Seven Grateful Souls and I

Each family member received 

the same portion - a slice of bread

The telegram brought great emotion

                                                   [to the entire family.
Uncle Jim informed us that his ship, "Minerva Emily",
will anchor in Crete for a few hours, for bunkering*..

Memories were awakened and all remembered 

                               [the time they were hungering...

It was the time after our country was looted by invaders
who stole everything like bandits, 

                                                 [as black market traders.

Still sell in Germany Stolen Greek ancient treasures.

(Irony, these shops fearing theft,
                                [take strong security measures)..

Those years of German occupation and suffering,
the family was hungry
                              [and was devoid of everything.
The nine members were given
      [only nine slices of bread for the entire day.

After the defeat of the Germans we in a way,
were fed thanks to the help of the US,
                                            [ie the Marshall Plan,
but the poverty continued and then a young man,
uncle Jim, took on the heavy task
                                          [of his family's survival
and worked on ships for years,
                             [an act unparalleled, unrivaled.

Whenever uncle Jim's ship
                                [was coming to a Greek port,
he was greeted by the entire family,
                                        [grateful for his support.

This time he was greeted only by one,
                                         [me, the only one left alive,

the last survivor in the battle against time,
                         [but with me, for the reception arrive
seven grateful souls of the our family members...

Αfter fifty years we are all together again
            [and uncle while weeping... remembers.
_________________________________________________


*Extract from "The Broken Mooring Line", an experiential
poetic work // page c55// e-mail: pmataragas@yahoo.com //
Texts and Narration: Odysseus Heavilayias - ROTTERDAM //
Language adjustments and text adaptation: Kellene G Safis - CHICAGO//
Digital adaptation and text editing: Cathy Rapakoulia Mataraga - PIRAEUS//
______________________________________________________________

Notes:

*The Marshall Plan (officially the European Recovery Program, ERP) was an American initiative to aid Western Europe, in which the United States gave $13 billion (approximately $130 billion in current dollar value as of August 2015) in economic support to help rebuild Western European economies after the end of World War II.

*Effects of Nazi looting today
Approximately 20% of the art in Europe was looted by the Nazis, and there are well over 100,000 items that have not been returned to their rightful owners. The majority of what is still missing includes everyday objects such as china, crystal or silver.
Some objects of great cultural significance remain missing, though no one knows how many. This is a major issue for the art market, since legitimate organizations do not want to deal in objects with unclear ownership titles. Since the mid-1990s, after several books, magazines, and newspapers began exposing the subject to the general public, many dealers, auction houses and museums have grown more careful about checking the provenance of objects that are available for purchase in case they are looted.

*Germany returns 10,600 pieces of Greek history, stolen during WWIIJun, 19 2014 Author: newsroom This is the second batch of ancient artifacts being returned to Greece in the last two weeks
After 73 years, thousands of Neolithic pottery fragments that were illegally excavated and transferred to Germany during World War II return to Greece. Among them are 10,600 fragments of clay vessels, stone artifacts, and osteological material that were unearthed during excavations carried out between June and December 1941 by the Nazi occupation forces.

In an official ceremony that was held at Pfahlbau Museum, an archaeological open air museum on Lake Constance (Bodensee) in southern Germany on Wednesday, 10,626 Neolithic era findings were delivered to representatives of the Greek Ministry of Culture.

The first batch included two treasures of ancient Cycladic art, namely a female figurine 88 cm tall and a copper dish, that were illegally obtained by the Baden state museum in Karlsruhe. Succumbing to pressure from the Ministry of Culture, Harald Siebenborgen, Director of the German museum, finally agreed to return the ancient artifacts, worth 4 million euros.

Culture & Sports Minister Konstantinos Tassoulas referred to the symbolism of the gesture and to incidents of antiquity smuggling and destruction recorded across Greece during the Nazi occupation. He also referred to the recent repatriation of archaeological material unearthed at the site of Magoula Visviki and neolithic sites in Thessaly, central Greece, noting that such moves contribute decisively to the strengthening of bilateral ties.

