Due bellissimi post in lingua inglese che raccontano il mondo bizantino visto in specifici argomenti: giochi sportivi e l’influenza femminile nel potere imperiale.
From the fourth century A.D. until the fall of Constantinople in 1453, the people of the Byzantine or Eastern Roman Empire participated in a wide range of sports and physical recreations. Most of these activities were inherited from Greek and Roman civilizations, or were introduced through contacts with Asia Minor and Crusading Europe. Some sport forms disappeared after a few centuries, while others remained a part of the sporting culture during most of the lifetime of this civilization. However, in spite of the longevity of the Byzantine Empire, and the importance attached to sport by its inhabitants, little has been written about that period in sport history references. Much of the information that is available gives the impression that sport in Byzantium consisted of nothing more that Roman activities transplanted to the shore of the Bosporus, while other sources simply refer to Byzantium in sections devoted to the final period of Greek athletics. This paper attempts to alter that situation by presenting a fuller description and interpretation of this topic, for close study reveals a period of sport history that was uniquely Byzantine— one that warrants more attention than it is usually given.
The Byzantine noble women were burning with anxieties and were passionately pursuing to participate in political chess, to excel in letters and to spread the culture of Byzantium.
The life of a great woman of Byzantium, princess Anna Komnena the Porphyrogenita, is indicative of this passion for power and education. Her touching death encapsulates a life full of tension and intense contradictions: Anna was a revolutionary female for her time. To achieve her goals she did not use female “weapons” (charm, cunning), but purely male “means” (power, boldness, perseverance). She may have been the first feminist in human chronicles.
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