(VI century BC)
ancient Greek philosopher, religious and political figure, founder of Pythagoreanism, mathematician. Pythagoras is credited with studying the properties of integers and proportions, proving the Pythagorean theorem, etc.
Pythagoras was born on the island of Samos, one of the most prosperous islands of Ionia, in the family of a wealthy jeweler. Even before birth, he was dedicated by his parents to the light of Apollo. He was very handsome and from childhood he was distinguished by reason and justice. From a young age, Pythagoras strove to penetrate the secrets of Eternal Nature, to comprehend the meaning of Existence. The knowledge he received in the temples of Greece did not provide answers to all the questions that worried him, and he went in search of wisdom to Egypt. For 22 years he studied in the temples of Memphis and received initiation of the highest degree. Here he deeply studied mathematics, “the science of numbers or universal principles,” which he later made the center of his system. From Memphis, on the orders of Cambyses, who invaded Egypt, Pythagoras, together with the Egyptian priests, ends up in Babylon, where he spends another 12 years. Here he has the opportunity to study many religions and cults, to penetrate the mysteries of the ancient magic of the heirs of Zoroaster.
Around 530, Pythagoras finally returned to Greece and soon moved to Southern Italy, to the city of Croton. In Croton he founded the Pythagorean League, which was at once a philosophical school, a political party and a religious brotherhood. Here philosophy was combined with life practice, showing a person a worthy path to the fate that awaits him after death. The school lived in communities with strict discipline of morals, chastity and abstinence were required from students. However, asceticism was not the ideal of the Pythagoreans; marriage was a sacred concept for them. Along with boys, girls were also accepted into the school. The training was multi-stage and not everyone was given secret knowledge. Only those who successfully passed all the tests were allowed into the courtyard of the Teacher's house. Here Pythagoras instructed his closest students. This is where the names esoteric (i.e., what is inside) and exoteric (i.e., what is outside) originate. The strict lifestyle of the Pythagoreans, their contemplative philosophy, benevolence towards people and the desire to do good and help, attracted many people to them. The union soon became the center of the political and spiritual life of all of Croton.
The Pythagorean school gave Greece a galaxy of talented philosophers, physicists and mathematicians. Their name is associated in mathematics with the systematic introduction of proofs into geometry, consideration of it as an abstract science, the creation of the doctrine of similarity, the proof of the theorem bearing the name of Pythagoras, the construction of some regular polygons and polyhedra, as well as the doctrine of even and odd, simple and composite, figured and perfect numbers, arithmetic, geometric and harmonic proportions and averages. In acoustics, the Pythagoreans were responsible for the discovery of the dependence of the laws of sound harmony on the numerical ratio of the lengths of the strings producing sounds. Quite definitely, the Pythagoreans recognized the earth as a sphere and taught about the rotation of the earth, as well as other luminaries, around a central fire, “the altar of the universe, invisible due to the fact that between it and the earth there is a dark celestial body. Later, in Efkant we find the doctrine of the rotation of the earth around its axis, and in Aristarchus of Samos (280 BC) a well-defined heliocentric system.
Pythagoras first introduced the term “philosopher” when, when asked who he was, he answered: I am not a sage (sophos), I am a lover of wisdom (philosophos), that is, a philosopher. The main thing in the teachings of Pythagoras is the doctrine of number as the essence of the whole world. The diversity of physical phenomena will obey the law, which is unity, the cosmos (the use of this name is attributed to Pythagoras), i.e. order, and the basis of this order is number. Not an arithmetic number, but a number as a metaphysical reality, a connection, a law of the world, in relation to which the arithmetic number is only a form of knowledge. The basis of numbers is one, the embodiment of the unity and harmony of the Universe. God, as an indivisible essence, has one as its number. From the moment of manifestation, God is dual (matter and spirit, male and female). The entire manifested world is symbolized by the number three: for just as a person consists of body, soul and spirit, so the Universe is divided into three spheres: the natural world, the human world and the divine world. Just as the world trinity is concentrated in the unity of God, so the human trinity is concentrated in consciousness and will, forming thus. notebook.