The National Archaeological Museum will be the first stop of the repatriated antiquities before they are transferred to local museums.

“The return of the findings was a matter of principle for us”

The initiative for the return of the ancient findings belongs to the director of Pfahlbau Museum, Professor Gunter Schöbel. Talking to Deutsche Welle, he revealed the reasons that led him to this decision:

“Modern science understands the importance of respect and therefore knows how significant archaeological findings are for the identity of a country. In this sense, the return of the pottery fragments was a matter of principle for us.”
Commenting on the importance of the German initiative to return the archaeological findings, the Director General of Antiquities and Heritage, Maria Vlazaki-Andreadaki, told Deutsche Welle:

“This is a highly symbolic gesture. They recognize that the cultural treasures should not leave their country of origin. The museum itself came to us and announced the return. The findings are not especially important archaeologically, they are mostly undecorated pottery fragments, not among our priorities for return.”
___________________________________________________
themanews.com

*Bunkering What is Bunker and Bunkering..??
Bunker is simply the name given to the Fuel that is used to operate ships.. Bunkering is the action of supplying a ship with bunkers.. There are various types of Fuel Oil and within the Fuel Oils, there are many classifications, standards and grades..
___________________________________________________________________

  the tales of a greek sailor  

She was considered the most beautiful woman in the world

 

     

                  ...but for her they never shot an arrow

As a seafarer who has navigated all the seas and oceans,
I lived strange experiences and strong emotions.

Those thirty years I saw and heard incredible things,
but a story of them, semicolons, questions and doubts brings...


Once while I was sailing along the coast of ancient Troy,
inevitably I was thinking of the Homeric Trojan campaign to destroy
the one who had control of narrow*.                                   

My poor Helen, for you they never shot an arrow...

The Trojans were holding the keys to the Black Sea
and the Greeks were tired of paying the fee....

The old stoker, suddenly interrupted my thoughts,

and together we broke into history's unknown slots.

He told me...I'm a Trojan, and my ancestors 
                                                 [came back to the region,

along with Constantine the Great and the 

                                                             [first Roman legion.                   

Aeneas fleeing Troy.......   to Latium

Eight miles away from Troy is Dardanos,                                                                   [my hometown.
After the fall of Troy, Aeneas would not                                                                            [bow down                                                    
and he sailed from my city along with                                                           [other Trojan fighters.... 


They went to Italy as mentioned by Virgil   
                                             [and many writers.

There, they defeated the Latins and 
                                           [created an empire,
so large that without refueling today 
                      [you could not cross in an airliner...

These descendants of Aeneas and the
                                                                [Trojans
became masters of the world, and called 
                                                              [Romans..

They never forgot Troy though thousands 
                                                             [of years passed,

with plans to return home with armies they massed....

The return trip was made in 330 AD..

In order not to be forced, as in the Trojan war, to flee,
they founded the capital of they empire in Byzantium, a fortified position,
several miles farther from Troy, as the base of each expedition....

In Byzantium the people were speaking Greek
and over the years each Roman Greek will speak.....

Finishing the old man, the stoker, said:

                 EPILOG

When I was born.....
Greek was the language of my bred..

Am I...    A Trojan?               
                A Roman? 
                A Greek?
                A Hellen?

Two mysteries of history, I and queen of Sparta, Helen ...

___________* *___________

*Hellen, in Greek mythology, king of Phthia was the eponymous ancestor of all true Greeks, called Hellenes in his honour.

