Remember kids, being a Goth isn’t about the wearing a particular style of clothes or listening to certain types of music…
It’s about ravaging the Balkans, threatening to sack Constantinople, actually sacking Rome and eventually establishing permanent kingdoms in Southern Gaul and the Iberian and Italian Peninsulas.
![cerradiano:
“ John II Komnenos and Irene of Hungary. Art by Antoine Helbert. [x]
”](https://64.media.tumblr.com/c97c8719fc61cd7d30f4999f39ea6b28/tumblr_ng8bhuuVMy1swo4lto1_500.jpg)
John II Komnenos and Irene of Hungary. Art by Antoine Helbert. [x]
Illuminations from the Menologion of Basil II, an illuminated manuscript designed as a church calendar or Eastern Orthodox Church service book compiled c. 1000 AD, for the Byzantine Emperor Basil II
Anna Komnene in the prologue to her history of her father, the (Byzantine) Roman Emperor Alexios I, The Alexiad. (c. 1148)
(Quoted from the 2009 Penguin Classics ed.)
(via ottomanwhale)
“Cannon Tables in the Rabbula Gospels”
Folio 4v in a bible written in Syriac containing cannon tables surrounded by various Christian narratives and symbols; among them (second from bottom on the left) is the Story of Jonah as he is saved by God from the whale, combined with God sending down a dove (probably from the Story of Noah and the Ark).
Ink and pigment on vellum.
Made in the 586 at the Monastery of St. John of Zagba in the Eastern half of the Byzantine Empire (modern-day Syria). Currently held at the Laurentian Library in Florence.
Mosaic of a grazing camel
4th-5th Century AD
Byzantine
Syria
This image of a grazing camel probably came from a larger composition with other animals that decorated the floor of a semipublic space within a private home, such as a reception or dining room. This animal is represented against a white ground decorated with florets. A bell hangs from the camel’s neck as it reaches toward an object, perhaps a vessel filled with water, at the lower right. The knobby contours of the camel’s body are accentuated by areas of shading in subtly modulated colors, including black, brown, brick red, and olive green.
Source: Art Institute Chicago
In 823, women were paraded before Emperor Theophilis of the Byzantine Empire to become his bride. At last he reduced the list to two: Theodora and Kassia. Impressed by Kassia’s beauty, the Emperor approached her and said “Ἐκ γυναικὸς τὰ χείρω.” (“through a woman came forth the baser things”), referring to Eve. Kassia quickly retorted, “Kαὶ ἐκ γυναικὸς τὰ κρείττω” (“and through a woman came forth the better things”), referring to Mary. For her outspokenness, the Emperor chose Theodora as his queen, and Kassia entered a convent where she authored some of the earliest Eastern Orthodox feminist theology.
More about Kassia
