Decorations

The Roman army awarded a variety of individual decorations (dona) for  valour to its legionaries. Hasta pura was a miniature spear; phalerae  were large medal-like bronze or silver discs worn on the cuirass; armillae  were bracelets worn on the wrist; and torques were worn round the neck, or on the cuirass. The highest  awards were the coronae ("crowns"), of which the most prestigious was the corona civica, a crown made oak-leaves awarded for saving the life of a  fellow Roman citizen in battle. The most valuable award was the corona  muralis, a crown made of gold awarded to the first man to scale an enemy  rampart. This was awarded rarely, as such a man hardly ever survived.

There is no evidence that auxiliary common soldiers received individual  decorations like legionaries, although auxiliary officers did. Instead, the  whole regiment was honoured by a title reflecting the type of award e.g. torquata ("awarded a torque") or armillata ("awarded bracelets").  Some regiments would, in the course of time, accumulate a long list of titles  and decorations e.g. cohors I Brittonum Ulpia torquata pia fidelis c.R..

Nicaea was a Hellenic city in northwestern Anatoliaia , and is primarily known as the site of  the First and Second Councils of Nicaea (the first and  seventh Ecumenical councils in the early history of the Christian Church ), the Nicene Creed (which comes from the First  Council), and as the capital city of the Empire of Nicaea . Nicaea served as the interim  capital city of the Byzantine Empire between 1204 and 1261,  following the Fourth Crusade in 1204, until the recapture of Constantinople by the Byzantines in 1261.

The ancient city is located within modern Iznik , Turkey , and is situated in a fertile basin at  the eastern end of Lake Ascanius , bounded by ranges of hills to  the north and south. It is situated with its west wall rising from the lake  itself, providing both protection from siege from that direction, as well as a  source of supplies which would be difficult to cut off. The lake is large enough  that it could not be blockaded from the land easily, and the city was large  enough to make any attempt to reach the harbour from shore-based siege weapons  very difficult.

The ancient city is surrounded on all sides by 5 km (3 mi) of walls about  10 m (33 ft) high. These are in turn surrounded by a double ditch on the land  portions, and also included over 100 towers in various locations. Large gates on  the three landbound sides of the walls provided the only entrance to the city.

Today the walls have been pierced in many places for roads, but much of the  early work survives and, as a result, it is a major tourist destination.

History

Early history, Roman and Byzantine Empires

The Lefke Gate, part of Nicaea's city walls.

The place is said to have been colonized by Bottiaeans , and to have originally borne the  name of Ancore (Steph.  B. s. v.) or Helicore (Geogr. Min. p. 40, ed. Hudson); but it  was subsequently destroyed by the Mysians . A few years after the death of Alexander the Great , Macedonian king Antigonus  — who had taken control of much of Asia Minor upon the death of Alexander (under  whom Antigonus had served as a general) — probably after his victory over Eumenes , in 316 BC, rebuilt the town, and  called it, after himself, Antigoneia (Greek: Αντιγόνεια). (Steph. B. l. c.; Eustath. ad  Horn. II. ii. 863)

Several other of Alexander's generals (known together as the Diadochi (Latin "successors")) later  conspired to remove Antigonus, and after defeating him the area was given to Thessalian general Lysimachus (Lysimakhos) (circa 355  BC-281 BC) in 301 BC as his share of the lands. He renamed it Nicaea  (Greek: Νίκαια , also transliterated as Nikaia or Nicæa;  see also List of traditional Greek place names ), in  tribute to his wife Nicaea , a daughter of Antipater . (Steph. B., Eustath., Strab., ll.  cc.)

According to another account (Memnon, ap. Phot. Cod. 224. p. 233, ed. Bekker),  Nicaea was founded by men from Nicaea near Thermopylae , who had served in the army of  Alexander the Great. The town was built with great regularity, in the form of a  square, measuring 16 stadia in circumference; it had four gates, and all its  streets intersected one another at right angles, so that from a monument in the  centre all the four gates could be seen. (Strabo  xii. pp. 565 et seq.) This monument stood in the gymnasium, which was  destroyed by fire, but was restored with increased magnificence by the younger Pliny (Epist. x. 48), when he was  governor of Bithynia .