The Hellenes consisted of the Aeolians, Dorians, Ionians, and Achaeans, traditionally descended from and named for Hellen’s sons, Aeolus and Dorus, and his grandsons (by his third son, Xuthus), Ion and Achaeus.
______________________________________________________


Texts and Narration: Odysseus Heavilayias - ROTTERDAM //
Language adjustments and text adaptation: Kellene G Safis - CHICAGO//
Digital adaptation and text editing: Cathy Rapakoulia Mataraga - PIRAEUS//
Νο: 49
                                              _________________


*Helen of Troy, In Greek mythology, Helen of Troy (Greek Ἑλένη Helénē, pronounced [helénɛː]), also known as Helen of Sparta, was the daughter of Zeus and Leda, and was a sister of Castor, Pollux, and Clytemnestra. In Greek myths, she was considered the most beautiful woman in the world. By marriage she was Queen of Laconia, a province within Homeric Greece, the wife of King Menelaus. Her abduction by Paris, Prince of Troy, brought about the Trojan War. Elements of her putative biography come from classical authors such as Aristophanes, Cicero, Euripides and Homer (both The Iliad and The Odyssey).

*Dardanos : Eight miles to the ancient city of Troy.

*Constantine the Great,   57th Emperor of the Roman Empire

Colossal marble head of Emperor
Constantine the Great, Roman, 4th century

Constantine the Great (Latin: Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantinus Augustus; Greek: Κωνσταντίνος ὁ Μέγας; 27 February c. 272 AD – 22 May 337 AD), also known as Constantine I or Saint Constantine (in the Orthodox Church as Saint Constantine the Great, Equal-to-the-Apostles), was a Roman Emperor from 306 to 337 AD of Thracian-Illyrian ancestry. Constantine was the son of Flavius Valerius Constantius, a Roman army officer, and his consort Helena. His father became Caesar, the deputy emperor in the west in 293 AD. Constantine was sent east, where he rose through the ranks to become a military tribune under the emperors Diocletian and Galerius. In 305, Constantius was raised to the rank of Augustus, senior western emperor, and Constantine was recalled west to campaign under his father in Britannia. Acclaimed as emperor by the army at Eboracum (Modern-day York) after his father's death in 306 AD, Constantine emerged victorious in a series of civil wars against the emperors Maxentius and Licinius to become sole ruler of both west and east by 324 AD.

As emperor, Constantine enacted many administrative, financial, social, and military reforms to strengthen the empire. The government was restructured and civil and military authority separated. A new gold coin, the solidus, was introduced to combat inflation. It would become the standard for Byzantine and European currencies for more than a thousand years. The first Roman emperor to claim conversion to Christianity,[notes 4] Constantine played an influential role in the proclamation of the Edict of Milan, which decreed tolerance for Christianity in the empire. He called the First Council of Nicaea in 325, at which the Nicene Creed was professed by Christians. In military matters, the Roman army was reorganised to consist of mobile field units and garrison soldiers capable of countering internal threats and barbarian invasions. Constantine pursued successful campaigns against the tribes on the Roman frontiers—the Franks, the Alamanni, the Goths, and the Sarmatians—even resettling territories abandoned by his predecessors during the turmoil of the previous century.

The age of Constantine marked a distinct epoch in the history of the Roman Empire. He built a new imperial residence at Byzantium and renamed the city Constantinople after himself (the laudatory epithet of "New Rome" came later, and was never an official title). It would later become the capital of the Empire for over one thousand years; for which reason the later Eastern Empire would come to be known as the Byzantine Empire. His more immediate political legacy was that, in leaving the empire to his sons, he replaced Diocletian's tetrarchy with the principle of dynastic succession. His reputation flourished during the lifetime of his children and centuries after his reign. The medieval church upheld him as a paragon of virtue while secular rulers invoked him as a prototype, a point of reference, and the symbol of imperial legitimacy and identity. Beginning with the Renaissance, there were more critical appraisals of his reign due to the rediscovery of anti-Constantinian sources. Critics portrayed him as a despotic tyrant. Trends in modern and recent scholarship attempted to balance the extremes of previous scholarship.

Constantine—as the first Christian emperor—is a significant figure in the history of Christianity. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, built on his orders at the purported site of Jesus' tomb in Jerusalem, became the holiest place in Christendom. The Papal claim to temporal power was based on the supposed Donation of Constantine. He is venerated as a saint by Eastern Orthodox Christians, Byzantine Catholics, and Anglicans.

source

  the tales of a greek sailor  

When I traced the routes of....

