Year 624 (DCXXIV) was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Julian calendar. The denomination 624 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.
Basil II Porphyrogenitus, nicknamed the Bulgar Slayer, was the senior Byzantine emperor from 976 to 1025. He and his brother Constantine VIII were crowned before their father Romanos II died in 963, but they were too young to rule. The throne thus went to two generals, Nikephoros Phokas and John Tzimiskes before Basil became senior emperor, though his influential great-uncle Basil Lekapenos remained as the de facto ruler until 985. His reign of 49 years and 11 months was the longest of any Roman emperor.
Monothelitism, or monotheletism was a theological doctrine in Christianity that was proposed in the 7th century, but was ultimately rejected by the sixth ecumenical council. It held Christ as having only one will and was thus contrary to dyothelitism, the Christological doctrine accepted by most Christian denominations, which holds Christ as having two wills. Historically, monothelitism was closely related to monoenergism, a theological doctrine that holds Jesus Christ as having only one energy. Both doctrines were at the center of Christological disputes during the 7th century.
The themes or thémata were the main military and administrative divisions of the middle Byzantine Empire. They were established in the mid-7th century in the aftermath of the Slavic migrations to Southeastern Europe and Muslim conquests of parts of Byzantine territory, and replaced the earlier provincial system established by Diocletian and Constantine the Great. In their origin, the first themes were created from the areas of encampment of the field armies of the East Roman army, and their names corresponded to the military units that had existed in those areas. The theme system reached its apogee in the 9th and 10th centuries, as older themes were split up and the conquest of territory resulted in the creation of new ones. The original theme system underwent significant changes in the 11th and 12th centuries, but the term remained in use as a provincial and financial circumscription until the very end of the Empire.
John I Tzimiskes 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.
Constans II, also called "the Bearded", was the Byzantine emperor from 641 to 668. Constans was the last attested emperor to serve as consul, in 642, although the office continued to exist until the reign of Leo VI the Wise. His religious policy saw him steering a middle line in disputes between the Orthodoxy and Monothelitism by refusing to persecute either and prohibited discussion of the natures of Jesus Christ under the Type of Constans in 648. His reign coincided with Muslim invasions under, Umar, Uthman, and Mu'awiya I in the late 640s to 660s. Constans was the first emperor to visit Rome since the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476, and the last one to visit Rome while the Empire still held it.
The Arab–Byzantine wars or Muslim–Byzantine wars were a series of wars from the 7th to 11th centuries between multiple Arab dynasties and the Byzantine Empire. The Muslim Arab Caliphates conquered large parts of the Christian Byzantine empire and unsuccessfully attacked the Byzantine capital of Constantinople. The frontier between the warring states remained almost static for three centuries of frequent warfare, before the Byzantines were able to recapture some of the lost territory.
The Ecthesis is a letter published in 638 CE by the Byzantine emperor Heraclius which defined monotheletism as the official imperial form of Christianity.
Heraclius the Elder was a Byzantine Roman general and the father of Byzantine Roman emperor Heraclius. Heraclius the Elder distinguished himself in the war against the Sassanid Persians in the 580s. As a subordinate general, Heraclius served under the command of Philippicus during the Battle of Solachon and possibly served under Comentiolus during the Battle of Sisarbanon. Circa 595, Heraclius the Elder is mentioned as a magister militum per Armeniam sent by Emperor Maurice to quell an Armenian rebellion led by Samuel Vahewuni and Atat Khorkhoruni. Circa 600, he was appointed as the Exarch of Africa and in 608, he rebelled with his son against the usurper Phocas. Using North Africa as a base, the younger Heraclius managed to overthrow Phocas, beginning the Heraclian dynasty, which would rule Byzantium for a century. Heraclius the Elder died soon after receiving news of his son's accession to the Byzantine throne.
The Byzantine Empire was ruled by emperors of the dynasty of Heraclius between 610 and 711. The Heraclians presided over a period of cataclysmic events that were a watershed in the history of the Empire and the world. Heraclius, the founder of his dynasty, was of Armenian and Cappadocian (Greek) origin. At the beginning of the dynasty, the Empire's culture was still essentially Ancient Roman, dominating the Mediterranean and harbouring a prosperous Late Antique urban civilization. This world was shattered by successive invasions, which resulted in extensive territorial losses, financial collapse and plagues that depopulated the cities, while religious controversies and rebellions further weakened the Empire.
The Byzantine Empireunder the Macedonian dynasty underwent a revival during the late 9th, 10th, and early 11th centuries. Under the Macedonian emperors, the empire gained control over the Adriatic Sea, Southern Italy, and all of the territory of the Tsar Samuil of Bulgaria. The Macedonian dynasty was characterised by a cultural revival in spheres such as philosophy and the arts, and has been dubbed the "Golden Age" of Byzantium.