The city was built on an important crossroads between Galatia and Phrygia , and thus saw steady trade. Soon after  the time of Lysimachus, Nicaea became a city of great importance, and the kings  of Bithynia, whose era begins in 288 BC with Zipoetes , often resided at Nicaea. It has  already been mentioned that in the time of Strabo it is called the metropolis of  Bithynia, an honour which is also assigned to it on some coins, though in later  times it was enjoyed by Nicomedia .

The two cities kept up a long and vehement dispute about the precedence, and  the 38th oration of Dio Chrysostomus was expressly composed to  settle the dispute. From this oration, it appears that Nicomedia alone had a  right to the title of metropolis, but both were the first cities of the country.

The theatre, restored by Pliny , but now fallen once again  into dilapidation.

The younger Pliny makes frequent mention of Nicaea and its public buildings,  which he undertook to restore when governor of Bithynia. (Epist. x. 40, 48,  etc.) It was the birthplace of the mathematician and astronomer Sporus (circa 240), the astronomer Hipparchus (circa 194 BC), and the historian Dio Cassius (circa 165). It was the death-place  of the comedian Philistion .

The numerous coins of Nicaea which still exist attest the interest taken in  the city by the emperors, as well as its attachment to the rulers; many of them  commemorate great festivals celebrated there in honour of gods and emperors, as  Olympia, Isthmia, Dionysia, Pythia, Commodia, Severia, Philadelphia, etc.

Throughout the imperial period, Nicaea remained an important town; for its  situation was particularly favourable, being only 40 km (25 mi) distant from Prusa (Pliny  v. 32), and 70 km (43 mi) from Constantinople . (It.  Ant. p. 141.) When Constantinople became the capital of the Eastern Empire , Nicaea did not lose in  importance; for its present walls, which were erected during the last period of  the Empire, enclose a much greater space than that ascribed to the place in the  time of Strabo. Much of the existing architecture and defensive works date to  this time, early 4th century.

Nicaea suffered much from earthquakes in 358, 362 and 368; after the last of  which, it was restored by the emperor Valens .

Nicaea in early  Christianity

The First Council of Nicaea (/naɪ'si:ə/; Greek : Νίκαια  /'ni:kaɪja/) was a council of Christian bishops convened in Nicaea in Bithynia (present-day İznik in Turkey ) by the Roman Emperor Constantine I in AD 325. This first ecumenical council was the first effort to  attain consensus in the church through an assembly representing all of Christendom . The doctrine of the Trinity was finalized at the  Council of Constantinople in 381 AD which expressly included the Holy Ghost as  equal to the Father and the Son.

The first Nicene Council was probably held in what would become the now  ruined mosque of Orchan. The church of Hagia Sophia was built by Justinian I in the middle of the city in the  6th century (modelled after the larger Hagia Sophia in Constantinople), and it was  there that the Second Council of Nicaea met in 787 to discuss  the issues of iconography . The city was assaulted by the Umayyads in 727 but held firm.

Crusades

The city saw a long period of peace under Byzantine rule, which lasted until  the rise of the Seljuk Turks . In 1077 they took the city, which  changed hands several times in the next year until it was firmly in their  control by 1078. Here they formed their capital. This event was instrumental in  starting the First Crusade at Byzantium's request in 1095,  resulting in armies from Europe along with smaller units from Byzantium  converging on the city in 1097. After the European armies laid siege to the city and penetrated the  walls, they were surprised to awake the next morning to see the Roman flags of  Emperor Alexios I Komnenos flying over the city. Robbed  of their chance to plunder the city, the crusaders and Byzantines were soon at  odds. In the peace which was afterwards concluded the city was ceded to the  Byzantines.

The 12th century saw a period of relative stability and prosperity at Nicaea.  The Komnenian emperors Alexios, John and Manuel  campaigned extensively to strengthen the Byzantine presence in Asia Minor. Major  fortifications were constructed across the region, especially by John and  Manuel, which helped to protect the city and its fertile hinterland. There were  also several military bases and colonies in the area, for example the one at Rhyndakos in Bithynia, where the emperor John  spent a year training his troops in preparation for campaigns in southern Asia  Minor.

Constantinople later fell in 1204 to the European armies in the Fourth Crusade , who set up the Latin Empire of Constantinople. They had poor  control over the area, and a number of Byzantine successor states sprang up as  well, including Epirus and Trebizond . It was Nicaea that formed the core  of the successor Byzantine Empire after Theodore Laskaris (who became Theodore I)  founded the Empire of Nicaea (western Asia Minor) there.

