantine opinions on imperial power, its theoretical and practical functions. ‘We will make
no attempt to distill ideology from imperial policies,’ Dimiter Angelov promises, ‘for our

14
For major representatives of this approach, see Otto Treitinger, Die oströmische Kaiser- und Reichsidee
nach ihrer Gestaltung im höfischen Zeremoniell. 2nd edn. (Darmstadt: H. Gentner, 1956); Herbert Hunger,
Prooimion. Elemente der byzantinischen Kaiseridee in den Arengen der Urkunden (Vienna: In Kommission
bei H. Böhlaus Nachf., 1964). For the methodological approach and conclusions of scholars supporting the
‘Kaiseridee’, see Dimiter Angelov, Imperial Ideology and Political Thought in Byzantium, 1204–1330
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 9–10.
15
For an introduction, see Rodolphe Guilland, Recherches sur les institutions byzantines. 2 vols. (Berlin:
Akademie-Verlag, 1967), 1: 3–12.
16
Scholars usually trace the notion of the apostolic functions of the Byzantine emperor back to Constantine I
and the writings of Eusebius. The bibliography is extensive. For a most recent examination, see Noel Lenski,
ed., The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Constantine. 2nd edn. (New York: Cambridge University
Press, 2012), especially H.A. Drake’s chapter, ‘The Impact of Constantine on Christianity’, 111–36, with
its discussion of Constantine as isapostolos, ‘equal to the apostles’ (128).
17
Obolensky, Byzantine Commonwealth; Garth Fowden, Empire to Commonwealth: Consequences of
Monotheism in Late Antiquity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993). A more recent proponent of
the ‘commonwealth’ framework predicated upon Christianity is George Hatke, ‘Holy Land and Sacred
History: a View from Early Ethiopia’, in Visions of Community in the Post-Roman World: the West,
Byzantium and the Islamic World, 300–1100, eds. Walter Pohl, Clemens Gantner and Richard Payne
(Farnham: Ashgate, 2012), 259–75, especially 264.
18
Gilbert Dagron, Emperor and Priest: the Imperial Office in Byzantium (New York: Cambridge University
Press, 2003), 21. Stressing the fact that there were never laws of imperial succession in Byzantium, Theodor
Mommsen held a similar view and maintained that Byzantium was effectively ‘an autocracy tempered by the
legal right of revolution’: J. Marquardt and T. Mommsen, Handbuch der römischen Alterthümer. Bande 1-3
Römisches Staatsrecht, vol. 1, part 2, (Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1887), 1077. See also J.B. Bury, The Constitution
of the Later Roman Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1910), 9, where Mommsen is quoted.
 Journal of Medieval History 127

interest lies in the articulated political thinking and vocabulary of the Byzantines themselves.’19
Angelov then systematically shows how late Byzantine authors framed and re-framed the concept
of emperorship depending on cultural context and the conventions of the literary genres that
guided their writings. He points out that the Byzantine notion of a divine-right monarch was
only one of the competing political views on the nature of the imperial office in the late
period. Besides the familiar notion of the Byzantine emperor as a divine representative on
earth, Angelov discovers that the Byzantine intellectuals depicted the emperor as a mortal
being vulnerable to sin and thus destined to face the Last Judgement; an executive of a public
office defined along the lines of classical Roman legal thought; and the embodiment of
supreme and absolute political authority. Overall, Angelov presents the multiple ideological
positions of the Byzantines and thus challenges the monolithic doctrine of divine-right
imperial ideology in the late period.
The third study boldly characterises Byzantium as a nation-state rather than as an empire,
underscoring its traditional Roman identity, republican ideology and institutions. ‘Byzantium,
as the natural continuation of the later Roman empire,’ Anthony Kaldellis states, ‘is here for
the first time defined as the nation-state of the Romans, a unified political community held
together by a common “custom” (ethos).’20 Overrall, Kaldellis contends that the importance of
Christianity for the political and social consolidation of Byzantium has been exaggerated and
points out that it did not automatically grant the Byzantine emperor a divine-right position at
the top of a political-theological hierarchy. Instead, the emperor was ‘the head, servant, and
symbol of what counted: the nexus of faith, law, history, custom, and language called the
politeia, the ancient res publica, the shared national polity’.21 In effect, Kaldellis reverses the
conventional scholarly notions of the Byzantine political ideology. Instead of an expansive
empire or a commonwealth culturally revolving around Christianity, he depicts a bounded
nation-state whose political and cultural solidarity is based on a strong self-identification with
Roman culture and its inherent republican traditions. And instead of a divinely sanctioned
emperor, Kaldellis envisions a ruler subordinate in principle to the people whom he represents
and from whom he actually derives his power.
Kaldellis’ ideas have implications beyond Byzantine studies as they engage with modern
debates and definitions of national and ethnic identity. But as radical as Kaldellis’ contentions
may appear at first sight, some of them are shared by an important predecessor. In the 1970s,
the German scholar Hans-Georg Beck went beyond the rhetorical propaganda of Byzantine
court literature to the political practices of the Byzantines.22 He pointed out that the imperial
office did not assure unrestained power, but had its specific institutional constraints. Beck

19
Angelov, Imperial Ideology, 2.
20
Anthony Kaldellis, Hellenism in Byzantium: the Transformations of Greek Identity and the Reception of
the Classical Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 76. Kaldellis admits that the notion
of a Byzantine nation-state may need further exploration and ‘may later have to be modified or varied, but it
offers, I believe, the best starting-point than the definition currently in use’ (i.e. the prevalent depiction of
Byzantium as a multi-ethnic empire whose Orthodox Christianity was critically important both for the
theoretical notion of emperorship and for purposes of cultural assimilation) (75–7). Although not as
insistent as Kaldellis, Averil Cameron, too, draws attention to certain nationalist elements in Byzantine
society: ‘My point is not to claim Byzantium as a proto-nation, though it did at various times have
several of the elements that various contributors to the nation and nationalism debate have laid down as
characteristic: shared memory, defined cultural characteristics, myths of foundation, defined territory
(sometimes in theory at any rate), name and religion’: The Byzantines (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2006), 168.
21
Kaldellis, Hellenism in Byzantium, 75.
22
For example, Hans-Georg Beck, Res Publica Romana: vom Staatsdenken der Byzantiner (Munich:
Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1970). See also Angelov, Imperial Ideology, 10–12.
128 A. Angelov

argued that the Byzantines never forgot the social and intellectual Roman republican ideals and
drew attention to the instability of the imperial office. In contrast to the 31 emperors who
peacefully inherited the throne from their fathers or grandfathers, for example, 37 were
usurpers who managed to gain legitimacy and retained their power.23
Highlighting the fact that official dynastic transmission of power never fully emerged in
Byzantium, Beck interpreted the exaltations of court rhetoric as a political attempt to secure an
inherently volatile office. ‘The senate’ and ‘the people’ were not abstract political notions, but
exercised a real role in Byzantine life. When the emperor was perceived to betray the
responsibilities of his executive office, the Byzantines removed him. In Beck’s view, therefore,
the Roman res publica continued in Byzantium, too. Although Beck’s position has rarely been
discussed in recent scholarship, it requires a serious re-evaluation as it reconsiders some of the
basic assumptions about the Byzantine state and society.24 In the passages from early
Byzantine historians explored below, there is a limited interest in titular rights based on
Christian notions.

