Basileus

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Image:AntiochusI.jpg Basileus (Greek Βασιλεύς) means "sovereign". It is perhaps best known in English as a title used by Byzantine monarchs, but also has a longer history of use in Ancient Greece.

1 Etymology
2 Ancient Greece
3 Alexander the Great
4 Byzantines
5 Modern Greece
6 References
7 See also
8 External link

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Etymology

The etymology of "basileus" is unclear. The Mycenaean form was gwasileus (qa-si-re-u), denoting some sort of court official or local "boss", but not an actual king. Most linguists assume that it is a non-Greek word that was adopted by Bronze Age Greeks from a preexisting linguistic substrate of the Eastern Mediterranean. Schindler (1976) argues for an inner-Greek innovation of the -eus inflection type from Indo-European material rather than a "Mediterranean" loan.

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Ancient Greece

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Original senses encountered on clay tablets

The first written instance of this word is found on the baked clay tablets discovered in excavations of Mycenaean palaces originally destroyed by fire. The tablets are dated from the 15th century BC to the 11th century BC. They were inscribed with the Linear B script, which was deciphered by Michael Ventris in 1952 and corresponds to a very early form of Greek.

The word "basileus" is written as "qa-si-re-u" and its original meaning was "chieftain" (in one particular tablet the chieftain of the guild of bronze smiths is referred to as "qa-si-re-u"). Its meaning later evolved to "king", as is attested in the works of Homer. The word can be contrasted with wanax, another word used for "king" and usually meaning "High King" or "overlord". The title "basileus" was used throughout the Greek-speaking world to signify the person and office of king, either in reality or when recounting Greek mythology. "Anax" was then used only in poetry and was particularly associated with the Olympian Gods, especially Zeus.

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Pseudo-Archytas' definition of the Basileus as "sovereign" and "living law"

According to pseudo-Archytas's treaty "On justice and law", quoted by Giorgio Agamben in State of Exception (2005), Basileus is more adequately translated into "Sovereign" than into "king". The reason for this is that it designates more the person of king than the office of king: magistrates (Archons)' power derivate from their social functions, or offices, whereas the sovereign power derivates from himself. Sovereign have auctoritas, whereas magistrates detain imperium. Pseudo-Archytas aimed at creating a theory of sovereignity completely enfranchised from laws, being itself the only source of legitimacy. He goes so far as qualifying the Basileus as nomos empsuchon, or "living law", which is the origin, according to Agamben, of the modern Führerprinzip and of Carl Schmitt's theories on dictatorship.

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Use of Basileus in Classical Times

In classical times the use of "basileus" was limited to the very few states that never abolished the hereditary royal office in favor of democratic or oligarchic rule: namely the two hereditary Kings of Sparta (who served as joint commanders of the army), the Kings of Macedon and Epirus, various kings of "barbaric" (i.e. non-Greek) tribes in Thrace and Illyria, as well as the Achaemenid kings of Persia. The Persian king was also referred to as "Megas Basileus" (Great King) or "Basileus Basileon", a translation of the Persian title "Shâhanshâh" (King of Kings).

The term was also used in classical Athens in the title of the "Archon Basileus" (Lord King), which was an elected and purely ceremonial office supervising religious rites. In other city-states occasionally governed by authoritarian rulers the term "basileus" was never used, and the titles "tyrannos" (tyrant) or, more benignly, "archon" (lord) were preferred. This signifies that a ruling Greek "basileus" had to be an heir of a long-standing, legitimate dynasty.

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Alexander the Great

"Basileus" was exclusively used by Alexander the Great and his Hellenistic successors in Egypt, Asia and Macedon. The female counterpart is "basilissa" (Queen), meaning both a Queen regnant (such as Cleopatra VII of Egypt) and a Queen consort.

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Byzantines

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At the time of the Byzantine Empire, "basileus" assumed the meaning of "emperor" and was used by the Byzantine Emperors from the reign of Justinian II onwards, when official usage of Latin in coinage and state documents was gradually replaced by Greek.

This use of the word was new — when the Romans had originally conquered the Mediterranean, the imperial title "Caesar Augustus" was initially translated as "Kaisar Sebastos", and later hellenized to "Kaisar Augoustos". "Imperator", another imperial title, was translated as "Autokrator". Interestingly, "BASILEUS" was initially stamped on Byzantine coins (in lieu of the standard Latin abbreviations "C.IMP." for "Caesar Imperator") in Latin script. Only somewhat later was the Greek script universally used.

The Byzantines reserved the term "basileus" among Christian rulers exclusively for the emperor in Constantinople, and referred to Western European kings as "rigas", a Hellenized form of the Latin word "rex" (=king). The title of "basileus" became an issue of great diplomatic controversy when Charlemagne was crowned as "Emperor of the Romans" by Pope Leo III on December 25, 800 AD, at St. Peter's in Rome. The matter was complicated by the fact that the Eastern Empire was then ruled by the Empress Irene, who had ascended the throne of Constantinople after the death of her husband, the emperor Leo IV, as Regent to their 9-year-old son, Constantine VI. Following Constantine's coming of age, the Empress Dowager eventually decided to topple him and rule in her own name. In the conflict that ensued, Irene was victorious and Constantine was blinded and imprisoned, to die soon after. The repulsion generated by this incident of virtual filicide cum regicide was compounded by the innate Frankish aversion to the concept of a ruling female sovereign.

Charlemagne, in an effort to advance his own dynastic affairs, proposed marriage to the aging Empress, but Irene, who now styled herself "Basileus" (in the masculine, rather than "Basilissa", in the feminine) rejected Charlemagne's marriage proposal, and refused to recognize Charlemagne's imperial title. Eventually a compromise was reached, whereby Charlemagne was to be recognized as "Emperor Augustus of the Franks and the Lombards", but not "of the Romans". Since then, the Byzantines increasingly used the full form "Basileus Autokrator Romaion" to further emphasize their claim on the "true" Roman imperial legacy.

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Modern Greece

During the post-Byzantine years, the term "basileus", under the renewed influence of Classical writers on the language, reverted to its original meaning of "king". In the Convention of London in 1832, the Great Powers (Great Britain, France and Russia) agreed that the new Greek state should become a monarchy, and chose Prince Otto of Wittelsbach as its first king. The Powers furthermore ordained that his title was to be Βασιλεύς της Ελλάδος, meaning "King of Greece", instead of Βασιλεύς των Ελλήνων, i.e. "King of the Greeks". This title had two implications: first, that Otto was the king only of the small Kingdom of Greece, and not of all Greeks, whose majority still remained under the rule of the Ottoman Empire. Secondly, that the kingship did not depend on the will of the Greek people. Indeed, Otto ruled for 10 years as an absolute monarch, and his autocratic rule, which continued even after being forced to grant a constitution, made him very unpopular. After being ousted in 1862, the new Danish dynasty of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg took over with King George I. In a demonstrative move, as to assert both national independence from the will of the Powers, and as to emphasize the constitutional responsibilities of the monarch towards the people, his title, was modified to "King of the Greeks", which remained the official royal title until the end of the Greek monarchy in 1974.