Tuesday we did springtime AD 639 / AG 950 in Egypt. Today we'll discuss the ensuing decade around the Med. Vivien Prigent has floated "L’usurpation du patrice «Flavius Grégoire»" to the latest Traveaux et Mémoires Mélanges. This argues that Flavius Gregorius did not, actually, secede from Constans II.
Having started this post Tuesday, as of today I have still not found Prigent's article in full. I must reread the primaries which I have on hand. Mainly I am running on the tumultuous career of Maximus. (Who used Diocletianic and argued for Creation dating-systems, for his own part; but let us pay no mind to that here.) I can report - independently perforce - that Prigent's abstract seems solid.
Gregorius' supposed title "exarch" never applied to Africa. Heraclius' title for his governor George was "eparch" with π, as Maximus shows us. George of Resh'Ayna will concur that "Gyorgy" remained eparch well into the 640s / 950s and is unaware of a non-Arab successor. Also this George nowhere reports a secession from the Imperium - at least, not in politics. The manuscript cuts out around Siffîn a decade after that, so should be aware of Western developments in this earlier decade. Back then Ravenna had the exarch-with-ξ, one Olympius. Watch out for him.
Before Siffîn over in Rome, our Syrian George reports Pope Martin's synod AD 649 October which, for Syrians, is the AG 961 new-year. Its minutes (from the Greek) were published by Richard Price 2014 decidedly from the Booth/Jankowiak school; this document is now available on archive.org in full for free. Price's introduction looks like it will need an overhaul. If a second-edition is coming, that might explain why we plebs're being allowed into it. Anyway - grab it quick.
Olympius will be marching from Ravenna against Sicily a few years afterward. This is what a secessionist looks like! - but as I have noted, we don't currently know if Resh'Ayna had caught note of Olympius, more concerned with Siffîn at home in Syria. Syrian George simply has more interest in theology than in politics. And I must report than the very Latin taught in Tor-Mardin was mala: George - the Semite - literally doesn't know "new" from "nine". (Why even bother with Latin? Barbarians all!)
Back to Africa: who even was "Gregory", after eparch George? There's little room for "Gregory"; Prigent finds in Carthage coinage only in the name of "Constantine IV" (as he was then-titled). For one, these ex/eparchs might not have been Heraclid. I'll add to the evidence, for whatever side: Heraclius the Elder had come out of Africa and we'll be seeing Constans/tine return to Syracuse. This family could never allow their western base to be taken by one they didn't trust. So: family. Right?
- you broke my heart, Fredo . . .
Relevant to the AD 640s / AG 950s Heraclius Jr. had faced a coup by his own son. Then came its aftershock, that Martina / Constantine III episode. It may be that Heraclius himself had already cleared the provinces of Heraclids; I don't think George was in this family. Certainly Constans II and (more so) his court preferred minions over Heraclids.
Moving on to the main sources, the 640s/950s decade commences that infamous gap in Nicephorus removing that help from us. Instead we got Theophanes... and Agapius, and Michael the Syrian plus the 1234 Chronicle. This synopsis is generally considered as Theophilus of Edessa. Theophanes' only real plus is that the Romans and Gregory had to cough up a tribute, like Cyrus in Egypt before them. Leaving aside Michael's bias, grist for another of these Mélanges, the Michael / 1234 subsynopsis is supposed from Dionysius of Tel-Mahre and is what details "patrician Gregory" (not "e*arch") and his rebellion "against Constans". Fun part: "against Constans" is a plus, against Agapius and Theophanes! In Agapius particularly the account provokes an Arab attack so reads like patrician Gregory rebelling against their tribute (pace Hoyland). Theophanes can perhaps be read either-way whose misreading might have backwashed into the later Syrian mémoires. Also the account is absent from the 819 chronicle so, if EW Brooks is right, was unavailable to Syria up to AD 730.
All this said: George of Resh'Ayna has proven himself a poor scholar of Latin and a nonwitness to Italian politics. He might not be our best source for African politics, either.
Inasmuch as among the Christians, Agapius offers the most-detailed record; the main source may indeed be Arabic, with Theophilus translating and truncating it. Agapius then restored the source thereto.
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