Basileus in Byzantine historiography

Archōn (ἄρχων: ruler), archēgos (ἀρχηγός: chieftain/leader), phylarchos (ϕύλαρχος: chieftain),
rēx (ῥήξ: king) and hēgemōn (ἡγεμών: ruler/leader) are the designated titles of foreign rulers
that modern scholars are usually conditioned to expect in Byzantine texts. The Greek Lexicon
of the Roman and Byzantine Periods explicitly instructs us that basileus is reserved only for
the Byzantine emperor and the Persian shāh.25 The appellations adelphos (ἀδελϕός: brother)
and hyios (υἱός: son) are thus regularly invoked in scholarly literature to argue that the
Byzantines imagined the global political order as a family led by the Byzantine patēr (πατήρ:
father), the basileus.26 Intricate theories on the operations of Byzantine diplomacy have been
woven to argue that the Byzantines strictly guarded their imperial title, allowing an exception

23
For specifics, see R.-J. Lilie, ʻDer Kaiser in der Statistik’, in Hypermachos: Studien zu Byzantinistik,
Armenologie und Georgistik, eds. Christos Stavrakos, Alexandra-Kyriaki Wassiliou and Mesrob
K. Krikorian (Vienna: Harrassowitz in Kommission, 2008), 211–33 (214).
24
Specialists of late antiquity have generally argued that Roman identity continued to shape the
Mediterranean society even after ‘the fall of the empire’ in 476. In recent years, this has become one of
the basic interpretative topoi of the field. For a recent study that deals with issues of Roman identity, see
Jonathan Conant, Staying Roman: Conquest and Identity in Africa and the Mediterranean, 439–700
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012). However, there are no recent monographs that explore
carefully the Roman identity of the Byzantines, despite the fact that the Byzantines understood
themselves as actual Romans.
25
Sophocles, Greek Lexicon of the Roman and Byzantine Periods, Part 1 (New York: Charles Scribner’s
Sons, 1900), 301–2.
26
For a recent re-affirmation of the traditional depiction of the Byzantine emperor as a ‘father’ of a ‘family of
nations’, see Ivan Biliarsky, Hierarchia, l’ordre sacré: étude de l’esprit romanique (Fribourg: Éditions
universitaires, 1997), 15: ‘Dans le domaine politique domine la doctrine impériale de la Ville Éternelle
qui prend le Christianisme comme son fondement spirituel après l’époque de Constantin le Grand. Selon
les romaioi les états du monde et leurs souverains forment une structure hiérarchisée. C’est leur “famille”
où chacun d’eux – appelé respectivement “frère”, “fils”, etc.– a sa place. Cette place se détermine par
rapport au basileus qui est le “père”.’ Biliarsky is aware that this view could be traced to Fr. Dölger, ‘Die
“Familie der Könige” im Mittelalter’, Historisches Jahrbuch 60 (1940): 397–420. See also Fr. Dölger,
‘Die mittelalterliche “Familie der Fürsten und Völker” unter der Bulgarienherrscher’, in idem, Byzanz
und die europäische Staatenwelt: ausgewählte Vorträge und Aufsätze (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche
Buchgesellschaft, 1964), 159–82. See Biliarsky, Hierarchia, 15‒16. See also Maurice Duverger, ed., Le
concept d’empire (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1980). See specifically Hélène Ahrweiler’s
contribution, ‘L’Empire byzantine’, 131–49, especially 135.
 Journal of Medieval History 129

only for the Persian shāh, because the Byzantines presumably based their notions of political
superiority on an elaborate theology of divine-right power.27 In modern scholarship, the two
most repeated examples of Byzantine diplomatic struggles to protect the exclusivist notions of
the imperial title are Charlemagne’s political efforts on the one hand and the Bulgarian ruler
Symeon’s quest for the title on the other.28
Considerable effort has been dedicated to examining official imperial documents in order to
find out how the Byzantines conceived of basileus and when they brought the title into use for the
first time.29 Evangelos Chrysos has re-evaluated the official documents, inscriptions and coins to
conclude that in the period from Constantine in the fourth century to Heraclius in the seventh
century ‘with the exception of the Persian King of Kings, in no case was any foreign ruler
ever officially conceded or acknowledged to hold legitimately the title basileus’.30 Chrysos
acknowledged that the Byzantine literary sources differed markedly from the official ones.31
However, he chose to focus on the imperial documents and affirmed the notion that the
reservation of the usage of basileus only for Byzantium and Persia was so widely accepted in
medieval political culture that the foreign rulers themselves ‘consciously refrained from
arrogating the exclusive title’.32 In Byzantium specifically, it is held, Hellenistic and Christian
notions of monarchy underpinned the official ideology of basileus.33 According to sources

27
See Canepa, Two Eyes of the Earth, 138: ‘The two sovereigns [the Byzantine and the Persian] constructed
their empires and their dignity as equal through the familial term “brother” … ’
28
For Charlemagne, see Constantine N. Tsirpanlis, ‘Byzantine Reactions to the Coronation of Charlemagne
(780–813)’, in idem, Studies in Byzantine History and Modern Greek Folklore, vol. 1 (New York: Eo Press,
1980), 75–88 (reprinted from Byzantina 6 (1974): 347–60); and idem, ‘The Imperial Coronation and Theory
in “De cerimoniis aulae Byzantinae” of Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus’, in idem, Studies in Byzantine
History and Modern Greek Folklore, vol. 1, 89–117 (reprinted from Kleronomia 4 (1972): 63‒91). For
Symeon, see Evangelos K. Chrysos, ‘The Title ΒΑΣΙΛΕϒΣ in Early Byzantine International Relations’,
Dumbarton Oaks Papers 32 (1978): 29–75. The standard work on Symeon in Bulgarian is still Ivan
͡
Bozhilov, TSar Simeon Veliki, 893-927: zlatniı͡at vek na Srednovekovna Bŭlgariı͡a [in Bulgarian: Czar
Symeon the Great: The Golden Century of Medieval Bulgaria] (Sofia: Izd-vo na Otechestveniı͡a front, 1983).
29
George Ostrogorsky summarised an already established scholarly position and insisted that for the first
time the Greek basileus officially replaced the Latin imperator in a legal novel under the Emperor
Heraclius in 629. He explained the precedent with the general cultural pattern of Hellenisation in the
empire. In the period before 629, Ostrogorsky argued, basileus was simply equivalent to the Latin rex
(king) and thus Byzantine intellectuals, especially from the Greek East, used it without any qualms. After
629, according to Ostrogorsky, basileus officially replaced imperator (autokratōr), caesar and augustus,
so the Greek title basileus became exclusive. See his History of the Byzantine State (New Brunswick, NJ:
Rutgers University Press, 1969), 106, n. 2. Ostrogorsky himself credits Louis Bréhier, ‘L’origine des
titres impériaux à Byzance’, Byzantinische Zeitschrift 15, number 1 (1906): 161‒78. See also Irfan
Shahid, ‘The Iranian Factor in Byzantium during the Reign of Heraclius’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 26
(1972): 293‒320. For the legal novel, dated 21 March 629, see Ioannes Zepos and Panayiotis Zepos,
eds., Jus Graecoromanum, vol. 1 (Athens: Scientia, 1931), 36.
30
Chrysos, ‘The Title ΒΑΣΙΛΕϒΣ’, 59, where he rejects Ostrogorsky’s position that the year 629 marked a
significant change in the official Byzantine usage of basileus. Chrysos argues that even eastern rulers,
appointed by the Byzantine emperor, were not granted the title. See also the important article of
A. Gasquet, ‘L’empire d’orient et l’empire d’occident. De l’emploi du mot βασιλεύς dans les actes de la
chancellerie byzantine’, Revue Historique 26 (1884): 281–302.
31
For the observation on the difference between official and literary sources, Chrysos, ‘The Title
ΒΑΣΙΛΕϒΣ’, 59, n. 189, pointing to T. Nöldeke, Die ghassânischen Fürsten aus dem Hause Gafna’s
(Berlin: Verlag der Königl. Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1887), and T. Mommsen, ‘Ostgothische
Studien’, in idem, Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 6 (Berlin: Weidmann, 1910), 362–484.
32
Chrysos, ‘The Title ΒΑΣΙΛΕϒΣ’, 60.
33
Some scholars have argued that it was really Old Testament models (Moses in particular) that inspired the
Byzantine monarchical ideology and the Hellenistic ideas had little to no influence. See R. Farina, L’impero e
130 A. Angelov

