THE MAN AND THE MYTH: HERACLIUS AND THE LEGEND OF THE LAST ROMAN EMPEROR By CHRISTOPHER BONURA A THESIS PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2011 1 © 2011 Christopher Bonura 2 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I thank my adviser, Dr. Andrea Sterk, for all the help and support she has given me, not just for this thesis, but for her patience and guidance throughout my time as her student. I would never have made it to this point without her help. I would like to thank Dr. Florin Curta for introducing me to the study of medieval history, for being there for me with advice and encouragement. I would like to thank Dr. Bonnie Effros for all her help and support, and for letting me clutter the Center for the Humanities office with all my books. And I would like to thank Dr. Nina Caputo, who has always been generous with suggestions and useful input, and who has helped guide my research. My parents and brother also deserve thanks. In addition, I feel it is necessary to thank the Interlibrary loan office, for all I put them through in getting books for me. Finally, I would like to thank all my friends and colleagues in the history department, whose support and friendship made my time studying at the University of Florida bearable, and often even fun, especially Anna Lankina-Webb, Rebecca Devlin, Ralph Patrello, Alana Lord, Eleanor Deumens, Robert McEachnie, Sean Hill, Sean Platzer, Bryan Behl, Andrew Welton, and Miller Krause. 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .................................................................................................. 3 LIST OF FIGURES .......................................................................................................... 6 ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................................... 7 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION: THE ESCHATOLOGICAL EMPEROR ........................................ 9 2 HISTORIOGRAPHY OF THE LAST EMPEROR LEGEND ..................................... 18 The Tiburtine Sibyl .................................................................................................. 24 The Latin and Greek Sibyls ..................................................................................... 28 The Problem ........................................................................................................... 34 3 THE ORIGIN OF THE LEGEND ............................................................................. 39 Vocabulary .............................................................................................................. 40 The Name Constans ............................................................................................... 42 The Diadem ............................................................................................................ 43 Place of Deposition ................................................................................................. 48 Length of Rule ........................................................................................................ 49 Different Development ............................................................................................ 51 The Double Rise of the Antichrist ........................................................................... 54 Gog and Magog ...................................................................................................... 55 The Psalm ............................................................................................................... 60 Solutions ................................................................................................................. 63 4 THE CROSS, THE CROWN, AND THE CONCEPT OF IDEAL CHRISTIAN KINGSHIP ............................................................................................................... 68 Unraveling the Revelations of Pseudo-Methodius .................................................. 68 The Man and the Myth Reconsidered ..................................................................... 74 The All-Conquering Cross ....................................................................................... 76 Building a Christian Consensus .............................................................................. 80 Heraclius and the Alexander Legend ...................................................................... 82 Solutions ................................................................................................................. 90 5 CONCLUSIONS ..................................................................................................... 92 4 APPENDIX A THE TEXTUAL TRADITION OF THE LATIN TIBURTINE SIBYL ......................... 102 B THE LAST ROMAN EMPEROR PROPHECY IN THE LATIN TRANSLATION OF PSEUDO-METHODIUS AND IN THE FOUR VERSIONS OF THE TIBURTINE SIBYL ................................................................................................ 106 C TRANSLATION OF THE END OF SACKUR‟S TIBURTINE SIBYL AND PSEUDO-METHODIUS ........................................................................................ 110 D TIMELINE ............................................................................................................. 113 LIST OF REFERENCES ............................................................................................. 114 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH .......................................................................................... 127 5 LIST OF FIGURES Figure page 1 Paul Alexander‟s hypothetical schema for the textual history of the Tiburtine Sibyl ................................................................................................................. 102 2 Robert Konrad‟s schema for the textual tradition of the Last Roman Emperor Prophecy .......................................................................................................... 103 3 My schema illustrating Bernard McGinn‟s theory of the textual tradition of the Tiburtine ........................................................................................................... 104 4 Holdenried‟s attempt at synthesizing Sackur, Alexander, and McGinn‟s theories on the textual history of the Tiburtine Sibyl. ........................................ 105 6 Abstract of Thesis Presented to the Graduate School of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts THE MAN AND THE MYTH: HERACLIUS AND THE LEGEND OF THE LAST ROMAN EMPEROR By Christopher Bonura December 2011 Chair: Andrea Sterk Major: History The legend of the Last Roman Emperor is one of the most persistent themes in Medieval European apocalypticism. And yet its origin remains uncertain. In the late nineteenth century Ernst Sackur, while editing an eleventh-century sibylline oracle that contained this legend, proposed an original fourth-century source. Paul Alexander, perhaps the twentieth century‟s foremost expert on Byzantine eschatology, dated the legend to the time of Theodosius I, until later changing his mind. Recent scholars place the date of the legend later, to around the time of Roman Emperor Heraclius (r. 610-641 AD). And yet, Heraclius‟ triumphal entry into Jerusalem with the True Cross bore striking resemblance to the actions attributed to the mythical Last Roman Emperor. Thus the question of the date of the Legend of the Last Roman Emperor is crucial in understanding the return of the True Cross to Jerusalem by Heraclius, one of the most significant events in early Byzantine history. It has not been clear whether Heraclius was inspired by, or inspired, the apocalyptic legend of the Last Emperor. The first securely datable text to mention the Last Roman Emperor is the Syriac Apocaylpse of Pseudo-Methodius, which dates from just after Heraclius‟ reign. But is it possible that Pseudo-Methodius drew on an earlier source, one that, as Sackur believed, also 7 inspired the post-Ottonian Tiburtine Sibyls? By exploring these eleventh-century western sources, and comparing them to Eastern apocalyptic literature, this thesis will explore the influence and interaction of the historical Roman Emperor Heraclius with the legendary story of the Last Roman Emperor. 8 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION: THE ESCHATOLOGICAL EMPEROR On March 21 in the year 630, the Emperor Heraclius made his way through the city of Jerusalem, clasping in his arms a silver box containing perhaps the most revered relics in Christendom.1 The first, and ultimately the last, Christian Roman Emperor to enter that holiest of cities, Heraclius‟ adventus was a scene imbued with enormous symbolic meaning.2 The box he carried contained the relic of the True Cross, which had been carried away from the city sixteen years before during its sack by the Persian army of Khusro II, when “the new Nebuchadnezzar captured Jerusalem and carried away the Ark of the New Covenant, after razing the city with fire.”3 As Heraclius entered the Martyrion basilica, originally built by Constantine on the site of the discovery of the True Cross, “there was the sound of weeping and wailing; the tears flowed from the awesome fervor of the emotion of their hearts and from the rending of the entrails of the king, the princes, all the troops, and the inhabitants of the city. No one was able to sing the Lord‟s chants from the fearful and agonizing emotion of the king and the whole multitude.”4 Making his way to the Rock of Golgotha,