                   ...the Explorers

     In the forecastle
              [of the Liberty* "Greek Pine"          
        holding a thin rope,
                                  [a heaving line*, 
        I had a certain strange feeling.

Holding a heaving line

        It would be better said,
                       [a thought appealing...
        It would be better said,
                             [strange rationale....

        Our ship was sailing into the 
                                 [Panama canal,
        in the westerly direction
        and this was the cause
                  [of the connection
        between me.....
                    and the Explorer....

        Panama was the origin
                        [of our restorer
        and when we arrived in the canal,
        I said to him...
            ''tell me about your country pal''.

        He willingly talked to me about it all.

        When he mentioned
                     [Vasco De Balboa*,
        I heard weeping from Raul,
        because that was also the name of his mother..
        He said to me
       "they both belonged to the same family, brother.

                         _________ * * __________


        In a few hours it was my turn
                                        [to be emotionally moved.

        I traveled many years
                                      [and I never was unmoved
        when I traced the routes
                                       [of the past explorers,
        when I was trailing traces
                                      [of those old seafarers,
        in a way I was living mentally in their time.

        In Panama,
                      I followed Balboa, but the regime,
        as I was informed
                               [had executed him long ago.

        In the Pacific I followed Magellan, but woe
        the warriors of Lapu-Lapu* killed him in battle.            

        In the Atlantic I followed Columbus.....
                                        [and a sailor from Seattle
        told me that the explorer is in prison in Spain.
        In my short story (in the history of the world).... 
                                                            [a third stain ...
______________________________________________


*Extract from "The Broken Mooring Line", an experiential
poetic work // c48// e-mail: pmataragas@yahoo.com //
Texts and Narration: Odysseus Heavilayias - ROTTERDAM //
Language adjustments and text adaptation: Kellene G Safis - CHICAGO//
Digital adaptation and text editing: Cathy Rapakoulia Mataraga - PIRAEUS// _______________________________________________________________






1. The Liberty ship was a class of cargo ship built in the United States during 
World War II.
SS John W. Brown on the Great Lakes in 2000. John W. Brown is one of only two surviving World War II Liberty Ships, the other being the SS Jeremiah O'Brien.


2. Heaving line (nautical term) : A rope with a heavy knot on the end light enough for a seaman to throw to a dock or another vessel. The bitter end of the heaving line is secured to the end of a heavier dockline or towing line so that it can then be hauled over




3. Lapu-Lapu (fl. 1521) was a ruler of Mactan in the Visayas. The Philippines regards him as the first Filipino hero because he was the first native to resist Spanish colonization through his victory over the explorer Ferdinand Magellan. Monuments of Lapu-Lapu have been built in Manila and Cebu while the Philippine National Police and the Bureau of Fire Protection use his image in his honor.

He is best known for the Battle of Mactan, which happened at dawn on April 27, 1521. The battle halted the Magellan expedition and delayed Spanish occupation of the islands by over forty years until the expedition of Miguel López de Legazpi in 1564.

Besides being a rival of Rajah Humabon of Cebu, little is known about the life of Lapu-Lapu and the only existing documents about his life are those written by Antonio Pigafetta. His name, origins, religion, and fate are still a matter of controversy.

The Battle of Mactan (Cebuano: Gubat sa Mactan; Filipino: Labanan sa Mactan; Spanish: Batalla de Mactán) was fought in the Philippines on 27 April 1521, prior to Spanish colonization. The warriors of Lapu-Lapu, a native chieftain of Mactan Island, defeated Spanish forces under the command of Ferdinand Magellan, who was killed in the battle.

