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Pelagius I (556–561 CE) was long thought to have held the see of Rome from 555 to 560 CE, but the correct dates were established by P.M. Gassó and C.M. Batlle (1956), editors of the sole modern edition of Pelagius’ letters. The confusion over his dates is a sign of the tumult of the times. In the first half of the 6th century CE, socioeconomic conditions had worsened in Italy, as the Gothic war left many dioceses unable to provide for their clergy or others in their district. Nevertheles…

Athens is almost the only Greek site to show continuous occupation from its very beginnings in the Mycenaean age (Osborne, 1989, 397). It showed early signs of cultural dominance in its production of Protogeometric pottery, found with the cremated remains of the dead in burial sites from circa 1030 to 900 BCE. The city-state of Athens was established in the 7th century BCE but took its classical form in the mid-5th century BCE during the time of Pericles, the Athenian statesman who design…

Little is known of Leo’s life before he entered the pontificate on Sep 29, 440 CE. The  Liber pontificalis  relates that Leo was born in Tuscia, the son of a Quintianus who is otherwise unknown. It seems that Leo served as archdeacon under Sixtus III (432–440 CE), in which role he would have received valuable training for the office of bishop. This was a common career path in the papal service. From Sixtus III, he inherited an ongoing major building program within the city and divisions within the urban pop…

The apocrisiarius or apocrisarius ( lit. “answerer”) was the point of contact among the four patriarchates of Rome, Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria, and the headquarters of the imperial church in Constantinople. Extant from the 5th century CE, the office was institutionalized in law under Justinian I (527–565 CE). The apocrisiarius could be a cleric functioning as the diplomatic representative or legate of a bishop of the patriarch to the Byzantine imperial court, or his permanent re…

The office of cubicularius, or chamberlain, was named after the bedchamber or living quarters in which he originally served. The office was founded in the Roman Republic and had become a regular fixture by the imperial period, when a large team of cubicularii served Roman emperors in their living quarters, each group of ten being headed by a decurion (Collins, 2008, 391–392). This intimacy provided plenty of opportunity for treachery, and Domitian is reported to have been assassinated by a decurion of the chamberlains ( decurio cubiculariorum, Suet. Dom. 17.2; see Collins, 2008, 3…