Pope Stephen III
720 CE–772 CE · Syracuse (Sicily)
A Sicilian-born monk who rose through the Roman clergy, Stephen III came to the throne after the violent, disputed reign of the antipope Constantine II, whose backers had seized power by force. A Roman synod in 769 annulled Constantine's acts and tightened rules for papal elections, restricting them to the cardinal clergy and barring laymen—an important step in disentangling the papacy from aristocratic and military factions. Stephen's pontificate was buffeted by Lombard intrigue and shifting Frankish politics under Charlemagne and Carloman. His reign illustrates the turbulence and factional violence that increasingly surrounded eighth-century papal successions.
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Syracuse (Sicily)Magna Graecia
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About Syracuse (Sicily)
Syracuse is a city on the southeastern coast of Sicily, Italy. Founded by colonists from Corinth around 733 BCE it became one of the largest cities of the Greek world, resisting both Athens and Carthage. Plato visited three times, hoping to influence its rulers Dionysius I and II, and the comic poet Epicharmus and the pastoral poet Theocritus are associated with it. The mathematician Archimedes was killed when Rome took the city in 212 BCE, after which it became the capital of Roman Sicily. According to the Book of Acts, Paul stayed there for three days, and its early Christian catacombs survive. It was briefly the Byzantine capital (663-668) before the Arab conquest of 878.
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