Between 780–1180, the Byzantine Empire and the Abbasid & Fatimid caliphates in the regions of Iraq, Palestine, Syria, Anatolia and Southern Italy fought a series of wars for supremacy in the Eastern Mediterranean. After a period of indecisive and slow border warfare, a string of almost unbroken Byzantine victories in the late 10th and early 11th centuries allowed three Byzantine Emperors, namely Nikephoros II Phokas, John I Tzimiskes and finally Basil II to recapture territory lost to the Muslim conquests in the 7th century Arab–Byzantine wars under the failing Heraclian Dynasty.
Gregory the Patrician was a Byzantine Exarch of Africa. A relative of the ruling Heraclian dynasty, Gregory was fiercely pro-Chalcedonian and led a rebellion in 646 against Emperor Constans II over the latter's support for Monothelism. Soon after declaring himself emperor, he faced an Arab invasion in 647. He confronted the invaders but was decisively defeated and killed at Sufetula. Africa returned to imperial allegiance after his death and the Arabs' withdrawal, but the foundations of Byzantine rule there had been fatally undermined.
The Byzantine Empire's history is generally periodised from late antiquity until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453 AD. From the 3rd to 6th centuries, the Greek East and Latin West of the Roman Empire gradually diverged, marked by Diocletian's formal partition of its administration in 285, the establishment of an eastern capital in Constantinople by Constantine I in 330, and the adoption of Christianity as the state religion under Theodosius I, with others such as Roman polytheism being proscribed. Under the reign of Heraclius, the Empire's military and administration were restructured and adopted Greek for official use instead of Latin. While there was an unbroken continuity in administration and other features of Roman society, historians have often distinguished the Byzantine epoch from earlier eras in Roman history for reasons including the imperial seat moving from Rome to Constantinople and the predominance of Greek instead of Latin.
From c. 970 until 1018, a series of conflicts between the Bulgarian Empire and the Byzantine Empire led to the gradual reconquest of Bulgaria by the Byzantines, who thus re-established their control over the entire Balkan peninsula for the first time since the 7th-century Slavic invasions. The struggle began with the incorporation of eastern Bulgaria after the Russo-Byzantine War (970–971). Bulgarian resistance was led by the Cometopuli brothers, who – based in the unconquered western regions of the Bulgarian Empire – led it until its fall under Byzantine rule in 1018.
Byzantine Anatolia refers to the peninsula of Anatolia during the rule of the Byzantine Empire. Anatolia was of vital importance to the empire following the Muslim invasion of Syria and Egypt during the reign of the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius in the years 634–645 AD. Over the next two hundred and fifty years, the region suffered constant raids by Arab Muslim forces raiding mainly from the cities of Antioch, Tarsus, and Aleppo near the Anatolian borders. However, the Byzantine Empire maintained control over the Anatolian peninsula until the High Middle Ages, when imperial authority in the area began to collapse.
The Mesopotamian campaigns of John Tzimiskes were a series of campaigns undertaken by the Byzantine emperor John I Tzimiskes against the Fatimid Caliphate in the Levant and against the Abbasid Caliphate in Syria. Following the weakening and collapse of the Hamdanid Dynasty of Aleppo, much of the Near East lay open to Byzantium, and, following the assassination of Nikephoros II Phokas, the new emperor, John Tzimiskes, was quick to engage the newly successful Fatimid Dynasty over control of the near east and its important cities, namely Antioch, Aleppo, and Caesarea. He also engaged the Hamdanid Emir of Mosul, who was de jure under the suzerainty of the Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad and his Buyid overlords, over control of parts of Upper Mesopotamia (Jazira).
Armenians in the Byzantine Empire were the most significant ethnic minority at some times. Historically, this was due to the fact that part of historical Armenia, west of the Euphrates, was part of Byzantium. After the division of Armenia between the Roman Empire and the Sasanian Empire in 387, part of Greater Armenia was annexed to the Empire. At this time and later, there were significant migrations of Armenians to Byzantine Anatolia, Constantinople and the European part of the Empire. The Armenians occupied a prominent place in the ruling class of Byzantium, with a number of emperors coming from their ranks: Heraclius I (610–641), Philippicus (711–713), Artabasdos (742–743), Leo the Armenian (813–820), Basil I Macedonian (867–886) and the dynasty he founded, Romanos I Lekapenos (920–944) and John Tzimiskes (969–976). According to the calculations of Alexander Kazhdan, Armenians made up 10–15% of the ruling aristocracy in the 11th-12th centuries; taking into account persons and families whose Armenian origin is not entirely certain, this proportion becomes much higher. Due to the fact that Armenia did not recognise the Fourth Council of Chalcedon (451), the relations between Byzantium and Armenia were influenced by the attempts of the official Byzantine Church to convert the Armenian Church to Chalcedonian Armenians. Many Armenians played an important role in the Greco-Roman world and in Byzantium.
