The Odd Saxon Siege Of Syburg

Of the lands invaded and subjugated by Charlemagne, none irritated the Frankish king like Saxony. From the year 772 to 785, Charlemagne launched a military invasion of Saxony on almost a yearly basis. His motive, according to the chroniclers of the Royal Frankish Annals, was “to attack the treacherous and treaty-breaking tribe of the Saxons and to persist in this war until they were either defeated and forced to accept the Christian religion or entirely exterminated” (RFA, year 775). The rebellions in Saxony slowed down after a mass execution at Verdun in 782 and the conversion to Christianity of major Saxon leaders in 785, but the Saxon War would not officially end until 804, when thousands of Saxons were forcibly relocated from their homeland.

For most of the war, the Saxons kept to a cautious and defensive strategy. They would wait until Charlemagne had traveled to a periphery of his empire, such as Italy or Spain, before revolting against the Franks. Nevertheless, to the dismay of the Saxons, Charlemagne, or one of his generals, would always eventually cross into Saxony and crush the rebellion within a year or two.

Despite the generally defensive trend of the Saxon rebels, they did go on the offensive every now and then, especially in the 770s. In 774, for instance, the Saxon rebels reached as far as the borderland castle of Büraburg. Two years later, in 776, they marched even further westward and took the castles of Eresburg and Syburg. Finally, in 778, the Saxon rebels advanced as far as the Rhine.

Of these particularly aggressive years of rebellion, the battle for Syburg was one of the more peculiar encounters between the Franks and the Saxons. It all began when Charlemagne marched into Italy in 776 to deal with a rebellious subordinate by the name of Hrodgaud. When the Saxons learned that the Frankish king was away, they rebelled and forced the castle of Eresburg to surrender. After the capitulation of Eresburg, the Saxons marched against Syburg and offered the garrison a chance to surrender. The defenders of Syburg, however, were more stubborn than those of Eresburg, so they kept their gate firmly shut and refused the Saxon offer. In response, the rebels settled in for a siege.

At this time, the bulk of Charlemagne’s army must have been in the south, for the Saxons felt they had enough time to build catapults at Syburg. The Saxon army, however, apparently had poor engineers, or terrible aim, for the siege weapons reportedly misfired or imploded, ultimately causing more damage to the besieging army than to the defenders. When the Saxons saw that their siege engines were not working, they decided to resort to simpler methods. In the end, the Saxon leadership told the engineers to abandon the dangerous catapults and to instead construct ladders and other tools that would be useful in scaling a wall.

The Saxons, however, would not get to storm the walls of Syburg with their freshly constructed ladders. Before the siege preparations were complete, something odd reportedly appeared above a church in Syburg. The authors of the Royal Frankish Annals wrote that there were sightings of two fiery red shields hovering above the church. This oddity has been interpreted various ways, from the possibility of it being a signal flag for the defenders or maybe even some sort of natural phenomenon or optical illusion. Whatever the case, the sighting caused the defenders of Syburg to rally and led the Saxons into despair.

After the sign appeared above the church—whether it was caused by man, weather or God—the warriors of Syburg poured out from their defenses to attack the besieging Saxons. With the force of their sudden sortie, the Franks successfully broke the siege and pursued the fleeing Saxons toward the River Lippe. Not long after the battle, Charlemagne marched into Saxony with his main army and quickly forced the Saxons to surrender.

Written by C. Keith Hansley

Picture Attribution: (Depiction of a battle between Saxons and Franks, by Alphonse de Neuville (1836–1885), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

• Carolingian Chronicles: Royal Frankish Annals and Nithard’s Histories, translated by Bernhard Scholz and Barbara Rogers. Ann Arbor Paperbacks / University of Michigan Press, 1972.
• Two Lives of Charlemagne, by Einhard and Notker the Stammer, translated by David Ganz. New York: Penguin Classics, 2008.  

Four Pranks That Caligula Allegedly Played On His People

The ancient accounts on the reign of the Roman Emperor Caligula (r. 37-41) are so biased and filled with folklore and rumor that it is near impossible to know how perfectly or poorly the real Caligula fit with the written descriptions. Whatever the case, the scholars of Rome unanimously portrayed Caligula’s reign as one filled with savagery, debauchery, terror and madness. Yet, the emperor was not always violent. When Caligula was not decimating one of his own legions or assassinating a rival, he could be found heaping great affection on his friends or even dancing into the night with senators. Of his more peaceful mischiefs, Caligula seemed especially fond of pranks. Here are four pranks that Suetonius (c. 70-130+) claimed were orchestrated by Rome’s most insane emperor.