from the imperial chancery, the first formal break in the traditional titular usage came when
Charlemagne was granted the title in the ninth century.
In contrast to this exclusive usage of basileus found in official Byzantine documents, literary
sources apply the title widely and offer unique access to the cultural and political notions that
underpinned it. Although Byzantine intellectuals never presented a systematic political
philosophy precisely delineating their notions of power, they invoked it in the context of
specific ethnographic descriptions of foreign peoples, their polities and rulers. As a result, an
analysis centred on the broader historical and intellectual context of the given author makes it
possible to evaluate whether and how (if at all) the title basileus was adjusted for different
literary genres, political and cultural agendas, as well as to see to what degree Christian
notions affected the titular usage of the Byzantine historians.
In the early Byzantine period, it is Procopius of Caesarea, the main historian of the dramatic
rule of Emperor Justinian (r. 527–65), who gives some of the most detailed ethnographic
descriptions of foreign peoples, their polities and basileis. Procopius wrote three books on
Justinian and his reign, but for the purposes of this article only his Wars is relevant. As a
private secretary to the general Belisarius, Procopius was a member of Justinian’s closest
political circle and claimed privileged access to information.
Procopius mentioned 11 contemporary peoples and their respective basileis: the Ephthalitae
Huns, the Persian Saracens, the Roman Saracens, the Aksūmites, the Homerites, the Iberians, the
Goths, the Italians, the Vandals, the Heruls and, of course, the Persians.34 While this list is strictly
based on the historian’s naming of specific foreign rulers, it is possible to include even more
basileis. For example, there were 13 different ethnē (ἔθνη) on the island of Thule, and a
separate basileus ruled each one of them.35 In the late fifth and early sixth centuries, moreover,
many basileis ruled in the West.36 If we extend the list back to antiquity, there are basileis
such as the biblical Solomon; Osroes, the eponymous founder of Osroene in Mesopotamia;
Abgar, the basileus of Edessa, who reportedly exchanged letters with Jesus; and the
mythological Antaeus, basileus tēs Libyēs (βασιλεὺς τῆς Λιβύης), who wrestled with
Heracles.37 No matter how they are counted, Procopius’ list is long, so the focus here is on
some of the most indicative examples in order to understand the political parameters of
Procopius’ titular nomenclature and to see whether Christian monarchical notions framed his
usage of the title.
In the narrative progression of the Wars, the first foreign basileus whom we meet, other than
the Persian shāh, is the ruler of the Ephthalitae Huns. Unlike the rest of the Hunnic groups whom
Procopius disparaged as savage nomads, he praised the Ephthalitae Huns for their polity whose
capital Gorgo was near the Persian frontier. A single basileus governed their lawful politeia

l’imperatore cristiano in Eusebio di Cesarea: la prima teologia del cristianesimo (Zurich: Pas Verlag, 1966),
189‒90.
34
Procopius, De bellis, in Procopii Caesariensis opera omnia, eds. J. Haury and G. Wirth. 2 vols. [Vol. 1:
books 1‒4; vol. 2: books 5–8] (Leipzig: B.G. Teubneri, 1962), Book 1, Chapter 3.17 (Huns); Book 1,
Chapter 17.29 (Persian Saracens); Book 1, Chapter 17.47 (Roman Saracens); Book 1, Chapter 19.17
(Aksūmites); Book 1, Chapter 20.1 (Homerites); Book 2, Chapter 15.7 (Iberians); Book 3, Chapter 8.13
(Goths); Book 2, Chapter 2.4 (Goths and Italians); Book 3, Chapter 8.7 (Vandals); and Book 6, Chapter
14.1 (Heruls). References to Persian basileis are numerous.
35
Procopius, De bellis, Book 6, Chapter 15.5: ‘βασιλεῖς τέ εἰσι κατὰ ἔθνος ἕκαστον’. Procopius situated
Thule north of Britain and emphasised its size, strange seasons and variety of peoples, although he admitted
that he had never been there.
36
Procopius, De bellis, Book 3, Chapter 7.16.
37
Procopius, De bellis, Book 4, Chapter 9.7 (Solomon); Book 1, Chapter 17.24 (Osroes); Book 2, Chapter
12.6 (Abgar); and Book 4, Chapter 10.24 (Antaeus).
 Journal of Medieval History 131

(πολιτεία), and they respected the rule of law at home and abroad.38 For those Huns, justice
prevailed ‘no less than it did for the Romans and the Persians’.39 In theory, if not always in
practice, the rule of law was the political basis of the Roman and Persian states, and so it was
for the Huns. It is true that Hunnic culture and social customs remained foreign to Procopius,
and he continued to refer to the Ephthalitae as barbaroi (βάρβαροι), but the structure of their
polity credited their ruler with the title basileus.40
In another section that describes the emperor Justinian’s diplomatic dealings with political
leaders in the Red Sea region, we find a telling example of Procopius’ titular usage.41 The
rulers of the Ethiopians and the Homerites (the south Arabian Himyarites in different sources)
drew his attention.42 ‘Called Aksūmites because ta basileia (τὰ βασίλεια: ‘royal residences,
royal court, capital’) is in the city of Aksūm’, Procopius explained, ‘the Ethiopians lived on
the opposite coast of the Homerites.’43 On the other hand, the Homerites inhabited the
territories across the sea near ‘the man-eating Saracens’.44 To the east of the former basileia of
Arabia, whose ancient basileus resided in the city of Petra, were ‘the peoples of India. But,
one may say of them whatever one wishes.’45 Procopius structured his narrative on the
communities of the Red Sea region around the emperor’s local priorities: control of the
important silk route; imposition of a trade embargo on Persia; and mobilisation of the local
polities against the enemy empire.46 On the basis of Procopius’ account, it is difficult to
determine the type of political organisation that governed the Ethiopian and Homerite
communities. On the one hand, it is clear that the local rulers were settled in cities,
participated in an intricate economic network and managed to establish control over some
regional tribes. On the other hand, Procopius did not mention any specific Ethiopian or
Homerite political institutions, and although we learn that his contemporary Hellestheaeus,
basileus tōn Aithiopōn (βασιλεὺς τῶν Αἰθιόπων), was a Christian, there is no mention of a
local ecclesiastical hierarchy either.47 According to earlier Byzantine authors, the Ethiopian
ruler Ezana converted to Christianity in the fourth century, but Procopius did not mention him
at all.48

38
For a discussion of politeia in the works of some Byzantine intellectuals understood as res publica or
koinon and thus to mean popular consensus above the power of the Byzantine emperor himself that
ideologically made him ‘a servant of the people’, see Kaldellis, Hellenism in Byzantium, 49–50.
39
Procopius, De bellis, Book 1, Chapter 3.5–6: ‘οὐ μὴν οὔτε τὴν δίαιταν ὁμοιότροπον αὐτοῖς ἔχουσιν οὔτε
θηρίου βίον τινὰ ᾗπερ ἐκεῖνοι ζῶσιν, ἀλλὰ καὶ πρὸς βασιλέως ἑνὸς ἄρχονται καὶ πολιτείαν ἔννομον
ἔχοντες ἀλλήλοις τε καὶ τοῖς πέλας ἀεὶ ὀρθῶς καὶ δικαίως ξυμβάλλουσι, Ῥωμαίων τε καὶ Περσῶν
οὐδέν τι ἧσσον.’
40
For ‘barbarians’, see Procopius, De bellis, Book 1, Chapter 4.16–17.
41
For a recent study of the Red Sea region, see Timothy Power, The Red Sea from Byzantium to the
Caliphate, A.D. 500–1000 (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2012).
42
Procopius, De bellis, Book 1, Chapter 19.7–17.
43
Procopius. De bellis, Book 1, Chapter 19.17: ‘Ὁμηριτῶν δὲ καταντικρὺ μάλιστα ἐν τῇ ἀντιπέρας ἠπείρῳ
Αἰθίοπες οἰκοῦσιν, οἳ Αὐξωμῖται ἐπικαλοῦνται, ὅτι δὴ αὐτοῖς τὰ βασίλειά ἐστιν ἐν πόλει Αὐξώμιδι.’
44
Procopius, De bellis, Book 1, Chapter 19.15.
45
Procopius, De bellis, Book 1, Chapter 19.16.
46
For the general political and economic dynamics in the region, see E.H. Seland, ‘Trade and Christianity in
the Indian Ocean During Late Antiquity’, Journal of Late Antiquity 5 (2012): 72–86.
47
Procopius, De bellis, Book 1, Chapter 20.1.
48
Stuart C. Munro-Hay, ‘The Dating of Ezana and Frumentius’, Rassegna di Studi Etiopici 32 (1988):
111–27. For a more recent discussion on Ethiopia, see Maxime Rodinson, ‘La conversion de l’Éthiopie’,
Raydān 7 (2001): 225–62. See also George Hatke, ‘Holy Land and Sacred History: a View from Early
Ethiopia’, Visions of Community, eds. Pohl, Gantner and Payne, 259–75. For a discussion of Ethiopian
Christianity in the specific context of trade networks, see Power, Red Sea, 25–59.
132 A. Angelov

