New Biography: The Life And Paranoid Retirement Of Marquis Zhou Bo

Terracotta warrior, [Public Domain] via maxpixel.net and Creative Commons

Zhou Bo was a decorated military officer and political official who served under the first emperors of the Han Dynasty. He came from humble origins, supposedly working as a silkworm rack manufacturer and a part-time musician in Pei. Yet, when widespread rebellions against the Qin Dynasty erupted in 209 BCE, Zhou Bo joined the rebels as a crossbowman and eventually became a follower of the distinguished rebel leader, Liu Bang.

Zhou Bo’s fortunes rose with the political ascendance of Liu Bang. Between 209 and 206 BCE, the rebels demolished the Qin Dynasty and began to restructure China into new kingdoms led by rebel leaders. The power vacuum allowed commoners like Liu Bang and Zhou Bo to rise to amazing heights. When Liu Bang became a marquis, he brought Zhou Bo along as a magistrate. In 206 BCE, when Liu Bang became the King of Han, Zhou Bo was appointed as one of his marquises. Finally, when the king of Han defeated his rebel rivals in 202 BCE and became known as Emperor Gaozu, the victorious emperor granted Zhou Bo even more land and bequeathed upon him the title of Marquis of Jiang.

 

Read about Zhou Bo's path to retirement and the odd incidents he experienced after stepping down from public life, HERE.

New Biography: King Irminfrid—A Thuringian Monarch Who Gained Sole Rule By Killing Two Brothers, Only To Lose His Kingdom To The Franks

Image of the Thuringian princess, Radegund, being brought before King Chlotar I, depicted in a medieval painting housed in the Bibliothèque municipale de Poitiers, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons

King Bisinus of Thuringia was a contemporary of Kings Childeric (r. 456-481 and Clovis (r. 481-511) of the Franks. In fact, according to The History of the Franks by Gregory of Tours (c. 539-594), Childeric’s wife (Clovis’ mother) was Bisinus’ ex who ran away from Thuringia to be with Childeric in the land of the Franks. Therefore, it is possible that King Clovis and the sons of Bisinus were half-brothers. Whatever the case, King Bisinus died about the same time as Clovis (d. 511), and in the aftermath of the two leaders’ deaths, the Frankish Empire and the Thuringian kingdom both were divided among the sons of the deceased rulers. After Clovis’ death, the empire of the Franks was ruled by his sons: Theuderic, Chlodomer, Childebert and Chlotar. Similarly, the Thuringian kingdom of the late King Bisinus was divided between his sons: Baderic, Irminfrid (or Hermanfrid) and Berthar.

Continue reading about the strange politics of the Thuringian brothers. HERE.

New Article: The Chaotic Drama Between Charles The Bald And His Half-Siblings In The Frankish Empire Even Extended To His Half-Sister

(Charles the Bald welcomes monks from Tours who bring the Vivian Bible which contained this miniature (c. 9th century). Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons)

Emperor Louis the Pious (r. 814-840) had a complicated family life. Louis’ first wife was Irmengardis, with whom he was married from 794 until her death in 818. She bore Louis a daughter and three sons, the former being Hildegard (b. 802) and the latter being Lothair (b. 795), Pippin (b. 797) and Louis “the German” (b. 804). The emperor started planning the succession for these sons as early as 817, when he made Lothair his co-emperor, and appointed Pippin as king of Aquitaine and Louis “the German” as king of Bavaria. The sons of the emperor were apparently satisfied, at least at that time, with the arrangement. Yet, one year after the death of Irmengardis, Louis the Pious remarried. His second wife was Judith and she bore him two children, Gisela (b. 821) and Charles “the Bald” (b. 823). Emperor Louis’ sons by Irmengardis never warmed up to Judith and they thought that she held too much influence over their father. Most of all, they were irritated at the birth of Charles, as any land granted to him would come at the expense of the other brothers’ kingdoms.

Continue reading about the fighting between brothers, and how one sister tried her hand at war, HERE.

