A Cross-over article of Rome, Byzantium, Russia, Star Wars, and Fallout
Posted by Powee Celdran
Welcome back to another Byzantium Blogger article in the time of the global pandemic of the coronavirus which seems to be not only be world threatening but life changing as well very drastically. Because of COVID-19 still ongoing, one of the worst possibilities is an extended period of lockdown and quarantine everywhere to avoid getting in contact with the virus but also to stop the spread of it. The last time I have done an article on 3 major pandemics in history, particularly in Roman and Byzantine history which were the Antonine Plague of the 2nd century, Plague of Justinian in the 6th century, and the Black Death in the 14th century and also the medieval origins of quarantine, a timely piece of information. The last time I mentioned that my next article would be a Roman and Byzantine Empire comparison, however that one would take too much time to write as it requires extensive research so this time I wanted to do another one relating to the situation of COVID-19 and the thought of the lockdowns all over the world and how it can affect us both good and bad. Now this article would be something rather more personal and an emotional piece at the same time as it reflects some of my thoughts on the lockdown during the coronavirus outbreak but it is also of course another Roman-Byzantine historical piece since I will relate to how certain Romans and Byzantine felt in facing self-isolation, thus this article is considered a special edition article. First of all, being on lockdown and having very limited space to go around and not being able to go out much as I used to is not so much a problem since I could survive months only staying at home now that there is such thing as the internet and online entertainment as well as things to do such as making an article like this and at the same time, I also have about a year’s worth of video games if I played nonstop. What bothers me however during lockdown is the thought of being confined to such a small space without having much access to the world outside for I don’t know how many more weeks which is basically the house I live in and my village which is quite small that it only takes 10 minutes to walk from one end to the other. Another thing bothering me about this is not just the thought of living this way under lockdown for so long but the fact that I’m actually going through this global crisis. Anyway, with all this happening, even back in Roman and Byzantine times, there were many stories of people who went through this kind of self-isolation for years not because of a pandemic but because they were forced to either by imposing it on themselves or because they had committed crimes and were forced to live their entire life in isolation, also this article will be exempting stories of imprisonment as this is more on comfortable self-isolated exiles or simply house arrests, since this situation now probably feels more like that than imprisonment. Since this blog page is about Roman and Byzantine history, I am limiting my stories here to people in those empires, which was basically the same empire if you think about it although with a few stories for exemptions later on including the exile of the family of the last Russian tsar and from fiction the case of Luke Skywalker in the new Star Wars trilogy and the whole premise of the game Fallout 4. This article will then mention first stories of forced self-isolation in certain islands during the Roman Empire period particularly in the time of Rome’s first imperial dynasty, the Julio-Claudians in the 1st century which will includes stories of imperial family members in their self-isolated exiles in which many of them had died in it. Next, I will focus on self-isolation and social distancing in the time of the Byzantine Empire which will be particularly on the Stylite saints, the ascetics who lived above columns their entire lives to stay away from everyone else in order to live in peace being the first to make social distancing popular. Afterwards I will discuss stories of some deposed Byzantine emperors and empresses who were forced to live quarantined for life in monasteries and how their lives had completely changed from the luxuries of the imperial court to the simple lifestyle of an ordinary monk or nun. The feeling of this quarantine period for me is something hard to get used to from always being out to all of a sudden having to be confined to such a small space, but I am alone here as everyone else is doing the same too and to further justify this feeling of mine, I will do this article as these people in history faced the same thing too getting used to a different kind of lifestyle all of a sudden. At the end of this article, my conclusion as the rest of this article is will be somewhat very deep and though this article is somewhat deep as it will go through some of my thoughts on lockdown, it will be quite an easy read too as it will not have too much scholarly information. After all, I am doing this article as a way to express myself in this time but also to show you viewers and Roman/ Byzantine history fans that even back then, emperors and rulers went through this kind of situation too especially after they were deposed.
Related Articles from the Byzantium Blogger:
Pandemics in Roman and Byzantine History
Ethnic Origins of the Byzantine Emperors
Greatest and Worst Byzantine Emperors
12 Turning Points in Byzantine History
Natural Disasters in Byzantine History
Crime, Punishment, and Medical Practice in the Byzantine World
The Julio-Claudians of Imperial Rome- Exiled in Islands
In the early 1st century AD, during the ruling period of the first emperors of Rome from the Julio-Claudian Dynasty, many imperial family members who were seen as a threat were forced into exile for their entire lives in islands in the Tyrrhenian Sea of Italy. The situation I am facing now that I with many others are in quarantine period is more like what these members of the Julio-Claudian ruling family faced being exiled in these small islands without seeing anything else but the land and the sea which is my feeling now that every day I see the same thing, basically the grass and streets of my village as well as the sky. These imperial family members were particularly Julia the Elder (39BC-14AD), the daughter of Rome’s first emperor Augustus Caesar (r. 27BC-14AD) and Julia’s daughters Julia the Younger (19BC-29AD) and Agrippina the Elder (14BC-33AD) and son Postumus Agrippa (12BC-14AD), as well as Agrippina’s children Nero Caesar (6-31AD), Drusus Caesar (7-33AD), Agrippina the Younger (15-59AD), and Julia Livilla (18-42AD). First of all, the first imperial family member to be banished was Augustus Caesar’s daughter Julia for some scandals she had been involved in. Julia had been married to Augustus’ trusted general Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa (62-12BC) and had 5 children with him including Augustus’ supposed successors Gaius and Lucius who died suddenly at the early years of the 1st century around the same time Julia was exiled; the other children of Julia and Agrippa were as mentioned earlier Julia the Younger, Agrippina the Elder, and Postumus Agrippa, however Marcus Agrippa had died too early to see his children grow up. After her husband Agrippa’s death, Augustus’ wife the empress Livia (59BC-29AD) had Augustus arrange for her son Tiberius to be married to Julia, although the marriage was not a happy one as Tiberius was still loyal to his ex-wife and because of an unhappy marriage, Julia began having affair with other men. In a theory but also shown in the Robert Graves novel and Tv series I, Claudius, Livia had been long planning to get rid of Julia and her children in order to clear the way for Tiberius to succeed Augustus as emperor so Livia could still continue ruling through her son the same way she did with her husband. In this story, Livia had her stepdaughter Julia go through a scandal of having an affair with a number of Rome’s senators in a single night but before that Julia had divorced Tiberius. Before Julia’s scandal, Tiberius had also lived in a kind of self-imposed isolation in the island of Rhodes where he stayed for a few years to get away from the busy life of Rome until he grew bored of living alone far away but in order to return to Rome, Julia had to be away so he could return as Augustus did not want his daughter anywhere near Tiberius who Augustus saw as a troublemaker. Now when Augustus found out about his daughter Julia’s affairs with numerous senators, he chose to simply banish her for that kind of behavior, yet he did not know Livia set it up. In 2BC, same year as the scandal, Julia was immediately banished to the island of Pandateria in the Tyrrhenian Sea (now called Ventotene) some kilometers away from the coast of the region of Lazio Italy, an island only 1.54sqkm. Today the island of Ventotene is much more inhabited and civilized having a population of 768 and a mayor but back in Roman times it was an isolated island barely inhabited by anyone except for maybe a few fishermen. Since this island was isolated and barely inhabited it was the perfect place to send a scandalous person like Julia into exile to rethink her whole life and to do this, the punishments had to be harsh which meant for the rest of her stay there, Julia was forbidden even to drink wine and to be in contact with any men and no men were allowed there except for the guards who would be watching her the entire time and the fishermen that lived there. On the positive side, Julia’s mother Scribonia who was Augustus’ first wife accompanied her to exile but for both of them, they only had each other to talk to and the same scenery of the sky, sea, and rocks every day, but still no visitors allowed except for boats coming in to bring food, now Julia’s exile to Pandateria is a true example of social distancing and isolation from the real world. In 4AD, after 5 years of living in exile in the small island of Pandateria, Augustus came to regret his decision of exiling his daughter to an isolated island but still did not want her to return to Rome or see her again, instead he moved her to an estate in the town of Rhegium in the mainland of Southern Italy where she would be at least allowed to own a property, have a yearly income, and be allowed to walk the town but under watch of Augustus’ agents. Now in the time Julia was exiled, her second son Lucius died of a fever in Gaul at only 18 in 2AD while her first son Gaius died of illness as well on a military expedition in Lycia at only 23 in 4AD. With Gaius and Lucius dead, their grandfather Augustus was left with no choice but to adopt his stepson Tiberius as his successor, thus Tiberius returned from self-isolation in Rhodes, however just to please his wife Livia did Augustus name Tiberius his successor when in fact he had plans to make his only surviving grandson Postumus Agrippa his successor.