It is critical to emphasise that Procopius did not find Christianity, upon which scholars usually
construct the theory of the Byzantine emperor as a direct representative of God on earth,
applicable in the context of his political nomenclature. Instead, he ascribed the title to rulers of
different polities, some of whom were separated by several centuries. Thus, we learn that a
basileus led ‘the ancient’ Arabians, the Christian Ethiopians and the neighbouring Homerites
with their strong Jewish community whose ‘old faith men of the present day call “Hellenic”’.49
A separate episode in Book 3 is additional evidence that Christian notions did not affect
Procopius’ nomenclature. In 490, Thrasamund became basileus tōn Bandilōn (βασιλεὺς τῶν
Βανδίλων).50 He continued the policy of his predecessors and also turned against the
Orthodox Christians in his state. Being a gifted and prudent ruler, Procopius observed, he
sought to change ‘the faith of their fathers, not by torturing their bodies as his predecessors
had done, but by bestowing upon them honours and offices and giving them great sums of
money’.51 The Vandal ruler even exonerated convicted criminals if they were to renounce
Orthodox Christianity. Despite Thrasamund’s anti-Orthodox policies, however, Procopius
concluded that due to the territorial expansion that Thrasamund brought about, he ‘was
considered the strongest and most powerful of all those who had ruled over the Vandals’.52
The interchangeable usage of basileus in Procopius seems to suggest that it was not the
exclusivity of the title, but the type of government that mattered to him. Christianity was not a
factor in Procopius’ political terminology, but a concern for justice in a given polity seems to
have counted. The historian’s evaluation of Theoderic’s rule in Italy (493‒526) gives perhaps
some of the clearest insight into his philosophy of power. The colourful rule of Theoderic has
divided modern scholarship. Opinions have varied between characterisations of Theoderic as a
powerful founder of an independent kingdom in Italy and portrayals of him as a Roman
emperor in the challenging social and political milieu of late antiquity.53 For Procopius,
however, the nature of Theoderic’s rule appeared to be more straightforward. ‘And though he
[Theoderic] did not claim the right to assume either the attire or the name of basileus tōn
Rōmaiōn (βασιλεὺς τῶν Ῥωμαῖων)’, Procopius explained, ‘but was called rēx to the end of his
life (for thus the barbarians are accustomed to call their leaders), still, in governing his own
subjects, he invested himself with all the qualities which appropriately belong to one who is
by nature basileus (tō physei basilei, τῷ ϕύσει βασιλεῖ).’54 According to Procopius, the nature
of Theoderic’s rule effectively granted him a rightful claim to the title basileus. The particular

49
For the multiple cultural meanings that the term ‘Hellenic’ carried for the Byzantines over time, see
Kaldellis, Hellenism in Byzantium.
50
Procopius, De bellis, Book 3, Chapter 8.7.
51
Procopius, De bellis, Book 3, Chapter 8.
52
Procopius, De bellis, Book 3, Chapter 8: ‘ἔδοξεν ὁ Τρασαμοῦνδος πάντων δὴ τῶν ἐν Βανδίλοις
ἡγησαμένων κρείσσων τε εἶναι καὶ δυνατώτατος.’ Note here the usage of ἡγησαμένων. In a couple of
instances, Procopius seemed to have equated hēgemōn (ἡγεμών) with basileus and archēgos. See Book 2,
Chapter 2, where Vittigis is referred to as ‘ὁ τῶν Γότθων ἡγούμενος’ (usually translated as ruler/leader of
the Goths) and ‘ὁ Γότθων τε καὶ Ἰταλιωτῶν βασιλεύς’ (usually translated as king of the Goths and
Italians, but note the usage of basileus). Book 6, Chapters 14–15, refers to the ruler of the Heruls as
basileus, archēgos, or even as ‘ὁ ῥὴξ τῶν Ἑρούλων’ (usually translated as king of the Heruls).
53
On the widely debated question of Romanness and barbarian identity in late antiquity, see Patrick Amory,
People and Identity in Ostrogothic Italy, 489–554 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). For a
detailed discussion on the western part of the empire in the period, see Peter Heather, The Fall of the
Roman Empire: a New History of Rome and the Barbarians (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006).
For an argument of Gothic ethnogenesis, see Walter Pohl, ‘Telling the Difference: Signs of Ethnic
Identity’, in Strategies of Distinction: the Construction of Ethnic Communities, 300–800, eds. Walter
Pohl and Helmut Reimitz (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 17–69.
54
Procopius, De bellis, Book 5, Chapter 1.26.
 Journal of Medieval History 133

titulature was basically lost in translation between the ‘barbarian’ culture of the Goths and the
Romans. Theoderic’s subjects called him rēx, but Procopius, evaluating Theoderic’s reign from
a Roman perspective, praised him as a viable basileus tōn Rōmaiōn (βασιλεὺς τῶν Ῥωμαῖων).
In Procopius’ evaluation, the emperor of the Romans was a public servant and thus carried
specific institutional duties. Any emperor of the Romans was expected to administer justice, to
abide by the established laws and to secure the defence of the state. ‘The highest possible
degree of wisdom and manliness’ were needed.55 Apparently, Theoderic’s way of governing
met Procopius’ criteria. After the murder of Odoacer, Procopius specifically explained,
‘Theoderic was in name tyrannos (τύραννος), yet in fact he was a true basileus no less than
those who had distinguished themselves in this office from the beginning.’56
In another revealing passage, Procopius places us amidst Justinian’s Balkan campaigns.
Pressed by Huns, Vandals, Utigurs and Cutrigurs, the Roman basileus tried to pit them
strategically against one another.57 Earlier the Huns and the Utigurs were Roman allies against
the Vandals, but Justinian now managed to make them mutual enemies. However, the Huns
lost the battle and ‘2000’ of their families poured into Roman territory.58 Justinian did not
block the migration and even accommodated the Hunnic settlement in Thrace. ‘But when
Sandil, the basileus of the Utigurs, learned this, he was exasperated and furious’, Procopius
observed, ‘because he himself had turned against the Cutrigurs, who were his kinsmen, for
having harmed the Romans and having driven them from the land of their fathers while the
basileus [of the Romans] was now allowing them to settle in the land of the Romans where
they were going to live better.’59
In a single sentence and without any qualification, Procopius applied the title basileus to the
leader of the Utigurs, Sandil, and to the Roman ruler, Justinian. Procopius found nothing
exceptional and Christian about the title basileus itself. Instead, he thought it notable and
astonishing that Sandil and all of the Utigurs were completely illiterate. ‘They neither have
any elementary-level teacher nor do their children grow by labouring over letters’, Procopius
observed with much disapproval.60 The prominent political features of both rulers, therefore,
did not revolve around the actual titulature or Christianity at all, but were rather centred on the
higher civilisation of the Romans that appealed on some basic level even to the jealous and

55
Procopius, De bellis, Book 5, Chapter 1.26.
56
Procopius, De bellis, Book 5, Chapter 1.29: ‘ἦν τε ὁ Θευδέριχος λόγῳ μὲν τύραννος, ἔργῳ δὲ βασιλεὺς
ἀληθὴς τῶν ἐν ταύτῃ τῇ τιμῇ τὸ ἐξ ἀρχῆς ηὐδοκιμηκότων οὐδενὸς ἧσσον.’ In this context, ‘τύραννος’
means ‘usurper’, not ‘tyrant’.
57
In recent years, contemporary political developments and cultural movements have sparked a wide
scholarly interest in identity-formation and ethnicity in general. Most recently, Florin Curta has studied
and re-evaluated sixth-century ethnonyms in the Balkans to argue in a carefully qualified way that they
were generally a Byzantine invention. See his stimulating The Making of the Slavs: History and
Archaeology of the Lower Danube Region, ca. 500–700 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
For the ‘Huns’, see O.J. Maenchen-Helfen, The World of the Huns (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1973). For other groups in the period, see Florin Curta, ed., Neglected Barbarians (Turnhout:
Brepols, 2010). For a careful study of identity and ‘ethnicity’ in the sixth century and well into the early
modern period, see John V.A. Fine, Jr., When Ethnicity Did Not Matter in the Balkans (Ann Arbor, MI:
University of Michigan Press, 2006).
58
Procopius, De bellis, Book 8, Chapter 19.8. The numbers should be understood figuratively.
59
Procopius, De bellis, Book 8, Chapter 19.8: ‘ἅπερ ἐπεὶ Σανδὶλ, ὁ τῶν Οὐτιγούρων βασιλεὺς, ἔμαθε,
παρωξυσμένος τε καὶ περιωργισμένος, εἰ αὐτὸς μὲν Κουτριγούρους ὁμογενεῖς ὄντας ἀδικίας τῆς ἐς
Ῥωμαίους τιννύμενος ἐξ ἠθῶν ἀναστήσειεν αὐτοὺς τῶν πατρίων, οἱ δὲ βασιλέως σϕᾶς ἐνδεξαμένου
ἐνοικησάμενοι ἐν Ῥωμαίων τῇ γῇ πολλῷ ἄμεινον βιοτεύσουσιν … ’
60
Procopius, De bellis, Book 8, Chapter 19.8: ‘ … οὔτε γραμματιστήν τινα ἔχουσιν οὔτε τῳ περὶ τὰ
γράμματα πόνῳ συναύξεται αὐτοῖς τὰ παιδία … ’
134 A. Angelov

