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[German version] (Σέρβοι; Sérboi). The early history of the S. and the Croatians is known in outline only due to the condition of the sources: Aside from a brief mention in the Carolingian Imperial Annals (Annales regni Francorum, MGH SS 1,209: ad Sorabos, quae natio magnam Dalmatiae partem obtinere dicitur) from the 9th cent. AD, we only have the report by Constantinus [1] Porphyrogennetus (de administrando imperio 32 Moravcsik/Jenkins) following the two - contradictory - chapters on Croatia (ch. 30 and 31). The report claims that the S. had…

This item can be found on the following maps: Achaemenids | Pontos Euxeinos | Byzantium | Thraci, Thracia | Christianity | Wine | Xenophon | | | Diadochi and Epigoni | Commerce | Asia Minor | Asia Minor | Colonization | Limes | Moesi, Moesia | Peloponnesian War | Pergamum | Persian Wars | Pilgrimage | Pompeius | Delian League | Athenian League (Second) | Education / Culture (Βυζάντιον; Byzántion). [German version] I. Topography and history Greek city on the southern shore of the  Bosporus [1] on a peninsula bordering on the Chrysokeras in the north and on the Propontis …

This item can be found on the following maps: Thraci, Thracia | Christianity | | Daci, Dacia | Commerce | Moesi, Moesia | Pilgrimage | Rome | Rome | Balkans, languages (Σερδική/ Serdikḗ, modern Sofia). [German version] I. Early history until the Roman Period Settlement of the Thracian Serdi on the Oescus [1] between the Scombrus and Haemus mountain ranges, a nodal point of roads (It. Ant. 135,4; Tab. Peut 7,5; Ptol. 3,11,8); modern Sofia. Settled since the 8th/7th centuries BC, in the 5th/4th centuries BC S. developed under the kings of t…

(Κρήτη, Krētē, Latin Creta). [German version] A. Settlement geography C. is the largest Greek island, with an east-west extension of 250 km and a north-south extension of max. 60 km. The narrowest part is the Isthmus of Hierapytna in the east. The island's topography is shaped by its mountains. Three large mountain ranges dominate: in the west the ‘White Mountains’ (  Leúka órē , 2,482 m), in the centre the  Ida Mountains (Piloritis, 2,456 m) and in the east the  Dicte Range (highest elevation 2,147 m) with the Lassithi Plateau (moun…

[German version] I. Term Arabic al-malakiyyūn from Aramaic malkā, ‘king’, used in the sense of the Greek βασιλεύς/ basileús. Syrians and Arabs used this (pejorative) term for the followers of the Council of Calchedon (AD 451), which is even today not recognized by the Monophysites ( Monophysitism) of the Middle East (Syrians, Copts, Armenians). The modern term they use to describe themselves is Rūm (Arabic for ‘Byzantium’, ‘Byzantines’). By contrast, the use of Melchites in the sense of a ‘United Church of the Syrian region’ is comparatively recent (not before the schism of 1724). Niehof…

[German version] (Βλάχοι/ Bláchoi). Byzantine ethnographic term of unclear (ethnic or social) definition. Etymologically, it is the Slavic designation of all Romance peoples in south-east Europe. During the migration period, the ancient Celtic tribe-name of the Volcae was transferred by the Germanic peoples to their Romance neighbours ('Walch', 'Welschen'). The South-Slavs are responsible for its phonologic form (Βλάχ/ Vlach), which can be found in the Byzantine chronicles (Iohannes Skylitzes p. 329,80 Thurn, interpolated) or in the work of Kekaumenos …

This item can be found on the following maps: Writing | Ionic | Colonization | Marble | Peloponnesian War | Persian Wars | Pompeius | Delian League | Athenian League (Second) | Education / Culture (Χίος; Chíos). [German version] A. Introduction Large (856 km2) island, c. 8 km from the mainland. The ancient settlements were on the east coast, where the main city of the same name is today (few traces, an earthquake in 1881 having destroyed nearly all buildings on the island). Highest point is the Pelinaion (1297 m). The east and south-east …

This item can be found on the following maps: Theatre | Thraci, Thracia | Christianity | | Coloniae | Alexander | Moesi, Moesia | Rome | Rome | Balkans, languages (Φιλιππόπολις/ Philippópolis, Φιλιπούπολις/ Philipoúpolis). [German version] I. Location and history up to conquest by the Goti City in Thrace (Thraci), founded by Philip (Philippus [4]) II in the immediate vicinity of a fortified settlement of the Bessi on the right bank of the Hebrus in 341 BC. An important road and river transport junction between the Ister [2], the Black Sea, …

[German version] Byzantine scholar and bishop, born around 990 in Paphlagonia, died around 1092 (?). M. composed epigrams, letters and speeches, and as the founder of a school of law and editor of Konstantinos IX's novellae he had great influence at the court of Constantinople until the middle of the 11th century. His promotion to metropolitan of Euchaïta was however an exile in disguise. He is important as the teacher and predecessor of Psellos. Niehoff, Johannes (Freiburg) Bibliography A. Karpozilos, s.v. M., LMA 4, 414f.

