CHAPTER IV

STATE OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE DURING THE ICONOCLAST PERIOD

 

Sect. I

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION DIPLOMATIC AND COMMERCIAL RELATIONS

 

 

IN ancient times, when the civilization of the Greek people had attained its highest degree of moral culture, the Hellenic race was assailed almost simultaneously by the Persians, Carthaginians, and Tyrrhenians. The victories obtained over these enemies are still regarded as the triumphs on which the political civilization of Europe, and of the great dwelling-place of liberty beyond the Atlantic, is based. The age of Leo the Isaurian found the government of the Byzantine Empire in a position not very dissimilar from that of the Greek race in the time of Miltiades. The Athenian people fought for the political progress of human civilization on the plain of Marathon. Leo battled for the empire of law and administration behind the walls of Constantinople; the victory of Miltiades secured only one hundred and fifty years of liberty to the Greeks, that of the Iconoclast gave nearly five centuries of despotic power to a system hostile to the development of the human intellect. The voice of fame has conferred immortal glory on the doubtful virtues of the Athenian general, and treated with neglect the profound statesmanship of the stern Isaurian sovereign; and it has done so not unjustly, for the gratitude of all succeeding ages is due to those who extend the political ideas of mankind, whereas those who only preserve property must be satisfied with the applause of the proprietors. Nevertheless the Iconoclast period of Byzantine history presents a valuable study to the historian, both in what it did and what it left undone in the greatness of the Imperial administration, and the littleness of the people who were its subjects.

The Byzantine Empire passed through a more dangerous ordeal than classic Greece, inasmuch as patriotism is a surer national bulwark than mechanical administration. The struggle for the preservation of Constantinople from the Saracens awakens no general feelings and noble aspirations; it only teaches those who examine history as political philosophers, what social and administrative tendencies a free people ought carefully to avoid. On this subject the scanty annals of the Greek people, as slaves of the Byzantine emperors, though far from an attractive chapter in history, are filled with much premonitory instruction for nations in an advanced social condition.

Neither the emperors of Constantinople, though they styled themselves Emperors of the Romans, nor their subjects, though calling themselves Roman citizens, sought at this period to identify themselves with the reminiscences of the earlier Roman Empire. The Romans of Italy and the Greeks of Hellas had both now fallen very low in public opinion. Constantinople, as a Christian capital, claimed to be the mistress of a new world, and the emperors of the East considered themselves masters of all the territories of pagan Rome, because the dominion over all Christians was a right inherent in the emperor of the orthodox. But Constantinople was founded as an antagonist to old Rome, and this antagonism has always been a portion of its existence. As a Christian city, its church and its ecclesiastical language always stood in opposition to the church and ecclesiastical language of Rome. The thoughts of the one were never transferred in their pure conception to the mind of the other. For several centuries Latin was the language of the court, of the civil government, and of the higher ranks of society at Constantinople. In the time of Leo III, and during the Byzantine Empire, Greek was the language of the administration and the people, as well as of the church, but we are not to suppose, from that circumstance, that the inhabitants of the city considered themselves as Greeks by descent. Even by the populace the term would have been looked upon as one of reproach, applicable as a national appellation only to the lower orders of society in the Hellenic themes. The people of Constantinople, and of the Byzantine Empire at large, in their civil capacity, were Romans, and in their religious, orthodox Christians; in no social relation, whether of race or nationality, did they consider themselves Greeks.

At the time of the succession of Leo III, the Hellenic race occupied a very subordinate position in the empire. The predominant influence in the political administration was in the hands of Asiatics, and particularly of Armenians, who filled the highest military commands. The family of Leo the Isaurian was said to be of Armenian descent; Nicephorus I was descended from an Arabian family; Leo V was an Armenian; Michael II, the founder of the Amorian dynasty, was of a Phrygian stock. So that for a century and a half, the Empress Irene appears to be the only sovereign of pure Greek blood who occupied the imperial throne, though it is possible that Michael Rhangabé was an Asiatic Greek. Of the numerous rebels who assumed the title of Emperor, the greater part were Armenians. Indeed, Kosmas, who was elected by the Greeks when they attacked Constantinople in the year 727, was the only rebel of the Greek nation who attempted to occupy the throne for a century and a half. Artabasdos, who rebelled against his brother-in-law, Constantine V, was an Armenian. Alexis Mousel, strangled by order of Constantine VI in the year 790; Bardan, called the Turk, who rebelled against Nicephorus I; Arsaber, the father-in-law of Leo V, convicted of treason in 808; and Thomas, who revolted against Michael II, were all Asiatics, and most of them Armenians. Another Alexis Mousel, who married Maria, the favourite daughter of Theophilus; Theophobos, the brother-in-law of the same emperor; and Manuel, who became a member of the council of regency at his death, were likewise of foreign Asiatic descent. Many of the Armenians in the Byzantine Empire at this time belonged to the oldest and most illustrious families of the Christian world, and their connection with the remains of Roman society at Constantinople, in which the pride of birth was cherished, is a proof that Asiatic influence had eclipsed Roman and Greek in the government of the empire. Before this happened the Roman aristocracy transplanted to Constantinople must have become nearly extinct. The names which appear as belonging to the aristocracy of Constantinople, when it became thoroughly Greek, make their first appearance under the Iconoclasts; and the earliest are those of Doukas, Skleros, and Melissenos. The order introduced into society by the political and ecclesiastical reforms of Leo III, gave a permanence to high birth and great wealth, which constituted henceforth a claim to high office. A degree of certainty attended the transmission of all social advantages which never before existed in the Roman Empire. This change would alone establish the fact that the reforms of Leo III had rendered life and property more secure, and consequently circumscribed the arbitrary power of preceding emperors by stricter forms of administrative and legal procedure. An amusing instance of the influence of aristocratic and Asiatic prejudices at Constantinople, will appear in the eagerness displayed by Basil I, a Slavonian groom from Macedonia, to claim descent from the Armenian royal family. The defence of this absurd pretension is given by his grandson, Constantine VII (Porphyrogenitus.)

