Pejorative connotations of the ethnonym “Syrian” in some 9th century Byzantine literary works
Level 5 - mechanism / opinion, no new human data
Historical and philological textual analysis (by design analogy, not clinical CEBM)
OpenAlex W3174560599 · doi:10.30842/ielcp230690152401
What was done
The author analyzed 9th-century Byzantine literary and historical sources (including the reception chain from the lost *Historia Leonis et Constantini*, Theophanes the Confessor, and George the Monk) to examine how ethnic stereotypes and the ethnonym "Syrian" were used against the Iconoclast "Isaurian" imperial dynasty, particularly Leo III and Constantine V.
What was found
The abstract provides no quantitative metrics. Orthodox opponents of the Iconoclast emperors avoided the classical antique stereotype of the "cunning Syrian" (πανοῦργος) and instead linked the ethnonym to Monophysite heresies (such as Jacobites and Theopaschites), an association reinforced by Constantine V's historical resettlement of Syrian Monophysites to Thrace.
Why it matters
It demonstrates how Byzantine polemicists adapted ethnic slurs for theological controversies, shifting the connotation of an ethnonym from secular behavioral tropes to religious heresy during the Iconoclast crisis.
Limits
The study is a qualitative textual analysis limited to a small selection of surviving 9th-century Greek chronicles and lost source reconstructions. The provided abstract ends mid-sentence, omitting the complete concluding synthesis of George the Monk's reception.
Cited by
- supports Following the defense of Constantinople during the second Arab siege, Leo III ruled for over twenty years and established the Isaurian dynasty with his son, despite the family not actually originating from Isauria.