(Delmatae, Delmatia). [German version] I. General Important people of later Illyricum (degree of Celtization uncertain) in the hinterland of Salona between Tit(i)us (Krka) and Nestus/Hippius (Cetina) on the Glamočko, Livanjsko, Duvanjsko and Imotsko polje. Gave its name to the Roman prov. Dalmatia. Administratively separated from Illyricum at the beginning of the Flavian period. These areas were under the control of the Illyrian kingdom, notorious for its piracy (under the dynasty of the Ardiaeans, Agron and Teuta), which was fought by…

[German version] (Lat. Ragusium, Greek Ῥαούσιον/ Rhaoúsion, Slavic Dubrovnik; regarding the name cf. [1]), city on the Dalmatian coast. The beginnings of the trading city that was to become so famous a rival of Venice on the Adriatic Sea were hazy already for the historians of R. at the time of Humanism so that they arrived at different legends of its origin reminiscent of the type of ancient aetiology (cf. the depictions in [2; 3; 4]). The report by Constantinus [1] Porphyrogennetus (Const. de administ…

[German version] (Μηνολόγιον; Mēnológion). A collection of the lives of Saints of the Orthodox Church, arranged according to the feast-day of the corresponding saint, in accordance with the ecclesiastical year ( calendar). In contrast to the Synaxarion, which provides only brief notices for each saint, and to the Menaion, which usually contains liturgical songs and prayers for the saint's festival, the βίοι/ bíoi (‘lives’) of the Menologion are normally longer. It may have been mentioned first in Theodoros Studites [1. vol. 1, 21], yet the first preserved …

[German version] [1] Daughter of Creon (Μεγάρα/ Megára, Μεγάρη/ Megárē). Daughter of Creon [1] of Thebes, wife of Heracles [1] (Hom. Od. 11,269-270), who had received her hand in thanks for the liberation of Thebes from tribute to Erginus, and mother of some of the Heraclidae. Whereas the Thebans according to Paus. 9,11,2 tell of the insane Heracles' infanticide (on his insanity Cypria p. 40,28f. PEG) as nothing other than what Stesichorus (= 230 PMGF) and Panyassis (= fr. 1 PEG) relate, the version of P…

I. Geography and history [German version] A. The name and its development The name I. acquired its modern meaning during the Augustan period; it originally described the kingdom of the Oenotrian ruler Italus, comprising the Bruttian peninsula from Sila to Scylletium (Antiochus FGrH 555 F 5; according to Hecat. FGrH 1 F 41,51-53, Medma, Locris, Caulonia, and Krotalla were in I.). Hellanicus links I. with the term vitulus (‘calf’) and the legend of the calf of  Geryoneus which had run away from Hercules (Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 1,35); Timaeus associates the name wit…

[German version] The term ‘diglossia’ (not to be confused with  bilingualism) was already used late in the 19th cent. to characterize the Greek language situation. However, it only became a central concept in sociolinguistics with Ch. Ferguson's essay [1] in which he developed the canonical definition using Swiss German, (Modern) Greek, Arabic and Haitian Creole as examples. It considers diglossia to be a language situation in which the spoken primary language (which Ferguson labelled ‘L’ as in ‘Low’; in the Greek language area this was the δημοτική, dhimotikí), whether regionally…

[German version] The S. (Σκλαβηνοί/ Sklabēnoí since the 6th cent. AD; Lat. Sclaveni in Iordanes [1], from the early Slavic slověne; Σκλάβος/ Sklábos first in the High Middle Ages, from which 'slave', Arabic ṣaqāliba) are the youngest of the major linguistic groups of Europe; they first appear on the horizon of the Graeco-Roman culture in Late Antiquity. To date, the study of this process and the multifaceted acculturation processes between the S. and the ancient Mediterranean cultures, which occurred after c. AD 500, has been determined by the initial conditions of Slavic…

(Θρᾷκες/ Thrâikes, Θρῇκες/ Thrêikes; Θρᾴκη/ Thrâikē, Θρῄκη/ Thrêikē): the 'Thracians' and the country 'Thrace' settled by them; Lat. Thraci, Thracia. [German version] I. Name Thraci (Th.) is a Greek collective term, based on linguistic and cultural homogeneity, for the population of the northern Balkan Peninsula from the north coast of the Aegean (Aegean Sea, also called the 'Thracian Sea': Str. 1,2,20) to the Danube (Ister, Istrus [1]; ancient authors often include the territory as far as the northern Carpathians), an…

[German version] The mediaeval and modern city of Venice (Venezia) does share its name with the Regio X ( Veneta Carni et Histria) of the organisation of Italia (cf. Regio, with map) under Augustus, but its centre, the Rialto (< Rivus Altus), was founded only in the Carolingian period. A legend, appearing already in Venetian historiography (cf. also Constantinus Porphyrogennetus, De administrando imperio 28), of the founding of the city on 25 March 421 and of the flight of the population as a result of the destruction of Aquileia [1] by Attila in 452 is de…