4. Vasco Núñez de Balboa: The 16th-century Spanish conquistador and explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa (1475-1519) helped establish the first stable settlement on the South American continent at Darién, on the coast of the Isthmus of Panama. In 1513, while leading an expedition in search of gold, he sighted the Pacific Ocean. Balboa claimed the ocean and all of its shores for Spain, opening the way for later Spanish exploration and conquest along the western coast of South America. Balboa’s achievement and ambition posed a threat to Pedro Arias Dávila, the Spanish governor of Darién, who falsely accused him of treason and had him executed in early 1519.




  the tales of a greek sailor  

It's not for everyone to go to Corinth

The Isthmus of Corinth is the narrow land bridge   

which connects the Peloponnese peninsula with the

rest of the mainland of Greece. Corinth, in ancient 

times was one of the wealthiest cities of the Greek   

world. In that era lived there Lais Corinthia, the     

famous courtesan.                                                      

She was so beautiful  that painters had as standard.

  My American relatives visited Corinth one time,
and told me that the view was magnificent, sublime...

In the city however,
         [there was something that made them mull,
locals were talking a lot about some ancient trull,
but they could not comprehend how a slut
was in the history of a city,
                                 [[instead of being cut.

        When....  they asked my opinion about it
I told them that she was the courtesan Lais
                                      [and I know only a bit.

She was not just a slut,
              [I would say something like an escort,
a private dancer, like a geisha, a leeward port.

What I do know well is that her company
                      [had cost some four thousand bucks,

and soon made a fortune as the money
                           [was in incessant process of flux..
                                  ___________________

I never understood my ancient ancestors
                                               [and their practices,
also the role of ancient prostitutes and actresses.

But also nor my newer fellows,
and my sorrow is permanent,
                        [never mellows.

They always have a reason
                                    [to be divided,
as from an evil fate, they are guided.

Note that during the war of independence,
                                          (which lasted eight years),
we had two civil wars
      [inside what was the rebellious region's frontiers.
                         ________________________

Texts and Narration: Odysseus Heavilayias - ROTTERDAM //
Language adjustments and text adaptation: Kellene G Safis - CHICAGO//
Digital adaptation and text editing: Cathy Rapakoulia Mataraga - PIRAEUS//

Νο: 46

_______________________________________________________________

     *Corinth, in ancient times was one of the wealthiest cities of the Greek world. The trade provide great riches and life there was very accurate to the point of the whole stay is accessible only to very rich.


    * The title, Then came the saying "it's not for everyone to go to Corinth", (''Ού παντός πλείν είς Κόρινθον''). As was next with leftades gathered at Corinth and prosferan love women with fee, from ordinary prostitutes, who frequented in groves, buying or chamaitypeia, as the eminent courtesans that interaction with them cost a fortune.



Lais of Corinth,
Limewood, 34.6 × 26.8 cm,
Kunstmuseum Basel
She was so beautiful that painters had as standard.
The Aristainetos writes that "the breasts were like clams.
She had relationships with the most prominent and

ploysiwteroys Greeks who flocked in Corinth to meet

(with the biblical meaning of the verb).
Among the "clients" was the student of Socrates Aristippos



* Lais of Corinth, by Hans Holbein the Younger portrays the famous Lais of Corinth, a courtesan of ancient Greece who charged a high price for her favours.
It has been suggested that Holbein is also referring to the Lais who was the lover of Apelles, the great painter of antiquity (Holbein was called "Apelles" in humanist circles).
The model, the same used for Holbein's Darmstadt Madonna and for his Venus and Amor (right), has been identified as Magdalena Offenburg, who may have been Holbein's mistress.



Venus and Amor, 1524. Holbein's Lais was painted a year or two after Venus and Amor and, in effect, acts as its companion piece, though Holbein does not appear to have originally planned the second painting.
According to some commentators, the portrayal of the sitter as a hetaera or courtesan may contain a coded message by Holbein about his relationship with her.
Art historian Peter Claussen, however, dismisses this interpretation as "pure nonsense".
Both paintings employ the same colours and depict the same costume and drapery. Holbein adopts the style of Leonardo and the Lombard muralists, whose work he may have studied during a visit to Italy.
He uses Leonardo's sfumato (smoky) technique to blend the skin tones, as well as the device of the parapet to set the subject back from the viewer.