angered Sandil.61 Procopius’ comment concerning Sandil’s illiteracy is also important because it
reveals that even Graeco-Roman paideia (παιδεία) ‒ education ‒ was not considered a necessary
precondition for his usage of basileus.62
In an attempt to appease the marauding ‘Saracens of Persia’, Justinian even granted the title
basileus to the leader of the ‘Saracens of Arabia’.63 Admittedly, this was an unprecedented case,
which happened in 531, yet it did not prompt Procopius to add any further qualification to the
simple remark. We are left to believe that no Roman basileus before Justinian had designated a
Saracen as a basileus. An interesting precedent, Procopius thought, but not one that needed
any special political articulation.
When examined comparatively, Procopius’ commentary on Theoderic, the rulers of the Red
Sea region, Sandil fighting with the Cutrigurs in the Balkans, and the Saracens give us important
insight into the historian’s usage of basileus. He applied the title broadly and without seeing the
need to explain his nomenclature. Procopius seemed to have associated the title with particular
peoples not with individual rulers. Only Theoderic the Amal elicited a special explanation and
justification on his part, perhaps because Theoderic’s own Roman identity was questionable.
Neither birth in a noble family, nor Christian piety, nor even means by which the power was
obtained mattered much in Procopius’ political vocabulary.
Procopius was not alone in applying the title basileus without regard to Christian political
notions. His contemporary John Malalas drew on familiar biblical stories and other Christian
accounts to produce a world chronicle.64 Lacking Procopius’ philosophical depth and interest
in classical themes, Malalas’ work was largely derivative, but managed to appeal to a broad
readership.65 Unlike Procopius who generously bestowed basileus upon contemporary rulers,
Malalas progressively restricted the application of the title as he drew nearer to his own time.
For example, for the period before the sixth century, we find the mythological Kronos, the
Egyptian pharaoh, the basileus tōn Ioudaiōn (βασιλεὺς τῶν Ἰουδαίων), Romulus and Remus,
Augustus, the basileus tōn Armeniōn (βασιλεὺς τῶν Ἀρμενίων), the basilissēs tōn Sarakēnōn
(βασιλίσσης τῶν Σαρακηνῶν), and the basileus tōn Lazōn (βασιλεὺς τῶν Λαζῶν), as well as
many others.66 But in Malalas’ final chapter, we see that he styled as rēges (ῥῆγες) almost all
of the rulers who appear in Procopius as basileis.67 Unfortunately, Malalas never explained his

61
Procopius, De bellis, Book 8, Chapter 19.8.
62
Scholars have argued that paideia centred on classical literature was the basic social mechanism that
sustained and dispersed a common Roman culture and identity: Werner Jaeger, Early Christianity and
Greek Paideia (London: Oxford University Press, 1969).
63
Procopius, De bellis, Book 1, Chapter 17.43–8.
64
For Malalas’ life and literary work, see Elizabeth Jeffreys, Brian Croke and Roger Scott, eds., Studies in
John Malalas (Sydney: Australian Association for Byzantine Studies, 1990), especially 1–25. Warren
Treadgold suggests that the original title of Malalas’ work was ‘General History’: The Early Byzantine
Historians (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), 235 and 241.
65
For an argument that Malalas largely plagiarised and simplified the superior work of Eustathius of
Epiphania, see Treadgold, Early Byzantine Historians, 251. Treadgold explains Malalas’ wider popularity
partially from the less erudite style of his work contrasted to the Attic prose of Eustathius. For Eustathius
himself, see Treadgold, Early Byzantine Historians, 114–20.
66
Joannes Malalas, Chronographia, in Ioannis Malalae Chronographia, ed. I. Thurn (Berlin: De Gruyter,
2000), Chapter 1.10 (Kronos); Chapter 2.5 (Pharaoh); Chapter 10.4 (βασιλεὺς τῶν Ἰουδαίων); Chapter 7.1
(Romulus and Remus); Chapter 7.13 (Augustus); Chapter 8.29 (βασιλεὺς τῶν Ἀρμενίων); Chapter 12.26
(βασιλίσσης τῶν Σαρακηνῶν); and Chapter 1.9 (βασιλεὺς τῶν Λαζῶν).
67
For example, Theoderic is ‘Γότθων βασιλεύς’ in Procopius, De bellis, Book 3, Chapter 8.13, and ‘ὁ ῥὴξ
Ῥώμης’ in Malalas, Chronographia, Chapters 15.10 and 18.46. See also how ‘Ἐρούλων βασιλεύς’ in
Procopius, De bellis, Book 8.15, is replaced with ‘ὁ ῥὴξ τῶν Ἑρούλων’ in Malalas, Chronographia,
Chapter 18.6.
 Journal of Medieval History 135

motives, but Christian monarchical ideology was certainly not the reason. First, not every one of
his basileis was a Christian and, second, there were many Christian rulers who were not
considered basileis.68
Besides the basileis of the Iberians and the Persians, the only other contemporary rulers to
whom Malalas granted the title were those of the Red Sea region. But, their number was still
significant:

The basileus of the Aksūmites is more inland than the Amerites [the Judaizers], but the basileus of the
Homerites is near Egypt. Roman traders travel through the land of the Homerites to Aksūm and to the
inner basileia of the Indians. For, there are seven basileia of the Indians and the Ethiopians; three of
the Indians and four of the Ethiopians, the latter being near the Ocean in the eastern regions.69

Malalas makes us vividly aware of the political complexity in the region. Many basileis ruled
the polities around the Red Sea. The Amerites were supposedly nearest to the sea. The Homerites
were close to Egypt. For Malalas, they did not live on the southern tip of Arabia where Procopius
had located them. There were four Ethiopian polities, not one (Procopius’ Aksūm). Malalas
counted three Indian states while Procopius openly admitted that India was a territory about
which he knew little.
Certainly, both Procopius’ and Malalas’ geographical descriptions fail to meet even the most
basic modern expectations for concreteness and precision. In essence, Procopius and Malalas
added little to remove the ambiguity from other Byzantine accounts on Ethiopia and India.70
Thus, it is difficult (if not impossible) to disentangle the geographical and political puzzle in
the Red Sea from the Byzantine accounts. But, for the purposes of our investigation, it is
sufficient to note that despite the different historiographical genres of Procopius and Malalas,
both of them applied basileus in the Indian context quite broadly.71 Although Malalas’ work
was framed along Christian themes, he granted the title to seven rulers whose polities covered
territories stretching from Egypt to ‘the eastern regions near the ocean’ without feeling the
need for any qualifications of the titular usage and without considering any Christian
theological notions of power.
The application of basileus independent from any Christian monarchical ideology did not end
in the sixth century. The ninth-century chroniclers Theophanes and George the Monk, who
imbued their narratives with Christian piety and ranked the accomplishments of various rulers
according to the degree of their Christian commitment, applied the title to many non-Christian
rulers well beyond the Byzantine territories. For example, it is easy to see how Theophanes,
who specifically relied on the earlier work of John Malalas, actually restored basileus even
though John had previously used rēx. Thus, Theophanes referred to the Gothic ruler Vittigis,

