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Front Page  Titles (by Subject) 11.: THE EXARCHS — ( P. 110 , 238 , 280 ) - The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. 7
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11.: THE EXARCHS — ( P. 110 , 238 , 280 ) - Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. 7 [1776]Edition used:The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ed. J.B. Bury with an Introduction by W.E.H. Lecky (New York: Fred de Fau and Co., 1906), in 12 vols. Vol. 7.
Part of: The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 12 vols.
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11.THE EXARCHS — (P. 110, 238, 280)The earliest mention of the name Exarch in connection with the government of Italy is in a letter of Pope Pelagius II. to the deacon Gregory (Migne, Patr. Lat. vol. 82, p. 707; cp. Diehl, Etudes sur l’administration byzantine dans l’exarchat de Ravenne, p. 173), dated Oct. 4, 484. Seven years later we meet the earliest mention of an Exarch of Africa (Gregory the Great, Ep. i. 59), in July, 591. Under the Emperors Justin and Tiberius ( 565-582) the supreme military governor is entitled magister militum. It is therefore plausible to ascribe to Maurice (Diehl, L’Afrique byzantine, p. 478) the investiture of the military governor with extraordinary powers and a new title designating his new position. Gennadius was the first exarch of Africa. From the first hour of the Imperial restoration in Africa military and civil governors existed side by side, and the double series of magistri militum (and exarchs) and Prætorian prefects can be imperfectly traced till the middle of the seventh century.1 On some exceptional occasions the two offices were united in a single individual. Thus Solomon was both magister militum and Prætorian prefect in 535, and again in 539, &c.; and Theodorus held the same powers in 569. Throughout, the tendency was to subordinate the civil to the military governor, and the creation of the exarchate, with its large powers, decisively reduced the importance of the Prætorian prefect. [1 ]See list of Diehl, L’Afrique byzantine, p. 596-9. |