It is difficult to draw an exact picture of the Byzantine government at this period, for facts can easily be collected, which, if viewed in perfect isolation, would, according to our modern ideas, warrant the conclusion, either that it was a tyrannical despotism, or a mild legal monarchy. The personal exercise of power by the emperor, in punishing his officers with death and stripes, without trial, and his constant interference with the administration of justice, contrast strongly with the boldness displayed by the monks and clergy in opposing his power. In order to form a correct estimate of the real position occupied by the Byzantine empire in the progressive improvement of the human race, it is necessary to compare it, on one hand, with the degraded Roman empire which it replaced; and on the other with the arbitrary government of the Mohammedans, and the barbarous administration of the northern nations, which it resisted. The regularity of its civil, financial, and judicial administration, the defensive power of its military and naval establishments, are remarkable in an age of temporary measures and universal aggression. The state of education and the moral position of the clergy certainly offer favourable points of comparison, even with the brilliant empires of Haroun Al Rashid and Charlemagne. On the other hand, fiscal rapacity was the incurable canker of the Byzantine, as it had been of the Roman government. From it arose all those precautionary measures which reduced society to a stationary condition. No class of men was invested with a constitutional or legal authority to act as defenders of the people’s rights against the fiscality of the imperial administration. Insurrection, rebellion, and revolution were the only means of obtaining either reform or justice, when the interests of the treasury were concerned. Yet even in this branch of its administration no other absolute government ever displayed equal prudence and honesty. Respect for the law was regarded by the emperors as self-respect; and the power possessed by the clergy, who in some degree participated in popular feelings, contributed to temper and restrain the exercise of arbitrary rule.

Yet the Byzantine Empire, however superior it might be to contemporary governments, presents points of resemblance, which prove that the social condition of its population was in no inconsiderable degree affected by some general causes operating on the general progress of human civilization in the East and the West. The seventh century was a period of disorganization in the Eastern Empire, and of anarchy in all the kingdoms formed out of the provinces of the Western. Even throughout the dominions of the Saracens, in spite of the power and energy of the central administration of the caliphs, the nations under its rule were in a declining state.

The first step towards the constitution of modern society, which renders all equal in the eye of the law, was made at Constantinople about the commencement of the eighth century. The reign of Leo III opens a new social era for mankind, as well as for the Eastern Empire; for when he reorganised the frame of Roman society, he gave it the seeds of the peculiar features of modern times. Much of this amelioration is, without doubt, to be attributed to the abilities of the Iconoclast emperors; but something may be traced to the infusion of new vigour into society from popular feelings, of which it is difficult to trace the causes or the development. The Byzantine Empire, though it regained something of the old Roman vigour at the centre of its power, was unable to prevent the loss of several provinces; and Basil I succeeded to an empire of smaller extent than Leo III, although to one that was far richer and more powerful. The exarchate of Ravenna, Rome, Crete, and Sicily had passed under the dominion of hostile states. Venice had become completely independent. On the other hand it must be remembered, that In 717 the Saracens occupied the greater part of Asia Minor and Cyprus, from both which they had been almost entirely expelled before 867. The only conquest of which the emperors of Constantinople could boast was the complete subjugation of the allied city of Cherson to the central administration. Cherson had hitherto enjoyed a certain degree of political independence which had for centuries secured its commercial prosperity. Its local freedom was destroyed in the time of Theophilus, who sent his brother-in-law Petronas to occupy it with an army, and govern it as an Imperial province. The power of the emperor was, however, only momentarily increased by the destruction of the liberties of Cherson; the city fell rapidly from the degree of wealth and energy which had enabled it to afford military aid to Constantine the Great, and to resist the tyranny of Justinian II, and lost much of its commercial importance.

Historians generally speak of the Byzantine Empire at this period as if it had been destitute of military power. Events as far removed from one another, in point of time, as our own misfortunes in India at the Black Hole of Calcutta, and the massacre of Kabul, are cited to prove that the Byzantine government was incapable, and the Byzantine army feeble and unwarlike. The truth is this, the Byzantine Empire was a highly civilised society, and consequently its tendencies were essentially defensive when those of the rest of the world were aggressive. The Saracens, Franks, and Bulgarians were nations devoted to war, and yet the Byzantine Empire effectually resisted and long outlived these empires of warriors. No contemporary government possessed a permanent military establishment so perfectly organised as the emperor of Constantinople, nor could any bring into the field, on a sudden exigency, a better appointed army. The caliphs had the power of deluging the frontier provinces with larger bodies of light troops than could be prevented from plundering the country, for the imperial armies were compelled to act on the defensive in order to secure the fortified towns, and defensive warfare can rarely protect all the assailable points of an extensive frontier. Whole provinces were therefore often laid waste and depopulated; yet, under the Iconoclast emperors, the Byzantine territories increased in prosperity. The united attacks of the Saracens, Bulgarians, and Franks inflicted trifling evils on the Byzantine Empire, compared with what the predatory incursions of small bands of Normans inflicted on the empire of the successors of Charlemagne, or the incessant rebellions and civil wars on the dominions of the caliphs.

The Saracens devoted all the immense wealth of their empire to their military establishment, and they were certainly more formidable enemies to the Byzantine emperors than the Parthians had been to the Romans; yet the emperors of Constantinople resisted these powerful enemies most successfully. The Saracen troops were no way inferior to the Byzantine in arms, discipline, artillery, and military science; their cavalry was mailed from head to foot, each horseman bearing a lance, a scimitar, and a bow slung over his shoulder. Their discipline was of the strictest land, and their armies moved not only with catapultas and military engines for field service, but also with all the materials and machines requisite for besieging cities. Under Kassim a band of six thousand men ventured to invade India; yet the caliphs never thought of encountering the Byzantine army unless with immense numbers of their chosen warriors; and they sustained more signal defeats from the emperors of Constantinople than from all the other enemies they encountered together. The bloody contests and hard-fought battles with the armies of the caliphs in Asia Minor, entitle the Byzantine army to rank for several centuries as one of the best the world has ever seen.

