Paul ( la, Paulus; grc-gre, Παύλος, Paúlos; before 717/18 – 726/27) was a senior

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

official under

Leo III the Isaurian Leo III the Isaurian ( gr, Λέων ὁ Ἴσαυρος, Leōn ho Isauros; la, Leo Isaurus; 685 – 18 June 741), also known as the Syrian, was Byzantine Emperor from 717 until his death in 741 and founder of the Isaurian dynasty. He put an e ...

, serving as the '' strategos'' of

Sicily (man) it, Siciliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Ethnicity , demographics1_footnotes = , demographi ...

, and then as the

Exarch of Ravenna The Exarchate of Ravenna ( la, Exarchatus Ravennatis; el, Εξαρχάτο της Ραβέννας) or of Italy was a lordship of the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine Empire) in Italy, from 584 to 751, when the last exarch was put to death by the ...

from 723 until his death.

Life

Paul is first mentioned in 717/18.

Theophanes the Confessor Theophanes the Confessor ( el, Θεοφάνης Ὁμολογητής; c. 758/760 – 12 March 817/818) was a member of the Byzantine aristocracy who became a monk and chronicler. He served in the court of Emperor Leo IV the Khazar before taking ...

calls him the private ''

chartoularios The ''chartoularios'' or ''chartularius'' ( el, χαρτουλάριος), Anglicized as chartulary, was a late Roman and Byzantine administrative official, entrusted with administrative and fiscal duties, either as a subaltern official of a depar ...

'' of Emperor

, while Patriarch Nikephoros I of Constantinople calls him a loyal and close confidant ('' oikeios'') of Leo's, and that he was experienced in military matters. As a result, when the governor ('' strategos'') of

Sicily (man) it, Siciliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Ethnicity , demographics1_footnotes = , demographi ...

, Sergios, driven by a false message that

Constantinople la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه , alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth (Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya (Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis (" ...

had fallen to the Arabs, declared a rival emperor in the person of

Basil Onomagoulos Basil Onomagoulos ( el, ) was a Byzantine official who was declared rival emperor in Sicily in 717, taking the regnal name Tiberius. Basil was from Constantinople, the son of a certain Gregory Onomagoulos. In 717 he was a member of the entourage o ...

, Leo named him as Sergios' replacement and sent him to Sicily to restore control. It was probably on this occasion that he was raised to the rank of '' patrikios'', although Patriarch Nikephoros implies that he already held the title. He is commonly held to have been the same as the Paul appointed as

in , and consequently to have held the office of ''strategos'' of Sicily continuously until then. Although both suppositions are likely, neither is certain. If the identification is true, then Paul was responsible for the defeat of an Arab attack on the island in 720/21. As exarch, he had to face the resistance of the local inhabitants, led by Pope Gregory II, to the high taxation demanded by Leo. According to the '' Liber Pontificalis'', the Emperor ordered Paul to either kill or imprison the Pope, but both failed and led to a renewed wave of rebellion against imperial authority in Italy; the Pope even anathematized Paul. In 726/27, the Ravenna itself rose in revolt, denouncing both Exarch Paul and Emperor Leo III, and overthrew those officers who remained loyal. Paul rallied the loyalist forces and attempted to restore order, but was killed. The armies discussed electing their own emperor and marching on

, but when they sought the advice of the Pope, he dissuaded them from acting against the sitting emperor. According to

Roberto Cessi Roberto Cessi (20 August 1885 – 19 January 1969) was an Italian historian and politician, specializing in Venetian history. Biography He was born in Rovigo, to painter Riccardo Cessi and Clementina Moretti. He studied at the University of Padu ...

, the person that John the Deacon's chronicle gave as the first doge of Venice,

Paolo Lucio Anafesto Paolo Lucio Anafesto ( la, Paulucius Anafestus) was, according to tradition, the first Doge of Venice, serving from 697 to 717. He is known for repelling Umayyad attacks. Biography A noble of Eraclea, then the primary city of the region, he was ...

, was actually the Exarch Paul. It is thought that this doge was a fictive invention extracted from a source John used to make this claim. Paul's ''

magister militum (Latin for "master of soldiers", plural ) was a top-level military command used in the later Roman Empire, dating from the reign of Constantine the Great. The term referred to the senior military officer (equivalent to a war theatre commander, ...

'', Marcellus Tegallianus was given as the second doge and this is thought to be part of the same fictive elaboration. More recent historians think that this Paul was a Lombard duke, probably the duke of Treviso.Pazienza, A., "Archival Documents and Narrative", in Gelichi S. and Gasparri S. (eds), ''Venice and its Neighbours from the 8th to the 11th century'', 2017, p. 43

References

Sources

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Paul 727 deaths Byzantine governors of Sicily 8th-century exarchs of Ravenna Patricii Year of birth unknown Leo III the Isaurian