In each number, Pythagoras defined one or another principle, law, one or another active force. The opposition between odd (higher) and even (lower, generated from higher by doubling) numbers manifests itself in nature in the form of a number of other opposites: light and darkness, limitless and limited, good and evil, moving and resting, male and female, etc. . The natural world is actually built from numbers: the body is limited by planes, the plane by lines, the line by points. The point - the last element of the Universe - is identical to one. That. a correspondence arises between the spatial world and numbers: line - “2”, plane - “3”, body - “4”. The world of the spirit is also reduced to a number: love and friendship are identified with eight, justice with multiple numbers. Pythagoras attached particular importance to the numbers “7” and “10”. Composed of three and four, seven signifies the union of man with the deity. The number ten, formed from the first four numbers, containing the number seven, is a perfect number, a unit of the highest order, for it expresses all the principles of the Divinity, first developing and then merging in a new unity.
The teachings of Pythagoras continue the teachings of Orpheus about the immortality of the soul, about reincarnation, about the means of salvation and purification of the soul, bringing it into a harmonious scientifically based system. Pythagoras defines the task of human earthly life as introducing order, “number”, and harmony into the inner world. The family of Pythagoras also personified divine harmony.
At the age of 60, Pythagoras married his student Theano, a girl of amazing beauty who won the heart of the wise philosopher with her pure and fiery love, boundless devotion and faith. Theano gave Pythagoras two sons and a daughter, all of them were faithful followers of their Great Father. One of the sons of Pythagoras later became the teacher of Empidocles and initiated him into the secrets of Pythagorean teaching. Pythagoras entrusted his daughter Dano with the storage of his manuscripts. After the death of her father and the collapse of the union, Dano lived in extreme poverty, she was offered large sums for the manuscripts, but true to her father’s will, she refused to give them into strangers’ hands.
Pythagoras lived in Croton for 30 years. During this time, he managed to realize what remained the dream of many initiates: he created, on top of political power, a wise power of higher knowledge, similar to the ancient Egyptian priesthood. The Council of Three Hundred, created and headed by Pythagoras, was the regulator of the political life of Croton and extended its influence to other cities of Greece for a quarter of a century. But nothing irritates mediocrity more, causes envy and hatred, than the dominion of a great mind. The rebellion against the rule of the aristocratic party that broke out in Sybaris was the beginning of the persecution of the Pythagorean alliance. Many of the students died under the rubble of the burning school building, others starved to death in the temples. No reliable information has been preserved about the time and place of death of Pythagoras himself. The memories of the Great Teacher and his teaching were preserved by those few who managed to escape to Greece. We find it in the Golden Verses of Lysias, in the commentaries of Heraclitus, in passages by Philolaus and Archytas, and in Plato's Timaeus. The beautiful, harmonious system given to the world by Pythagoras has never been forgotten. It became the basis of Plato’s metaphysics and was revived in the Alexandrian school and in the works of many later ancient philosophers.
It's time to remember the earthquake-volcano megacatastrophe that already happened in the 6th century AD.
The mysterious "end of the world" and the covering of the Sun by a black cloud what the Byzantine chronicles wrote about in 536 and 537 AD, and the subsequent Justinian Plague, were associated with volcanic eruptions, traces of which scientists found in the ice of Greenland and Antarctica, according to an article published in the journal Climatic Change.
"Each of these eruptions, which occurred in 536 and 540, would have greatly affected the lives of civilizations at the time, and their effect was enhanced by the fact that they occurred only four years apart. We don't yet know which volcanoes were responsible, but we have several candidates in Central and North America, as well as Indonesia and," stated Kirstin Krueger from the University of Oslo (Norway).
Kruger and her colleagues studied one of the most mysterious phenomena in the history of late antiquity and the early Middle Ages. In 536, 537 and 540 AD Procopius, other Byzantine chroniclers and their colleagues in other centers of civilization in other regions of Europe wrote about " end of the world" - a mysterious episode of the darkening of the Sun, during which a certain dark cloud covered the luminary, causing it to turn black, which lasted for several months.
The chronicles of that time associated a variety of cataclysms and events with these episodes - famine in Byzantium due to crop failures, a series of political and social unrest, and the plague epidemic of 540, which arose as a result of the importation of rats and plague fleas from Egypt along with grain cargoes to Constantinople .
Scientists have been arguing about the reasons for this event for quite some time - some climatologists and geologists believe that volcanoes were to blame for this, throwing large amounts of ash into the atmosphere by analogy with the famous explosion of Mount Tambora in 1815, which also caused a “volcanic winter”, while others attribute this role to other natural and climatic factors.
The authors of the article found that the first hypothesis is most likely correct by analyzing several versions of chronicle descriptions of this “end of the world,” as well as studying the content of ice samples from Greenland and Antarctica that formed at that time.