The Bulgarians were likewise dangerous enemies. Their continual wars gave them no mean knowledge of military science; and the individual soldiers, from their habits of life, possessed the greatest activity and powers of endurance. In the wars at the end of the eighth and the beginning of the ninth centuries they fought completely armed in steel, and possessed military engines of every kind then known. We have the testimony of a Byzantine writer, that the armies of Crumn were supplied with every warlike machine discovered by the engineering knowledge of the Romans.

In all the scientific departments of war, in the application of mechanical and chemical skill to the art of destruction, and in the construction of engines for the attack and defence of fortresses, there can be no doubt that the Byzantine engineers were no way inferior to the Roman; for in the arsenals of Constantinople, the workmen and the troops had been uninterruptedly employed from generation to generation in executing and improving the same works. Only one important invention seems to have been made, which changed, in some degree, the art of defence on shore, and of attack at sea: this was the discovery of Greek fire, and the method of launching it to a certain distance from brazen tubes.

The aristocracy of the Byzantine Empire, though not exclusively devoted to war, like the nobility of other contemporary nations, was still deeply imbued with the military spirit. No people can boast of a greater number of warlike sovereigns than the Byzantine Empire, from the accession of Leo III to the death of Michael III. During this period of a century and a half, not one of the emperors failed to appear at the head of the army; and Leo III, Constantine V, Leo V, Michael II, and Theophilus, were experienced generals; the careless Constantine VI and the debauched Michael III appeared to greater advantage in the camp than in the capital; and it was only the weak, religious persecutor, Michael Rhangabé, who was absolutely contemptible as a soldier.

Amidst this military energy, nothing seems more remarkable than the indifference with which the loss of central Italy, and the islands of Crete and Sicily, was viewed by the Byzantine government. It would seem that the value of these distant provinces was estimated at Constantinople solely by the amount of revenue they produced to the imperial treasury, and that when the expenses of a province absorbed all its revenues, or its reconquest was found to entail a degree of outlay that was never likely to be repaid, the emperors were often indifferent at the loss.

The foundation of the Frank Empire by Charles Martel very nearly corresponds with the organization of the Byzantine by Leo III. The invasion of Italy by Pepin, A.D. 754, and the temporal authority conceded to the popes, compelled the Byzantine emperors to enter into negotiations with Charlemagne on a footing of equality. The importance of maintaining friendly relations with Constantinople is said by Eginhard to have influenced Charlemagne in affecting to receive the imperial crown from the Pope by surprise; he wished to be able to plead that his election as emperor of the West was unsought on his part. Interest silenced pride on both sides, and diplomatic relations were established between the two emperors of the East and the West; embassies and presents were sent from Constantinople to Charlemagne and his successors, treaties were concluded and the Byzantine government became in some degree connected with the international system of medieval Europe. The superiority still held by the court of Constantinople in public opinion, is manifest in the Greek salutations with which the Pope flattered Charlemagne at the commencement of his letters; yet Greek official salutations had only lately supplanted Latin at Constantinople itself.

The political alliances and diplomatic relations of the Byzantine court were very extensive; but the most important were those with the Khan of the Khazars, who ruled all the northern shores of the Caspian Sea, and with the Ommiad caliphs of Spain. Scandinavian ambassadors who had passed through Russia visited the splendid court of Theophilus; but their mission related rather to mercantile questions, or to the manner of furnishing recruits to the mercenary legions at Constantinople, than to political alliance.

The remarkable embassy of John the Grammarian, who was sent by Theophilus as ambassador to the Caliph Motassem, deserves particular notice, as illustrating the external character of Byzantine diplomacy. The avowed object of the mission was to conclude a treaty of peace, but the ambassador had secret instructions to employ every art of persuasion to induce Manuel, one of the ablest generals of the empire, who had distinguished himself greatly in the civil wars of the Saracens, to return to his allegiance. The personal qualities of John rendered him peculiarly well suited to this embassy. To great literary attainments he joined a degree of scientific knowledge, which gained him the reputation of a magician, and he was perfectly acquainted with the Arabic language. All these circumstances insured him a good reception at the court of Bagdad, which had been so lately and so long governed by the Caliph Almamun, one of the greatest encouragers of science and literature who ever occupied a throne. The Byzantine ambassador was equally celebrated for his knowledge of medicine, architecture, mechanics, mathematics, chemistry, astronomy, and astrology; and probably even the Caliph Motassem, though a free-thinker, and a disbeliever in the divine origin of the Koran, shared so much of the popular belief as to credit the tale that the learned Christian priest could read the secrets of futurity in a brazen basin, and felt great curiosity to converse with a man who possessed this rare gift of brazen magnetism.

On quitting Constantinople, John was furnished with the richest furniture, splendid carpets, damasked silk hangings, and plate chased and inlaid with the most beautiful ornaments, taken from the imperial palaces, to which was added 400 Ib. of gold for the current expenses of the embassy.

According to the usage of the East, the ambassador was lodged at Bagdad in a palace furnished by the caliph. The magnificent style in which the diplomatic priest installed himself in the apartments he reserved for his own use made a sensation at the court of Motassem, though many then living had witnessed the splendour of Haroun Al Rashid. This lavish display of wealth was better adapted to gratify the vanity of Theophilus than to advance the conclusion of a lasting peace. If we could place implicit confidence in the stories recorded by the Byzantine writers, of various tricks to which the ambassador resorted in order to augment the wonder of the Saracen nobles at the enormous wealth of the Christians, we should be inclined to question the judgment of John himself. His conduct could only have originated in personal pride; and the course attributed to him would have been more likely to excite the Mohammedans to active warfare, where they had prospect of plundering so rich an enemy, than of persuading them to conclude a treaty of peace.