New Biography: Lu Wan—A Childhood Friend Of Emperor Gaozu Who Abandoned The Han Dynasty And Became A Nomadic Ruler

(14th Century painting of Mongol cavalrymen by Sayf al-Vâhidî, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons)

 

Lu Wan hailed from the village of Feng, in the region of Peixian (modern Jiangsu province), near the eastern end of central China. Lu Wan’s father was a close friend of the so-called Venerable Sire—the name given to the father of Emperor Gaozu, the founder of the Han Dynasty. The friendship between the two fathers passed on to their sons, with Gaozu and Lu Wan becoming inseparable friends. Legend even claimed that the two boys were born on the same day, something that the villagers thought was significant.

Although Gaozu (known then as Liu Bang) was destined to become an emperor and Lu Wan a nobleman, the two began their lives as peasants. The friends began their upward mobility during the reign of the Qin Dynasty (222-206 BCE). The pair studied together and Gaozu succeeded in qualifying for a position as a village official. Lu Wan presumably did not fair as well as his friend in the examination, for he did not seem to receive a local government post and he instead followed Gaozu wherever the future emperor went. Gaozu eventually moved to Pei, where he married the daughter of Master Lü, a friend of the region’s magistrate. It was there that Gaozu and Lu Wan would begin their great rise to power.

 

 Continue reading about the interesting life of Lu Wan, HERE.

New Biography: The Other Side Of The Roman Scholar, Suetonius

(Image of Romans from "The International library of famous literature / selections from the world's great writers, ancient, medieval, and modern," page 552, (1898), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, better known simply as Suetonius, was born around the year 70 to a family of the equestrian order—a Roman equivalent of knighthood. The exact location of Suetonius’ birth is uncertain, but many point to the ancient city of Hippo Regius, in Algeria, where a memorial inscription in his honor was excavated in what had been once the city square. Although his family was not among the highest elite of Rome, they still had considerable influence. Suetonius claimed that his grandfather had contacts in the inner circle of Caligula (r. 37-41). His father, too, was a prominent figure, serving as a military tribune during the short reign of Emperor Otho (r. 69). Suetonius’ popularity and fame, however, would rise far higher than that of his forefathers, and he would accomplish that feat not with military victories or political maneuverings, but with education and writing.

Continue reading about Suetonius, HERE. 

New Biography: King Agis IV—The Post-Alexander King Of Sparta Who Wanted To Bring Sparta Back To Its Glory Days

(Lycurgus of Sparta, painted by Jacques-Louis David  (1748–1825), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons)

When a civilization begins to decline, those witnessing the fall start to question what went wrong. Was it abandoning traditional government, apostatizing from the ancestral religion, or was it a general degradation of morality that brought about the end? And when once-great powers find themselves without strength, they look to the past in search of the specialness that they had lost by the time of their present.

King Agis IV felt these emotions strongly. He took power in 244 or 243 BCE, allegedly at the young age of nineteen. Agis was a member of the Eurypontid line of Spartan kings, one of two co-ruling monarchies in Sparta. His co-king from the Agiad line was Leonidas II, who had been in power since 251 BCE. The two kings had vastly different visions for Sparta and their personalities were bound to clash. It was a classic sociopolitical conflict—the ongoing struggle between the revolutionary and the defender of the status quo.

Continue reading about the dramatic struggle between Agis IV and Leonidas II, HERE.

New Biography / Article: The Greatly Endowed Plot Of Lü Buwei To End His Affair With The Mother Of A Chinese King

(Career of Xu Xianqing Huanji Tu 18, c. 1590s, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons)

Lü Buwei was a prominent minister of Qin during the decades before the kings of Qin formally became emperors. He began his career as a simple merchant, and, because of his keen mind for strategy and administration, his business was extremely profitable. Nevertheless, his career trajectory would dramatically change after a trip to the city of Handan, the capital of the state of Zhao.

While in Handan, Lü Buwei encountered a Qin nobleman being held there as a diplomatic hostage—the man’s name was Zichu. He was one of more than twenty sons fathered by Lord Anguo, who had become the crown prince of Qin around 267 BCE. As such, Zichu was a member of the Qin royal family, but he was still considered low enough in the succession to be given away by his king as a hostage to assure peace between Qin and Zhao. Nevertheless, with a potential heir to the kingdom of Qin at his fingertips, Lü Buwei decided to give up the life of a merchant for that of a politician.