Building on the strong military infrastructure built up in the area over the  last century, Theodore I and his successors slowly expanded their domains, and  in 1259 Michael VIII Palaeologus usurped the throne. He  captured Constantinople from the Latins in 1261, and restored the Byzantine  Empire.

Ottoman Empire

In 1331, the city was conquered and incorporated into the Ottoman Empire by Orhan I . Many of its public buildings were  destroyed, and the materials were used by the Ottomans in erecting their mosques and other  edifices. With the fall of Constantinople in 1453, the town lost a  great degree of its importance, but later became a major center with the  creation of a local faïence pottery -making industry in the 17th century.

Ruins

The ancient walls, with their towers and gates, are relatively well  preserved. Their circumference is 3,100 m (10,171 ft), being at the base from 5  to 7 m (16 to 23 ft) in thickness, and from 10 to 13 m (33 to 43 ft) in height;  they contain four large and two small gates. In most places they are formed of  alternate courses of Roman tiles and large square stones, joined by a cement of  great thickness. In some places columns and other architectural fragments from  the ruins of more ancient edifices have been inserted. As with those of  Constantinople, the walls seem to have been built in the 4th century. Some of  the towers have Greek inscriptions.

The ruins of mosques, baths, and houses, dispersed among the gardens and  apartment buildings that now occupy a great part of the space within the Roman  and Byzantine fortifications, show that the Ottoman era town center, though now  less considerable, was once a place of importance; but it never was as large as  the Byzantine city. It seems to have been almost entirely constructed of the  remains of the Byzantine era Nicaea, the walls of the ruined mosques and baths  being full of the fragments of ancient Greek, Roman and Byzantine temples and  churches. In the northwestern parts of the town, two moles extend into the lake  and form a harbour; but the lake in this part has much retreated, and left a  marshy plain. Outside the walls are the remnants of an ancient aqueduct.The  Church of the Dormition, the principal Greek Orthodox church in Nicaea, was one  of the most architecturaly important Byzantine churches in Asia Minor . A domed church with a cross-shaped  nave and elongated apse, and dating from the perhaps as early as the end of the  6th century, its bema was decorated with very fine mosaics that had been  restored in the 9th century. The Church of the Dormition was destroyed in 1922;  only the lower portions of some of its walls survive today.

Excavations are underway in the Ottoman kilns where the historic Nycean  tileware were made. The Hagia Sophia is also undergoing restoration.

Contemporary influence

Nicaea remains a titular see of the Roman Catholic Church , Nicaenus; the  seat has been vacant since the death of its last bishop in 1976.It is also a  titular metropolitan see of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople . The  incumbent 2001–2010 was the former Archbishop of Karelia and All Finland ,  Metropolitan Johannes (Rinne) .

Notable people

• Hipparchus (2nd century BC) Greek  astronomer, geographer, and mathematician
• Sporus of Nicaea (b. ca. 240; d. ca. 300)  Greek mathematician and astronomer
• Georgius Pachymeres (1242 – c. 1310),  Byzantine historian
• Cassius Dio (AD c.165–c.229), Roman  historian

Marcus  Aurelius  Severus Alexander (October 1, 208–March 18, 235 AD), commonly  called Alexander Severus, was the last Roman emperor (11 March 222–235) of the Severan dynasty . Alexander Severus succeeded his cousin, Elagabalus   upon the latter's assassination in 222 AD, and was ultimately assassinated  himself, marking the epoch event for the Crisis of the Third Century —nearly fifty years of disorder, Roman civil  wars, economic chaos, regional rebellions, and external threats that brought the  Empire to near-collapse.

Alexander Severus was the heir  apparent to his cousin, the eighteen-year-old Emperor who had been murdered  along with his mother by his own guards—and as a mark of contempt, had their  remains cast into the Tiber river . He and his cousin were both grandsons of the influential and  powerful Julia Maesa , who had arranged for Elagabalus' acclamation as Emperor by the  famed Third Gallic Legion .

A rumor of Alexander's death circulated, triggering the assassination of  Elagabalus.

Alexander's reign was marked by troubles. In military conflict against the  rising Sassanid Empire , there are mixed accounts, though the Sassanid threat was  checked. However, when campaigning against Germanic tribes of Germania ,  Alexander Severus apparently alienated his legions by trying diplomacy and  bribery, and they assassinated him.

