Byzantine emperor from 969 to 976
John I Tzimiskes
(
Greek
:
?ω?ννη? ? Τζιμισκ??
,
romanized
:
I?ann?s ho Tzimisk?s
;
c.
925 ? 10 January 976) was the senior
Byzantine emperor
from 969 to 976. An intuitive and successful general who married into the influential
Skleros family
, he strengthened and expanded the
Byzantine Empire
to include
Thrace
and
Syria
by warring with the Rus' under
Sviatoslav I
and the
Fatimids
respectively.
Background
[
edit
]
John was born in present-day
Cemi?gezek
in
Tunceli Province
. His father was a scion of the
Kourkouas
family, a clan of still debated
Armenian
origin
[3]
that had established itself as one of the chief families among the
Anatolian
military aristocracy by the early 10th century.
[5]
[6]
His mother belonging to the
Phokas
family of unknown ethnicity, maybe
Greek
-
Armenian
origin.
[7]
[8]
Scholars have speculated that "
Tzimiskes
" was derived either from the Armenian
Chmushkik
(??????), meaning "red boot",
[9]
or from an Armenian word for "short stature", as explained by
Leo the Deacon
.
A more favorable explanation is offered by the medieval Armenian historian
Matthew of Edessa
, who states that Tzimiskes was from the region of Khozan, from the area called
Chmushkatzag
.
[11]
Khozan was located in the region of Paghnatun, in the Byzantine province of
Fourth Armenia
(
Sophene
).
[12]
Either way, "Tzimiskes" was a surname used by other members of John's family, as the Armenian historian
Stepanos Asoghik
refers to him as the "grandson of ?‘m?kik".
[13]
Tzimiskes was born in 924 or 925, as Leo the Deacon states that he died aged 51,
to an unnamed member of the
Kourkouas
family and the sister of the future Emperor
Nikephoros II Phokas
. Both the
Kourkouai
and the
Phokadai
were distinguished
Cappadocian
families, and among the most prominent of the emerging military aristocracy of
Asia Minor
. Several of their members had served as prominent army generals, most notably the great
John Kourkouas
, who conquered
Melitene
and much of Armenia.
Contemporary sources describe Tzimiskes as a rather short but well-built man, with reddish blonde hair and beard and blue eyes who was attractive to women.
He seems to have joined the army at an early age, originally under the command of his maternal uncle Nikephoros Phokas. The latter is also considered his instructor in the art of war. Partly because of his familial connections and partly because of his personal abilities, Tzimiskes quickly rose through the ranks. He was given the political and military command of the theme of Armenia before he turned twenty-five years old.
His marriage to Maria Skleraina, daughter of
Pantherios Skleros
and sister of
Bardas Skleros
, linked him to the influential Skleros family. Little is known about her; she died before his rise to the throne, and the marriage was apparently childless. The contemporary historian
Leo the Deacon
remarks that she excelled in both beauty and wisdom.
[17]
Rise to the throne
[
edit
]
Tentative reproduction of the lost portrait of John I. He's depicted beardless, although literary sources describe him as having a reddish/blonde facial hair.
The Byzantine Empire was
at war
with its eastern neighbors, the various autonomous and semi-autonomous emirates emerging from the break-up of the
Abbasid Caliphate
. The most prominent among them was the
Hamdanid
Emirate of Aleppo
, under
Sayf al-Dawla
. Armenia served as the borderland between the two Empires, and Tzimiskes successfully defended his province. He and his troops joined the main army which was campaigning under the command of Nikephoros Phokas.
By 962 the Hamdanids had sued for peace with favorable terms for the Byzantines, securing the eastern border of the Empire for some years. Tzimiskes distinguished himself during the war both at the side of his uncle and at leading parts of the army to battle under his personal command, as in the
Battle of Raban
in 958.
He was rather popular with his troops and gained a reputation for taking the initiative during battles, turning their course.
On the death of Emperor
Romanos II
in 963, Tzimiskes urged his uncle to seize the throne. After helping Nikephoros to the throne and continuing to defend the Empire's eastern provinces, Tzimiskes was deprived of his command by an intrigue, for which he retaliated by conspiring with Nikephoros' wife
Theophano
and a number of disgruntled leading generals (
Michael Bourtzes
and
Leo Balantes
) to
assassinate
Nikephoros.