Now Postumus was the youngest child of Marcus Agrippa and Julia and was already at a young age being trained to be a skilled general and politician like his older brothers Gaius and Lucius, however Postumus had an unpredictable personality, was violent, hard-headed, and cared for nothing really except fishing. In 6AD, resisting all efforts to improve his behavior, he went as far as to forcing his grandfather Augustus to step down from the throne but in return Augustus had him placed under house arrest in a villa and the next year he made clear to banish his grandson to the island of Planasia (now Pianosa), an island only 10.25sqkm off the coast of Tuscany in the Tyrrhenian Sea as well found between mainland Italy and Corsica. Like his mother Julia, Postumus was exiled to an island a small isolated island as well but the reason for Augustus to banish him there is though unclear but most probably Livia had set it up too as she hated Postumus and wanted to finally clear the way for her son Tiberius’ succession to throne as Postumus would be the last of the rivals for Tiberius. In 8AD, a year after Postumus was exiled, his older sister Julia the Younger had followed their mother’s footsteps too in being banished to island though in her case, she and her husband Lucius Aemilius Paullus had plotted against Augustus and with their plot uncovered the husband was executed and Julia the Younger banished to the small rocky island of Tremirius (now Isole Tremiti) in the Adriatic Coast of Italy some kilometers west off the coast from the Province of Foggia which faces the Adriatic; now this island was another small one being only 3.13sqkm, though Julia the Younger lived for over 20 years isolated in this small rocky island till she died in 29AD. Postumus meanwhile remained in the small rocky island of Planasia on the opposite side of Italy from Tremirius where his sister was; Postumus remained there for the next 7 years till his death in 14AD. Pianosa which was then called Planasia gets its name from the Latin word for “plain” its flat surface despite its rocky coastal outline, though today the island is only inhabited by 10 people and is marked with 3 fortresses all sticking out to the sea, also from 1856-1997 this island was used as a penal colony, which makes sense due to its small size and being isolated from everything else. Although before Roman times, Planasia had already a few huts built by early settlers and it was in these ancient huts where Postumus himself had settled in living alone all these years. Since it was hard to reach the actual island itself because of its rocky coastal outline, Augustus chose it as the best place to banish his grandson to and to further make it hard for him to leave and guests to come in, Augustus placed guards to watch over his grandson 24/7, also Augustus had ordered the senate to never allow his grandson’s release. Although in 14AD, Augustus and his senator friend Fabius Maximus travelled to Planasia itself according to the later historians Tacitus and Cassius Dio, where in this incident Augustus had gone there probably to makeup to his grandson though it is not said why Augustus went there but most likely he came there to reverse the plan of succession still believing Postumus as his rightful heir despite having him banished. In I, Claudius Augustus actually goes there to that island as a plan to check if his grandson is actually still alive so that he could finally come to succeed him, though after that visit, Augustus had never again returned to Rome as he suddenly died in August of 14AD in Nola. In his mind, Augustus had probably named Postumus his successor but died before he could clarify it, so instead Livia got things her way and from then on, Tiberius had succeeded Augustus as emperor. Shortly after Augustus’ death, Livia and Tiberius as the new emperor ordered the new Praetorian guard commander Lucius Aelius Sejanus to head to Planasia and kill Postumus and the orders were carried out, though 2 years later with Postumus dead his slave Clemens tried to impersonate him, yet the Roman people came to believe it forgetting how Postumus looked like. Meanwhile in the same year Augustus died and Postumus was assassinated, Julia the Elder who was still living in exile at Rhegium had died as well. Julia the Elder’s death, was most possibly caused by Tiberius’ actions once he became emperor and as emperor he was a lot more brutal than Augustus as he discontinued the privileges Julia had at her villa there basically because he hated her ever since, so it is highly possible that Tiberius had Julia locked up in her villa there and starved her to death, thus having his revenge.
Watch this to learn about how the Romans survived the Antonine Plague pandemic (from Invicta).