These ice fragments, as shown by analysis, contained large amounts of sulfur compounds and other compounds found in large quantities in volcanic gases and ash. Using the fractions of these compounds as a guide, Kruger and her colleagues built a climate model describing the events of 536 and 540.
This model showed that the double "blackening of the Sun" led to much stronger consequences than could be expected from each eruption separately - its strength was the highest in the last 1,200 years. On average, the temperature on Earth dropped by two degrees Celsius for several years, and this phenomenon most affected the northern hemisphere of the Earth, and in particular the northern latitudes, including Scandinavia during winter, as well as the Mediterranean coast, the Middle East and North Africa - during the summer.
This “pattern” of climate change corresponds well to what the Roman and Constantinople chronicles tell us, as well as excavation data in northern Europe and Africa. This, according to Kruger and her colleagues, allows us to say with confidence that the “end of the world” of 536 and 540 was caused by volcanoes.
The 6th century actually began in 502, when Vakhtang Gorgasal died in Ujarma. This event ended Georgian antiquity and began the sad early Middle Ages. Little is known to us about this era. The state has almost disappeared, only individuals remain. The era of dependency and occupation began, which lasted for about 400 years. The era began with such an unusual event as the Dvina Cathedral, the essence of which has been debated for fifteen hundred years.
Conversion to Monophysitism
During the period of the conditional reign of King Farsman VI (542-557), a group of monks arrived in Georgia from Antioch, who went down in history under the name of the Assyrian fathers. They are sometimes called the "Syrian Fathers". These were John (Known as John of Zedazeno) and his disciples. They settled on Zedazeni Mountain and founded the Zedazeni Monastery there. John of Zedazeno was buried in the same monastery and the Church of John the Baptist was later erected over his grave. His disciple Shio (-559) founded the Shio-Mgvima monastery west of Mtskheta. The first church of the monastery was erected after his death, in 560 - 580.
Another disciple, David, first lived in Tbilisi on Mount Mtatsminda, where the Pantheon is now located. Then he went to Gareji and founded the famous David-Gareji Monastery there.
The disciple Jesse came to Tsilkani (in the Mukhrani Valley), founded the Tsilkani Church there and was ordained bishop. So Tsilkani became one of the centers of Christianity in the region.
Anthony of Martkop went to the eastern part of the country, settled there in the mountains and later founded the Martkop Monastery, where he is now buried.
This all actually happened under Iranian occupation, against the backdrop of constant conflicts with the Zoroastrians. For example, Abo, the founder of the Nekresi monastery, was eventually taken to Mtskheta and executed there. His body was taken to Samtavisi, and then reburied in the city of Mtskheta, in the Samtavro Cathedral.
Thaddeus of Stefantsminda built a temple in Urbnisi. Other disciples (Joseph of Alaverdi, Pir of Bret, Stefan of Hirsov, Isidore of Samtavnel, Mikael of Ulumbalel and Zenon of Ikaltoi) founded monasteries in other places in Georgia. This is how the Georgian monastic movement began.
These were probably echoes of the heyday of the monastic movement in Byzantium under Justinian.
Liquidation of the Georgian kingdom
In the 570s, several small wars took place, as a result of which the Persians left Western Georgia. In 575, the Byzantines invaded Svaneti and captured the local pro-Iranian prince. In 582, Shah Hormizd IV made a campaign to Egrisi and Svaneti.
Bakur dies in Iberia in 580
III , and the Persians decide to eliminate even the appearance of royal power. The descendants of the king hid - some in Kakheti, some in the south, in Javakheti. Among them was a man who went down in history as Gurgen I . He was a relative of Vahang Gorgasal and owned something in Klarjeti. In 572, he tried to rebel against the Persians, but was forced to flee to Byzantium.In 582, Mauritius became emperor of Byzantium, and the Persians were taken seriously. In 586, the Persians were defeated in the battle of Salahon, and a couple of years later, the Persian military leader Bahram Chubin rebelled and in 590 declared himself Shah. The interesting thing here is that Bahram came from the Mikhranid dynasty and was thus a distant relative of the kings of Iberia.
The legitimate Shah asks for help from Byzantium, and in 591 the Peace of Ctesiphon is concluded, which stipulates a new border between Iran and Byzantium in Transcaucasia. Byzantium gets all of Armenia west of Yerevan and most of Iberia - at least the entire Borjomi Gorge and the Gori Plain up to Mtskheta. Mtskheta becomes the capital of the Byzantine part of Iberia, Tbilisi remains on Iranian territory. The border passed somewhere in the area of the modern Zemo-Avchala hydroelectric station.