Reign
[
edit
]
The coronation of John Tzimiskes, from the
Madrid Skylitzes
After his
coronation
in December 969, Tzimiskes dispatched his brother-in-law
Bardas Skleros
to subdue a rebellion by
Bardas Phokas
, a cousin of Tzimiskes who aspired to succeed their uncle as emperor. To solidify his position, Tzimiskes married
Theodora
, a daughter of Emperor
Constantine VII
. He proceeded to justify his usurpation by repelling the foreign invaders of the Empire. The tributary of
Aleppo
was soon assured under the
Treaty of Safar
.
The Byzantine army under John I lays siege to the Bulgarian capital at Preslav.
During his early reign he had to fight off the
Kievan Rus'
encroachment on the Lower
Danube
. In 970 he sent his brother-in-law, Bardas Skleros, to push the Rus' forces out of
Thrace
; Skleros defeated the Rus' army at
Arcadiopolis
. In 971, John Tzimiskes took the main army across
Mt. Haemus
, and
besieged the fortress of Dorostolon
(
Silistra
) on the Danube for 65 days, where after several hard-fought battles he defeated Grand Prince
Sviatoslav I
of Kiev. Tzimiskes and Sviatoslav ended up negotiating a truce, in which weaponry, armor and provisions were exchanged for the famished Rus' departure.
John Tzimiskes enters Constantinople in triumph along with the captured
Boris II of Bulgaria
.
On his return to Constantinople, Tzimiskes celebrated a triumph, expanded the
Church of Christ of the Chalke
as thanksgiving, divested the captive Bulgarian Emperor
Boris II
of the Imperial symbols, and proclaimed Bulgaria annexed. He further secured his northern frontier by transplanting to Thrace some colonies of the
Paulicians
, whom he suspected of sympathising with their
Muslim
neighbours in the east.
[9]
In 972, Tzimiskes turned against the
Abbasid Empire
and its vassals, beginning with an invasion of Upper
Mesopotamia
. A
second campaign
, in 975, was aimed at
Syria
, where his forces took
Emesa
,
Heliopolis
,
Damascus
,
Tiberias
,
Nazareth
,
Caesarea
,
Sidon
,
Beirut
,
Byblos
, and
Tripoli
, but failed to take
Jerusalem
.
Death
[
edit
]
Klavdiy Lebedev
(1852?1916).
Svyatoslav's meeting with Emperor John, as described by Leo the Deacon
Tzimiskes died suddenly in 976 returning from his second campaign against the Abbasids and was buried in the
Church of Christ Chalkites
, which he had rebuilt. Several sources state that the Imperial chamberlain
Basil Lekapenos
poisoned the emperor to prevent him from stripping Lekapenos of his ill-gotten lands and riches.
Tzimiskes left all his own personal wealth to the poor and the sick.
He was succeeded by his ward and nephew,
Basil II
, who had been nominal co-emperor since 960. He left his successor a strengthened and expanded empire.
Assessment
[
edit
]
Finnish philologist and researcher Paavo Hohti asserts that Tzimiskes was one of "Byzantine's most capable military generals", noting his talents as a mediator and a reformer of religious institutions. According to Hohti, Tzimiskes' successful campaigns against the Rus and the Arabs allowed him to restore the ascendancy of the Eastern Roman Empire in the Balkans and Mesopotamia.
[23]
Legacy
[
edit
]
Tsimiski Street
, the main commercial road in the center of
Thessaloniki
, is named after him.
Cemi?gezek
in the
Tunceli Province
, modern day Turkey, is named after him, as he was born there.
[
citation needed
]
See also
[
edit
]
Notes
[
edit
]
- ^
"Cemi?gezek" in The Concise Dictionary of World Place-Names, 2005, by John Everett-Heath, Oxford University Press.
- ^
Romanland
, Harvard University Press, 1 April 2019, pp. 81?120,
doi
:
10.2307/j.ctvckq5d6.7
, retrieved
30 April
2023
- ^
Andriollo 2012
, p. 58.