1) One time, when Caligula planned to attend a theatre performance, he was said to have preemptively scattered gift vouchers around the reserved seats of the equites (members of the equestrian order) in order to lure commoners into that area. When crowds of people rushed to grab the vouchers, Caligula giddily waited for the drama to occur; his attention, of course, was on the audience, not the stage. As the time of the performance neared, the fashionably-late equites arrived at the theatre, expecting to find their seats empty, as usual. This time, however, they found a mob of plebeians falling over themselves in the reserved seating area, a sight which undoubtedly caused a spectacle.

2) Caligula did not discriminate in his pranks—commoners were just as likely to be pranked as the nobility, and the amphitheatres of Rome were his favorite pranking grounds. On one hot day, while the Romans were enjoying a gladiatorial show under the shade of the amphitheatre’s canopy, Caligula supposedly had the cover rolled back, letting the hot rays of light pour down on the crowd. The prank, however, soon took a darker turn, for Caligula supposedly called in his military to keep the people from leaving their hot and uncomfortable seats.

3) In another instance, Caligula let hype grow and build around an upcoming gladiatorial show. When show time came, the Romans eagerly shuffled into the seats, expecting to see the battle of the century. Yet, it was not famous warriors and vicious beasts that were ushered out to the arena. Instead, the spectators watched with disappointment as the most elderly gladiators available and the lamest, slowest animals on hand wobbled out to fight, as Caligula mischievously had arranged.

4) Caligula would also single out individuals for pranking. One of the most elaborate targeted pranks that the emperor pulled off came at the expense of an unnamed soldier who made some disturbance while Caligula’s favorite performer was on stage. According to the tale, Caligula later called this disturber aside and gave him a very important, highly-confidential letter, which needed to be delivered to the king of Mauretania. Acting as a dutiful legionnaire, the soldier sailed across the Mediterranean and carefully hand-delivered the message to the Mauretanian king. According to Suetonius, Caligula’s top secret letter to Mauretania’s king read, “Do nothing at all, either good or bad, to the bearer” (The Twelve Caesars, Gaius Caligula, section 55).

Written by C. Keith Hansley

Picture Attribution: (Reconstruction of an original Roman portrait of emperor Caligula (r. 37-41), photographed by G. Dall'Orto, placed on top of a painting of Rome by J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851), both [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

• The Twelve Caesars by Suetonius, translated by Robert Graves and edited by James B. Rives. New York: Penguin Classics, 2007.  

The Mysterious Earthen Miracles of 822

In 822, a little under a decade after Louis the Pious (r. 814-840) became sole emperor of the Franks, something really strange occurred in his realm. The chroniclers of the Royal Frankish Annals wrote about the incident in their entry for the year 882. According to them, not only did unexplained earthen structures appear that year, but the mysterious creations were also found in multiple locations in the empire.

In the region of Thuringia, a peculiar ditch was found, measuring about fifty feet long and four feet wide. The dirt excavated from the spot had not traveled far; approximately twenty-five feet from the ditch was an elevated block of earth, and, like the ditch, it measured fifty feet long and four feet wide. The authorities, or at least the chroniclers, could not find any motives or suspects for the weird rectangle of soil.

The next incident occurred in Arendsee, near Magdeburg, in Frankish-controlled Saxony. There, an unordered earthen dam appeared on a local stream or river after just one mysterious night of work. No one in the region came forward to claim that they had worked on the project, leaving the chroniclers of the Royal Frankish Annals, and the royal court that they worked for, baffled by the structure’s sudden appearance.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Picture Attribution: (Louis the Pious (from BL Royal 16 G VI, f. 198v) on a pixabay.com soil background, both [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

• Carolingian Chronicles: Royal Frankish Annals and Nithard’s Histories, translated by Bernhard Scholz and Barbara Rogers. Ann Arbor Paperbacks / University of Michigan Press, 1972.

After His Death, The Body Of King Hálfdan The Black Was Supposedly Divided Between Different Regions Of His Kingdom

While most of the Yngling Dynasty of ancient Sweden and Norway is considered legendary or semi-legendary, the figures of Hálfdan the Black and especially his son, Harald Finehair (the first king to unite Norway), are more solidly considered to have been real people. Nevertheless, their stories are still heavily filled with fantastical folklore. Almost all of the information on Hálfdan the Black and his famous son comes from skaldic verse and Icelandic sagas—hence the plentiful folklore—yet, armed with caution and a skeptical eye for dramatic filler, readers can glean a general sense of the reigns of these two kings.

According to Snorri Sturluson’s Ynglinga saga and Hálfdanar saga Svarta, which were included in his Heimskringla, Hálfdan the Black (so-called because of his black hair) was a powerful 9th-century king in southeast Norway. As the saga tells it, Hálfdan was raised in his mother’s homeland of Agthir. When he turned eighteen, he inherited the throne of Agthir from his grandfather, Harald the Redbeard, and quickly annexed a piece of Vestfold from his half-brother, King Olaf. He also expanded by force into Vingulmork, Raumarik, Heithmork, Thótn, Land and Hathaland. In addition, Hálfdan reportedly also acquired Sogn through marriage.

