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RAFFAELE D’AMATO

THE BETRAYAL: MILITARY ICONOGRAPHY AND ARCHAEOLOGY
IN THE BYZANTINE PAINTINGS OF THE 11TH-15TH C. AD
REPRESENTING THE ARREST OF OUR LORD

Part 3

THE 12TH C.: THE CRETAN FRESCOES OF THE KISSAMOS ROTUNDA AND PARALLELS

    The frescoes of the Early Christian Rotunda of Michael Archangelos in Episkopi, Kissamos, are, at my knowledge, unpublished or anyway not published for what concerns our subject. Its shape is unique on Crete, and it owes its name to its shape with a particular dome (rotunda), that dominates the church architecture in its centre. Within the church, arches support the central space under the cylindrical dome, once completely painted. The church has remnants of wall paintings from various periods,34 but what it is interesting for us are the layers of the 12th c., of the Comnenian Age. On the north-eastern cornered wall of the dome, there is a fragment of the Betrayal scene (Fig. 23).

34 Psilakis 1998, pp. 211-212.

Fig. 23. The Betrayal, the Rotunda of Kissamos, Crete, second half of the 12th c., author’s photo

    Interestingly, the represented soldiers are no more the mixed mob of military men and armed civilians of the previous examples, but soldiers of Byzantium clad in complete armour, wearing helmets furnished with aventails (kinei/κυνεη35) and scale armours. Scale and lamellar were types of armour most commonly used by East-Roman warriors of the period. The men in the fresco wear what in East-Roman sources of this time was called chiton pholidotos (χιτων φολιδωτος)36 or sosanion (σωσανιον).37 Also these fresco shows interesting details concerning the weaponry. The weapons are no more visible, but the sword brandished by Saint Peter is a single-edged sabre (Fig. 24). This sabre, with its inscription38 (Fig. 25), is very similar to a specimen from Armenia, found in Northern Urals, and dated by Nicolle to the 12th-13th c.39.

35 Niketas Choniates, VII, 239.
36 Niketas Choniates, 62, 95 and 197,17.
37 Tzetzes, Allegorie in Cramer 1963, Anecd. Oxon. III; Kolias 1988, p. 49 and n. 96.
38 Today very difficult to read, although two letters C (Sigma) and may be a ω are still visible.
39 Nicolle 1999, cat. 125.


Fig. 24. The Betrayal, the Rotunda of Kissamos, Crete, detail, second half of the 12th c., author’s photo


Fig. 25. The Betrayal, the Rotunda of Kissamos, Crete, detail of the sword of Saint Peter, second half of the 12th c., author’s photo

Fig. 26. The Betrayal, the Rotunda of Kissamos, Crete, detail of the helmet compared with the helmets of cavalrymen from Cod. Athos Vatopedi 760, fol. 286r, second half of the 12th c., author’s photo and courtesy photos of Prof. Nikolas Emeritizidis

    The helmets seem to be of segmented construction, echoing the Spangenhelm type already used in Late Rome and Byzantium since the 3rd century AD.40 Helmets of this type are visible in many illuminated Greek manuscripts of the late 12th c., for instance the Vatopedi Octateuch in Athos (Vatopedinus 602),41 or the Cod. Athos Vatopedi 76042 (Fig. 26). These helmets are often considered by historians of art as fanciful representations. It is not the case. A splendid specimen of the 13th c. from the Kuban area recently published by Gorelik (Fig. 27)43 shows again the realistic attitude of the East-Roman artists in the representations of the material culture of their age. This kind of helmet begins to appear in the 12th c. and one of the first iconographic records are the painting representing the Betrayal, of which the Rotunda of Kissamos is one of the many examples. The iconography of the Betrayal introduces the visual record of new kind of weapons.

40 It is clear that the type was constantly used in Byzantium, since the 4th century; we have examples of segmented helmets for all periods of the East-Roman history, until at least the 15th century. The segmented helmet (Spangenhelm, if referred especially to the 5th - 6th centuries helmets, some of the sub-type called Baldenheim by the scholars) was a variety of the rib helmet. Simple shapes of this helmet consist of convex spherical trapezoid segments riveted to each other, with a round plate at the top and a hoop at the bottom. In his monograph of Spangenhelme of the Baldenheim type, M. Vogt (2006) described at least forty specimens in various conditions of preservation, found in 36 various locations of the Ancient world. Last specimens of segmented helmets used by Bulgaro-Byzantine infantrymen have been recently published by Paroushev, 2000, pp. 171-178, figs. 1-3.
41 Huber 1973, fig. 92.
42 Kolias 1988, Pl. XX, figs. 2 and 3.
43 I am in great debt to my dear friend Dr. Yuriy Kuleshov for the information about the existence of this helmet and for the related image.