One anecdote, dwelt on with peculiar satisfaction, deserves to be recorded. John possessed a splendid golden basin and ewer, richly chased and ornamented with jewels, and of this he made a great display. Throughout the East, and in many parts of European Turkey at the present day, where knives and forks are not yet in use, it is the practice to wash the hands immediately before commencing a meal, and on rising from the table. A servant pours water from a ewer over the hands of the guest, while another holds a basin to receive it as it falls. This, being done by each guest in turn, would leave ample time for observing the magnificent golden utensils of John at the entertainments he was in the habit of giving to the leading men in Bagdad. At a grand entertainment given by the Byzantine ambassador to the principal nobility of the caliph’s court, the slaves rushed into the hall where the guests were assembled, and informed John, in a state of great alarm, that his magnificent golden basin was not to be found. The Saracens eagerly suggested measures for its recovery; but John treated the affair with indifference, and calmly ordered his steward to give the slaves another. Soon two slaves appeared, one bearing in his hand a golden ewer, and the other a basin, larger and more valuable, if not more elegant, than that which it was supposed had been stolen. These had been hitherto kept concealed, on purpose to attract public attention by this pitiful trick.

John, however, gained the respect of the Saracens by his disinterested conduct, for he declined to receive any present of value for himself, even from the caliph. Motassem, therefore, presented him with a hundred Christian captives; but even then he sent immediately to Theophilus, to beg him to return a like number of Saracen prisoners to the caliph. No general exchange of prisoners, however, appears to have been effected at the time of this embassy, which, with other circumstances, affords a proof that the avowed object of the embassy totally failed. When John returned to Constantinople, he persuaded the Emperor Theophilus to construct the palace of Bryas in the varied style of Saracenic architecture, of which those who have seen the interior of the palaces at Damascus, or the work of Owen Jones on the Alhambra, can alone form an adequate idea.

The great wealth of the Byzantine government at this period derived from the commercial pre-eminence it then enjoyed among the nations of the earth. The commerce of Europe centred at Constantinople in the eighth and ninth centuries more completely than it has ever since done in any one city. The principles of the government, which reprobated monopoly, and the moderation of its duties, which repudiated privileges, were favourable to the extension of trade. While Charlemagne rained the internal trade of his dominions by fixing a maximum of prices, and destroyed foreign commerce under the persuasion that, by discouraging luxury, he could enable his subjects to accumulate treasures which he might afterwards extort or filch into his own treasury, Theophilus prohibited the persons about his court from engaging in mercantile speculations, lest by so doing they should injure the regular channels of commercial intercourse, by diminishing the profits of the individual dealer. Theophilus proclaimed that commerce was the principal source of the wealth of his people, and that as many derived their means of subsistence from trade, and drew from it alone the funds for payment of the public burdens, any interference with the liberty of commerce was a public as well as a private injury. The political importance of the commercial classes induced Irene, when she usurped the empire, to purchase their favour by diminishing the duties levied at the passages of the Bosphorus and the Hellespont.

During this period the western nations of Europe drew their supplies of Indian commodities from Constantinople, and the Byzantine Empire supplied them with all the gold coin in circulation for several centuries.

The Greek navy, both mercantile and warlike, was the most numerous then in existence. Against the merchantships of the Greeks, the piratical enterprises of the Egyptian, African, and Spanish Arabs were principally directed. Unfortunately we possess no authentic details of the commercial state of the Byzantine Empire, nor of the Greek population during the Iconoclast period, yet we may safely transfer to this time the records that exist proving the extent of the Greek commerce under the Basilian dynasty. Indeed, we may remember that, as the ignorance and poverty of Western Europe was much greater in the eleventh and twelfth centuries than in the eighth and ninth, we may conclude that Byzantine commerce was also greater.

The influence of the trade of the Arabians with the East Indies on the supply of the markets of Western Europe has been overrated, and that of the Greeks generally lost sight of. This is, in some degree, to be attributed to the circumstance that the most westerly nations, in the times preceding the Crusades, were better acquainted with the commerce and the literature of the Arabs of Spain than with that of the Byzantine Greeks, and also to the preservation of an interesting account of the extensive voyages of the Arabs in the Indian seas during this very period, when we are deprived of all records of Byzantine commerce. The Byzantine markets drew their supplies of Indian and Chinese productions from Central Asia, passing to the north of the caliph’s dominions through the territory of the Khazars to the Black Sea. This route was long frequented by the Christians, to avoid the countries in the possession of the Mohammedans, and was the highway of European commerce for several centuries. Though it appears at present a far more difficult and expensive route than that by the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, it was really safer, more rapid, and more economical, in the eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries. This requires no proof to those who are acquainted with caravan life in the East, and who reflect on the imperfections of ancient navigation, and the dangers which sailing vessels of any burden are exposed to in the Red Sea. When the Venetians and Genoese began to surpass the Greeks in commercial enterprise, they endeavoured to occupy this route; and we have some account of the line it followed, and the manner in which it was carried on, after the East had been thrown into confusion by the conquests of the Crusaders and Tartars, in the travels of Marco Polo. For several centuries the numerous cities of the Byzantine Empire supplied the majority of the European consumers with Indian wares, and it was in them alone that the necessary security of property existed to preserve large stores of merchandise. Constantinople was as much superior to every city in the civilized world, in wealth and commerce, as London now is to the other European capitals. And it must also be borne in mind, that the countries of Central Asia were not then in the rude and barbarous condition into which they have now sunk, since nomad nations have subdued them. On many parts of the road traversed by the caravans, the merchants found a numerous and wealthy population ready to traffic in many articles sought after both in the East and West; and the single commodity of furs supplied the traders with the means of adding greatly to their profits.

