Anthony Kaldellis has provided us with a comprehensive political history of the East Roman empire from the fourth through the fifteenth centuries. Weighing in at 3.8 pounds, 1133 pages including notes, glossaries, index, numerous excellent maps, several pages of color plates, and covering twelve centuries, this is a monumental undertaking. The narrative begins with Diocletian’s efforts at political reform in the 280s and ends with the conquest of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks in 1453. The enterprise succeeds, not only in weight and depth, but in presenting a fundamental setting for new conceptualizations of East Rome by synthesizing vast amounts of recent research with an extraordinarily thorough and judicious reading of our remaining primary textual sources.
This is a political history that gives attention to governmental, military, economic, and ecclesiastical history. It comments briefly on major changes in the history of education and the state of intellectual patronage. Insofar as political structures create the systems that constrain and enable human flourishing, it is a history of the circumstances in which the history of gender, sexuality, religion, art, literature, philosophy, building, manufacturing, agriculture, and all the other stuff of life took place. In themselves, these topics are not within the scope of this book. Ecclesiastical politics are discussed as part of political history, but this is not the place for a history of religious experience or practice. While the succession of emperors provides the structural narrative thread from Constantine I to Konstantinos XI Palaiologos, shifts in economic, social, and military circumstances are presented as the drivers of change. Kaldellis is frank in his assessments of individual emperors’ skill or ineptitude in dealing with the challenges of their era and acknowledges the real impact that high-level governmental choices had on the flourishing of the polity.
Large-scale political narratives are rare projects within the current academic study of history, and yet scholars’ conceptions of fundamental political and economic contexts significantly influence their research into other topics. New Rome provides an excellent starting point for research by incorporating the results of substantial recent scholarship with an independent reading of the sources. One wanting to check what was “going on” during a given moment in the history of East Rome will find a satisfying interpretation of events and be pointed to the primary sources. New Rome will function excellently as a reference work and guide to primary sources to the long history of east Rome.
However valuable as a reference work, this is not a book without a thesis. Rather it makes several sustained arguments through a wholistic appraisal of eastern Roman history. Among the most prominent is that the eastern Roman polity flourished because enough people believed that supporting the government was in their best interests and the people who comprised the government generally stayed in power by being good at their jobs. Since incompetent officials and generals could be (and were) removed from their positions, and power and wealth came from holding government office, Kaldellis argues that most people with government positions worked to at least appear just and competent. Emperors were removed through violent deposition and so were particularly motivated to maintain their popularity. The evidence of the functioning of the Roman legal system, and with it the conceptualization that citizens should expect fair treatment from the government, are interpreted as causes of the longevity and success of the east Roman polity. Kaldellis argues that the texts in which people complained about taxation are evidence, not of government oppression, but of the ability to openly criticize the government. He does not sympathize with the wealthy elites who whined about having to pay taxes that supported the flourishing of society.
Another argument is that external political and economic changes caused significant territorial losses in the east Roman polity. Against a long history of looking for causes of “Byzantine” decline in some aspect of “Byzantine” culture, morality, or society, Kaldellis locates the causes of defeat in Goths, Avars, Arabs, Turks, and Normans. This is a change away from the centuries-old discourse that equated “Byzantium” with perpetual decline. Kaldellis openly blames emperors and other individuals for what he considers mistakes or incompetence, but the emphasis is on how east Rome was able to thrive and repeatedly recover from defeats caused by exogenous factors. In particular, the Normans and crusaders are presented as forces that worked almost continuously to expand into and conquer Roman territory. By highlighting recurring patterns of Norman and crusader politics he argues strongly for considering the western expansion into the east as part of a continuous history of European colonization.
Strange as it is to say, New Rome innovates most profoundly in not perpetuating the false relabeling of the east Romans as “Byzantines.” This is the first comprehensive political history of the east Roman empire that employs the names that this society used for itself. This review is not the place to rehearse the many problems, from simple rudeness to gross distortion, that have arisen from the scholarly insistence that we talk about “Byzantines” rather than “Romans,” but rather to celebrate the advent of fundamental honesty in east Roman studies. This book definitively shuts down the argument that clarity requires scholars to talk about “Byzantines.” Insofar as readers may find it jarring to encounter ethnic Romans in the eastern Mediterranean, they will be pushed to confront their own reasons for preferring a vision of history that contains “Byzantines” to the history we find by looking at medieval evidence. Kaldellis’ terminology is backed by texts that unambiguously refer to “the Roman people,” “the Roman race,” and the “Roman polity.” His entirely clear-cut usage shifts the burden to those who want to persist in talking about “Byzantines” to justify why they think that terminology is optimally accurate.