Fig. 27. Eastern Roman helmet of the 13th c. AD, from the area of Kuban or South Crimea, ex Gorelik, private collection, courtesy image Dr. Yuriy Kuleshov

    Armoured and helmeted warriors are a new rule in the representations of the Betrayal especially since the end of the 12th c. Here the soldiers are clearly Mediterranean in their facial shape, mainly Greeks and Armenians, and there is no trace of tall northern warriors. Maybe the local garrisons furnished the model to the painter.
    A further example comes from the Church of Saint Neophitos, in the Paphos district of Cyprus, dated to about 1196 AD or the early 13th c.44 Two groups of warriors surround the protagonists from left and right. The soldiers carry knives, a sword, a flail, spears, pole-axes and torches. The Chiliarchos carries the sword and the flail and is dressed with a short chiton, and a chlamys (military cloak), eastern αναξυριδεs (trousers) and white toubia (boots). The heads are covered by chain-mail coifs with nape protection, brown or red helmets supplemented with a conical plate or a metal frame in grey, ochre or red background.45 Most of the helmets are reinforced with scales and with attached protective aventails (neck protections, peritrachelia).46 Interestingly, the represented sword is an infantry sabre (spathion zostikion?).47

44 Babuin 2009, figs. 108-109; Stylianou, Stylianou 1992, pp. 573ff., n. 18, Pl. 318; Stylianou calculated in 1985 that in Cyprus’s churches there were about 14 wall-paintings of the Betrayal, but the number should have been superior.
45 Haldon 1975, p. 26.
46 D’Amato 2010, p. 33.
47 Praecepta Militaria (I, 24ff.), p. 14.
    Some Roman warriors wear long beards that in the fresco are red and fair; they thus have Anglo-Saxon and Nordic attire. In Byzantium the members of the Varangian Guard were famous as men with red hair and beards, "as tall as date palms;" they were also said to drink too much. The description of the Varangians who impressed the Romans of the East with their huge size, blonde and red hair, beards and moustaches, is well remembered in the Northern sources.48

48 "He was striking of countenance and fair of feature, he had the finest eyes of any man, and was light of hue. He had a great deal of hair as fair as silk, falling in curls"; "This man had yellow hair, waving down over his shoulders; he was fair of hue" "Next there sat two men like each other to look upon, and might have been of middle age; most brisk they looked, red of hair, freckled of face, yet goodly to behold." (Laxdale Saga, cap. 28.63 - Muriel 1889, pp. 87, 220). It is true that red beard often equals evil character in medieval art, but guardsmen with red beards are also represented like bodyguards of Saint Emperors or Kings in the frescoes of the councils, or escorting Joshua, like in the Church of Blachernae in Arta, Epeiros, or in the Church of Saint Sofia in Kiev, respectively 13th and 12th centuries, s, D’Amato, 2010, p.13, and D’Amato, 2012, pp. 38-39.
    Again, they are pictured as armed with axes and knives, so we are again probably in front of the representation of Varangians. The knives show a very similar shape to the late 12th c. battle knives found at Ras, Serbia,49 the axes with an axe-head from Thebes, dated to the 13th c.50 If the fresco was painted under the new Latin rulers of Cyprus rival of the Angels[?] in Constantinople, the use of Imperial Guardsmen as models for "evil" people could be very probable. According to Stylianou they are maybe representations of Crusaders who invaded Cyprus,51 but their full equipment is completely Eastern-Roman.

49 Nicolle 1999, cat. 82 h-i.
50 Various 2002, p. 134, cat. 145.
51 Stylianou, Stylianou 1992, p. 575.
Bibliography

Source: Raffaele d'Amato The Betrayal: Military Iconography and Archaeology In The Byzantine Paintings Of The 11th-15th C. AD Representing The Arrest Of Our Lord


Part 4 The Betrayal: Military Iconography and Archaeology in the Byzantine Paintings of the 11th-15th c. AD Representing the Arrest of Our Lord Raffaele D’Amato