Several circumstances contributed to turn the great highway of trade from the dominions of the caliphs to Constantinople. The Mohammedan law, which prohibited all loans at interest, and the arbitrary nature of the administration of justice, rendered all property, and particularly commercial property, insecure. Again, the commercial route of the Eastern trade, by the way of Egypt and the Red Sea, was suddenly rendered both difficult and expensive, about the year 767, by the Caliph Al Mansur, who closed the canal connecting the Nile with the Red Sea. The harvests of Egypt, which had previously filled the coast of Arabia with plenty, could no longer be transported in quantity to the ports of the Red Sea; living became expensive; the population of Arabia declined; and the carrying trade was ruined by the additional expenditure required. The caliph certainly by this measure impoverished and depopulated the rebellious cities of Medina and Mecca to such a degree as to render their military and political power less dangerous to the central authority at Bagdad, but at the same time he ruined the commerce of Egypt with India and the eastern coast of Southern Africa. Since that period, this most important line of communication has never been restored, and the coarser articles of food, of which Egypt can produce inexhaustible stores, are deprived of their natural market in the arid regions of Arabia. The hostile relations between the caliphs of Bagdad and Spain likewise induced a considerable portion of the Mohammedan population on the shores of the Mediterranean to maintain close commercial relations with Constantinople.

A remarkable proof of the great wealth of society at this period is to be found in the immense amount of specie in circulation. We have already noticed that the Byzantine empire furnished all the western nations of Europe with gold coin for several centuries; and when the hoards of the Mohammedan conquerors of India fell a prey to European invaders, it was found that the gold coins of the Byzantine emperors formed no small part of their treasures. The sums accumulated by Al Mansur and Theophilus were so great, that no extortion could have collected them unless the people had been wealthy, and great activity had existed in the commercial transactions of the age. It is true that the Caliph Al Mansur was remarkable for his extreme parsimony during twelve years of his reign. During this period he is said to have accumulated a treasure amounting to six hundred millions of dirhems in silver, and fourteen millions of dinars of gold, or at the rate of 1,680,000 lb. a-year. The Emperor Theophilus, whose lavish expenditure in various ways has been recorded, left a large sum in the imperial treasury at his death, which, when increased by the prudent economy of the regency of Theodora, amounted to one thousand and ninety-nine centenaries of gold, three thousand centenaries of silver, besides plate and gold embroidery, that, on being melted down, yielded two hundred centenaries of gold. The gold may be estimated as equal to about four millions and a half of sovereigns, and the weight of silver as equal to 930,000 lb., and the remainder of the treasure as equal to 800,000 sovereigns, making the whole equal to a metallic coinage of 5,230,000 sovereigns, and of course far exceeding that sum in its exchangeable value, from the comparative scarcity of the precious metals, and the more circumscribed circulation of money. There does not appear to be any exaggeration in this account of the sums left in the Byzantine treasury at the termination of the regency of Theodora, for the historians who have transmitted it wrote under the government of the Basilian dynasty, and under circumstances which afforded access to official sources of information. The Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus, their patron, who lived in the third generation after Theodora, would not have authorized any misrepresentation on such a subject.

Some further confirmation of the general wealth of the countries on the shores of the Mediterranean, in which commerce was allowed some degree of liberty, is found in the wealth of Abderrahman III, in Spain, who is said to have possessed an annual revenue of 5,480,000 dinars, though some historians have calculated the whole income of his treasury at 12,945,000, which would be equal to 5,500,000 lb. sterling. The poverty of Europe at a later period, when the isolation caused by the feudal system had annihilated commerce and prevented the circulation of the precious metals, cannot be used as an argument against the probability of this wealth having existed at the earlier period of which we are treating.

In contrasting the state of commercial society in the Byzantine and Saracen empires, we must not overlook the existence of one social feature favourable to the Mohammedans. The higher classes of the Byzantine empire, imbued with the old Roman prejudices, looked on trade of every kind as a debasing pursuit, unsuitable to those who were called by birth or position to serve the state, while the Saracens still paid an outward respect to the antique maxims of Arabian wisdom, which inculcated industry as a source of independence even to men of the highest rank. In deference to this injunction, the Abassid caliphs were in the habit of learning some trade, and selling the product of their manual labour, to be employed in purchasing the food they consumed.

Perhaps we may also hazard the conjecture that a considerable addition had, shortly before the reign of Theophilus, been made to the quantity of precious metals in existence by the discovery of new mines. We know, indeed, that the Saracens in Spain worked mines of gold and silver to a considerable extent, and we may therefore infer that they did the same in many other portions of their vast dominions. At the same time, whatever was done with profit by the Saracens was sure to be attempted by the Christians under the Byzantine government. The abundance of Byzantine gold coins still in existence leads to the conclusion that gold was obtained in considerable quantities from mines within the circuit of the Eastern Empire.

 

Sect. II

STATE OF SOCIETY AMONG THE PEOPLE OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE IN THE EIGHTH AND NINTH CENTURIES

 

 