Hálfdan’s years of military expansion coincided with a palpable agricultural boom, which further extended his reputation as a successful king to the point of his subjects allegedly attributing their good crop yields to their liege. Consequently, when the middle-aged king unexpectedly died reportedly from falling through thin ice near Lake Randsfjorden, the people were afraid that their lands would lose fertility. Similarly, the sagas claimed that the medieval Norwegians also believed that the region where Hálfdan’s body was buried would be supernaturally blessed with bountiful fields. Therefore, at least according to Snorri Sturluson, it was decided that the body of Hálfdan the Black would be divided among several burial mounds located throughout his kingdom. Apparently, the head was entombed at Hringaríki, while three other sections of Hálfdan’s body were buried at Raumaríki, Vestfold and Heithmork.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Picture Attribution: (Image of Halfdan the Black falling to his death through ice, by Erik Werenskiold  (1855–1938), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

• Heimskringla, by Snorri Sturluson and translated by Lee Hollander. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1964, 2018.
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Harald-I-king-of-Norway  

The Odd Ceremony Used By Emperor Gaozu To Bind His Ministers To A Pledge

According to Han Dynasty tradition, the first emperor of that dynasty, Emperor Gaozu (r. 202-195 BCE), wanted the majority of the kingdoms in China to remain firmly in the hands of the Liu imperial family. Therefore, by the end of Gaozu’s reign, the emperor’s sons, brothers and nephews ruled most of the empire’s kingdoms. The emperor was apparently so concerned about the rise of a rival family that he called his most important officials together in a meeting and had them swear to depose any new kings who were not from the Liu family.

The ministers and generals who were called forth to make this pledge were allegedly faced by an odd ceremony. According to the account of Grand Historian Sima Qian (c. 145-90 BCE), the emperor brought a white horse to his meeting with these courtiers. In front of the crowd, the emperor supposedly sacrificed the white horse and smeared some of the animal’s blood on the lips of his ministers. Then, with their lips reddened, the important officials made their pledge to depose any new king that was not from the Liu family.

In 180 BCE, the Liu nobles and other loyal vassals did, indeed, rise against a rival family. Their rival was the Lü family, the clan to which Emperor Gaozu’s wife belonged. From the time of Gaozu’s death in 195, to the time of her own death in 180 BCE, Empress Lü had feverishly worked in hopes of making her Lü clan equal or greater than her husband’s Liu family—she placed numerous members of the Lü family in positions as generals, marquises and kings. Yet, when the empress dowager died in 180 BCE, the Liu nobility and their followers quickly raised their forces, seized the capital city, and launched a systematic extermination of the whole Lü clan. In the end, it is possible that the story about the white horse could have simply been propaganda produced by the Liu family to justify their massacre of the encroaching Lü.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Picture Attribution: (Marengo, painted by James Ward (1769–1859), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

• The Records of the Grand Historian (Shi ji) by Sima Qian, translated by Burton Watson. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993.

Emperor Charlemagne And Empress Irene Almost United Their Empires

For those who like to contemplate the alternative paths where history might have led under different circumstances, the almost-achieved marriage between Emperor Charlemagne of the Franks and Empress Irene of Constantinople is an intriguing concept. Charlemagne began his reign in 768, as a co-king alongside his brother, Carloman. In 671, however, Carloman died, leaving Charlemagne as sole ruler of the Franks. During his years on the throne, he sent his army in all directions, campaigning over the years in Italy, Saxony, Spain, Brittany, Dalmatia, and several Eastern European regions. Throughout his long reign, Charlemagne cultivated a strong relationship with the popes of Rome and was crowned as emperor in the Roman fashion by Pope Leo III in the year 800.

In Rome’s rival city, Constantinople, Empress Irene was making her own remarkable rise to power. Irene was said to have been a commoner from Athens who joined the nobility by marrying Emperor Leo IV in 769, after she was discovered in an imperial beauty contest. After her husband died of a fever in 780, Empress Irene served as regent ruler for her son, Emperor Constantine VI, who was around ten years old at the time. Irene kept power in her own hands until 790, when she was ousted by the military in favor of her son. Despite this, Constantine VI interestingly asked Irene to return as co-ruler in 792, a proposition which she, of course, accepted. Irene, however, was not content with sharing power. In 797, after Constantine VI had lost support among the populace, the clergy and the military, Irene successfully usurped sole power in Constantinople and had her son blinded. The blinding must have been particularly brutal or botched, for Constantine VI reportedly died of the wounds.