Many years later after Augustus’ death in 14AD during the reign of Tiberius (14-37AD), Agrippina the Elder, the younger sister of Julia the Younger and older sister of Postumus would also follow her mother’s footsteps of being exiled to island, and even more surprising, Agrippina was exiled to Pandateria, same island her mother Julia the Elder was exiled to in 2BC until moving to Rhegium in 4AD. Now Agrippina had been married to Tiberius’ nephew the successful general and Roman war hero Germanicus (15BC-19AD) known for finishing the war between the Romans and Germanic tribes and because of that he had become popular enough that the people would choose him as emperor over Tiberius. However, in 19AD at the time Germanicus was put in charge of the armies in Roman Syria, he suddenly died of an illness caused most probably by poison, yet it was unclear who was behind the plot to poison him, although Agrippina had certainly believed Tiberius was behind it conspiring with Germanicus’ political rival the senator Piso to poison him all the way in Syria as Tiberius had appointed Piso governor of Syria most likely to keep a close eye on Germanicus. Piso was however put on trial and after being found guilty of murder he killed himself, but this still did not stop Agrippina from suspecting Tiberius as her husband’s actual killer. Agrippina meanwhile was a strong and independent woman for Roman times that when she was still married to Germanicus she accompanied him in all his campaigns in the woods of Germania staying in the camps of the soldiers training them even and in fact in one incident during a raid of the Germanic tribes on one of the army camps, she led the soldiers in the defense against the Germans. Now if Agrippina was tough enough to lead soldiers in fighting the unpredictable Germanic tribes while her husband was out in the frontlines leading his soldiers in battle, she was tough enough to stand up against the hard-headed emperor Tiberius. While Tiberius had appointed his son Drusus the Younger as his successor, Agrippina had her own plans to elevate the positions of her and Germanicus’ sons Nero and Drusus Caesars to be Rome’s future emperors but because of this, Tiberius grew suspicious on Agrippina while Tiberius’ trusted agent and advisor Sejanus continued stirring up trouble behind Tiberius’ back as in 23AD he had secretly poisoned Tiberius’ son Drusus making it however clear for Agrippina to have Tiberius make either of her sons the next emperor as Tiberius’ grandsons were too young and Tiberius could die any sooner. Tiberius though was still intent to get rid of Agrippina still seeing her as a threat to his family’s succession while behind it all he did not know Sejanus was plotting to take the throne but also to get rid of Agrippina. In 26AD, Tiberius retired to the large island of Capri to live his whole life in luxury and away from the politics of Rome which was left to Sejanus though it only became worse as in Rome Sejanus had one by one eliminated Tiberius’ enemies only to make himself closer to actually getting rid of Tiberius himself. Now in his reign, Tiberius had set up countless treason trials wherein numerous of those suspected as enemies of the state were executed or imprisoned and one of those accused of treason was Agrippina in 27AD basically because of her plans to put her sons in power, however unlike Sejanus who was discreet on his plot to take over the empire, Agrippina was open about it. In 29AD, Sejanus delivered his final attack on Agrippina and at that same time, Tiberius had made it final that Agrippina would be sentenced to exile in Pandateria, same island her mother was exiled to some 30 years ago. While Agrippina was exiled to the small rocky island of Pandateria, her eldest son Nero was exiled to the even more sparse and depopulated island of Ponza which was although slightly larger than Pandateria and only a few kilometers west of Pandateria, although both mother and son were not permitted to see each other despite their islands being close to each other. The punishment for Agrippina’s treason against Tiberius’ rule was exile basically as a way to punish her by reflecting on her thoughts and words as she had always wanted to rule the empire despite her not knowing the responsibilities of it, which is basically the reason why Tiberius exiled her to that small island, not only to suffer the same way her mother did but to have the island as her own empire and see how tiring it is to run one. In reality it was a lot worse being in that island despite being alone without anyone else because after a time you’d grow bored without talking to anyone especially for a person like Agrippina who was so used to socializing and openly speaking about her ambitions. Agrippina remained in that island in solitary exile except for the guards stationed to make sure she doesn’t escape until her death 4 years later in 33AD. According to the historian Suetonius, Agrippina’s death was caused by losing an eye after being beaten by the centurion in charge of guarding her while the historian Tacitus says Agrippina’s death was caused by starvation whether or not it was self-imposed or she was starved to death. Her son Nero meanwhile died in 31AD in Ponza, 2 years before his mother either by being executed by Tiberius’ orders or committing suicide to avoid execution. For the other son Drusus meanwhile, in 30AD a year after his mother and brother were exiled, he was accused of plotting against Tiberius as well and was thrown into the prison of Palatine Hill dying 3 years later (33AD) from starvation being left with nothing to eat in prison but the stuffing of his bed. Though before Agrippina, Nero, and Drusus died Sejanus’ plots were already exposed to Tiberius including poisoning Tiberius’ son, so Sejanus too was arrested, imprisoned, and sentenced to death. Tiberius lived till 37AD dying in Capri ironically appointing Agrippina and Germanicus’ third son Gaius “Caligula” as his successor. With Caligula as emperor (r. 37-41AD), he collected the ashes of his mother and brothers and returned them to Rome as they were popular among the people as the family of Germanicus, although ironically in 39AD as Caligula turned into the mad emperor he is known as, he exiled his 2 younger sisters Agrippina the Younger and Julia Livilla to Ponza, same island his older brother Nero was exiled to as he suspected them of plotting against him. However, Caligula was assassinated by his Praetorian Guards in 41AD replacing him with his uncle Claudius (r. 41-54AD), the younger brother of Germanicus as emperor and once coming to the throne, Claudius recalled his 2 nieces Agrippina the Younger and Julia Livilla to Rome. Now Emperor Claudius I would be a good example of social distancing in his earlier years as he basically remained away from the spotlight spending most of his time alone at home studying and writing books, also because he was a person with disabilities but it was only at an old age when he came into the spotlight as he became emperor. Now speaking of those exiled to the islands, it was probably not all to bad for them as they had a great scenery except that everyday would be the same, basically what quarantine feels like.
The Stylite Saints of Byzantium