Continue reading about the dramatic life of Lü Buwei and the bizarre story of his downfall, HERE.

New Article: Brunhild of Austrasia—The 6th-Century Kingmaker Of The Franks

(15th-century depiction of the marriage between King Sigebert I and Brunhild from the Grandes Chroniques de France, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons)

In 566 or 567 CE, King Athanagild of the Visigoths gave his two daughters in marriage to two powerful Frankish kings who also happened to be brothers. One daughter, named Galswintha, was married to King Chilperic I of Neustria, whose lands consisted of much of northern France, excluding Brittany. Athanagild’s other daughter, Brunhild, married King Sigebert I of Austrasia, ruling a domain spanning (in modern terms) from eastern France into Belgium, the Netherlands and western Germany. When these marriages were cemented, neither the Frankish nor Visigothic kings could have guessed just how influential one of these two women would become. Brunhild would prove to be a powerful kingmaker for several generations of Frankish monarchs.

  (Approximate map of the rise of Frankish Empire, from 481 to 814 (including Austrasia and Neustria), licensed as Creative Commons 1.0 (CC 1.0))

Continue reading about the impressive political career of Brunhild, HERE.

New Article: Six Years of Chaos In Byzantium: The Cumans Vs. The Pechenegs Vs. The Byzantine Empire Vs. Çaka Bey of Smyrna

The Invasion

(The Pechenegs defeating the Rus, from the Skyllitzes Matritensis, fol. 173r, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons)

In 1087 CE, a horde of Pecheneg warriors (followed by their families) poured down from the steppes above the Black Sea and into territory controlled by the Byzantine Empire. The empire was ruled at that time by Emperor Alexios Komnenos, who had led the empire since 1081 CE. These tens of thousands of hostile warriors threw the empire into such a panic that memories of the old ‘barbarian’ enemies of the Roman Empire were revived to describe the new Pecheneg threat. Anna Komnene, daughter of Emperor Alexios, likened the invaders to the ancient Scythians, Sarmatians and Dacians in her history, The Alexiad. She estimated that the Pechenegs had crossed into imperial territory with as many as 80,000 warriors.

Continue reading about the this long war between Emperor Alexios and three other military powers, HERE.

New Biography: Geoffrey Chaucer (1342-1400 CE), The Masterful 14th Century English Poet

(Sketch of Geoffrey Chaucer from The Illustrated Magazine of Art. 1-1 (ca. 1853), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons)

Geoffrey Chaucer was born in 1342 to a family with some ties to government bureaucracy (court and minting), but Chaucer’s father mainly made a living by producing wine. When Geoffrey Chaucer was around fifteen years of age, he managed to gain a position as page to the Countess of Ulster. In that position he acted as a servant and a messenger for his noble employer. Two years later, in 1359, Chaucer was sent to fight in the long-running Hundred Years War between England and France. French soldiers, however, captured the seventeen-year-old youth. Thankfully for Chaucer, he was not imprisoned for very long. The Countess of Ulster’s father-in-law, King Edward III of England, must have seen something he liked in young Geoffrey Chaucer, for he paid the boy’s ransom and negotiated his release in 1360.

Continue reading about Geoffrey Chaucer's life, HERE.

New 'Did You Know?' : In The 5th And 4th Centuries BCE, Dionysius I Made Syracuse One Of The Strongest Powers Of Sicily And Italy

(“Dion Presents Plato to Dionysius,” an colored engraving print from Hermann Göll, Die Weisen und Gelehrten des Alterthums, Leipzig (Otto Spamer) 1876, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons)

For Hellenistic history, Dionysius I (or Dionysius the Elder) is a bittersweet figure. On the one hand, he led Syracuse, a Sicilian city-state of Greek descent, to be a regional power that could defeat the empire of Carthage in multiple wars. On the other iron-fisted hand, however, Dionysius’ authoritarianism and inhospitable expansion throughout Sicily and lower Italy gained him the label of ‘tyrant.’

Continue reading about the great, but tyrannical, Dionysius I of Syracuse, HERE.