The wealth of nations depends in a great degree on their commerce, but the health and strength of a people is derived from its agricultural industry. The population which is pressed into large cities by commercial pursuits, or crowded into little space by manufacturing industry, even the wanderers with the caravan and the navigators of ships, rarely perpetuate their own numbers. All these hunters after riches require to be constantly recruited from the agricultural population of their respective countries. This constant change, which is going on in the population of cities, operates powerfully in altering the condition of society in each successive generation. Hence we find the nature of society in Constantinople strongly opposed to the principles of the Byzantine government. The imperial government, as has been already mentioned, inherited the conservative principles of Roman society, and, had it been possible, would have fettered the population to its actual condition, and reduced the people to castes. The laws of Providence opposed the laws of Rome, and society dwindled away. The ruling classes in the Western Empire had expired before their place was occupied by the conquering nations of the north. In the Eastern Empire, the change went on more gradually; the towns and cities were far more numerous, but many of them embraced within their own walls an agricultural population, which not only recruited the population engaged in trade, but also sent off continual colonies to maintain the great cities of the of the empire and especially Constantinople. This great capital, recruited from distant towns, and from nations dissimilar in manners and language, was consequently always undergoing great changes, yet always preserving its peculiar type of a city destitute of any decided nationality, and of homogeneity in its society. It became in turn a Roman, an Asiatic, and a Greek city, as the Roman, the Asiatic, or the Greek aristocracy acquired the predominant influence in the administration. Under the Iconoclasts, it was decidedly more an Asiatic city than either a Greek or a Roman. Whether the Asiatics, the Greeks, or the Slavonians formed the greater number of the inhabitants, cannot be ascertained. The aristocracy was certainly Asiatic, the middle classes and artisans were chiefly Greeks, but the lowest rabble, the day labourers, the porters, and the domestic servants, when not slaves, appear to have consisted principally of the Slavonians of Thrace and Macedonia, who, like the Emperor Basil the Macedonian, entered the city with a wallet on their shoulder to seek their fortune. A similar condition of society exists today, and thousands of labourers may be seen weekly arriving at Constantinople in the steamers from the Asiatic coast of the Black Sea, and from the coasts between Smyrna, Thessalonica, and the capital.

The causes of decline in society throughout the Roman world have been already noticed, and the nature of the improvement which took place In the Eastern Empire during the reigns of Leo III and his successors has been pointed out. It is now necessary to examine why the improvement of society so soon assumed a stationary aspect, and arrested the revival of civilization. We must not forget that the empire was still Roman in its name, traditions, and prejudices. The trammels, binding the actions and even the thoughts of the various classes, were very slightly relaxed, and the permanent relaxation had been made in the interest of the government, not of the people. Men of every rank were confined within a restricted circle, and compelled to act in their individual spheres in one unvarying manner. Within the imperial palace the incessant ceremonial was regarded as the highest branch of human knowledge. It was multiplied into a code, and treated as a science. In the church, tradition, not gospel, was the guide, and the innumerable forms and ceremonies and liturgies were hostile to the exercise of thought and the use of reason. Among the people at large, though the curial system of castes had been broken down, still the trader was fettered to his corporation, and often ta his quarter or his street, where he exercised his calling amidst men of the same profession. The education of the child, and the tendencies of society, both prevented the individual from acquiring more than the confined knowledge requisite for his position in the empire. No learning, no talent, and no virtue could conduct either to distinction or wealth, unless exercised according to the fixed formulas that governed the state and the church. Hence even the merchant, who travelled over all Asia, and who supported the system by the immense duties he furnished to government, supplied no new ideas to society, and perhaps passed through life without acquiring many.

This peculiar constitution of society affords us the explanation of the causes which have created some of the vices in the character of the Greeks of later times, which are erroneously supposed to be an inheritance of the days of liberty. The envy and jealousy produced by party contests, in small cities acting as independent governments, was certainly very great, and, we may add, quite natural, where men were violent from their sincerity, and political institutions rendered law imperfect. The envy and jealousy of modern times were baser feelings, and had their origin in meaner interests. Roman society crowded men of the same professions together, and in some measure excluded them from much intercourse with others. The consequence was, that a most violent struggle for wealth, and often for the means of existence, was created amongst those living in permanent personal contact. Every man was deeply interested in rendering himself superior to his nearest neighbour; and as the fixed condition of everything in the empire rendered individual progress unattainable, the only method of obtaining any superiority was by the depreciation of the moral or professional character of a rival, who was always a near neighbour. Envy and calumny were the feelings of the mind which Roman society under the emperors tended to develop with efficacy in every rank. The same cause produces the same effect in the Greek bazaar of every Turkish town of the present day, where tradesmen of the same profession are crowded into the same street. When it is impossible to depreciate the merit of the material and the workmanship, it is easy to calumniate the moral character of the workman.

The influence of the Greek Church on the political fabric of the empire had been long in operation, yet it had failed to infuse a sound moral spirit into either the administration or the people. Still it may be possible to trace some of the secondary causes which prepared the way for the reforms of Leo III to the sense of Justice, moral respect, and real religious faith, infused into the mass of the population by a comparison of the doctrines of Christianity with those of Mohammedanism. But the blindness of the age has concealed from our view many of the causes which impelled society to co-operate with the Iconoclast emperors in their career of improvement and reorganization. That the moral condition of the people of the Byzantine empire under the Iconoclast emperors was superior to that of any equal number of the human race in any preceding period, can hardly be doubted. The bulk of society occupied a higher social position in the time of Constantine Copronymus than of Pericles; the masses had gained more by the decrease of slavery and the extension of free labour than the privileged citizens had lost. Public opinion, though occupied on meaner objects, had a more extended basis, and embraced a larger class. Perhaps, too, the war of opinions concerning ecclesiastical forms or subtleties tended to develop pure morality as much as the ambitious party-struggles of the Pynx. When the merits and defects of each age are fairly weighed, both will be found to offer lessons of experience which the student of political history ought not to neglect.

There may be some difference of opinion concerning the respective merits of Hellenic Roman, and Byzantine society, but there can be none concerning the superiority of Byzantine over that which existed in the contemporary empires of the Saracens and the Franks. There we find all moral restraints weakened, and privileged classes or conquering nations ruling an immense subject population, with very little reference to law, morality, or religion. Violence and injustice claimed at Bagdad an unbounded license, until the Turkish mercenaries extinguished the caliphate, and it was the Norman invaders who reformed the social condition of the Franks. Mohammedanism legalised polygamy with all its evils in the East. In the West, licentiousness was unbounded, in defiance of the precepts of Christianity. Charles Martel, Pepin, and Charlemagne are said all to have had two wives at a time, and a numerous household of concubines. But on turning to the Byzantine Empire, we find that the Emperor Constantine VI prepared the way for his own ruin by divorcing his first wife and marrying a second, in what was considered an illegal manner. The laws of the Franks attest the frequency of female drunkenness; and the whole legislation of Western Europe, during the seventh and eighth centuries, indicates great Immorality, and a degree of social anarchy, which explains more clearly than the political events recorded in history, the real cause of the fall of one government after another. The superior moral tone of society in the Byzantine Empire was one of the great causes of its long duration; it was its true conservative principle.