Now we fast-forward into history to the successor empire of the Romans, the Byzantine or Eastern Roman Empire, when the Roman Empire had become a strongly Christian Empire. For the Christians of the Byzantine Empire, holiness was defined by living an ascetic lifestyle completely distancing yourself socially as way to avoid temptation in order to control yourself. Ever since the early days of Christianity in the time of the Roman Empire, Christians have lived their lives for years as ascetics (hermits) especially in the deserts of Egypt and the Middle East as way to both avoid sin and temptation but also to be closer to God. One of the greatest examples of the early Christian ascetics was the hermit St. Anthony (251-356) living for more than a hundred years, most of it in isolation in the deserts of Egypt. Now during the early days of the Byzantine Empire, many Christian ascetics began to live their lives in isolation above columns in the various cities of the Eastern Roman Empire including its capital Constantinople as well as in Asia Minor, Greece, and Syria. These Christian hermits who lived above columns were known as Stylites, and in the history of Byzantium there were 124 stylite saints according to a report as late as the 19th century. Although these stylite saints did not only appear in the early days of Byzantium as after the Latin Crusader conquest of Constantinople in 1204, the French Crusader chronicler Robert de Clari reports that he saw hermits in Constantinople living above columns for years. These stylite saints have lived above columns for years meditating, praying, and fasting without ever leaving, although communities would develop around them at the base of the column believing these hermits had miraculous powers that could heal them, though these stylites being above the columns distanced themselves from their supporters that way. Now during this time of quarantine, if you are stuck in a unit many levels above the ground suspended in the air, think about those stylites of Byzantium that they were able to live in such as small space without ever moving for years usually till they died, but at least the advantage of living above these columns was that they could see everything from above like the city skyline. These stylites once climbing above these columns to live in them had gone as far as to not move their bodies in order to weaken them believing that weakening their bodies would help ensure the salvation of their souls. Now the goal of other stylite saints of the Byzantine Empire were to outdo the other stylite saints they knew by beating their record of number of years living above columns. The most famous Byzantine stylite saint is St. Simeon the Elder (390-459), a son of a shepherd from Asia Minor who entered monastic life at an early age and from that early age, he had already taken that life too extreme that he was asked to leave the monastery spending an entire Lent season in a hut without ever eating or drinking, thus miraculously surviving it, afterwards he chose to live alone in a narrow space between 2 rocks in the mountains of Asia Minor, but because of this feat of living alone under a rock, crowds flocked to him pestering him for blessing but Simeon did not want the crowds so instead he chose an all new lifestyle to totally distance himself from the crowds, which was to live in a small platform above a 3 meter pillar he discovered somewhere in Syria wherein he would get very minimal food of bread and goat’s milk delivered to him from boys from the nearby monastery, and he would receive them from a bucket lifted by a pulley. However when the monastic elders of the monastery found out about Simeon’s feat of living above the column for such a long time they suspected he was doing it out of pride and not humility so they decided that if he doesn’t obey and refuses to come down they’d drag him but if he submitted to them he would be allowed to remain above the pillar, however he chose to submit so they allowed him to stay. The next pillar he found was 15m high located near the city of Aleppo in Syria where he lived for 37 years till his death in 459, and over the years as Simeon remained above the column people would gather below it asking him for blessings until word of his ascetic feat spread all over the empire even reaching the court of the Byzantine emperor Theodosius II (r. 408-450) himself and as a devout Christian, Theodosius II came to respect St. Simeon and whatever he was doing. Now the British historian Edward Gibbon writes that according to a Syriac source, St. Simeon above the column was exposed to the hot summers and cold winters yet he miraculously survived them all while this Syriac source also says St. Simeon fastened himself above the column to restrict his movements and prevent himself from sitting down, but his restraints chafed on his flesh and revealed the bone and sinew, then 3 joints on his spine were dislocated because he constantly bent down and stood up again when he prayed; while also this source says for 9 months the boils on his left foot oozed pus and worms which fell to the ground with a stench so great that people had to smear cedar resin under their noses as they approached him. Meanwhile the emperors Theodosius II, his successor Marcian (r. 450-457), and his successor Leo I the Thracian (r. 457-474) came to admire Simeon for his ascetic feat that Simeon had even asked one of these 3 emperors to build a wall around his pillar so that he could no longer have any contact with the people who constantly pestered, meanwhile he did not allow even his mother to go near him and when his mother died he asked that her coffin be brought up to him to say goodbye to her. Simeon died in 459 living 37 years above the pillar near Aleppo and when he was found dead in that same pillar, a disciple found his body stooped in prayer and buried in a nearby church. This pillar though survived for centuries until only in 2016 when it was unfortunately hit by a missile.
Because of St. Simeon’s great feat of living above a column for years till he died, his disciple St. Daniel the Stylite sought to imitate his master’s lifestyle by also choosing to live above a column, though Daniel chose a column somewhere north of Constantinople beginning his residence there sometime after Simeon’s death in 459. However, Daniel squatted in a pillar belonging to someone’s property and the owner of the property appealed to the emperor Leo I himself and the Patriarch of Constantinople St. Gennadius to force Daniel out of there but the patriarch instead did not listen to the landowner and allowed Daniel to live above it even ordaining Daniel as a priest, while the Holy Orders took place with Daniel still above the column, now that’s a perfect example of an event happening with complete social distancing. Daniel then became famous for living above that column that he decided to move to a taller one so the emperor Leo I who had become a fan of Daniel decided to build a taller one next to it as well as a plank so Daniel could move to the next one from the one he was at, however the taller column was almost destroyed by a thunderstorm which almost killed Daniel, Leo I then wanted to execute the column’s architect but Daniel intervened to spare the architect’s life. Daniel lived above the column surviving numerous rain and snow storms as well as the strong north wind from Thrace which one time snatched his thin clothes away leaving him naked exposed to the icy rain that one day his disciples found him almost dead with him long hair and beard entirely glued to his skin that they had to thaw him with hot water, though after waking up Daniel claimed that he did not feel anything saying he dreamt of sleeping on a comfortable couch under warm blankets; Daniel too above the column had suffered several sores, cuts, and ulcers on his feet from constantly standing. St. Daniel though did not beat his master St. Simeon’s record of living above the column as St. Daniel only stayed above the column for 33 years until he died in 493, however in his life above the column he was frequently visited by the emperors Leo I and Zeno (r. 474-491). Other than St. Simeon and St. Daniel, Byzantine scholars report other extreme cases of stylites such as one reported by the theologian St. Gregory of Nazianzus (329-390) who lived in a mountaintop cave in Palestine for over 25 years and one hermit reported by the theologian St. Theodoret of Cyrus (393-466) who had stayed for 10 years in a tub suspended in midair from poles. Other than stylites, another extremist form of ascetics were the Dendrites like the Stylites except they chose to isolate themselves above trees and there were the Grazers who lived out in the wild for years without even preparing their meals and instead fed off from the earth until they ended up behaving like wild animals that they ran away whenever seeing people, thus making this an extreme case of social distancing while other ascetics tried to distance themselves from people by standing still covering themselves with animal skins. In Byzantium, the stylite saints or other hermits were so much more extreme than western monks as in the west monks lived in isolation in communities with other monks while in Byzantium these monks took it to an all new level totally isolating themselves from everything else.