On the newly acquired territory, the Greeks create the Avan Catholicosate (Orthodox). The Dvina Catholicosate (Monophysite) remains on Iranian territory. During these years, the Avan Cathedral was built in Armenia, which would give rise to a whole era in the architecture of Transcaucasia.
A very interesting, although not entirely clear question: did the Byzantine part of Iberia (with Mtskheta) become part of the Avan Catholicosate? It was in 591 that Bartolome became Catholicos of Kartli. Perhaps the Byzantine part of the country became part of the Avan Catholicosate, and Bartolome ruled the Iranian part. This question is important to understand who exactly will build the Jvari temple in 10 years.
Border of Byzantium and Iran according to the Ctesiphon world. Tbilisi is not designated - it is near Mtskheta on Iranian territory. Judging by this map, Mtskheta belonged to the Avan Catholicosate.
The Persians were losing ground. Back in 588 they left Iberia, and the Georgian population asked the Emperor of Mauritius to send them a king. Mauritius sent Gurgen, giving him the administrative title of "kuropalate" (κουροπαλάτη). In Georgia it was called erismtavar. As a result, what appeared in Russian was called the Kartli Erismtavarstvo, and in English it is usually translated as Principate of Iberia.
A feature of those years was the large number of Zoroastrian Persians in Iberia, in particular in Mtskheta. This is clearly seen in history Saint Eustace of Mtskheta. He was an ethnic Persian named Bgrobandav, moved to Mtskheta after 575, became imbued with Christian philosophy, and in 582 Catholicos Samuel IV baptized him under the name Eustathius. The Mtskheta Persians sent him to Tbilisi, to the satrap Arvand-Gunab, and quite a lot of Mtskheta Christian Persians left with Eustathius. They were sent to prison for 6 months, then released, and then Eustathius was arrested again and began to be persuaded to Zoroastrianism. On July 29, 589, Eustathius was beheaded by order of the satrap Bezhan-Buzmil. His body was buried under the throne of the Svetitskhoveli Cathedral, and July 29 became the day of his remembrance.
It seems that Eustathius died in the last year of the Persian presence, a little before the arrival of the Kurapalate Gurgen. I wonder if he was a Monophysite or Orthodox?
With the arrival of Gurgen, a new dynasty was established in Iberia, which some consider to be the Bagrations, but others do not. The Gurgenids (Guaramids) ruled the country until its collapse in 786.
Thus ended the Georgian 6th century. The only visible trace of it now is the temple of Anchiskhati, the temple of John in the Shio-Mgvim monastery and the basilica in Tsandripsha. And a few more undated temples.
Scientists have discovered references to the covering of the Sun by a “black cloud” in Byzantine chronicles from 536-540 AD. This “blackout,” according to the chronicler Procopius of Caesarea and other chroniclers, lasted several months. It was with this celestial phenomenon that other cataclysms of that time were associated, such as crop failures, famine, political unrest and the Justinian plague.
Death "black" and "red"
The so-called Plague of Justinian was the world's first recorded plague pandemic. It got its name because it began during the reign of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I and covered almost the entire civilized world. However, individual plague epidemics broke out for centuries after that - from 541 to 750.
Researchers believe that the source of the plague appeared in Ethiopia or Egypt, from where rats and fleas infected with the infection “arrived” through trade channels along with a cargo of grain to Constantinople. From there, the epidemic spread throughout Byzantium, and then spread to neighboring countries... By the end of 654, it reached North Africa, covering all of Europe, Central and South Asia and Arabia.
In Byzantium, the pandemic reached its climax by 544. If you believe the chronicles, in Constantinople alone up to 5 thousand people died from the plague every day, and sometimes the death rate reached 10 thousand people a day... 40 percent of the city’s population was destroyed.
In the East, about 100 million people died from the plague, in Europe - about 25 million. Irish sources speak of the crom conaill ("Red Death"), which became the cause of the death of many saints and monarchs in 549-550. So, it was from this that the Welsh king Gwynedd Maelgwn and Saint Finnian of Clonard died...
If desired, a prophecy about these events can be found in the Bible. This is what the ninth chapter of the Revelation of John the Theologian says:
“She opened the pit of the deep, and smoke came out of the pit like smoke from a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened from the smoke from the pit...