New 'Did You Know?': The Groundbreaking Akkadian Priestess Enheduanna Is Mankind’s Oldest Known Author To Have Signed Her Work

She also may be the mother of hymns, poetry and verse, and likely influenced Homer and the authors of the holy texts of Abrahamic religions

(Calcite disc of Enheduanna discovered by Sir Leonard Wooley in 1927 depicting Enheduanna and her attendants, photographed by Mefman00 and cropped, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons)

Enheduanna was born in Akkad (thought to be within modern Iraq), the capital city of the Akkadian Empire, which may be the world’s first multi-ethnic empire. While dating the lives of people from earth’s most ancient civilizations is often unreliable, the scholars seem to be comfortable placing Enheduanna’s life between 2285 and 2250 BCE. Enheduanna was an incredibly bright princess, was the daughter of the empire’s equally brilliant king, Sargon I of Akkad (2334-2279 BCE), also known as Sargon the Great.

Continue reading about this mother of hymns and poetry, HERE.

New Article: Strange, But Successful, War Tactics - Patience at the 813 CE Battle of Versinikia

In the strange battle of Versinikia (813CE), Michael I Rangabe of the Byzantine Empire and Khan Krum of Bulgaria played the waiting game. For around two weeks the two armies competed in a tense staring match. One emerged with a glorious victory; the other with a humiliating defeat.

Read more about the Battle of Versinikia in our article at our official website, here (or click the above picture).

New Article: The Strange Era of the Protestant Reformation—The Defenders of Catholicism

In response to Protestant skepticism and questioning, the supporters of the Catholic Church launched what is known today as the Counter Revolution. Thomas More and Desiderius Erasmus were among the ranks of papal supporters that denounced Luther, and criticized his interpretation of scriptures.

Read this article on our official website, here.

New Article: Reformation-Era Augsburg: The Tense Stage of Christian Conflict

Augsburg was an imperial city within the Holy Roman Empire. The city was not ruled by a prince, such as a count or duke, but was ruled by an honorable council that was under direct jurisdiction of the emperor. The city government encouraged whichever religious faith was prevalent among the members of the Honorable Council. This resulted in political competition between Protestant and Catholic politicians on the council.

Read the article on our official website, here.

New Article: Spirituality and Heaven in Ancient China (Part 3)

The Legalist, Han Fei Tzu, approached spiritualism from the religious skepticism approach, too, but his version was drastically amplified. Han Fei Tzu was willing to forego Heaven and spirituality if it interfered with the authority of the ruler.

Read more on our official website, here.

New Article: The Fascinating Life of Empress Dowager Cixi

 

Few queens have life stories as interesting, dramatic and odd as that of the last empress of China—Empress Dowager Cixi (1835-1908). She was the concubine and empress of Emperor Xianfeng, as well as the mother of Emperor Tongzhi and adoptive mother of Emperor Guanxu. 

Read about her incredible rise to power in our article, here.

A Commoner Who Killed An Emperor, Became An Emperor and Was Killed By An Emperor

The Incredible Story of the Byzantine Emperor Phocas (Ruled 602-610CE): a 7th century 'rags to riches' story. Likely growing up somewhere around modern Bulgaria, Phocas grew of age and joined the section of the Byzantine army stationed in the Balkans. He eventually found himself under the command of General Philippikos. Phocas, though a commoner, arose to the lower-ranking officer position of centurion, which made him responsible for anywhere from 80 to 100 other soldiers. From a simple beginning, he went on to take command of an army and win an empire.

Read more here at thehistorianshut.com

Kakuei Tanaka: A Japanese politician whose rise to power was similar to that of Donald Trump.

 
Do you think Donald Trump's rise to prominence in the 2016 presidential race was one of a kind? If you thought yes, then you may be in for a surprise. Kakuei Tanaka was one of the wealthiest men in post-WWII Japan. His construction company made outrageous profits by rebuilding the heavily bombed Japanese homeland. Tanaka succeeded in gaining office on a platform of being a man-of-the-people. His political rallies were unlike any of his competitors and his oration was fiery and full of criticism of his competition. If a potential Trump presidency will be anything like his Japanese counterpart, the United States is in for a tough four years.

Read about Kakuei Tanaka's scandalous political career here at historybuff.com.