The authority exercised by the senate, the powers possessed by synods and general councils of the church, and the importance often attached by the emperors to the ratification of their laws by silentia and popular assemblies, mark a change in the Byzantine empire In strong contrast with the earlier military empire of the Romans. The highest power in the state had been transferred from the army to the laws of the empire no inconsiderable step in the progress of political civilization. The influence of those feelings of humanity which resulted from this change, are visible in the mild treatment of many unsuccessful usurpers and dethroned emperors. During the reign of Nicephorus I, the sons of Constantine V, Bardanes, and Arsaber, were all living in monasteries, though they had all attempted to occupy the throne. Constantine VI, and Michael I lived unmolested by their successors.

The marked feature of ancient society was the division of mankind into two great classes: freemen and slaves. The proportion between these classes was liable to continual variation, and every considerable variation produced a corresponding alteration in the laws of society, which we are generally unable to follow. The progress of the mass of the population was, however, constantly retarded until the extinction of slavery. But towards that boon to mankind, great progress was made in the Byzantine Empire during the eighth and ninth centuries. The causes that directly tended to render free labour more profitable than it had been hitherto, when applied to the cultivation of the soil, and which consequently operated more immediately in extinguishing predial slavery, and repressing the most extensive branch of the slave-trade, by supplying the cities with free emigrants, cannot be indicated with precision. It has been very generally asserted that we ought to attribute the change to the influence of the Christian religion. If this be really true, cavillers might observe that so powerful a cause never in any other case produced its effects so tardily. Unfortunately, however, though ecclesiastical influence has exercised immense authority over the internal policy of European society, religious influence has always been comparatively small; and though Christianity has laboured to abolish slavery, it was often for the interest of the church to perpetuate the institution. Slavery had, in fact, ceased to exist in most European countries, while many Christians still upheld its legality and maintained that its existence was not at variance with the doctrines of their religion.

The precise condition of slaves in the Byzantine Empire at this period must be learned from a careful study of the imperial legislation of Rome, compared with later documents. As a proof of the improved philanthropy of enlightened men during the Iconoclast period, the testament of Theodore Studita deserves to be quoted. That bold and independent abbot says: “A monk ought not to possess a slave, neither for his own service, nor for the service of his monastery, nor for the culture of its lands; for a slave is a man made after the image of God”; but he derogates in some degree from his own merits, though he gives a correct picture of the feelings of his time, by adding, “and this, like marriage, is only allowable in those living a secular life”.

The foundation of numerous hospitals, and other charitable institutions, both by emperors and private individuals, is also a proof that feelings of philanthropy as well as religion had penetrated deeply into men’s minds.

The theological spirit which pervaded Byzantine society is to be attributed as much to material causes as to the intellectual condition of the Greek nation. Indeed, the Greeks had at times only a secondary share in the ecclesiastical controversies in the Eastern Church; though the circumstance of those controversies having been carried on in the Greek language has made the nations of western Europe attribute them to a philosophic, speculative, and polemic spirit inherent in the Hellenic mind. A very slight examination of history is sufficient to prove, that several of the heresies which disturbed the Eastern church had their origin in the more profound religious Ideas of the Oriental nations, and that many of the opinions called heretical were, in a great measure, expressions of the mental nationality of the Syrians, Armenians, Egyptians, and Persians, and had no connection whatever with the Greek mind.

Even the contest with the Iconoclasts was a dispute in which the ancient Oriental opinions concerning the operations of mind and matter were as much concerned, as the Greek contest between the necessity of artificial symbols of faith on the one hand, and the duty of developing the intellectual faculties by cultivating truth through the reason, not the Imagination, on the other. The ablest writer on the Greek side of the question, John Damascenus, was a Syrian, and not a Greek. The political struggle to establish the centralization of ecclesiastical and political power was likewise quite as important an element in the contest as the religious question; and as soon as it appeared firmly established, the emperors became much more inclined to yield to popular prejudices. The victory of the image worshippers tended to exalt a party in the Eastern Church devoted to ecclesiastical tradition, but little inclined to cultivate Hellenic literature or cherish Hellenic ideas, which it considered hostile to the legendary lore contained in the lives of the saints. From the victory of this party, accordingly, we find a more circumscribed circle of intellectual culture began to prevail in the Byzantine Empire. John the Grammarian, Leo the Mathematician, and Photius, who acquired his vast literary attainments as a layman, were the last profound and enlightened Byzantine scholars; they left no successors, nor has any Greek of the same intellectual calibre since appeared in the world.

A greater similarity of thought and action may be traced throughout the Christian world in the eighth century than in subsequent ages. The same predominance of religious feeling and ecclesiastical ceremonials; the same passion for founding monasteries and raising discussions; the same disposition to make life subservient to religion, to make all amusements ecclesiastical, and to embody the enjoyment of music, painting, and poetry in the ceremonies of the church; the same abase of the right of asylum to criminals by the ecclesiastical authorities, and the same antagonism between the church and the state, is visible in the East and the West.