_______________________________________________________

* The Isthmus of Corinth, Α narrow land bridge which connects the Peloponnese peninsula with the rest of the mainland of Greece, near the city of Corinth. The word "isthmus" comes from the Ancient Greek word for "neck" and refers to the narrowness of the land.
The Isthmus was known in the ancient world as the landmark separating Peloponnese from mainland of Greece. In the first century CE the geographer Strabo noted a pillar on the Isthmus of Corinth, which bore two inscriptions.

One towards the East, i.e. towards Megara in Attica reading: "Here is not Peloponnesus, but Ionia" (τάδ᾽ οὐχὶ Πελοπόννησος, ἀλλ᾽ Ἰωνία) and the one towards the West, i.e. towards the Peloponnese: "Here is Peloponnesus, not Ionia" (τάδ᾽ ἐστὶ Πελοπόννησος, οὐκ Ἰωνία); Plutarch ascribed the erection of the stele to the Attic hero Theseus, on his way to Athens.

To the west of the Isthmus is the Gulf of Corinth, to the east the Saronic Gulf. Since 1893 the Corinth Canal has run through the 6.3 km wide isthmus, effectively making the Peloponnese an island. Today, two road bridges, two railway bridges and two submersible bridges at both ends of the canal connect the mainland side of the isthmus with the Peloponnese side. Also a military emergency bridge is located at the west end of the canal.

The idea for a shortcut to save boats sailing all round the Peloponnese was long considered by the Ancient Greeks. The first attempt to build a canal there was carried out by the tyrant Periander in the 7th century BC.

He abandoned the project owing to technical difficulties, and instead constructed a simpler and less costly overland stone ramp, named Diolkos, as a portage road. Remnants of Diolkos still exist today next to the modern canal.

When the Romans took control of Greece, a number of different solutions were tried. Julius Caesar foresaw the advantages of a link for his newly built Colonia Laus Iulia Corinthiensis. By the reign of Tiberius, engineers tried to dig a canal, but were defeated by lack of modern equipment.

Instead they built an Ancient Egyptian device: boats were rolled across the isthmus on logs, as the Egyptians had rolled blocks of granite to make their pyramids. This was in use by AD 32. In AD 67, the philhellene Roman emperor Nero ordered 6,000 slaves to dig a canal with spades. According to Pliny the Elder, the work advanced four stadia (about 5/8 kilometers). The following year Nero died, and his successor Galba abandoned the project as being too expensive.

In the modern era, the idea was first seriously proposed in 1830, soon after Greece's independence from the Ottoman Empire, and was brought to completion in 1893 after eleven years' work.

source

  the tales of a greek sailor  

Drop dead gorgeous

956 AD Eastern half of the Roman Empire

    Drop dead gorgeous, green eyes, long hair curled,
        Theaphano, the most beautiful woman in the world ..

        Romanus, the son of the emperor Constantine the seventh,
        fell in love again, this time it was the eleventh ...

        Theophano was a Greek name...
        (Recent centuries in the Empire the Greek language formal became).
        ____________________


Troubadours praised the beauty of the bride in the whole territory.       956 AD
Unfortunately this is a drama, not a love story.

Soon her beauty dominated the palace. 
Soon everyone suspected that she was hiding ambition and malice ...

The emperor was assassinated by unknown poison.                              959 AD

Only you had motive, there was no other reason,
said unto her, Romanus the successor,
who in a few hours would be crowned new Emperor ..


                              TWO YEARS LATER

Glorious general Phokas re conquers Saracen Emirate of Crete...
The triumphal procession passes in front of the street,
and already Theophano devises new scam (how to cheat).

Like all men around her, General Nikephoros Phokas soon fell in love. 

Soon Theophano poised her husband, another one rid of.                   963 AD

Violent Fhokas becomes emperor and then,
unrivaled beauty, gorgeous Theophano, is a bride again...