So I saw in a vision horses and their riders, who had armor of fire, hyacinth and sulfur on them; The heads of the horses were like the heads of lions, and from their mouths came fire, smoke and brimstone... From these three plagues, from the fire, smoke and brimstone coming out of their mouths, a third of the people died..."
Volcanic Horror
What happened? Scientists believe that the cause of the solar darkening was volcanic eruptions, traces of which were found in the ice of Greenland and Antarctica.
“Each of these eruptions, which occurred in 536 and 540, must have had a profound effect on the lives of civilizations at that time, and their effect was magnified by the fact that they occurred only four years apart,” comments Kruger. We know which volcanoes were responsible, but we have several candidates in Central and North America, as well as Indonesia."
Volcanoes are believed to have released large amounts of ash into the atmosphere, causing what is known as a “volcanic winter.” Something similar, only on a local scale, happened in 1815 after the explosion of the Indonesian Mount Tambora.
Ice and sulfur
Kruger and her colleagues found confirmation of the “volcanic” hypothesis by analyzing the chronicles of the 6th century and examining samples of Greenland and Antarctic ice that formed during that era.
It turned out that these ice fragments contain sulfur and other compounds that are found in large quantities in volcanic gases and ash. Thus, scientists were able to build a climate model that allowed them to reconstruct the events of the late 530s.
It turned out that the consequences of the climate cataclysm were much more serious than expected. The combined force of the two volcanoes' eruptions was the highest in the last 1,200 years.
As a result, the average temperature on Earth dropped by two degrees Celsius for several years, but climate change affected the northern hemisphere the most. Scandinavia, the Mediterranean coast, the Middle East and North Africa were “affected”.
The events described in the chronicles and the data from excavations in northern Europe and Africa fit well into this theory. According to researchers from the Kruger group, the “apocalypse” of the sixth century was “triggered” by volcanoes. And there are no guarantees that this will not happen again...
The ruin and decline of the cultural traditions of the ancient world. At the same time, in this century, chaos reigns throughout the entire territory of the former Roman Empire. Features of decline appear in all areas of life: the desire for education is lost. The time is coming for the strengthening of Christian orthodoxy. Centers where one could obtain higher education are practically disappearing.
The beginning of the formation of “barbarian states” on the territory of the former Roman provinces in Europe - the Ostrogoths and Lombards in Italy, the Visigoths in Spain, the Anglo-Saxons in Britain. The difference between these new states is both from Rome and from traditional tribal customs and traditions. The unity of this conglomerate of different states lay in the fact that they all came out of the Roman world and, therefore, were integrated, to one degree or another, into Latin culture. which was manifested in the assimilation of the Latin language, the norms of Roman law and the introduction to Christianity, which was widespread by this time in the Roman Empire. This process was long and complex and continued. throughout the early Middle Ages. At the same time, in this century chaos reigns throughout the entire territory of the former Roman Empire.
The beginning of the Slavic expansion
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Benedict of Nursia - the charter that formed the basis of the monastic life of the Catholic Church. According to this charter, poverty was a personal vow of the monk and applied to the entire monastery, order or other organization. The monk's day was carefully planned between prayer, physical labor and reading Scripture, copying religious texts. This statute is sometimes called “the first labor legislation in Europe” 73 . |
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Clovis (Merovingian dynasty) - the king of the Franks, under whom they subjugated all of Gaul. Clovis retained the Roman administration, but ruled according to Frankish laws (“Salic Truth” 74). He accepted orthodox Christianity, but had the same power over the bishops as the Byzantine emperors. Everywhere in Italy, Gaul, and Spain there is a loss of connection with the ancient cultural tradition. It is preserved only in some monasteries. In them, from the 6th century, they began to record events by year - “Annals” (after the 13th-19th centuries they would be replaced by “Chronicles”). |
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Death of Theodoric, received the title “Great”. There is unrest in Italy, an uprising of the local population against the power of the Ostrogoths. |
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Byzantine Emperor Justinian 1 seeks to subjugate Italy. |
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493,499, |
Slavic invasions of the Eastern Roman Empire. |
Slavs and Europe
Frontier 5-6 centuries - the time of the beginning of contact with the Roman Empire of the Slavs, which is divided into two periods and continues until 10 century. The entire 6th century passed under the sign of Slavic pressure on Byzantium. During this period, the Slavic invasion of the Roman Empire was equivalent in its consequences to the invasion of Germanic tribes. During this period, defensive structures were built on the borders of the Byzantine Empire and around Constantinople, separating it from the lands inhabited by the Slavs, but this did not stop their onslaught. In this century, the Slavs made a breakthrough on the Danube and penetrated the Balkan Peninsula into Macedonia, Istria, Dalmatia, and occupied part of Greece.
