On Thursday, 23 February 2022, our project hosted a seminar paper delivered by dr Silvio Roggo (Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main), titled “Pagan Persecution under Tiberius and Maurice (578–602)”. The paper inaugurated the summer semester of Ewa Wipszycka’s Late Antique Seminar.

Abstract: “In my talk, I will present a new analysis of the dynamics at play in a famous, but understudied instance of religious intolerance in Late Antiquity, the so-called ‘pagan affair’ of 580. In several Syrian cities, evidence came to light that important people had secretly been participating in pagan rituals; this led to an eruption of violence in both Antioch and Constantinople and forced the emperor Tiberios to set up special courts to deal with charges levelled against members of the senatorial elite. Two eye-witnesses to the events, the church historians John of Ephesos (EH 3.27-34) and Evagrios (EH 5.18), provide much detail in their accounts, yet these sources have often been overlooked. The anti-pagan protests of large parts of the population in Antioch and Constantinople developed into riots in which representatives of the state and the church were targeted since they were suspected of secretly harbouring pagan sympathies. The patriarchs Gregory of Antioch and Eutychios of Constantinople were both attacked during these riots. I shall present a novel explanation for why they were so strongly criticised. The patriarchate of both of them was challenged: Eutychios had previously been deposed, and many clerics considered his return to the episcopal throne uncanonical. Gregory was confronted with a similar difficulty, since his predecessor Anastasios had been deposed in 570, but still had many supporters in Antioch. In addition, both patriarchs were persecutors of the anti-Chalcedonians, and it is easily imaginable that the discovery of pagans provided a good opportunity for the persecuted to slander their persecutors and thus avenge themselves.”

Image: Classical Numismatic Group, Inc., Tiberios II (obverse). Source: Wikimedia Commons. License: CC BY-SA 2.5.