 Life

Alexander was born with the name Marcus Julius Gessius Bassianus Alexianus.  Alexander's father, Marcus Julius Gessius Marcianus was a Syrian Promagistrate . His mother Julia Avita Mamaea was the second daughter of Julia  Maesa and Syrian noble Julius Avitus and maternal aunt of Emperor Elagabalus .  He had an elder sister called Theoclia and little is known about her.  Alexander's maternal great-aunt was empress Julia  Domna (also Maesa's younger sister) and his great-uncle in marriage was  emperor Lucius Septimius Severus . Emperors Caracalla   and Publius Septimius Geta , were his mother's maternal cousins. In 221,  Alexander's grandmother, Maesa, persuaded the emperor to adopt his cousin as  successor and make him Caesar and Bassianus changed his name to Alexander. In the following  year, on March 11, Elagabalus was murdered, and Alexander was proclaimed emperor  by the Praetoriansns and accepted by the Senate.

When Alexander became emperor, he was young, amiable, well-meaning, and  entirely under the dominion of his mother. Julia Mamaea was a woman of many  virtues, and she surrounded the young emperor with wise counsellors. She watched  over the development of her son's character and improved the tone of the  administration. On the other hand, she was inordinately jealous. She also  alienated the army by extreme parsimony, and neither she nor her son were strong  enough to impose military discipline. Mutinies became frequent in all parts of  the empire; to one of them the life of the jurist and praetorian praefect Ulpian was  sacrificed; another compelled the retirement of Cassius  Dio from his command.

On the whole, however, the reign of Alexander was prosperous until the rise,  in the east, of the Sassanids . Of the war that followed there are various accounts. (Mommsen  leans to that which is least favourable to the Romans). According to Alexander's  own dispatch to the senate, he gained great victories. At all events, though the  Sassanids were checked for the time, the conduct of the Roman army showed an  extraordinary lack of discipline. The emperor returned to Rome and celebrated  a triumph in 233.

The following year he was called to face German invaders in Gaul, who had  breached the Rhine frontier in several places, destroying forts and over-running  the countryside. Alexander mustered his forces, bringing legions from the  eastern provinces, and crossed the Rhine into Germany on a pontoon bridge.  Initially he attempted to buy the German tribes off, so as to gain time. Whether  this was a wise policy or not, it caused the Roman legionaries to look down on  their emperor as one who was prepared to commit unsoldierly conduct. Herodian   says "in their opinion Alexander showed no honourable intention to pursue the  war and preferred a life of ease, when he should have marched out to punish the  Germans for their previous insolence". These circumstances drove the army to  look for a new leader. They chose Gaius Iulius Verus Maximinus , a Thracian soldier who had worked his way up  through the ranks.

Following the nomination of Maximinus as emperor, Alexander was slain (on  either March 18 or March 19, 235), together with his mother, in a mutiny of the Primigenia Legio XXII . These assassinations secured the throne for  Maximinus.

The death of Alexander is considered as the end of the Principate  system established by Augustus .  Although the Principate continued in theory until the reign of Diocletian ,  Alexander Severus' death signalled the beginning of the chaotic period known as  the Crisis of the Third Century which weakened the empire considerably.

 Legacy

Alexander was the last of the Syrian emperors. Under the influence of his  mother, he did much to improve the morals and condition of the people. His  advisers were men like the famous jurist Ulpian, the historian Cassius Dio and a  select board of sixteen senators; a municipal council of fourteen assisted the  urban praefect in administering the affairs of the fourteen districts of Rome.  The luxury and extravagance that had formerly been so prevalent at the court  were put down; the standard of the coinage was raised; taxes were lightened;  literature, art and science were encouraged; the lot of the soldiers was  improved; and, for the convenience of the people, loan offices were instituted  for lending money at a moderate rate of interest.

In religious matters Alexander preserved an open mind. It is said that he was  desirous of erecting a temple to the founder of  Christianity , but was dissuaded by the pagan priests.

 Marriage

Alexander was married three times. His most famous wife was Sallustia Orbiana , Augusta , whom he married in 225. He divorced and exiled her in 227,  after her father, Seius Sallustius , was executed for attempting to assassinate the emperor.  Another wife was Sulpicia Memmia. Her father was a man of consular rank; her  grandfather's name was Catulus.