Arius was an ascetic Christian presbyter of Libyan origins, and priest in Alexandria, Egypt, of the church of Baucalis. His teachings about the nature of the Godhead, which emphasized the Father's divinity over the Son, and his opposition t...

Saint Nicholas of Myra (traditionally 15 March 270 – 6 December 343), also known as Nicholas of Bari, was an early Christian bishop of Greek descent from the maritime city of Myra in Asia Minor (modern-day Demre, Turkey) during the time of...

Constantine, The Great was the 57th Emperor of the Roman Empire from 306, and the sole holder of that office from 324 until his death in 337. Best known for being the first Christian Roman emperor, Constantine reversed the persecutions of h...

Flavius Valerius Leo (401–18 January 474), known in English as Leo the Thracian or Leo I, was a Byzantine Emperor who ruled from 457 to 474. He was known as Magnus Thrax (the "Great Thracian") by his supporters, and Macellus ("the Butcher")...

Attila the Hun was the Emperor of the Huns from 434 until his death in 453. He was leader of the Hunnic Empire which stretched from Germany to the Ural River and from the River Danube to the Baltic Sea. During his rule, he was one of the mo...

Flavius Odoacer, was a soldier, who in 476 became the first King of Italy (476–493). His reign is commonly seen as marking the end of the Western Roman Empire. Though the real power in Italy was in his hands, he represented himself as the c...

Theoderic the Great, often referred to as Theodoric, was king of the Germanic Ostrogoths (475–526), ruler of Italy (493–526), regent of the Visigoths (511–526), and a patricius of the Eastern Roman Empire. His Gothic name translates into "p...

Dionysius Exiguus has left his mark conspicuously, for it was he who introduced the use of the Christian Era according to which dates are reckoned from the Incarnation, which he assigned to 25 March, in the year 754 from the foundation of R...

Narses was, with Belisarius, one of the great generals in the service of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I during the "Reconquest" that took place during Justinian's reign. Narses was a Romanized Armenian from the noble Kamsarakan family, w...

Justinian I, commonly known as Justinian the Great, was East Roman (Byzantine) Emperor from 527 to 565. During his reign, Justinian sought to revive the empire's greatness and reconquer the lost western half of the classical Roman Empire. O...

Cassiodorus was a Roman statesman, great writer and (later) monk, serving in the administration of Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostrogoths. He spent his career trying to bridge the cultural divides that were fragmenting the 6th century,...

Theodora was empress of the Byzantine Empire and the wife of Emperor Justinian I. Like her husband, she is a saint in the Orthodox Church, commemorated on the 14th of November. Theodora was perhaps the most influential and powerful woman in...

Totila was king of the Ostrogoths from 541 until his death. He waged the Gothic War against the Byzantine Empire for the mastery of Italy. Most of the historical evidence for Totila consists of chronicles by the Byzantine historian Procopiu...

Procopius of Caesarea was a prominent Byzantine scholar from Palestine. Accompanying the general Belisarius in the wars of the Emperor Justinian I, he became the principal historian of the 6th century, writing the Wars of Justinian, the Bui...

Flavius Belisarius was one of the greatest generals of the Byzantine Empire. He was instrumental to Emperor Justinian I's ambitious project of reconquering much of the old Western Roman Empire, which had been lost just under a century previ...