Exiled Byzantine Emperors Part1
If Byzantine ascetic saints chose to distance themselves from people in order to live holier lives, emperors who were deposed meanwhile were forced to live away from society usually in monasteries till they died without ever being allowed to leave. Monasteries in fact would be the most humane punishment for a deposed emperors as many other deposed emperors like Maurice in 602, Justinian II in 711, Alexios II in 1183, Andronikos I in 1185, and Alexios V in 1204 would end up being executed by the usurping emperor while other deposed emperors like Isaac II Angelos in 1195 were blinded and imprisoned by the usurping emperor and John V imprisoned for a time in 1376 before returning to power in 1379, though many deposed emperors were blinded as a way to disable them from taking the throne. Now before getting to the lives of the exiled emperors, one Byzantine emperor who could perfectly survive during quarantine is Julian the Apostate (r. 361-363) as he never really wanted the life of an emperor, instead he would rather spend his life studying philosophy and wouldn’t mind staying in the same place doing it. However, Julian was a tragic character as he was appointed the successor of his cousin Constantius II (r. 337-361) when in fact Constantius II came to throne killing off Julian’s father for being suspected as a traitor, Julian though ruled short and died in 363 in battle against the Sassanid Persian Empire, thus his plan to return the old Roman Pagan religion was never achieved. Julian’s predecessor Constantius II just to mention is a perfect example of being hygienic in order to avoid getting a virus like the one now especially since in one story when he entered Rome in a triumphal procession in 357, he sat still for hours in is carriage without ever touching his face, spitting, or rubbing his nose, that way you could surely avoid getting a virus. Now on to the deposed emperors, the first one to be exiled and isolated was Basiliscus (r. 475-476) who came to power in 475 after deposing Zeno, the Isaurian general and son-in-law of Leo I; Zeno at first only ruled for a few months after succeeding his son Leo II who died in childhood after ruling for a few months in 474 succeeding his grandfather Leo I. Since Zeno was an Isaurian, meaning of foreign blood and not Greek, he was unpopular and dethroned in 475 and Basilicus, his wife Ariadne’s uncle replaced him as emperor while Zeno fled to his native Isauria in the Taurus Mountains of Asia Minor, though Basiliscus sent as army led by the other Isaurian general Illus to capture Zeno, but instead Illus defected to Zeno’s side and marched back to Constantinople with Zeno in 476 eventually overthrowing Basiliscus who when overthrown hid in a church but when found, Zeno agreed to simply banish him and not shed any of his blood. Instead, Zeno banished Basiliscus and his family- his wife Aelia Zenonis and son Marcus to Cappadocia where they would die the slow way being enclosed in a dry cistern and only within months, during the winter of early 477 Basiliscus and his family died of starvation and lack of sunlight but also because of the brutal winter of Cappadocia. Many of the next deposed Byzantine emperors though would be forced to live their lives a simple monks in monasteries such as the usurper Leontios who in 695 overthrew Emperor Justinian II, slit his nose, and banished him to Cherson in the Crimea though 3 years later in 698 Leontios was overthrown by a military commander who became Emperor Tiberius III Apsimar (r. 698-705); Leontios like Justinian II got his nose cut as well and was confined in a Constantinople monastery for the rest of Tiberius III’s reign until 705 when Justinian II returned to power wherein when being re-crowned had both Leontios and Tiberius III displayed at the Hippodrome and beheaded while their bodies dumped in the sea. Justinian II though would be overthrown for a second time in 711 and this time actually beheaded and from then on there would be a change of Byzantine emperor every 2 years starting with Philippikos Bardanes (r. 711-713), then Anastasius II (r. 713-715), and Theodosius III (r. 715-717) though Theodosius III would be forced to step down from power in 717 replaced by Leo III the Isaurian (r. 717-741) while Theodosius III was confined to a monastery though interestingly the same year he was overthrown, he became Bishop of Ephesus. Leo III became known for instituting Byzantium’s Iconoclast movement which would go on for more than a century while his son Constantine V (r. 741-775) would take the Iconoclast movement even more seriously, but in 742 after Constantine V became emperor, his brother-in-law, the Armenian general Artavasdos who helped Leo III take the throne in 717 and had married Leo III’s daughter Anna usurped the throne from Constantine V believing Leo III promised him the throne but in the next year when his and Constantine V’s forces clashed in battle, Artavasdos lost and together with his 2 sons were blinded on Constantine V’s orders and afterwards, all 3 of them were confined for life in the Monastery of Chora outside Constantinople. The death date of Artavasdos and his sons remain unknown but Artavasdos as a supporter of the icons took the throne to revive the use of icons which Leo III and his son campaigned against. Constantine V had remained in power for many more years and after his death in 775 was succeeded by his son Leo IV who died in 780 ruling for only 5 years only to be succeeded by his son Constantine VI (r. 780-797) who was too young so his mother, Leo IV’s widow Irene of Athens ruled as his regent and at that time temporarily ended Iconoclasm. However, when Constantine VI grew up, he wanted to get rid of his mother’s influence, though he failed and in 797, Irene overthrew her son and blinded him sending him to live his entire life alone blind in a monastery till his death sometime before 805. Irene (r. 797-802) became the first female ruler of Byzantium but at the end the empress also ended up overthrown in 802 after agreeing to a marriage union with the newly crowned Holy Roman emperor of the west Charlemagne, but this decision of Irene got the people to rise up against her for agreeing to marry someone the Byzantines thought of as barbaric. Irene was then declared deposed and replaced by the finance minister Nikephoros I (r. 802-811) who banished Irene to Lesbos where her life completely changed being a nun and forced to spin wool, though in 803, a year after being exiled there, she died possibly because from the heartbreak of losing the throne. Nikephoros I however did not rule long enough as in 811 he was killed in battle against the Bulgarians who turned his skull into a drinking cup and was succeeded by his son Staurakios (r. 811) who was however paralyzed from the battle that killed his father so his reign only lasted for 2 months as his injuries were too severe, instead he was as usual sent to a monastery where he died the next year. Staurakios was succeeded by his brother-in-law Michael I Rangabe who had also stayed in power for so short as after 2 years, in 813 he abdicated from power in order to not be overthrown by the rebel army of the general Leo the Armenian, Michael I was then forced to retire to a monastery in the Princes’ Islands in the Marmara Sea off the coast from Constantinople where he would remain a monk for several years until he died there in 844; Michael I’s son Niketas who also became a monk with his father later became Patriarch Ignatios of Constantinople. Years later, an empress who would be sent into a nunnery was Theodora in 857, the mother of Emperor Michael III (r. 842-867) and like Irene, Theodora ruled as regent for her son and ended the Iconoclast movement for good but when Michael III grew up he wanted to be independent from his mother interfering so he had her banished to a nunnery in Constantinople where she would die 10 years later, 867 the same year her son was assassinated by the Macedonian peasant who became Emperor Basil I (r. 867-886), the founder of the Macedonian Dynasty.
