by Trevor » Tue 16 Oct 2012 7:41 pm
There are still a lot of email discussions taking place about Gunnar Heinsohn's new theory. One lively topic has been whether the narrow tree rings attributed to AD 237 and 536 represent the same or different events. Mike Baillie has given several reasons why they represent different events, but, assuming that he's right, what other evidence is there for environmental crises at these time? The AD 536 narrow ring corresponds, of course, to the dust-veil event described by several writers, including Procopius, who dated it to the 10th year of Justinian I (Procopius book IV chapter 14.5), but what about the not-quite-so-narrow 237 ring? In the conventional chronology, it would correspond to the year immediately before the very remarkable one when five Roman emperors were on the throne, of which only Gordion III was alive at the end of it. Similarly, in a period of 4 months ending in January 236, there was a succession of three popes, the first two being executed. Thus there seems to have been a very eventful 3-year period, centred on AD 237, but none of the sources I'm aware of mention environmental factors - all attribute the mayhem of those years to human failings. Does anyone know of a source which refers to the environment at this time?
Another topic has been the historical evidence for the 3rd century being a duplicate of the 6th. Gunnar accepts that the histories and chronicles of the period present a different picture, but argues that this must be questioned because of the strong evidence of duplications of history. In particular, he has drawn attention to the fact that Treboninanus and Triboninanus, men prominent amongst the Romans, lived supposedly during the 3rd and 6th centuries respectively, at a time when there was a great plague, and when Rome was trying to annihilate the Goths. I've pointed out that the details of Treboninanus (presumably the person generally referred to as Trebonianus Gallus) and Triboninanus (presumably Tribonianus, also known as Tribunianus) given in historical records were very different from each other, as was the context in which they were operating.
Trebonianus, according to the records, was born in Perugia, Italy, and became a politician, serving as senator and consul before being appointed governor of Upper Moesia in the Balkans. By this time the Goths, inhabiting lands to the north of the Black Sea, had begun to make advances to the west, across the Danube, thus threatening Roman interests in the Balkans. Emperor Decius led an army to the region to deal with the situation, but he and his son were killed in battle. The army then declared Trebonianus emperor in succession to Decius. He soon made a peace treaty with the Goths, according to the terms of which they would be paid an annual tribute to stay east of the Danube. This proved unpopular to the Roman people, and Aemilius Aemilianus, his successor as governor of Upper Moesia, refused to pay the tribute, so the Goths crossed the Danube again. Aemilianus raised an army and drove them back, after which he was declared emperor by his soldiers. Trebonianus led some troops north from Rome to secure his throne, but when he had reached no further than Interamna (Terni), word arrived that Aemilianus and a large army had already crossed into Italy. The fearful troops of Trebonianus then mutinied and murdered their leader. This was in AD 253, after Trebonianus had been emperor for just two years.
Emperors then rapidly came and went, but the problems in the Balkans persisted. In AD 269, a widespread Goth attack on Roman territories led emperor Claudius II to take decisive action, and he won a great victory at Naissus in Moessia. That subdued the Goths for a time, but they continued to be seen as a threat to the Romans. Constantine the Great took measures to contain this threat, but the situation was then exacerbated by the migration of Huns from the east into the lands of the Goths, driving many across the Danube into Roman territory. Further conflicts ensued and, in one of them, emperor Valens was killed by the Goths in a battle in Thrace. Seeking a new homeland, the Visigoths under Alaric sacked Rome in the 15th year of western emperor Honorius, and then headed for Spain. The Ostragoths stayed where they were, as subjects of the Huns. However, after the fall of the western empire, and the decline in Hunnish power, they established their independence. Then, at the instigation of eastern emperor Zeno, Theodoric (the Great), the Ostrogoth king, who had been raised in Constantinople, conquered Italy and established his capital in Ravenna.
Tribonianus, according to historical sources, was born in Pamphylia, in Asia Minor. He became a successful lawyer in Constantinople, and was then appointed by emperor Justinian I to be one of the commissioners for the preparation of a new imperial legal code. Soon afterwards Tribonianus became the legal advisor of the emperor. During the Nika riots of AD 532 (according to conventional dating) he was accused of corruption by some of the participants, and removed from his post, but then re-instated when the riots were quelled. He remained in office until his death from natural causes 13 years later. Relations between Justinian and the Ostrogoth rulers of Italy deteriorated after the death of Theodoric the Great and, starting shortly after the Nika riots, there was a 20-year campaign against the Ostrogoths, which eventually succeeded in destroying them. Apart from some skirmishes in Dalmatia at the beginning of this period, leading to a rapid retreat by the Gothic army, all the fighting took place in Italy and Sicily.
Finally, let's look at the evidence of plagues. Pandemics were not uncommon during these times, but the ones of the 3rd century (known as the plague of Cyprian) and the 6th (the plague of Justinian) caused a greater loss of life than anything that supposedly occurred between them. Could they have been the same event? It would seem not, because the descriptions of the symptoms are different. The Justinian pandemic was a classic instance of bubonic plague, characterized by swollen lymph nodes in the armpits and groin region, but there are no references to such features in accounts by Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, an undoubted contemporary of Trebonianus. According to modern epidemiologists, the "Cyprian plague" was most likely a severe outbreak of smallpox.
So, is there clear evidence of a duplication of history in historical accounts?