Talk:Romanos IV Diogenes

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Untitled

Romanus IV did not exactly resign. I think overthrown sounds more like it. He was accused of treason and incompetence by his political enemies in Constantinople (Michael Psellus and Michael VII Doucas). His deal with Alp Arlsan was rejected and he was condemned to be blinded. The actual methods used for his blinding were so brutal, that he soon died because of the injury and the infection. Source: J.J.Norwich "Byzantium", Vol. II. Revision of the article necessary. --Spryom 05:20, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It doesn't say he resigned, it says "he was compelled to resign the empire" - that is, he was forced to give it up. It's just poorly worded, probably because it was taken from the 1911 Britannica or some similar source. You're welcome to make it more clear! Adam Bishop 05:33, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

What happened between the marriage to the empress regent and the coronation ? Is a paragraph missing there ? Something must have been done too get rid of Michael VII. And why is Michael VII described as a 'pretender' in this article ? His claim to the throne according to his article seems legitimate. However, I don't know enough to fix this. -- PFHLai 02:38, 2005 August 24 (UTC)

Emperor Romanus IV Diogenes and Alp Arslan's Conversation

Adam Bishop In the article on Romanus IV Diogenes, I restored the conversation which is specifically now quoted directly from Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, word for word, from pages 2112-2113. It is far too famous of a conversation to delete, and you are simply wrong that documentation of it does not exist. It is recorded in slightly different form in every history of the Battle, but I chose Gibbon as his remains to this day the most heavily sourced history of the Empire. old windy bear 23:12, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Final insult"

For the last two years [1] the article has been saying, in the "betrayal" section

The final insult was given a few days before his death, when Romanos received a letter from John Doukas, congratulating him on the loss of his eyes (sourced to Norwich, Byzantium: The Apogee, p.357)

I haven't got the Norwich book here to check right now. Can somebody verify Norwich is actually saying such a letter was sent by John Doukas? As far as I know, there is a letter that this description probably refers to, but it's not by Doukas but by Michael Psellos. And about the Psellos letter, there are conflicting views; some authors have argued that it was never meant to be actually sent to the addressee. It was quite likely just a public rhetorical exercise, meant to whitewash the Doukas, and probably written long after Romanos' death. (Anastasi, Rosario: Studi sulla Chronographia di Michele Psello, Catania 1969, pp.85–90; Vryonis, Spyros Jr.: "Michael Psellus, Michael Attaleiates: The Blinding of Romanus IV at Kotyaion (29 June 1072) and His Death on Proti (4 August 1072)", in: J. Chrysostomides, C. Dendrinos, J. Herrin (eds.), Porphyrogenita, Burlington: Ashgate, 2003, pp. 3–14.) Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:17, 14 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have rechecked Norwich, and what he says is "A few days before his death in the summer of 1072, Romanus received a letter from his old enemy." Norwich does not explicitly say who this "old enemy" is, and given the long standing emnity between Romanos and John Doukas, I interpretered this as referring to John Doukas. But in re-reading the Norwich passage, especially the quote before this where he mentions Psellos's dislike of Romanos and the issuing of one final insult, it seems likely that he is in fact referring to Psellos.Oatley2112 (talk) 12:04, 15 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, thanks for clarifying this. In the light of the refs above, should we also somehow hedge the statement that Romanos actually received it? Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:20, 15 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I would have no objection to see it as a footnote to the statement, outlining the possibility that Romanos never actually received it.Oatley2112 (talk) 12:38, 15 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Adding years to short citations

Recently text was copied from this article into a new article called "Byzantine Empire under the Doukas dynasty". This new article also had text copied from other articles, but because one of the other articles also had a reference to another book by "Norwich" there are now two books in the sources/References section of "Byzantine Empire under the Doukas dynasty":

Norwich, John Julius (1993), Byzantium: The Apogee, Penguin, ISBN 0-14-011448-3
Norwich, John Julius (1996), Byzantium: The Decline and Fall, Penguin, ISBN 0-14-011449-1

but because the year of publication is not included in the short citations it is impossible to tell if the short citation "Norwich, pg. 5" refers to to a page in the volume Byzantium: The Apogee or Byzantium: The Decline and Fall. If a similar addition was made to this article ,unless one knows how to look up edits in the history (and most readers do not) then it would be impossible to tell in this article as well.

So to future proof an article, it is always best to include they year in short citation even if it is not absolutely necessary when a new citation is added to an article, because it helps to future proof the citations against edits by inexperienced editors adding citations from the same author without adding in the year. (BTW if the same year occurs twice the citation templates can handle an additional character to help with disambiguation, eg:

Norwich, John Julius (1993b), Byzantium: The Apogee (2nd ed.), Penguin, ISBN 0-14-011448-3

-- PBS (talk) 21:01, 1 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There was a series of edits September 2010 which cited Norwich. At the time that book was in the references section as

John Julius Norwich, Byzantium: The Apogee (Vol. II)

According to the entry in the OCLC WorldCat, that book is probably the same one as the Penguin edition listed in the current article.:

Norwich, John Julius (1993), Byzantium: The Apogee, Penguin, ISBN 0-14-011448-3

But the former while the same volume may have a different pagination from the Penguin edition, it may for example be a hard back edition, so someone with either book needs to check the citations in the article match those of one volume or the other. -- PBS (talk) 21:01, 1 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

References - Norwich

What is the difference between Norwich 1993 and Norwich 1993b? They both appear to be references to Byzantium: The Apogee. DuncanHill (talk) 14:49, 25 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]