A Soap Dish That Changed History

Nice piece by Lars Brownworth in the WSJ on Constans II:

This fall marks the 1,341st anniversary of a watershed moment in history—though not likely one you've heard about before. It began with an event that would have been comical if not for the fact that a murder was involved. Even to those living through it, it must have seemed more farcical than ground-breaking.

The unlikely instigator was a disgruntled chamberlain who was tired of paying outrageous taxes and had taken it into his head to address the situation in the most direct way possible. On the morning of Sept. 15, 668 he snuck into the imperial bathhouse in Sicily and brought a heavy soap dish crashing down on the head of the drowsy emperor Constans II. It was hardly a dignified way to die, but the Roman Empire had seen inglorious deaths before, and this one turned out to be a conclusive turning point for much of Mediterranean history.

As the royal head disappeared beneath the lukewarm water of the imperial bath, the emperor could have been forgiven for being slightly relieved—had he been conscious—at his release from the heavy cares of office. His service as emperor had been a largely thankless task, a desperate scramble to stop a bewilderingly powerful enemy from swallowing up North Africa and the Middle East. At the start of his reign those provinces had been thoroughly Roman, full of Greek and Latin cities of colonnaded streets, civic buildings and public monuments, but the last chance to preserve their common culture was already slipping away.

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[The Stamford Historical Society]

But the predictable comments!