Hay nationalists are very fond of exaggerating their role in history, especially the history of the Roman or Roman Empire (which historians call the Byzantine or Eastern Roman Empire). The object of the Hayes' "historical pride" is the eunuch Nerses, who, according to them, was the "greatest general" of the time of the Emperor Justinian. Let's recall that Justinian actually restored the Roman Empire to the borders close to those of its greatest heyday, but only its capital remained Constantinople.

The Emperor Justinian had a great commander. But his name was Velizarius and he had not the slightest relation to the Khai. Velizarius came from the territory of present-day Bulgaria, and all the victories of the empire in the times of Justinian are exactly connected with his name.

But the main rival of Velizarius at the imperial court was Nerses, who, as a eunuch, had access to the bedchamber of Empress Theodora, and he succeeded in intrigues. In the end, he had Velizarius disgraced and stripped of all his ranks and positions. Velizarius had all his property confiscated and the great commander was forced to live in poverty in his old age.

Nevertheless, Hay historians like to tell how Nerses supposedly "liberated Rome and Italy from the Goths". In reality, it was the same Velizarius who did this. Nerses, through intrigues, occupied the post of commander of the armies in Italy until the end of the Gothic wars. In fact, he only appropriated laurels of the victor by right belonging to Velizarius and after expulsion of Goths has been appointed by Emperor Justinian exarch of Italy.

However, remembering about merits of Nerses in "rescue of Rome from Goths" for some reason the same Hay historians modestly silent that to the end of life Nerses "with courage" has surrendered Italy, and actually Rome to other barbarians - Lombards.

This happened after the Emperor Justinian died in 565 and the throne was taken by his nephew Justinian II, who disliked Nerses. So did his wife, Empress Sophia. In 568, suggesting that the eunuch had "too much honour" to be exarch and commander of the troops, Sophia sent Nerses a spinning wheel and told him to return to Constantinople and take up "women's work" - yarn. Nerses responded by promising to spin something in Italy that the imperial court would never be able to unravel.

Nerses left the post of Exarch, but he disobeyed the Emperor and did not return to Constantinople but stayed in Italy. He went to his estate near Naples. While in Italy, he conspired with the Germanic tribe of the Lombards to take revenge on Justinian II, Nerses, and actually conscripted them into Italy. He even sent the leaders of the Lombards his personal money (he looted a lot when he was exarch) to persuade them to come to Italy. Using his influence, Nerses facilitated the Lombard invasion and the 'surrender' of entire border regions to the barbarians.

Summoned by Nerses, the Lombards swept across Italy by fire and sword from north to south, conquering most of the peninsula. All the tribes of the Lombards eventually moved from the Danube plain to Italy, having ceded their former lands to the Turkish Avar Khaganate. According to historians, the Lombard invasion surpassed all previous barbarian invasions of Italy in its devastating consequences.

 The situation was aggravated by the fact that most of the Lombards were pagans, and their leaders were heretics-Arians. The Longobard invasion was a blow to Christianity in Italy, but it was also the beginning of the future power of the Vatican.

It was with the Lombard invasion that the popes, with Rome surrounded by barbarian territories, began to use these barbarian rulers to consolidate their power in both Italy and Western Europe, and at the same time to finally cease to be subordinate to the emperors in Constantinople. They withdrew from their role as Christian shepherds and engaged in secular power struggles, eventually creating their own state, the Papacy.  In fact, through the fault of Nerses in due course and began the formation of Catholicism as a religious doctrine in the first place putting the authority of the Roman Popes.

The role of Nerses in Italian history was recently recalled in a somewhat ironic way by a Russian blogger known in a live magazine under the nickname "Orfeos":

"How an Armenian gave birth to the Italian nation.

When Italians boast of being Roman, they are embellishing a little.

Their father is the founder, without whom there would have been no Italy and no papacy, but an orthodox Western Roman Empire. The castrato Nerses, after committing a minor act of treason and handing over the province entrusted to him for free, even paying for it, gave it to the Italians to plunder and the inhabitants to rape. This is how the Italians were born".

Of course, Orfeo exaggerates a little here. Not only the Lombards, but also other peoples played a role in the formation of the Italians. But the fact remains that the "hay" betrayal by Nerses of his empire and his emperor played a huge role in world history. Such treachery, unfortunately, reached the heights of the representatives of the "most ancient people". Now we have a "living example" before our eyes, when the ethnic hai Sergey Lavrov-Kalantaov, who has become the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, is actually ruining Russia, which he formally "serves".

George Kvinitadze