Evidence ID
E04530Saint Name
Donatus, bishop of Euroia (Epirus), ob. 387 : S01274
Stephen, the First Martyr : S00030
Sabinos/Sabianos, saint honoured in Epirus : S02324Saint Name in Source
Δονάτος
Στέφανος
Σαβίνος ΣαβιανόςType of Evidence
Literary - Other narrative texts (including Histories)Evidence not before
550Evidence not after
561Activity not before
518Activity not after
561Place of Evidence - Region
Constantinople and regionPlace of Evidence - City, village, etc
ConstantinoplePlace of evidence - City name in other Language(s)
Constantinople
Constantinople
Κωνσταντινούπολις
Konstantinoupolis
Constantinopolis
Constantinople
IstanbulMajor author/Major anonymous work
ProcopiusCult activities - Places Named after Saint
- Towns, villages, districts and fortresses
Cult activities - Non Liturgical Practices and Customs
Saint as patron - of a communityCult Activities - Protagonists in Cult and Narratives
Monarchs and their familySource
Procopius of Caesarea, (c. 500 – c. 560/561 AD) was a soldier and historian from the Roman province of Palaestina Prima. He accompanied the Roman general Belisarius in the wars of the Emperor Justinian (527-565). He wrote the Wars (or Histories), On Buildings and the Secret History.
On Buildings is a panegyric in six books. It lists, and sometimes describes, the buildings erected or renovated by the emperor Justinian throughout the empire (only on Italy is there no information). The bulk of these are churches and shrines dedicated to various saints; the Buildings is therefore a very important text for the evidence it provides of the spread of saintly cults by the mid 6th c.
On Buildings dates from the early 550s to c. 560/561; a terminus post quem is 550/551 as the text mentions the capture of Topirus in Thrace by the Slavs in 550 and describes the city walls of Chalkis in Syria built in 550/551; a probable terminus ante quem is 558 when the dome of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople collapsed, which is not mentioned in the book; or before 560 when the bridge on the river Sangarius was completed, as Procopius reports on the start of works. On Buildings thus belongs to the later years of Justinian’s reign. The work is not finished and is probably Procopius’ last work. It glorifies Justinian, depicting him as a great builder and an emperor restlessly transforming the state, expanding and reforming it, destroying paganism, extirpating heresy, and re-establishing the firm foundations of the Christian faith (Elsner 2007: 35).
More on the text: Downey 1947; Elsner 2007; Greatrex 1994 and 2013.
Overview of the text:
Book 1.
Constantinople and its suburbs
Book 2.
Frontier provinces of Mesopotamia and Syria.
Book 3.
Armenia, Tzanica, and the shores of the Black Sea.
Book 4.
Illyricum and Thrace (the Balkans).
Book 5.
Asia Minor, Syria, and Palestine.
Book 6.
North Africa, from Alexandria to central Algeria.Discussion
The fourth book of the Buildings, which recounts the numerous building works of Justinian's government in the Balkan provinces, appears to be partly unfinished. Procopius never visited Illyricum or Thrace in person, hence his information about these regions relied on information drawn from official records of their administration. The description of the regions follows the geography of administration, and much of the text consists of lists of names, suggesting that the book is unfinished.
By Justinian's times, the Balkans had become a heavily fortified landscape comprising hundreds of small fortified settlements, villages, fortresses, and refuges. This landscape dominates Procopius' account of the area, but most of the toponyms he mentions cannot be located with any confidence on the ground. Some toponyms contain names of saints, which probably suggests that they protected shrines. The existence of small forts enclosing churches has been archaeologically documented in the Balkans.
The fort of Hagios Stephanos was presumably named after *Stephen (the First Martyr, S00030).
The author also mentions two fortresses named after the wonder-working *Donatus, bishop of Euroia (S01274), one of the most renowned saints of the western Balkans, in the broader area of his shrine, between Photike (near today's Paramythia, Greece) and Hadrianopolis-Justinianopolis (near Dropull, Albania). (On the location of Photike, see: Elsie 2000, 36; Hammond 1967, 659; Sakellariou 1997, 183; Triantaphyllopoulos 1991; Samsari 1994, 18).
It is less clear who Sabinos/Sabianos was, after whom two forts were named. The first one, unusually given in the nominative, appears right after Dyrrachium on the list, and may indeed have been near the capital of Epirus Nova. The other one appears in the southern province of Epirus Vetus. Sabinos may well have been a local saint of Dyrrachium. The memory of local cults from Illyricum is extremely poor, and he could have been a saint whose shrine and cult disappeared after the end of antiquity.Bibliography
Edition:
Haury, J., Procopii Caesariensis opera omnia, vol. 4: Περι κτισματων libri VI sive de aedificiis (Leipzig: Teubner, 1962-64).
Translations and Commentaries:
Compagnoni, G.R., Procopio di Cesarea, Degli Edifici. Traduzione dal greco di G. Compagnoni (Milan: Tipi di Francesco Sonzogno, 1828).
Dewing, H.B., Procopius, On Buildings. Translated into English by H.B. Dewing, vol. 7 (London: William Heinemann, New York: Macmillan, 1940).
Grotowski, P.Ł., Prokopiusz z Cezarei, O Budowlach. Przełożył, wstępem, objaśnieniami i komentarzem opatrzył P.Ł. Grotowski (Warsaw: Proszynski i S-ka, 2006).
Roques, D., Procope de Césarée. Constructions de Justinien Ier. Introduction, traduction, commentaire, cartes et index par D. Roques (Alessandria: Edizioni dell'Orso, 2011).
Veh, O., and Pülhorn, W. (eds.), Procopii opera. De Aedificiis. With a Commentary by W. Pülhorn (Munich: Heimeran, 1977).
Further Reading:
Croke, B., and Crow, J., "Procopius and Dara," Journal of Roman Studies 73 (1983), 143-159.
Downey, G.A., “The Composition of Procopius’ ‘De Aedificiis’," Transactions of the American Philological Association 78 (1947), 171-183.
Elsie, R., "The Christian Saints of Albania," Balkanistica: American Association for South Slavic Studies 13 (2000), 35-57.
Elsner, J., “The Rhetoric of Buildings in De Aedificiis of Procopius”, in: L. James (ed.), Art and Text in Byzantine Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 33-57.
Funke, P., Moustakis, N., and Hichschulz, B., "Epeiros," in: M.H. Hansen, and T.H. Nielsen (eds.), An Inventory of Archaic and Classical Poleis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).
Greatrex, G., “The Dates of Procopius’ Works,” Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 18 (1994), 101-14.
Greatrex, G., “The Date of Procopius Buildings in the Light of Recent Scholarship,” Estudios bizantinos 1 (2013), 13-29.
Hammond, N.G.L., The Geography, the Ancient Remains, the History and the Topography of Epirus and Adjacent Areas (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967).
Sakellariou, M.V., Epirus, 4000 years of Greek History and Civilization (Athens: Ekdotikē Athēnōn, 1997).
Samsari, D.K., Η ρωμαϊκή αποικία της Φωτικής στη Θεσπρωτία της Ηπείρου. Ιστορικογεωγραφική και επιγραφική συμβολή (Ioannina, 1994).
Traiantaphyllopoulos, D.D., "Donatus of Euroia: Remarks on his Cult and on the Topography of Epirus Vetus," in: Resümees der Plenumsvorträge und Kurzreferate 12. Internationaler Kongress für christliche Archäologie. Bonn, 22.-28. September 1991 (Bonn 1991).