68
For non-Christian basileis, see Malalas, Chronographia, Chapter 18.9. See also Chapter 18.14 for Grod,
who was baptised a Christian under Justinian in the sixth century, but remained ‘Οὕννων ῥήξ’. Another
example is the Herulian ruler Grepes, who converted to Christianity along with some of ‘his senators’,
yet Malalas continued to refer to him as ‘ὁ ῥὴξ τῶν Ἑρούλων’, Chapter 18.8.
69
Malalas, Chronographia, Chapter 18.15: ‘Ὁ τῶν Αὐξουμιτῶν βασιλεὺς ἐνδότερός ἐστι τῶν Ἀμεριτῶν
<ἰουδαΐζων>, ὁ δὲ τῶν Ὁμηριτῶν πλησίον ἐστὶ τῆς Αἰγύπτου. οἱ δὲ πραγματευταὶ Ῥωμαίων διὰ τῶν
Ὁμηριτῶν εἰσέρχονται εἰς τὴν Αὐξούμην καὶ ἐπὶ τὰ ἐνδότερα βασίλεια τῶν Ἰνδῶν. εἰσὶ γὰρ Ἰνδῶν
καὶ Αἰθιόπων βασίλεια ἑπτά,τρία μὲν Ἰνδῶν, τέσσαρα δὲ Αἰθιόπων, τὰ πλησίον ὄντα τοῦ Ὠκεανοῦ
ἐπὶ τὰ ἀνατολικὰ μέρη.’
70
For the complicated Byzantine usage of ‘India’, see Philip Mayerson, ‘A Confusion of Indias: Asian India
and African India in the Byzantine Sources’, Journal of the American Oriental Society 113 (1993): 169–74.
71
For an analysis of Procopius’ and Malalas’ historiographical differences, see Roger Scott, ‘Malalas and
His Contemporaries’, in Studies in John Malalas, eds. Jeffreys, Croke and Scott, 67–85 (69–72).
136 A. Angelov

Theoderic the Amal, the Herulian Gretes (Grepes in Malalas) and some of the Vandal rulers as
basileis.72 In addition, while Malalas simply skipped or skimmed over certain basileis found
in Procopius, Theophanes gave them the title. Procopius’ Thrasamund was described by
Theophanes once again as an intelligent and magnanimous basileus even if an intransigent
enemy of Orthodox Christianity.73 In Theophanes, the anti-Christian Julian was proclaimed a
basileus in Palestine in 528‒9 until the emperor Justinian beheaded him as a punishment for
his devastating policies against Christians.74
Other rulers, some of whom are important in modern historiography, were not mentioned by
Procopius and Malalas, but appear in Theophanes and George the Monk. In a typical section
dedicated to elucidating God’s supreme power, Theophanes wrote, ‘Also, the Armenians fully
came to believe under him [Constantine], receiving their salvation through Trdat their basileus
and Gregory their bishop.’75 Basically, this is all we learn about the first Armenian ruler who
converted to Christianity and Theophanes certainly saw no need to explain why he referred to
him as basileus.
Trdat governed a polity caught between Byzantine and Persian interests. Factional conflicts
and multiple communities whose divisions were additionally fuelled by the variety of regional
languages contributed to the regular instability of the Armenian state in the period. It is
unclear how familiar Theophanes was with the political conditions of the fourth-century
Armenian polity, but it is indicative that the title of Trdat was not an issue for him. The later
ninth-century monk George followed Theophanes, too, and in a brief comment about the
conversions of the ‘inner Indians’ and the ‘Iberians’, he referred without equivocation to Trdat
as a basileus.76
Even gender was not a concern when Theophanes, or George the Monk, applied the title. In an
interesting passage about the conversion of the Arabian Saracens to Christianity, for example,
both Christian chroniclers introduced Mavia, the beautiful and courageous basilissa
(βασίλισσα) of the Saracens. Borrowing the story from earlier historians, they modified it to fit
their own understanding. Since Mavia brought a Christian bishop to convert the Saracens, it
made sense to the chroniclers to believe that she was already a Christian and Roman by birth.
A captive to the Saracens, the Byzantine authors explained, she met the basileus tōn
Sarakēnōn (βασιλεὺς τῶν Σαρακηνῶν) and mesmerised him with her beauty. Presumably,
they married, and thus, Theophanes concluded, ‘She took over the basileia.’77
The span of both chronicles was ambitious, so Theophanes and George kept to what they
considered the most important events and people in a given year. Generally, their analytical
scope revolved around traditional Christian perspectives. Most notably, however, neither
Theophanes nor George applied the title to any contemporary rulers. This was unlike
Procopius and Malalas, but the chroniclers did not explicitly rationalise their decision.
Basically, in the period up to the sixth century, Theophanes and George kept or restored the

72
For Vittigis, see Theophanes Confessor, Chronographia, vol. 1, ed. C. de Boor (Leipzig: Teubner, 1883),
222, and Malalas, Chronographia, Chapter 18.88; Theoderic: Theophanes, Chronographia, 187, and
Malalas, Chronographia, Chapters 15.10 and 18.46; Gretes/Grepes: Theophanes, Chronographia, 174,
and Malalas, Chronographia, Chapter 18.8; the Vandals: Theophanes, Chronographia, 116, 186, and
Malalas, Chronographia, Chapter 14.26.
73
Theophanes, Chronographia, 186. George the Monk did not mention Thrasamund.
74
Julian: Theophanes, Chronographia, 178 (basileus); Malalas, Chronographia, Chapter 18.35: ‘τύραννος
Σαβάρων’.
75
Theophanes, Chronographia, 24: ‘ὁμοίως καὶ Ἀρμένιοι τελείως ἐπὶ αὐτοῦ ἐπίστευσαν, διὰ Τηριδάτου
βασιλέως αὐτῶν καὶ Γρηγορίου ἐπισκόπου αὐτῶν τὴνσωτηρίαν δεξάμενοι.’
76
George the Monk, Chronicon, ed. C. de Boor. 2 vols. Revised edn. (Stuttgart: B.G. Teubner, 1978), 2: 502.
77
Theophanes, Chronographia, 64; George the Monk, Chronicon, 2: 555.
 Journal of Medieval History 137

title basileus even if it did not appear in the earlier accounts on which they relied. For the
subsequent centuries, kyrios (κύριος) and archēgos (ἀρχηγός) become prevalent, especially
when applied to Bulgar leaders.78
The two chronicles have much in common, but there are several basileis in Theophanes not
mentioned in George. One notable example is Theophanes’ ethnographic overview of the Red
Sea. Both Procopius and Malalas had already discussed the local political dynamics. In
Theophanes, there is the same basic plot and sixth-century rulers: the basileus of the Aksūmite
Indians, the basileus of the Homerites, and the basileus of the Romans.79 Thus, we should
leave behind George the Monk and turn to Theophanes for some helpful comparisons.
From a sixth-century perspective, Theophanes’ modified accounts of the Red Sea events were
significant.80 He improvised and attuned the Red Sea episode to his Christian mindset and
narrative preoccupations. Just like Procopius before him, Theophanes mentioned the disrupted
regional trade as a reason for the Aksūmite invasion, but it was also critical for Theophanes to
add that God Himself intervened against the Jewish Homerites and ultimately brought about
the conversion of the Aksūmites. Christianity clearly dominated Theophanes’ historical
horizons. Yet it never compelled him to modify the original usage of basileus. Without
qualification, Theophanes applied the title to the Byzantine emperor as well as to the foreign
rulers.
Other episodes involving the Red Sea region confirm Theophanes’ broad application of
basileus. In a picturesque scene, Theophanes introduced the local ruler Arethas,

In the same year [571‒2], the Romans and Persians broke the peace and the Persian war was renewed
once again because the Homerite Indians sent an embassy to the Romans and the βασιλεύς sent
Julian, the magistrianos (μαγιστριανός) with an imperial letter to Arethas, the basileus of the
Ethiopians … 81

Arethas provoked Theophanes’ cultural sensitivities and elicited a detailed description, partially
borrowed from John Malalas.82
When the Byzantine ambassador Julian first met Arethas, we learn from Theophanes, the
Ethiopian basileus wore no clothes besides a linen cloth wrapped around his loins. Strands of
pearls wove around his stomach. Five bracelets and gold rings decorated each of his hands.
‘Round his head was wound a gold-threaded linen turban with four tassels hanging from each
of the two knots, and round his neck was a gold collar.’83 Arethas arrived atop four elephants,
holding a gilded shield and two gold spears.