Exiled Byzantine Emperors Part2
In the era of Byzantium’s Macedonian emperors, many of its rulers, empresses in particular ended up exiled after failing in schemes in taking power. The first of the empresses of the Macedonian Dynasty to end up banished to a nunnery for life was Zoe Karbonopsina in 919, mother and regent of the younger emperor Constantine VII. Zoe was empress regent for her son after her husband, Constantine VII’s father Leo VI (r. 886-912), Basil I’s son died unexpectedly in 912 although for year from 912-913, Leo VI was succeeded by his brother and co-emperor Alexander but only a year into his reign he unexpectedly died too, which meant the young Constantine VII came to power under the regency for his mother. However, the regency for the young Constantine VII was chaotic as the council of regents fought with each other for the future of the young emperor and after a failed military expedition in Bulgaria, in 919 a rival faction of the regency in Byzantium led by the Armenian admiral Romanos Lekapenos, a commoner by birth seized the throne to protect the young emperor and forced the empress into the nunnery of St. Euphemia in Constantinople for life. The admiral however did not fully protect the young emperor, instead he became crowned Emperor Romanos I (r. 920-944) and ruled a successful reign while the young Constantine VII was demoted to the lowest rank of co-emperor as Romanos put all his sons in power including appointing one of them Patriarch of Constantinople and marrying his daughter to the young Constantine VII. Ironically, Romanos I met the same fate as the empress he banished as in the end of 944 he too was banished to a monastery as his sons, the co-emperors Stephen and Constantine Lekapenos fearing their old father will not choose them as his successors broke into their father’s room, arrested him, and sent him away to a monastery in the Princes’ Islands in the Marmara Sea. Although some 2 weeks later in the beginning of 945, the rightful emperor Constantine VII returned to power after such a long time by deposing the usurping brothers and ironically exiling them to the same monastery as their father. The story of Romanos’ exile to a monastery shows a complete change of lifestyle which he would undergo for the rest of his life having such a drastic transition from the lavish feasts and comfort of the imperial palace to the simple and uncomfortable lifestyle in a monastery. When the sons arrived in the monastery their father was sent to, their father appeared looking nothing more but a simple monk greeting his sons as if they were the emperors saying that he had nothing to offer them but boiled water as cold as snow and nothing to eat but beans and leeks, this then shows that no matter how powerful you were, when sent to monastery you were forced to live and eat like the monks and for 4 year until his death in 948, the deposed Romanos I remained in that monastery, though Constantine and Stephen were allowed to leave the monastery but instead exiled to separate Greek islands in the Aegean to live the rest of their lives. On the other hand, the rightful emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos (r. 913-959) is another perfect example of a person who would perfectly survive quarantine life like the emperors Claudius I and Julian before him as like those 2 emperors of the past, Constantine VII was a true introvert, a total scholar, and artist who spent most of his life indoors doing what he loved most, reading and writing books, and compared to Romanos I and his sons who were sent to live in the monastery hating it as they were energetic men of action, Constantine VII would have loved the life of the monastery because of the peace but wouldn’t love it too much as well as he enjoyed living in the palace with all the luxuries including a mechanical throne that can be elevated that he saw no need to travel his empire and socializing with foreign rulers even was done in his throne room impressing them with his mechanical throne. Throughout his life, Constantine VII wrote and compiled books on his empire, its regions, and people without ever travelling it and instead he discussed his empire all based on reports from agents while just staying in his desk. Now during quarantine and you want to see the world so badly or know what is happening, be like Constantine VII and read stories about them and picture them in your head, and that way you can even make stories out of them. Constantine VII had left behind for his son and successor Romanos II (r. 959-963) and instruction manual for running the complicated Byzantine Empire, though the scholarly emperor Constantine VII met his death in 959 poisoned by his daughter-in-law, Romanos II’s wife Theophano, a commoner from Byzantine era Sparta who in 963 also allegedly poisoned and killed her husband but still remained empress after marrying the war hero general Nikephoros II Phokas, who became emperor in the same year (963). However, Theophano as usual again had plotted against her husband the emperor and in December of 969, Theophano with her new lover, the general John Tzimiskes plotted to assassinate Nikephoros II and one night the emperor was killed in his sleep and John I Tzimiskes was crowned emperor by the patriarch only if he agreed to the patriarch’s terms of executing his conspirators who joined him in killing Nikephoros II and banishing Theophano instead of marrying her. John I agreed to the terms, executed the assassins, and instead of marrying Theophano he married Constantine VII’s daughter Theodora and banished Theophano the Princes’ Islands as well to live the rest of her life there isolated in the island of Prote without ever being allowed to leave, although after John I’s death in 976, Theophano and Romanos II’s son Basil II (r. 976-1025) came to power and allowed his mother to be freed, Theophano though died probably 2 years after. The Macedonian Dynasty lived on to the next century, its last ruler was Basil II’s niece Theodora (r. 1055-1056) and after her death, she was succeeded by the military finance minister Michael VI Bringas (r. 1056-1057) who however got into a conflict with the general Isaac Komnenos and was forced to abdicate and live as a monk in a monastery, 2 years later (1059) he died in the same monastery he retired to. The next emperor Isaac I Komnenos (r. 1057-1059) grew up orphaned in the Stoudion Monastery in Constantinople but becoming a general, he would later take throne in 1059 but after pulling a muscle during a hunt, he fell into a fever wherein he thought he would almost die, he then chose to abdicate from power and return to the same monastery he grew up in. Isaac I when retiring to that monastery had a complete change of lifestyle from being on in the action as a general and emperor, he ended becoming nothing but a humble doorman without ever complaining or leaving the monastery, he however died a year later. Isaac I when abdicating appointed his most trusted man, the general Constantine X Doukas (r. 1059-1067) as the next emperor, though the new emperor was a weak ruler and so was his son Michel VII Doukas (r. 1071-1078). In 1078, a military rebellion led by generals Nikephoros Bryennios and Nikephoros Botaneiates forced Michael VII to abdicate, so Michael VII left behind his wife and young son and retired to the Stoudion Monastery as well becoming a monk for years, though later he ended up becoming the Bishop of Ephesus before dying in 1090 in Constantinople. The emperor who took over from Michael VII, Nikephoros III Botaneiates only stayed in power for 3 years as in 1081, he was overthrown by the rebellion of the general Alexios Komnenos and escorted to the Peribleptos Monastery of Constantinople where he remained for the rest of the year, dying in December. In one story, the deposed Nikephoros III was asked what he missed most about the imperial court life, he said he missed the food and feasting, which was not present at the monastery.
Exiled Byzantine Emperors Part3
In 1081, the general Alexios I Komnenos (r. 1081-1118), nephew of Isaac I, became Byzantine emperor, much of his story is written in the form of an ancient Greek epic in a book called The Alexiad by his daughter Anna Komnene (1081-1153) while she was living in isolation later on life. Before Alexios I’s death in 1118, his wife Irene was plotting to make their daughter Anna the next ruler as she was the eldest child of theirs but Alexios did not agree wanting his son John to succeed him which his wife totally did not agree with thinking John was nothing but useless, on the other hand Alexios I learned from his history that female rulers like the Irene of Athens brought disaster to the Byzantine state. Before dying, Alexios I quickly named John his successor and early in the morning John II was crowned emperor, though when Anna woke up her plans failed as her brother became emperor. Anna and her mother still would never stop plotting to take the throne but when John II discovered the plot, he later had his older sister Anna banished to a convent in Constantinople founded by their mother for life. Anna remained her entire life in that nunnery while her brother was emperor (till his death in 1143) as well as during the reign of her nephew Manuel I Komnenos (r. 1143-1180), John II’s son. Sometime in the 1140s, Anna while in isolation at the nunnery wrote her famous book The Alexiad, a true Byzantine era Greek style literary epic, except this book was not fictional, it rather told the story of her father Alexios I’s life describing him as a superhuman warrior, while the book had also describes the Byzantines’ view from her eyes of the first time the Crusaders arrived in her father’s court in the 1190s describing as well the traits and appearances of these First Crusade leaders from Western Europe. Anna Komnene died in isolation in that same nunnery in 1153 but she still remains one of the most famous Byzantine authors other than Constantine VII in writing a detailed account on the happenings of her time. Not so long after Anna Komnene’s death, Constantinople itself would fall to the army of the 4th Crusade and the Byzantines of Constantinople exiled to the city of Nicaea to build a temporary empire there which in a short matter of time grew to be a successful empire ready to take back Constantinople. John III Doukas Vatatzes (r. 1222-1254), the exiled Byzantine emperor of Nicaea could show a few tricks on how to sustain yourself during a