The Orthodox Church was originally Greek; the seven general councils whose canons had fixed its doctrines were Greek; and the popes, when they rose into importance, could only adopt a scheme of theology already framed. The religious or theological portion of Popery, as a section of the Christian church, is really Greek; and it is only the ecclesiastical, political, and theocratic peculiarities of the fabric which can be considered as the work of the Latin Church. The general unity of Christians was, however, prominent in good as well as evil, for if the missionary labours of Boniface among the Germans, at the commencement of the eighth century, reflect glory on the Latin Church, the conversion of the Bulgarians in the middle of the ninth, by the ministry of Methodius and Cyrillos, is honourable to the Byzantine. These two monks, natives of Thessalonica, where they lived surrounded by a fierce tribe of Slavonians, devoted themselves to study the language of these troublesome neighbours. Under the regency of the Empress Theodora, they rendered their knowledge of the Slavonian dialect the means of propagating Christianity and advancing the cause of civilization, by visiting Bulgaria in the character of missionaries. They are universally allowed to have conducted their mission in a Christian spirit, and to have merited the great success that attended their labours.

The great improvement which took place in the administration of justice, and the legal reforms effected by Leo III and Constantine V, have been already noticed. Leo V and Theophilus also gained the greatest praise, even from their adversaries, for the strict control they established over the forms of proceeding and the decisions of the courts of law. The legal monuments of this period, however, by no means correspond with the extent of the administrative improvement which took place. The era of legislative greatness in the Byzantine empire was under the Basilian dynasty, but it was under the Iconoclast emperors that new vigour was infused into the system, and the improvements were made which laid the foundation of the stability, wealth, and power of the Byzantine empire.

The scientific attainments of the educated class in the Byzantine Empire were unquestionably very considerable. Many were invited to the court of the Caliph Almamun, and contributed far more than his own subjects to the reputation that sovereign has deservedly gained in the history of science. The accurate measurement of the earth’s orbit in his time seems to show that astronomical and mathematical knowledge had at no previous period attained a greater height; and if the Byzantine authorities are to be credited, one of their learned men, Leo the Mathematician, who was afterwards archbishop of Thessalonica, was invited to the court of the caliph, because he was universally recognised to be superior to all the scientific men at Bagdad in mathematical and mechanical knowledge. A proof that learning was still cultivated in the distant provinces of the Byzantine empire, and that schools of some eminence existed in Greece, is to be found in the fact that Leo, when a layman, retired to a college in the island of Andros to pursue his studies, and there laid the foundation of the scientific knowledge by which he acquired his reputation. After he was compelled, on account of his opposition to image-worship, to resign the archbishopric of Thessalonica, the general respect felt for his learning obtained for him from Bardas Caesar the appointment of president of the new university, founded at Constantinople in the reign of Michael III, in which chairs of geometry and astronomy had been established, as well as the usual instruction in Greek literature.

It was under the direction of Leo that several of those remarkable works of jewellery, combined with wonderful mechanical contrivances, were executed for the Emperor Theophilus, which have been already mentioned. The perfection of the telegraph by fire-signals, from the frontiers of the empire to the shores of the Bosphorus, and the machinery by which the signals were communicated to a dial placed in the imperial council-chamber, were also the work of Leo. The fame which still attended distinguished artists and mechanicians at Constantinople shows us that the love of knowledge and art was not entirely extinct; and the relics of Byzantine jewellery, often found buried in the most distant regions of Europe, prove that a considerable trade was carried on in these works. 

Even the art of statuary was not entirely neglected, for it has been noticed already that Constantine VI erected a statue of bronze in honour of his mother Irene. Painting, however, was more universally admired, and mosaics were easily adapted to private dwellings. There were many distinguished painters in the Byzantine Empire at this time, and there is reason to think that some of their productions were wonderful displays of artistic skill, without giving credit to the miraculous powers of the works of Lazaros. The missionary Methodios is recorded to have awakened the terror of the King of the Bulgarians by a vivid representation of the tortures of the damned, in a painting combining the natural portraiture of frightful realities mixed with horrors supplied from a fertile imagination. The sombre character of Byzantine art was well adapted to the subject, and the fame Methodios acquired among his contemporaries, as well as from those in after times who saw his paintings, may be accepted as a proof that they possessed some touches of nature and truth. It would be unfair to decide peremptorily on the effect of larger works of art from the illuminated Byzantine manuscripts which still exist. Art is subject to strange vicissitudes in very short periods, as may be seen by anyone who compares a guinea of the reign of George III with a coin of Cromwell or even Queen Anne, or who looks at Whitehall and the National Gallery.

The literature of the ancient world was never entirely neglected at Constantinople, so that the intellectual culture of each successive period must always be viewed in connection with the ages immediately preceding. The literary history of Constantinople consequently opens immediately a field of inquiry too wide to be entered on in the limited space assigned to this political history. The works of the classic writers of Hellas, of the legists of Rome, and of the fathers of Christian theology, all exercised a direct influence on Byzantine literature at every period of its existence, until Constantinople was conquered by the Turks. It has been too much the practice of the literary historians of Europe to underrate the positive knowledge of ancient literature possessed by the learned in the East during the eighth and ninth centuries. What has been often called the dawn of civilization, even in the West, was nothing more than an acquaintance with the bad models transmitted from the last ages of ancient literature. It is as great an error as to suppose that the English of the present day are Ignorant of sculpture, because they are occupied in adorning the new Houses of Parliament with deformed statues; and of architecture, because they have built a gallery for their pictures ill-suited to the desired object.

The most eminent Byzantine writers of this period were George Syncellus, Theophanes, the Patriarch Nicephorus, and perhaps John Malalas, in history; John Damascenus (who perhaps may be considered as a Syrian) and Theodore Studita in theology; and Photius, in general literature. During the middle ages the Greek scientific writers became generally known in western Europe by means of translations from Arabic versions, and this circumstance has induced many to draw the conclusion that these works were better known and more popular among the Arabs at Cordova, Cairo, and Bagdad, than among the Greeks at Constantinople. The Almagest of Ptolemy affords an example of this double translation and erroneous inference.

 

CHAPTER 5

CONSOLIDATION OF BYZANTINE LEGISLATION AND DESPOTISM.

A.D. 867-963