Emeraldus

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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 .

Smaragdus had the Phocas column crowned by a gilded statue of the emperor built in 608.

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

Web links

Wikisource: Historia Langobardorum  - Sources and full texts (Latin)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Historia Langobardorum III, 18-19.
  2. ↑ Historia Langobardorum III, 26.
  3. ↑ Historia Langobardorum IV, 25.
  4. ↑ a b Historia Langobardorum IV, 28.
  5. ↑ Historia Langobardorum IV, 31.
  6. ↑ Historia Langobardorum IV, 32.
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