lockdown as Byzantine Nicaea under him was basically a state in lockdown in terms of trade as he did not allow the trade of foreign goods in his empire, probably a way to economically weaken the trading power of the Venetians, the enemy of the Byzantines then; instead John III made sure everyone in his empire farmed their own crops and animals instead of importing them. John III’s grandson John IV Laskaris (r. 1258-1261) would be Nicaea’s last ruler before they took back Constantinople but he met a tragic end being self-isolated at a very young age. John IV was only 7 when coming to power after his father Theodore II Laskaris (r. 1254-1258), John III’s son suddenly died after only 4 years in power, meanwhile John IV’s mother the Bulgarian Elena Asenina had already died as well, and the boy emperor’s first regent his father’s friend George Mouzalon was killed in Theodore II’s funeral, thus the regency was taken over by the general Michael Palaiologos who’s army in 1261 recaptured Constantinople and behind John IV’s back, Michael crowned himself the restored Byzantine emperor Michael VIII (r. 1261-1282) and in John’s 11thbirthday at the end of the year, Michael gave him a gift of blinding him. The now blinded John IV was deposed and banished to a fortress where he lived the next 29 years in a small room no longer seeing anything; now this is a tragic story of forced self-isolation as the boy had done nothing yet he was only a child who lost both his parents and had dreams to be emperor of Constantinople restored to the Byzantines, but were all suddenly crushed on his 11th birthday. Only 29 years later in 1290 did the now adult John Laskaris have contact with the outside world but still unable to see anything, here Michael VIII’s son Andronikos II Palaiologos (r. 1282-1328), now having become emperor after his father’s death in 1282 made a visit to John Laskaris’ fortress where he apologized for his father’s attitude to John especially since Andronikos was the reason Michael VIII had John blinded so that Andronikos would be his father’s successor but and after Andronikos apologized, John Laskaris was in fact released from house arrest and allowed to live in Constantinople but being blind, he was unable to make himself emperor, John Laskaris then died in 1305. Andronikos II too met a tragic end in 1328 being overthrown by his grandson Andronikos III Palaiologos who won the civil war against his grandfather marching into Constantinople. The old Andronikos II was forced to abdicate and again live the rest of his life in a Constantinople monastery as a monk dying 4 years later in 1332. The grandson Andronikos III (r. 1328-1341) had a successful rule but met his end too soon in 1341 from malaria without naming his young son John V his successor believing he could live for many more years and because of this, a larger civil war broke out between the young John V’s supporters and Andronikos III’s trusted advisor John Kantakouzenos and his supporters ending in 1347 with John Kantakouzenos winning and crowned Emperor John VI who in 1354 however lost another civil war against the John V who returned to power. The deposed John VI was forced to retire to a monastery in Southern Greece using the name Joasaph but unlike all the other deposed emperors in monasteries, John VI was allowed to leave at certain points in some years but nevertheless remained in that same monastery which gave him time to write books including a history where he documented the Black Death Plague in Byzantium. Sometime in 1367, John VI now a monk left the monastery and travelled to Constantinople to negotiate a Church union with the Latin patriarch and in 1379, his grandson the emperor Andronikos IV after 3 years in power fled when his father John V returned again to power and arrested his grandfather the former emperor John VI. Now John VI’s daughter Helena was married to John V and in 1379 when John V and his 2 other sons Manuel and Theodore escaped the prison, Andronikos IV blamed Helena his mother for releasing his father and brothers so he arrested his mother and her father the monk John VI together with John VI’s other daughters Theodora and Maria holding all 4 of them in a fortress in the Galata District of Constantinople for 2 years until a treaty between John V and his son Andronikos IV was signed in 1381. The old John VI was then allowed to return to his monastery where he died 2 years later in 1383 being a little more than 90-years-old. Now, this completes the story of the exiled Byzantine emperors forced to live their lives in isolation or in very cramped spaces.
Extras
The last historical story to mention here on being forced into isolation in a small space is the Ipatiev House outside the city of Yekaterinburg in Russia where the last Russian tsar and his family were sent into exile and house arrest before being executed there. Since the Russian Empire is the successor empire of both the Roman and Byzantine Empires and also the Third Rome and the Russian tsar the successor of the Byzantine emperors, the Russian Empire ended in this kind of situation too involving strict confinement. In 1917, the Russian Revolution took over the country and the last tsar of Russia Nicholas II was forced to abdicate and leave the capital, St. Petersburg. By April 30, 1918, the former tsar Nicholas II, his wife the former tsarina Alix of Hesse, their 4 daughters Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia, and their son Alexei as well as their doctor and 3 servants moved into the Ipatiev House under the watch of the Soviet army Ural division which turned this mansion to be called “House of Special Purpose” which meant the place they would hold the deposed imperial family and keep them there as ordered. The tsar and his family then had the feeling of total isolation from the rest of the world while being watched at the same time as their lifestyle has completely changed from the luxurious life of the palace to being watched by the new army of Russia. In that house the tsar and his family were only allowed limited exercise at the yard to get fresh air while inside all windows were painted over in order for them to not get the slightest look of the outside world, although the tsar and his family were given rooms in the upper floor of the house while the lower floor was for the guards. The tsar and his family were kept in that house for 78 days until midnight of 16-17 July, 1918 when the new commanding officer of the house guards Yakov Yurovsky came in and went to the upper floor ordering the doctor to wake up the whole family telling them they had to evacuate again to another house with the reason being that the enemy army of the guards, the White Army located the house. Within only 30 minutes, the tsar’s family and servants packed up and were led to the basement where moments later after staying still waiting, they were tricked as Yurovsky and his men open-fired at them. However, it took between 20-30 minutes for them to all be killed as the tight space of the room made the slaughter difficult while the tsar’s family kept jewels beneath their clothes causing the bullets to deflect, instead to effectively finish them off, they were stabbed. The house of the execution although does not exist anymore today, instead it was replaced with the Church on the Blood as a memorial for the executed imperial family.
Now being on lockdown in the sense of being cut-off from the outside world has made me think of another similar story, except this time in fiction, which is in the new Star Wars trilogy, the self-imposed exile of Luke Skywalker for many years in the ocean planet of Ahch-to. For me, being confined to my house and small village which has a good amount of space, hills, and grass makes me think of being Luke Skywalker on Ahch-to distancing himself from everyone and most especially cutting himself off from the force feeling that he has failed to return the Jedi Order when his nephew Ben Solo who he trained turned against him. Once he saw his plans turn to failure and his Jedi Temple burned, Luke escaped to the unknown planet of Ahch-to in his X-wing so that no one will ever find him and once landing there finding the island where the Jedi Order began which had already been reduced to ruined structures, he landed his X-wing underwater in order to strand himself in that island for life. From then on, every day for Luke would be the same having the same routine eventually making him lose connection with the force that he could even feel the suffering happening across the galaxy. When in Ahch-to Luke had most possibly remained in that not so large but scenic island, which in reality is the island of Skellig Michael found south of the coast of Ireland and the ruins of the original Jedi Temple being the ruins of a 6th century monastic settlement where ascetic monks like those in Byzantium chose to live in isolation where at least there they lived on the ground unlike in Byzantium where ascetics like the Stylites lived for years above columns. In that island Luke had basically no communication with anyone, when in fact he may not have even talked with the Lanai caretakers there, and at the most the only other living things he had interactions with were the animals native to the planet. Luke’s location was only discovered later on by the Resistance and the only time he finally got in contact with someone from beyond the planet was with Rey when she arrived there asking Luke to train her which he at first chose not to but when he did, he only felt the Jedi must end. Luke at the end still never left the island and instead only projected himself across the galaxy using the force dying afterwards and joining the force. Only when dead did Luke realize he was wrong to think of ending the Jedi as Rey planned to do the same as Luke and strand herself in that island after seeing a dark possibility of her future until Luke’s force ghost appeared telling her she must continue the fight. Now out all the Star Wars exile stories I see Luke Skywalker’s is surely the one that relates to the lockdown situation and being cut-off from the rest of the world cause he actually managed to do it while Obi-Wan Kenobi exiled in Tatooine to hide from the Empire most likely had been interacting with people a lot all over the planet and had even fought using his lightsaber while Yoda exiled in Dagobah was something else because all those years alone wouldn’t be much as he had already lived for centuries.