The research in New Rome is extraordinary. Every paragraph has medieval evidence cited to back it, either textual or archeological. Most notes to secondary scholarship are to items published in the last 15 years, providing a catalog of ways the field has evolved, but studies are also cited from every decade going back to the 1880s. Kaldellis has not worked with only the most recent scholarship, but sometimes preferred the interpretations offered over a century ago, indicating an astonishing breadth of reading. The primary evidence seems to encompass all available material in Greek and makes excellent use of non-Greek sources as well as archaeology and material culture. Given the scope of the project, specialists will certainly be able to find particular interpretations that they disagree with, but few if any scholars will be able to debate Kaldellis on all of his arguments.
In many places the interpretations of individual situations differ from received general knowledge in the field. Some of these are the author’s own readings, but many are based on the innovative work of other scholars. In a field that spans twelve centuries, scholars can hardly be expected to be aware of even all the game changing research, and so New Rome is of great help as a guide to recent scholarly advances. While other scholars will likely identify a different list, some points at which the presentation or emphasis seemed new to me include:
- The fifth century is presented as a time of flourishing and growth in East Rome. Not only did the eastern empire avoid the problems that led to collapse in the west, but this was an era of recovery.
- Sicily, parts of Italy, and the Tyrrhenian islands are treated as core part of the polity, not fringes in the sixth-eleventh centuries. In older narratives the focus is on those provinces that overlap with the later Ottoman empire, or that currently have Orthodox inhabitants. Kaldellis’ narrative integrates the western provinces more tightly.
- Christological controversies up through the fourth century had theological distinctions at the core of the disputes. In the fifth and the sixth centuries, theologians polemicized against caricatures of positions that their enemies did not hold. Explanations for the continued fighting need to be found in things other than true theological difference because no one actually held the positions that were being attacked. Kaldellis offers loyalty to past bishops and polarized tribalism as possible explanations.
- The transferal of the Mandilion of Edessa to Constantinople after the conquest of that city was similar to an ancient evocatio.
- The politics of the civil wars of the 970s is similar to those of the late Republic.
- In the late 12th century, the concentration of wealth among a small cadre of ruling aristocratic families choked out opportunities for advancement for provincial elites, weakening structures for maintaining loyalty. As working for the state stopped being the chief avenue for power and wealth, fewer people were motivated to support the state.
- The conquest of Constantinople by the crusaders did not lead to the conquest of the entire Roman state as Nicaea and Epirus had been centers of resistance before the conquest.
- European colonialism was a seamlessly growing phenomenon from the twelfth century on. Debates on colonialism within crusades studies have focus on whether the crusader states were economically extractive and political dissimilarities with later European colonies. Kaldellis identifies Catholic efforts to forcibly change the religious practices and beliefs of the eastern Romans as a form of cultural colonialism.
- The movement of the ‘Zealots’ in 14th century Thessaloniki was not about class consciousness. This terminology was taken from a polemical history that does not reflect an unusual political situation.
- The Palaiologoi stayed in power in the later 14th and 15th centuries because other aristocratic military families had already been conquered.
- The trade in Roman slaves was a significant part of the Turkish and Mediterranean economy in the 14th century.
Kaldellis’ openly sympathetic account of the east Roman state benefits from starting near the height of that polity and leaving out the violence that led to the rise of Rome. Kaldellis robustly denounces the military aggression of the Normans and highlights their practice of creating a legal pretext of rights that is then used as an excuse for invasion. This pattern may be familiar to students of the expansion of the Roman empire in the republican period, in which all the Roman wars of conquest and expansion were cast as defensive wars protecting Rome’s allies or interests. Since Kaldellis starts with the Roman empire already stretching from Britain to Syria, he can tell a story of a polity justly defending its borders against foreign aggressors. If one were to tell the entire story of east Rome, it would include aggressive warfare and use of dubious legal pretexts by Romans in the second and first centuries BCE that were perhaps not all that dissimilar to that of the Normans in the eleventh and twelfth centuries CE.