78
For ἀρχηγός in Theophanes, Chronographia, 501; in George the Monk, Chronicon breve, ed. E. de
Muralto. Patrologiae cursus completus, series Graeca posterior 110 (Paris: J.-P. Migne, 1863), col. 977;
for κύριος, Theophanes, Chronographia, 451; George the Monk, Chronicon breve, col. 968.
79
Theophanes, Chronographia, 223–4.
80
Theophanes’ basic chronology is incorrect: the events happened under the Emperor Justin II (r. 565–78).
See Cyril Mango and Roger Scott, trans., The Chronicle of Theophanes Confessor (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1997), 363, n. 7.
81
Theophanes, Chronographia, 244:‘Τῷ δ’αὐτῷ ἔτει Ῥωμαῖοί τε καὶ Πέρσαι τὴν εἰρήνην διέϕθειραν, καὶ
πάλιν ὁ Περσικὸς ἀνεκαινίσθη πόλεμος διὰ τὸ πρεσβεῦσαι τοὺς Ὁμηρίτας Ἰνδοὺς πρὸς Ῥωμαίους, καὶ
ἀποστεῖλαι τὸν βασιλέα Ἰουλιανὸν τὸν μαγιστριανὸν μετὰ σάκρας πρὸς Ἀρέθαν, τὸν βασιλέα τῶν
Αἰθιόπων … ’
82
In John Malalas, the ruler is Elesboas, ‘βασιλεὺς Ἰνδῶν’: Chronographia, Chapter 18.56.
83
Theophanes, Chronographia, 244: ‘ἐν δὲ τῇ κεϕαλῇ αὐτοῦ λινόχρυσον ϕακιόλιν ἐσϕενδονισμένον,
ἔχον ἐξ ἀμϕοτέρων τῶν δεσμῶν σειρὰς τέσσαρας, καὶ μανιάκην χρυσοῦν ἐν τῷ τραχήλῳ αὐτοῦ.’
138 A. Angelov

His whole senate, under arms, was there, singing musical pieces. So after the Roman legate was
brought in and prostrated himself in a token of respect (proskynēsas, προσκυνήσας),84 he was
ordered by the basileus to stand up and be brought to him.85

Clearly, Arethas’ ostentation sought to impress his Byzantine guest. It was a pompous
ceremony somewhat reminiscent of the Byzantines’ own protocol in Constantinople. Displays
of gold, triumphant processions accompanied by songs and staged in the presence of state
dignitaries: classic Byzantine hallmarks. Of course, there were also some notable cultural
disparities: Arethas’ unabashed nakedness and his adorned chariot tied on top of the four
elephants. Despite some of the features unique to Arethas, he came closest to the traditional
outward characteristics of a Byzantine basileus found in modern scholarly literature. Certainly,
Theophanes was impressed by Arethas’ display of power, but the ceremonial paraphernalia
was quite irrelevant to his choice of title.
Just like Procopius in the Wars, Theophanes never developed a formal definition of basileus.
Yet he, like Procopius and Malalas before him, did not randomly apply the title to any political
leader. There is a revealing example in Theophanes’ depiction of Muhammad’s life and the
rise of Islam:

In this year [A.D. 629‒30] Muhammad died, the archēgos of the Saracens and a false prophet, after
appointing his kinsman Aboubacharos [to his chieftainship. At the same time, his fame spread] and
everyone was afraid. In the beginning, the misguided Jews thought he was the anticipated Christ
for whom they waited, so some of their leaders joined him and embraced his form of worship
while abandoning that of Moses who had seen God. Those who did so were 10 in number, and
they remained with him until his murder. But when they saw him eating camel meat, they realised
that he was not the one they thought him to be and were confused what to do; being afraid to
abandon his form of worship, those wretched men taught him illicit things against us, Christians,
and kept with him.86

84
Modern Byzantinists have generally described proskynēsis as a Byzantine court protocol, imported from
Persia, the objective of which was to make explicit the autocratic power of the basileus. It commanded
mandatory prostration before the emperor. In Theophanes’ passage, the Byzantine legate actually
performed proskynēsis before the foreign basileus Arethas. Apparently neither the title nor the protocol
that surrounded it was of much concern to Theophanes. For the traditional view of proskynēsis as an
imperial institution, see Bréhier, Les institutions de l’empire byzantine, 61‒2. Bréhier argues that
proskynēsis was widely practised in the middle of the third century until the emperor Diocletian made it
official. Originally, proskynēsis involved genuflection before the Byzantine basileus and kissing the
corners of his chlamys (royal garb). In the sixth century, Justinian and his wife Theodora reportedly
forced the highest dignitaries to prostate themselves on the ground and kiss their feet. For a more recent
study of proskynēsis, see Guilland, Recherches sur les institutions byzantines, 1: 144–50. For a discussion
of proskynēsis between Muslims and Byzantines, see Nadia Maria El Cheikh, Byzantium Viewed by the
Arabs (Cambridge, MA: Center for Middle Eastern Studies of Harvard University, 2004), 159–62. For a
view that Byzantine proskynēsis emphasised ‘the sacred and absolute nature of the emperorship’, see
Filip Van Tricht, The Latin Renovation of Byzantium: the Empire of Constantinople (1204–1228)
(Leiden: Brill, 2011), 89.
85
Theophanes, Chronographia, 244: ‘ἡ σύγκλητος αὐτοῦ πᾶσα μετὰ ὅπλων ᾄδοντες μέλη μουσικά.
εἰσενεχθεὶς οὖν ὁ πρέσβις τῶν Ῥωμαἱων καὶ προσκυνήσας ἐκελεύσθη παρ’ αὐτοῦ ἀναστῆναι καὶ
ἀχθῆναι πρὸς αὐτόν.’
86
Theophanes, Chronographia, 333: ‘Τούτῳ τῷ ἔτει ἀπεβίω Μουάμεδ, ὁ τῶν Σαρακηνῶν ἀρχηγὸς καὶ
ψευ δοπροϕήτης, προχειρισάμενος Ἀβουβάχαρον συγγενῆ αὐτοῦ [εἰς τὴν ἀρχὴν αὐτοῦ. καὶ τῷ αὐτῷ
χρόνῳ ἦλθεν ἡ ἀκοὴ αὐτοῦ] καὶ πάντες ἐϕοβήθησαν. οἱ δὲ πεπλανημένοι Ἑβραῖοι ἐν ἀρχῇ τῆς
παρουσίας αὐτοῦ ἐνόμισαν εἶναι αὐτὸν τὸν παρ’ αὐτοῖς προσδοκώμενον Χριστόν, ὡς καί τινας τῶν
προυχόντων αὐτῶν προσελθεῖν αὐτῷ καὶ δέξασθαι τὴν αὐτοῦ θρησκείαν καὶ ἀϕῆσαι τὴν τοῦ θεόπτου
Μωσέως. ἦσαν δὲ τὸν ἀριθμὸν δέκα οἱ τοῦτο πεποιηκότες, καὶ σὺν αὐτῷ διῆγον ἄχρι τῆς σϕαγῆς
αὐτοῦ. θεωρήσαντες δὲ αὐτὸν ἐσθίοντα ἀπὸ καμήλου ἔγνωσαν, ὅτι οὐκ ἔστιν αὐτός, ὃν ἐνόμισαν, καὶ
 Journal of Medieval History 139

This is how Theophanes in the ninth century understood Islam, its rise and the issues, leading
to the spread of Muhammad’s teachings. There are several important motifs within which he fitted
the prophet’s deeds. Theophanes situated Muhammad amidst tribal politics, trade issues revolving
around one’s ability to connect the Arabian peninsula to Syria and Palestine, the prowess of the
caravan and the religious knowledge of Jewish-Christian relations. Theophanes’ strong
convictions against Islam are quite explicit, but it seems that his choice to designate
Muhammad as archēgos did not have religious grounds.87 For Theophanes and the Byzantine
sources on which he relied, Muhammad was a tribesman whose expedient marriage brought
him immediate prosperity and whose ability to understand the caravan culture gave him
additional advantage. While Arethas ruled over a sedentary state and was even assisted by a
‘senate’, Muhammad was a leader whose power had no recognisable institutional grounding.
For the later political development of the Arabs, Theophanes adjusted to the native
terminology of power. In a section that intended to show God’s punishment of the Arabs and
the Virgin Mary’s power of intercession on behalf of Constantinople and the Christian
Byzantines, Theophanes introduced the caliph ῾Umar II: ‘On 8 October [A.D. 716‒17],
Sulaymān, their leader, dies, and ῾Umar becomes emir (amēreuei: ἀμηρεύει).’88 Non-existent
in classical Greek, ‘emir’, amēras (ἀμηρᾶς) entered into later Byzantine Greek as a result of
pressing cultural interactions. Finding the term too specific for translation, Theophanes turned
the noun into a verb.89 We have other examples of transliterated native terminology in
Theophanes: boïlas (βοϊλᾶς: Bulgar nobleman), Tzigatos (Τζιγάτος: unknown title, but
possibly signifying a military rank in the Caucasus), and the adapted prōtosymboulos
(πρωτοσύμβουλος: caliph, Greek usage dating to 662).90
It is hard to find a clear guiding principle in Theophanes’ political nomenclature. Interestingly,
he did not grant the title basileus even to the later caliphs, despite the fact that they ruled over an
institutionalised state. Since Theophanes incorporated and transliterated a number of native titles,
especially as he drew near to his own time, perhaps he simply rendered the political vocabulary of
his sources. It is also possible that he did not conceive of the caliphate as a proper basileia.
Whatever the particular titular criterion, it appeared to be obvious and unproblematic to
Theophanes as well as to the other Byzantine historians, so they did not find it necessary to go
into elaborations of the type we are used to finding in modern literature. In his 10-volume
work Bibliotheca, for example, Photius summarised an interesting account of the sixth-century
historian Theophanes of Byzantium (not to be confused with Theophanes Confessor).91
Equally attracted to the affairs of Justinian in the Red Sea as his predecessors were, Photius
reserved a special entry in his Bibliotheca:

ἠπόρουν τί πρᾶξαι, καὶ ἀϕῆσαι αὐτοῦ τῆν θρησκείαν δειλιῶντες οἱ τάλανες ἐδίδασκον αὐτὸν ἀθέμιτα
καθ’ ἡμῶν τῶν Χριστιανῶν· καὶ διῆγον σὺν αὐτῷ.’
87
The ninth-century troublesome Bulgar ruler Krum is ‘ὁ τῶν Βουλγάρων ἀρχηγός’ in both Theophanes,
Chronographia, 501, and George the Monk, Chronicon breve, col. 977.
88
Theophanes, Chronographia, 396: ‘τῇ δὲ η’ τοῦ Ὀκτωβρίου μηνὸς θνήσκει Σουλεϊμάν, ὁ ἀρχηγὸς
αὐτῶν, καὶ ἀμηρεύει Οὔμαρ.’
89
For emir (ἀμηρᾶς) in Byzantine literature, see Gyula Moravcsik, Byzantinoturcica: Sprachreste der
Türkvölker in den Byzantinischen Quellen. 2 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 1983), 2: 66–8.
90
Theophanes, Chronographia, 447 (βοϊλᾶς), 447 (Τζιγάτος) and 356 (πρωτοσύμβουλος). For the meaning
of Τζιγάτος, see Mango and Scott, trans., Chronicle of Theophanes, 617, n. 3.
91
Scholars debate the details of the Bibliotheca’s writing. Some believe that it was the sole production of
Photius. Others maintain that it was the intellectual outcome of a circle of readers around Photius. This
debate does not much affect the analysis below. For specifics, see Warren T. Treadgold, The Nature of the
Bibliotheca of Photius (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, Center for Byzantine Studies, Trustees for
Harvard University, 1980).
140 A. Angelov

Chosroes thereupon marched against the Ethiopians (formerly called Macrobii and now Homerites)
who were on friendly terms with the Romans … He captured Sanatruces, basileus of the
Homerites, sacked their city and enslaved the people.92

If we believe the established scholarly convention, Photius wrote this during the Byzantine
conflict with Charlemagne’s great-grandson, Louis II (r. 839–75) over the legitimate usage of the
title.93 The nature of Photius’ Bibliotheca was such that he needed to be succinct and reflect on
issues of greatest importance to him. It is telling, therefore, that he found no need to enter into
any arguments about the title basileus accorded to Sanatruces.94 In a lexicon conventionally
ascribed to Photius, moreover, we find the Homeric koiranos (κοίρανος) defined as basileus and
archōn.95 A separate entry in the same dictionary equates kreiōn (κρείων), basileus, archōn and
kratōn megalōs (κρατῶν μεγάλως).96 The definitions are obviously succinct, but it is instructive
that the author of the lexicon offered no Christian ideological qualifications.

Conclusion
We have examined several examples of early Byzantine authors who gave the title basileus to
various foreign rulers. Contrary to the modern convention largely based on theological and
official documents from the Byzantine court, Christian notions of political power did not
automatically compel these authors to apply the title basileus exclusively. Even in the pious
narratives of Theophanes and George the Monk, a number of foreign, non-Christian rulers
received the title. Following the earlier historians, on whose accounts they largely based their
own works, the Christian chroniclers seem to have accepted, or at least adopted without any
qualification, their basic titular nomenclature.
None of the Byzantine authors produced a theory of political power, so it is challenging to
discern the particulars of their political vocabulary. Some modern scholars have hurried to
interpret this relative lack of systematic treatment of power in Byzantine literature as a
confirmation of their narrow political spectrum. One scholar has even declared, ‘Byzantium
did not produce any original political theory; nor did it trouble itself to discuss rival theories
about the nature of the Empire.’97 Yet when read carefully, literary sources indicate that the
Byzantine intellectuals took seriously their classical past and productively interacted with it.98

92
Theophanes of Byzantium, in Photius. Bibliothèque, ed. R. Henry. 9 vols. (Paris 1959–91), 1: Codex 64:
‘Διὸ καὶ ὁ Χοσρόης ἐπ’ Αἰθίοπας ϕίλους ὄντας Ῥωμαίοις, τοὺς πάλαι μὲν Μακροβίους νῦν δὲ Ὁμηρίτας
καλουμένους, ἐστράτευσε καὶ τόν τε βασιλέα τῶν Ὁμηριτῶν Σανατούρκην … ἐζώγρησε, τήν τε πόλιν
αὐτῶν ἐξεπόρθησε, καὶ τὸ ἔθνος παρεστήσατο.’
93
For the diplomatic scuffle between the Byzantines and Louis II, see A. Gasquet, L’empire byzantin et la
monarchie franque (Paris: Hachette, 1888), especially 416–18, 426 and 478.
94
We find other examples in Photius: Henry, ed., Photius. Bibliothèque: ‘ὁ Ἀλανῶν βασιλεύς’ (1: Codex
64), ‘ὁ Σκυθῶν βασιλεύς’ (1: Codex 72), ‘βασιλεὺς τῶν Ἴνδων’ (1: Codex 72), ‘βασιλεὺς τῶν
Αἰθιόπων’ (1: Codex 73), ‘βασιλεὺς Θρᾳκῶν’ (3: Codex 186).
95
R. Porson, ed., Φωτίου τοῦ πατριάρχου λέξεων συναγωγή (Cambridge: sumptibus Trinitatis
Cantabrigiae, 1822), entry 844.
96
Porson, ed., Φωτίου τοῦ πατριάρχου λέξεων συναγωγή, entry 1070.
97
Emphasis in the original: E. Barker, Social and Political Thought in Byzantium (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1957), i.
98
For monographs emphasising the relevance of the classical past in Byzantium, see Anthony Kaldellis, The
Argument of Psellos’ Chronographia (Leiden: Brill, 1999); idem, Procopius of Caesarea: Tyranny, History,
and Philosophy at the End of Antiquity (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004); and Dimitris
Krallis, Michael Attaleiates and the Politics of Imperial Decline in Eleventh-Century Byzantium (Tempe:
Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2012).
 Journal of Medieval History 141

Even if they only copied the titles used in the original classical sources (as Theophanes, George
the Monk and Photius might have arguably done), they respected the titular tradition associated
with the various foreign peoples and seemed to have evaluated critically the structure of their
society. Each Byzantine intellectual had his own authorial concerns, political and religious
outlook, so the particular application of basileus varied among the different authors. Yet all of
them granted the title to many foreign rulers and without regard to Christian divine-right notions.

Acknowledgements
I thank John V.A. Fine, Jr. for reading earlier drafts of this paper, Ian Mladjov and Jessica Stephens for
invaluable conversations and comments, as well as the anonymous reviewers for their careful reading and
insightful feedback. The essay also benefited from discussions at the American Academy of Religion
where I introduced it to colleagues from the Eastern Orthodox Studies Group.

Funding
This paper was written with the support of a summer grant from the College of William and Mary.

Alexander Angelov is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the College of
William and Mary. He specialises in medieval Christianity, Byzantine and Balkan history. Dr. Angelov is
currently working on a monograph exploring mass conversions to Christianity in the early Byzantine
period as well as on articles that explore various aspects of Eastern Orthodox history and culture.