Thread by @byzantineprof

How I wrote #BelisariusAndAntonina Part 18: No surviving source records the date of the wedding of Belisarius and Antonina, but it kind of matters for a book about their marriage! Today I discuss how I calculated their wedding year. 🧵 #History #Book #Byzantine

We start with the one solid date we have: Procopius first attests that Belisarius and Antonina were husband and wife in the context of their departure from Constantinople to North Africa in June 533. This provides a terminus ante quem (limit before which) for their wedding.

However, I believe Belisarius and Antonina married well before 533. For me, the key evidence is the likely ages of their children Photios and Ioannina.

Photios was the son of Antonina and a previous (first?) husband. When he appears with Belisarius and the army in 535, he is described as “a young man wearing his first beard.” To me, this suggests he was born ca. 520 and was about 15 at the time of this description.

In a (probably made up) speech in the Secret History, Belisarius claims to have raised Photios. If this sentiment is accurate, it suggests that Belisarius had to have met Antonina and assisted in raising Photios rather earlier than 533.

Ioannina was the daughter of Antonina and Belisarius, their only biological child of whom we are aware. She was nearing marriage age by 543, when her parents betrothed her to the Empress Theodora’s grandson.

Because the age of consent at the time was only 12, this means Ioannina was likely born in late 531 or in 532. She is unlikely to have been born later, as this would have interfered with Antonina leaving for North Africa in 533. So, B&A must have married earlier than her birth.

The last piece of evidence I deploy to suggest a wedding year is that Belisarius’ comrade in arms, Sittas, married the sister of the Empress Theodora in 528. I think it very possible that Belisarius and Antonina wed around the same time, or perhaps one year earlier in 527.

My personal choice is 527. In that year, Belisarius received his first important military command as Duke of Mesopotamia. To me, it makes sense that he would have celebrated this achievement by marrying the woman who would be the love of his life in the same year.

It is worth pointing out that all of this finagling the sources can only yield a probable range, not an exact year. Even for people about whom we know so much, some things are still so unknown.

Tomorrow: Did Antonina really have an affair with her adopted son?!?