Kaldellis’ handling of religion is at times less satisfying than his treatment of economic and political history. Part of the problem is that by addressing only ecclesiastical politics, the narrative leaves out discussions of what would motivate religious activity or the evolution of various forms of devotion. Managing church controversies was one of the major occupations of the emperors, and so the history of church councils, theological controversies, and fights over schism and union all fall under the rubric of political history. Yet readers unfamiliar with religious studies may be unaware of how many aspects of the history of religion are excluded from this narrow focus on ecclesiology. When Orthodoxy and Catholicism are represented exclusively through the fights over creeds and jurisdiction, the appeal of these religions becomes difficult to understand. Cumulatively this stance leaves historical actors in religious controversies looking inexplicably belligerent or nonsensical. When it comes to explaining the philosophical and theological issues at play in different theological controversies, Kaldellis is extremely clear and precise. This is now the first place I would send students trying to figure out what the controversies about Christology and hesychasm were about. I would not recommend it to an areligious student trying to understand why anyone would care.
Kaldellis rejects efforts to imaginatively reconstruct the emotional worlds that would explain religious behavior, when such reconstructions are not based in textual evidence. For example, in the discussion of eighth-century iconoclasm, where the only evidence for the substance of the anti-icon position comes from quotes in iconophilic texts that are refuting that position, he does not accept efforts to guess at what motivated the anti-icon stance. Other scholars have speculated that sustained victories of Muslims over Romans caused a crisis of doubt that prompted the rejection of icons. While he is correct that the speculative elaborations offered by modern scholars are mere guesses, his lack of any explanation is unsatisfying, and he muddles his case when he does suggest that soldiers in the 800s were able to draw a connection between practices of icon veneration and defeat.
This narrative was not created by an omniscient dispassionate committee of knowledge, but by one diligent and insightful scholar with clear passions and interests. Over the 1000 pages certain tastes become clear. Kaldellis likes it when the state extracts large amounts of money from wealthy elites and spends it protecting and supporting everyone else. He likes civilian bureaucrats and rejects macho military aggression. He supports a defensive military that can protect established borders but not expand through offensive warfare. He likes freethinking intellectuals. He does not like dogmatic theologians or quarrelsome bishops that engage in virtue-signaling grandstanding. He detests colonialism and any efforts to force one culture to conform to the values or religion of another. This is a history written in the shadow of rising Christian Nationalism, MAGA culture wars, eroded trust in public institutions, extreme income inequality, and a shredded social safety net.
As the cultural context of composition is a dialog partner for every work of narrative historical synthesis, pointing out that this history reflects politics of its age is not in itself a criticism. What is of concern is whether and in what ways the interpretations offered are distorted by the ethical and political commitments of the author. The points where the values of the author can be traced in the interpretations are likely to be the points of criticism, but we need to assess rather than assume distortion. Leaving aside the ardent post-structuralists who will decry the project of historical synthesis, criticism will come from people who would prefer that a different set of values be reflected in the story. Wealthy, small-government capitalists and neo-liberals may instinctively doubt the tax-positive reading of history Kaldellis offers. People who love stories of heroic Norman conquerors and crusader kings will probably bristle at the robust criticism of those characters. The largest group of disgruntled readers will be supporters of papal supremacy who will be disappointed by the lack of respectful deference to their religious commitments.
We can hope that by making its various cases forcefully and openly, New Rome will prompt these potential critics to consider their own predilections and assess their disagreements through detailed analyses of the individual arguments. It would be highly salutary if those who instinctively root for Norman conquerors consider what is appealing about this type of hyper-masculine military aggression. If they want to dispute Kaldellis’ depiction of the Normans, they will need to find specific instances in which he has misinterpreted the medieval evidence, which will prove difficult. The apologetic wing of crusades scholarship will have a far easier time fulminating against rather than refuting Kaldellis’ negative assessments. Similarly, readers disturbed when Kaldellis pulls no punches in describing papal supremacy as a claim with no authority in the eastern Church will need to confront the role of confessional commitments on their readings of history.
The book is engagingly written with entertaining flashes of feistiness. Newcomers will likely have difficulty recognizing that Phokades is the plural of Phokas and Doukes plural of Doukas, but it otherwise largely avoids specialist obscurantism. The decision to leave out a primary source bibliography to keep volume at a reasonable size was understandable, but will likely cause a lot of headaches as many of the sources are not commonly known or used. Perhaps a primary source bibliography can be posted online. The glossaries and maps will be beloved.
All told, this is a watershed volume in the study of east Roman history. The power of presenting east Roman history as such, rather than as “Byzantine” history, cannot be overemphasized. Names matter. The tightness between claims and sources will make New Rome an excellent first stop in any research project while the systematic argumentation will make it well worth reading straight through. New Rome succeeds in providing an introduction to east Roman history that will enable research and provoke discussion for many years to come.