The Military Use of the Icon of the Theotokos and its Moral Logic in the Historians of the Ninth-Twelfth Centuries
Anthony Kaldellis (Department of Classics ? The Ohio State University)
Estudio bizantinos: 1 (2013) 56-75
Abstract
Starting at least by the late tenth century, Byzantine emperors took icons of the Mother of God with them on campaign. This article examines the appearance of such icons in the narratives of historical texts. It argues that the intercessory role of the icon in these episodes adhered distantly to the moral logic that determined the Virgin?s salvation of the City in the siege of 626, but was turned by each historian to serve the critical or panegyrical goals of his own work, often with an ironic effect. The emperor and the Virgin could not share the same stage as equal protagonists.
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