Empress Irene and Charlemagne began sending emissaries to each other’s courts as early as the year 787, when the two were considering a marriage between Constantine VI and one of Charlemagne’s daughters, either Rotrude or Hruodtrude. The match, however, fell through and, like a true break-up, both sides claimed their liege was the one that broke it off, with the Franks writing that Charlemagne refused and the Greeks swearing that it was Irene who changed her mind. Interestingly, the two officially became pen pals in 798, one year after Constantine VI was blinded. Charlemagne received a letter from Empress Irene expressing her wish to maintain peace between their empires. In response to her letter, Charlemagne sent an emissary to her court in Constantinople.

Liutgarda, Charlemagne’s fourth wife, died only months before her husband was crowned as a Roman emperor in the year 800. Within two years of that date, in 802, Irene and Charlemagne were again exchanging high-ranking emissaries to each other’s courts. According to the writing of Theophanes the Confessor (c. 782-818), Charlemagne and Irene were negotiating a marriage to each other that could have put most of the lands between the Pyrenees and Anatolia under a single political entity. This intriguing possibility, however, never came to fruition, as Empress Irene was forced into exile and died in 803. Her most trusted officials had conspired against her, possibly in resistance to the alleged marriage proposal of Charlemagne. When the Frankish emissaries returned from Constantinople in 803, they did not bring with them a marriage acceptance letter, but instead brought news of Irene’s removal from power, and an entreaty of peace from the new emperor of Constantinople, Nicephorus I, who was Irene’s former minister of finance.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Picture Attribution: (Woodcut Illustration of Empress Irene and Charlemagne, printed by Johannes Zainer Two Lives of Charlemagne, by Einhard and Notker the Stammer, translated by David Ganz. New York: Penguin Classics, 2008. at Ulm ca. 1474, uploaded by Kladcat, [Public Domain/CC 2.0] via Flickr and Creative Commons).

Sources:

• Carolingian Chronicles: Royal Frankish Annals and Nithard’s Histories, translated by Bernhard Scholz and Barbara Rogers. Ann Arbor Paperbacks / University of Michigan Press, 1972.
• Two Lives of Charlemagne, by Einhard and Notker the Stammer, translated by David Ganz. New York: Penguin Classics, 2008.
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Irene-Byzantine-empress-752-803 
• https://www.ancient.eu/Empress_Irene/ 
• https://www.ancient.eu/Constantine_VI/ 
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Theophanes-the-Confessor  

After Crushing A Spartan Army, King Antigonus III Of Macedonia Reportedly Shouted Himself To Death

In 227 BCE, King Antigonus III ascended to the throne of Macedonia. He spent the first years of his reign mainly defending his borders, but King Antigonus soon obtained an incredible offer from the Peloponnesus. Around 225-224 BCE, he received and accepted a request from Aratus of Sicyon, calling for Macedonian troops to move into Achaean League territory in order to defend against an expansionist Sparta, ruled by a competent Spartan king named Cleomenes III (r. 225-222 BCE).

After accepting Aratus’ request, King Antigonus III and his army entered the Peloponnesus around 224 BCE and virtually turned the Achaean League into a protectorate. With the arrival of the Macedonians, King Cleomenes III set up a strong defense on the Oneian hills, but he was forced to retreat after the citizens of Spartan-occupied Argos rebelled. Following Cleomenes’ retreat, Antigonus moved in and pushed the Spartans back into Laconia and, from then on, Cleomenes could do little more than raid and pillage settlements. Nevertheless, the Spartans still had a powerful army, but money was running short and Macedonia had the advantage if a war of attrition developed. Therefore, King Cleomenes III was eager for a decisive victory to keep his soldiers’ morale high and to entice foreign lenders to invest money in his military campaign. This eagerness and desperation, however, resulted in the disastrous battle of Sellasia in 222 BCE, where much of the Spartan army was encircled and killed by Macedonian forces. After the battle, Cleomenes fled across the Mediterranean and Antigonus III occupied Sparta.

Unfortunately, a few days after occupying Sparta, Antigonus III had to rush his forces back to Macedonia to confront an Illyrian army that had invaded the Macedonian homeland during his absence. Either during his crushing of this Illyrian army, or possibly during the earlier battles against the Spartans, King Antigonus III supposedly shouted out such an enthusiastic and powerful battle cry that he ruptured a blood vessel, leading to a massive internal hemorrhage. Antigonus’ army defeated the Illyrians in 222 BCE, but he quickly fell ill from his peculiar wound and died in 221 BCE.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Picture Attribution: (Sculpture from the MET museum (photographed by Shayna Michaels), in front of a painting of Alexander the Great by Pietro da Cortona  (1596–1669), both [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

• On Sparta (Life of Cleomenes), by Plutarch excerpted from his Parallel Lives, translated by Richard J. A. Talbert. New York: Penguin Classics, 2005.
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Antigonus-III-Doson 
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Cleomenes-III  
• http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0234%3Abook%3D2%3Achapter%3D70