IN6-8 centuries Eastern Slavspenetrate the southern Russian steppes, reach the Don, colonize the area between the Volga and Oka rivers, approach Lake Ladoga, Neva, Narva. The indigenous population of these areas: Turkic, Finno-Ugric, Baltic tribes are assimilated by the Eastern Slavs and bring their spiritual and cultural contribution to their way of life.
Until the first centuries of our era, the Slavs were a single entity. TO6 century they were divided into three parts: Venedov( living to the northeast from the Carpathians in the upper reaches of the river . Vistula), Sklavins(living to the West of the Dniester River and in the Carpathian region) and ants(living between the Dniester and Dnieper and north of the Sea of Azov).
Later based on these tribal groupsO formedwestern and eastern Slavs. Core of Western Slavs made up Sklavins and Wends, eastern – antes. Antes disappear from the historical arena towards the end 6 century. There are no mentions of the Eastern Slavs in the sources until 9 no century. However, the development of the Eastern Slavs was not interrupted; the Antes were only part of the Eastern Slavic tribes.
By the end of the 6th century, the leadership role of the Eastern Slavs passed intorosam (Russians ). The first mention of them dates back to the 6th century. They lived in Transnistria in the river basin. Roshi. IN 6-7 centuries, the name “Rus” displaces other tribal names and spreads to the entire territory of the forest-steppe zone of Eastern Europe, inhabited by Slavic tribes.
IN6-8 centuries, the Eastern Slavs penetrated into the southern Russian steppes and Narva.
IN"Tales of Bygone Years" are mentioned 13 East Slavic tribes:
1. Polyane (Rus) - district of Kyiv;
2. Northerners – to the east of the glades in the basins of the Desna, Seim, Sura, and St. Donets rivers;
3.Ulichi – south of the clearings in the area between the Dnieper and Bug rivers;
4. D Revlyans– west of the glades in Pripyat Polesie;
5. Duleby (Volynians) – even further west in Volyn and Galician land;
6. Croats – extreme in the West, Transcarpathia;
7. Tvertsy – from the Dniester to the lower reaches of the Danube;
8. Dregovichi - in the north of the Drevlyans and glades along the river. Soju;
9. Rodimichi – east of Dregovichi;
10. Vyatichi - east of Dregovichi in dense forests along the river. Oke and beyond; eleven. Krivichi – in the northern regions of the East Slavic territory in the upper reaches of the Dnieper, Volga, West. Dvina;
12. Polotsk residents - along the river Dvina;
13. Slovenians – river basin Dvina, Volkhov, Ilmen lakes.
Description of the ethnic appearance of the Rus preserved in texts in Byzantine and Arabic texts 6-10 centuries.
Christianization of the Eastern Slavs begins after their penetration into Balkan Peninsula and the seizure of Greek territories and the establishment of fairly close contacts with Byzantium. They were carried out through constant trade relations with Byzantium and the East, as well as through the service of Slavic warriors in the Byzantine troops, where they were distinguished by a high level of military art, bravery, courage and cruelty. It becomes active in 9 century under the Byzantine Patriarch Photius. By this time, the constant conflicts between Byzantium and the Slavic tribes were replaced by the desire of the Byzantine emperors to establish the Slavs to colonize the uninhabited territories of the Greek world, relations of mutually beneficial cooperation and even attract. During this period, the Slavs penetrated not only into northern, but also into central and southern Greece, Crete and southern Italy. In the mid-8th century, texts from medieval Europe referred to Macedonia as “Sclavinia” and the south of the Peloponnese as “Slavic land” (slavinia terra) 75 .
In the 9th century – begins simultaneously for Western and Eastern SlavsChristianization of the Slavic world . In 863, under the patronage of Photius, the mission of the “first teachers” of the Slavs, the Byzantine monks Cyril (Constantine) and Methodius, to Great Moravia was carried out. They created a Slavic charter and translated a number of sacred books into the Slavic language. IN 865 was implemented baptism of Bulgaria.