- ^
Preiser-Kapeller, Johannes (23 April 2020), "Aristocrats, Mercenaries, Clergymen and Refugees: Deliberate and Forced Mobility of Armenians in the Early Medieval Mediterranean (6th to 11th Century a.d.)",
Migration Histories of the Medieval Afroeurasian Transition Zone
, BRILL, pp. 327?384,
doi
:
10.1163/9789004425613_013
,
ISBN
9789004425613
,
S2CID
218992750
- ^
Blaum 1994
, p. 6. "The Phocas family was always associated with the province of Cappadocia in eastern Anatolia; its actual lineage seems to have been a mixture of Armenian and Greek.".
- ^
Whittow, Mark (1996).
The Making of Orthodox Byzantium, 600?1025
.
doi
:
10.1007/978-1-349-24765-3
.
ISBN
978-0-333-49601-5
.
- ^
a
b
"
John I (Roman emperor)
".
Encyclopædia Britannica
.
- ^
(in Armenian)
Matthew of Edessa
.
??????? ?????????`??????????????????
(
The Chronicle of Matthew of Edessa
). Translation and commentary by
Hrach Bartikyan
. Yerevan, Armenian SSR: Hayastan Publishing, 1973, pp. 12?13.
- ^
See Matthew of Edessa.
The Chronicle of Matthew of Edessa
, p. 301, note 52.
- ^
"Ioannes I. Tzimiskes"
.
Prosopographie der mittelbyzantinischen Zeit Online
(in German). De Gruyter. 2013
. Retrieved
29 April
2023
.
- ^
"Maria Skleraina"
.
Prosopographie der mittelbyzantinischen Zeit Online
(in German). De Gruyter. 2013
. Retrieved
29 April
2023
.
- ^
Hohti, Paavo (2021).
Bysantti - Tuhat draaman vuotta
[
Byzantium - A thousand years of drama
] (in Finnish). WSOY. p. 286.
Sources
[
edit
]
- Andriollo, Lisa (2012),
"Les Kourkouas (IXe-XIe siecle)"
, in Cheynet, Jean-Claude; Sode, Claudia (eds.),
Studies in Byzantine Sigillography
(in French), vol. 11, Berlin: De Gruyter, pp. 57?88,
ISBN
978-3-11-026668-9
- Leo the Deacon
(2005) [
c.
1000].
Talbot, Alice-Mary
; Sullivan, Dennis F. (eds.).
The History of Leo the Deacon
.
Dumbarton Oaks
.
ISBN
978-0-88402-324-1
.
- Blaum, Paul A. (1994).
The Days of the Warlords: A History of the Byzantine Empire, A.D. 969-991
.
University Press of America
.
ISBN
978-0-8191-9657-6
.
- Kazhdan, Alexander
(1991). "Kourkouas". In
Kazhdan, Alexander
(ed.).
The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium
. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 1156?1157.
ISBN
0-19-504652-8
.
- Lilie, Ralph-Johannes
; Winkelmann, Friedhelm (1998).
Prosopographie der mittelbyzantinischen Zeit
(in German).
De Gruyter
.
ISBN
978-3110151794
.
- Romane, Julian (2015).
Byzantium Triumphant
. Pen and Sword Books.
ISBN
978-1473845701
.
- Treadgold, Warren
(1997).
A History of the Byzantine State and Society
. Stanford, California:
Stanford University Press
.
ISBN
0-8047-2630-2
.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the
public domain
:
Chisholm, Hugh
, ed. (1911). "
John I (Roman emperor)
".
Encyclopædia Britannica
. Vol. 15 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 438.
- Norwich, John J.
(1992).
Byzantium: The Apogee
(First American ed.). New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
ISBN
0394537785
.
OCLC
18164817
.
- Shepard, Jonathan (2010). "Raban, Battle of". In Rogers, Clifford J. (ed.).
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Medieval Warfare and Military Technology
. Vol. 3:Merc-Zuri. Oxford University Press. pp. 151?152.
- Walker, Paul E. (1977). "The "Crusade" of John Tzimisces in the light of new Arabic evidence".
Byzantion
.
47
: 301?327.
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