Emeraldus
Smaragdus (also Smaragdos, Smaracdus ) was an Eastern Roman Patricius and Exarch of Ravenna from 584/585 to 589/590 and from 603 to 608 (?).
Life
The imperial court official and eunuch Smaragdus replaced his predecessor Decius in 584/585 on behalf of the emperor Maurikios . During this time, the Eastern Roman troops in Italy, in conjunction with the Lombard Duke Droctulft , who revolted against the new King Authari, succeeded in gaining advantages over the Lombards, which led to a three-year armistice (probably at the end of 585). In a letter, Pope Pelagius II attributes this success to the efforts of Smaragdus, whom he calls Exarchus and Chartularius .
Immediately after the conclusion of the armistice, negotiations began to resolve the rift between the bishops of Italy that had arisen as a result of the three-chapter dispute. But: they led to nothing. Then Smaragdus stepped in by having the new bishop Severus of Aquileia and the bishops John of Parenzo , Severus of Trieste , Vindemius of Pago and the defensor ecclesiae (defender of the church) Antonius of Grado dragged away from Grado for a year in Ravenna and forced reunification with the Roman Church. Perhaps these events and the complaints of the schismatics in Constantinople brought about the recall of the Emerald (589/90).
After the murder of Maurikios and the accession of Phocas to the throne , Smaragdus was reappointed exarch in 603. According to the sources, it is not unlikely that he first had to forcibly eliminate his predecessor Callinicus , as he probably did not want to recognize the usurper Phocas as emperor. In the two letters that Pope Gregory the Great wrote to the new emperor, the Pope's relief is expressed that relations between the Bishop of Rome and the Emperor in Constantinople are improving. Because the tension with Maurikios must have grown very high beforehand, since in his last years there was probably not even a papal envoy in Constantinople.
In July 603 Agilulf left Mediolanum ( Milan ) and besieged Cremona with Avar auxiliaries , which he captured on August 21. On September 13th, Mantua fell , whose garrison he again released to Ravenna. The castrum Vulturina (Valdoria) surrendered and the garrison of Brexillus ( Brescello ) set their city on fire and fled. It also corresponded to the Pope's wishes that an armistice should be concluded with the Lombards in 603, even if the conditions for the Romans were not very honorable - although they had the daughter and son-in-law as a result of a lucky catch that Callinicus had made of the Longobard king Agilulf in their hands. The new Exarch of Ravenna, Patricius Smaragdus, concluded a nine-month truce with the Lombards in September 604. Agilulf's daughter was released with her husband and children and went to Parma . In Tuscany, after the armistice expired in April 605, the Lombards conquered the cities of Balneus Regis (Bagnarea) and Urbs Vetus ( Orvieto ) before Smaragdus bought a year-long peace for 12,000 solidi in November.
The peace was later extended by three years (606–609), so that during the reign of Phocas the ceasefire in Italy was almost not interrupted. Related to this is the government's anti-schismatics. The schismatic patriarch was confronted with a damn of the three chapters .
There is no news of the end of Smaragdus' exarchate. The last is from the year 608, when he had the so-called Phocas column erected in honor of the emperor in the Roman Forum in Rome . Perhaps he lost his office (and his life?) In connection with the fall of Phocas in 610.
swell
-
Paulus Deacon : Historia Langobardorum .
- Otto Abel (translator), Alexander Heine (ed.): History of the Lombards - Paulus Diakonus and the historians of the Lombards (= historians of the German antiquity ). 2nd edition Phaidon-Verlag, Essen-Kettwig 1992, ISBN 978-3-88851-097-7 (reprint of the Leipzig 1878 edition; scan in the Google book search of the first edition by Wilhelm Besser, Berlin 1849, pp. 61, 64 f., 82-84).
- Wolfgang F. Schwarz (ed. And translator): Paulus Diaconus: Historia Langobardorum - History of the Langobards. Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 2009, ISBN 978-3-534-22258-2 .
literature
- John Robert Martindale: Smaragdus 2. In: The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire (PLRE). Volume 3B, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1992, ISBN 0-521-20160-8 , pp. 1164-1166.
- Ludo Moritz Hartmann: Studies on the history of the Byzantine administration in Italy. 540-750. S. Hirzel, Leipzig 1889, OCLC 251438641 , pp. 10, 12 f. ( Search for Smaragdus in the google book search).
Web links
- Paulus Deacon: History of the Langobards. (No longer available online.) Formerly in the original ; accessed on June 1, 2017 . ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) (English)
- Ludo Moritz Hartmann : History of Italy in the Middle Ages. Volume II, Part 1: Romans and Lombards up to the division of Italy. Wigand, Leipzig 1900, OCLC 250694376 , pp. 88-90 and 116-118; Reprinted by Georg Olms, Hildesheim 1969, OCLC 886621790 (partially outdated)
- Thomas Hodgkin: Italy and her Invaders. 600-744. Volume VI. Volume VII: The Lombard Kingdom. Clarendon Press, Oxford 1895, OCLC 769351078 , p. 151 ff. (English; partly outdated)
Individual evidence
predecessor | Office | successor |
---|---|---|
Decius |
Exarchs of Ravenna-Italy 584 / 585-589 / 590 |
Romanus |
predecessor | Office | successor |
---|---|---|
Callinicus |
Exarch of Ravenna-Italy 603-after 608 |
John |
personal data | |
---|---|
SURNAME | Emeraldus |
ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Emeraldos; Smaracdus |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Byzantine exarch of Ravenna |
DATE OF BIRTH | before 585 |
DATE OF DEATH | after 608 |