Now another story in fiction I see a lot of similarities to is the game Fallout4 where a nuclear explosion part of the 1-day long Great War between the USA and China annihilated much of the Commonwealth (Boston and Massachusetts) and those who were to hide from it had to live their entire lives in underground vaults to stay away from radiation, a deadlier form of disease much deadlier than a virus and is present in the air. However, the radiation situation of Fallout is so much worse than this as no matter how many years have passed, the Commonwealth was still heavily affected by the nuclear damage and nothing could ever be rebuilt to normal. Your character meanwhile was evacuated from the house and forced to live in underground vault when at first thinking it was temporary but instead was frozen in a pod together with all the other people who entered the vault as a form of experiment by the vault company. Now in that vault, all the residents were in fact frozen when they thought they would be sanitized in them while the staff remained in that tight underground space for months until the food supply ran out and the guards rebelled against and killed the scientists thus escaping the vault probably dying after their escape from the nuclear damage which still remained heavy as no “all clear” signal was given yet. Your player meanwhile had remained frozen in the pod and so did everyone else except waking up only once seeing a mysterious group of people kidnap your baby son until later on you wake up seeing your spouse dead and all the other residents dead from suffocation while only you survived as the vault is totally abandoned with the skeletons of the scientists scattered in the floor. Only later when you exit the vault into the post-apocalyptic world do you find out you have been frozen in the vault for 200 years but still came out in the same body as you were 200 years ago making you the oldest person in the Commonwealth. When in the vault, you had no concept of the passage of time while also the freezing prevented you from aging but when coming out of the vault, your mission is to find your kidnapped son Shaun when at the end you find out it had been 60 years since he was taken and had been used to create humans using his uncorrupted pre-war DNA and when finally seeing him, he is actually older than you being already 60 although in reality being about 210, turns out he is also the head of the Institute using the name Father. When exploring the world of Fallout4 which was once Massachusetts, you would see another vault, which is Vault 81 that had survived these 200 years wherein generations were born and died in that vault without ever seeing the world outside.
Alright, now I’ve come to the conclusion so basically the situation has gone out of hand but at least we handle them much better than people before as back then like during the Plague of Justinian or the Black Death, people did not think of going on quarantine, which is why a lot more had died. Now about the quarantine, sometimes I think it will make me insane especially just having such a small space to go around for weeks but on the other hand I should just remember this moment has given me time to rest and be productive and even do articles like this. I could think about this way that quarantine despite not being able to leave will allow me to be more productive, read and discover more on Roman and Byzantine history, just like how introvert emperors like Claudius, Julian, or Constantine VII spent most of their time or how Anna Komnene made good use of later years confined in a nunnery. The only thing that bothers me is simply the thought of it but at the end, I should remember those people I mentioned here especially from Roman and Byzantine history that they had it worse especially back then when there was nothing like the internet, video games, or movies to keep them busy and instead while in exile they had nothing to do but stare into the sky, grass, and sea. The worst thing that happened about these people who were forced into exile was the complete change of lifestyle such as the Byzantine emperors who had a life full of socializing and events to all of a sudden being banished to live in isolation in monasteries or same with the family of the last Russian tsar from being the rulers of the land to having to be forced to house arrest having to follow strict rules. Out of all these stories I think the worst case of isolation was that of the young deposed emperor John IV Laskaris in 1261, not only because he was blinded and sent to live above a fortress for 29 years but the fact that he had dreams to rule the empire restored to Constantinople but so suddenly all his hopes and dreams were destroyed when his regent Michael Palaiologos betrayed him and worse than that, the young deposed John Laskaris did not have the chance to grow up properly, instead he grew up isolated and in a tower for 29 years only coming out of there at 40 yet unable to live a good life as he was already blind. Now when quarantine makes you unable to do many things and had ruined your lives, think about John Laskaris and how everything he had ahead of him was ruined in an instant. On the other hand, I’d say the Roman imperial family members like Julia the Elder, Agrippina the Elder, or Postumus had it bad that they were banished to an island to die of boredom but unlike John Laskaris they had fresh air and were not blinded at so young when in fact these Roman imperial family members were much older and had the chance to grow up and were banished there for a reason which was because they did bad and plotted against the state while the boy emperor John IV did nothing wrong. On the other hand, the Stylite saints lived quite uncomfortable above columns being exposed to heat, rain, snow, and winds but it was their choice that they isolated themselves without ever leaving the columns just as how Luke Skywalker exiled himself to cut himself from the galaxy and the force. Now I can relate my feeling on this quarantine a lot more to the feeling of the Roman imperial family members exiled to the islands for life because basically like them I still have fresh air to breathe, and some space to walk around while my village feels as if it were an island too and like those islands they were exiled to, 10 minutes to get from one end to the other and I am also glad that I am living in a time where you can get yourself busy at home as almost everything productive I do is at home unlike for those characters in history when in exile they were had nothing to do and no one to talk when at least I can talk to people online. Anyway, I will miss going out and travelling but at least I can just imagine it an on the other had I’ve also come to think that in this quarantine period it would be as if time had not passed because it would be only when I’m out in the actual world when work progresses that I feel time had actually have passed but when only at home, I would basically have no concept from the passage of time like being in the Fallout vaults, and coming out of home from quarantine will feel very much like coming out of the vault. Lastly, I’d like to say even in tough situations like this, history can teach you a lot of things like even during lockdown you can look at these people I mentioned and how they handled or if you are an introvert think about emperors like Claudius I, Julian, and Constantine VII as they are surely to survive in a time like this. Also think about this time of quarantine as time of discovery, a time to read especially on history and from history you can learn how to deal with tough situations like this. Anyway, this is it and next time in a couple of weeks I would post the article I’ve long wanted to do, the Roman-Byzantine Empire comparisons, another interesting read for quarantine time. Anyway, thanks for viewing!
The Byzantium Blogger 