                              SIX YEARS LATER


Her beauty had begun to leave,
when that fateful Christmas Eve
she first met her one great love....
General John I Tzimiskes...
    [a nightmare or a gift from heaven above?   

Soon the two lovers organized a kind of coup
and murdering Phokas accomplished what they                                                           [pursue.     969 AD

After a while Tzimiskes became the new                                                                          [emperor....

He never loved Theophano, to him it was an                                                                   [adventure.

To calm the people who blamed them both for the                                                                      [murder,

Theophano was sent to exile on his own order ...


                              A FEW YEARS LATER

   But the beautiful and equally intelligent had a hidden player..
      Her son, the conqueror, known with the name "the Bulgar-slayer"..

      Soon he became emperor and made sure
      his criminal mother, no justice for the people, a detour.
      ______________________________________________




Though the western half of the Roman Empire crumbled    
and fell in 476, the eastern half survived for 1,000 more     
years, spawning a rich tradition of art, literature and          
learning and serving as a military buffer between the states
of Europe and the threat of invasion from Asia.                   
The eastern Empire finally fell in 1453, after an Ottoman   
army stormed Constantinople of Constantine XI.              
_____________________________________________________




Texts and Narration: Odysseus Heavilayias - ROTTERDAM //
Language adjustments and text adaptation: Kellene G Safis - CHICAGO//
Digital adaptation and text editing: Cathy Rapakoulia Mataraga - PIRAEUS//
Νο: 42

* The language of the Byzantine Greeks since the age of Constantine had been Greek, although Latin was the language of the administration. From the reign of Emperor Heraclius (reigned 610–641), Greek was the predominant language amongst the populace and also replaced Latin in administration. At first the Byzantine Empire had a multi-ethnic character, but following the loss of the non-Greek speaking provinces it came to be dominated by the Byzantine Greeks. Over time, the relationship between them and the West, particularly with Latin Europe, deteriorated.
Relations were further damaged by a schism between the Catholic West and Orthodox East that led to the Byzantine Greeks being labeled as heretics. Throughout the later centuries of the Byzantine Empire and particularly following the coronation of Charlemagne (reigned as king of the Franks 768–814) in Rome in 800, the Byzantine Greeks were not considered by Western Europeans as heirs of the Roman Empire, but rather as part of an Eastern kingdom made up of Greek peoples. However the Byzantine Empire could claim to be the Roman Empire, continuing the unbroken line of succession of the Roman emperors.



*The story   is based on the Kostas Kyriazis book "Theophano" 

*The Greek historical fiction writer Kostas Kyriazis (b. 1920) wrote a biography called Theophano (1963), followed by the 1964 Basil Bulgaroktonus on her son. As depicted in these books, Theophano was indeed guilty of all the killings attributed to her in her lifetime, and the heritage of a mother who killed both his father and his stepfather caused her son Basil to distrust women and avoid marriage himself.

*Basil II  (Greek: Βασίλειος Β΄, Basileios II; 958 – 15 December 1025) was a Byzantine Emperor from the Macedonian dynasty who reigned from 10 January 976 to 15 December 1025. He was known in his time as Basil the Porphyrogenitus and Basil the Young to distinguish him from his supposed ancestor, Basil I the Macedonian.

The early years of his long reign were dominated by civil war against powerful generals from the Anatolian aristocracy. Following their submission, Basil oversaw the stabilization and expansion of the eastern frontier of the Byzantine Empire, and above all, the final and complete subjugation of Bulgaria, the Empire's foremost European foe, after a prolonged struggle. For this he was nicknamed by later authors as "the Bulgar-slayer" (Greek: Βουλγαροκτόνος, Boulgaroktonos), by which he is popularly known. At his death, the Empire stretched from Southern Italy to the Caucasus and from the Danube to the borders of Palestine, its greatest territorial extent since the Muslim conquests four centuries earlier.

source

 the tales of a greek sailor