IN864-866 – The first baptism of Rus' .
IN 869 – baptism of Serbs
In the 7th-8th centuries . The main occupation of the Slavs was primitive (slash-and-burn) agriculture. Crafts are developed everywhere (production of agricultural implements, weapons, carpentry). In the 9th century Cities with a permanent population, consisting mainly of merchants, artisans, and warriors of the prince (Kiev, Novgorod, Beloozero, Rostov, Izborsk, Ladoga, Lyubech, Murom, Smolensk) appeared in the territories inhabited by Slavic tribes. IN 9-12 centuries, two of the oldest state centers of the Eastern Slavs took shape: Kievan Rus Kujava) Slavic tribes of middle Transnistria - Polyans, Northerners, Vyatichi) with a center in Kyiv and Novgorod Rus'(its core was the political union ( Slavia), it included the tribes Chud, Slovene, Merya, Krivichi) with their center in Novgorod.
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Closing of the Platonov Academy. Byzantine commander Belisarius lands in Italy. |
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Capture of Rome by Belisarius. |
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Ostrogoths led by the king Totiloy expel the Byzantines from Rome and reconquer most of Italy, Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica. |
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Byzantine commander Nerses defeats Totila's troops. |
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538 -594 |
Gregory of Tours - Bishop of Tours in his History of the Franks, deplores the loss of the ancient heritage as a result of the decline in the study of the liberal arts, or rather completely disappeared in the cities of Gaul. From that moment on, the tradition ceased to be a living experience, remaining a wonderful memory. Behind these words of regret of an educated Christian thinker is the awareness of the obvious fact that the time had come for the decline of the culture of the early Middle Ages, which was accompanied the departure of culture to monasteries. |
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Gregory I (Great ) – Pope Ideologist of Orthodox Christianity.Strived to expand the influence of the Christian Church throughout Europe. Proclaimed the pope to be the supreme judge over all matters. Converted the Lombards to Christianity. He annexed territories to Rome, which later became the basis of the “Papal States”. He wrote with bitterness about the loss of “Roman order”: “Everywhere we see war, Everywhere we hear lamentations. Our cities are destroyed. Our villages stand empty.” At the same time, in his theological writings and actions as the supreme hierarch of the church, he resolutely opposed the use of monuments and experience of ancient culture in monastic schools. So in a letter to one of the bishops (600) he wrote: “We were told so many good things about your activities, and therefore such great joy was born in our hearts... But then it dawned on us what We cannot remember without shame, namely, that you teach some kind of grammar. The news of this act, for which we feel great contempt, made a very difficult impression on us, So that everything I spoke about above turned me into grief and sadness... if you clearly prove that everything told about you is false, that you do not engage in absurd secular sciences, then we will glorify our Lord, who did not allow your lips to be defiled blasphemous praise of such a thing that one cannot even say anything..." 76 . |
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Italy was completely conquered by Byzantium. |
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Slavic attack on Constantinople. |
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The Ostrogoths were partially exterminated and partially expelled from Italy. |
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Conquest of most of Italy by East Germanic tribes Lombards (they were less subject to Romanization than other Germanic tribes. They were called a people “even wilder than all the other wild Germans”) The final destruction of the Roman order, still preserved by the Gothic rulers. Decline of Italy. Death and destruction of cities : the population of Rome decreased from a million to 50 thousand people. They began to sow grain in the city. Milan was razed to the ground. Naples was sacked, Campania - the breadbasket of Italy - turned into a desert. The population of Italy has declined sharply. |
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King of the VisigothsReckard , professed Arianism, converted to Catholicism and ordered all Arian books to be burned. A period of strict Christian orthodoxy begins in Spain. Roman customs in the territory of the former provinces of the Roman Empire are still preserved, albeit in a Christianized form. In the cities of Gaul they virtually disappear. The era of great Christian theologians is dying and philosophers of Christian antiquity. Gradually losing interest in ancient tradition, which will be revived only inVIIcentury. INVIcentury the Christian faith is finally established orthodoxy. |
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VI- VII |
Slavic settlement of the Balkans. |
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VI–VIII |
Visigothic Kingdom of Spain .It retained the Roman administrative system. Education. Kings enjoyed absolute power; they made laws and collected taxes. The power of the king also had priority over the power of the church. In cities and episcopal centers, schools were preserved in which the “liberal arts” were studied along with theology and law. In the 6th century, widespread Arianism was replaced by Catholicism. |
