CHAPTER IX.

THE DYNASTY OF COMNENUS A.D. 1081-1185

 

Sect. I

The reign of Alexius I. A.D 1081-1118.

 

 

No ordinary talents were required to enable Alexius Comnenus to keep possession of the throne he had suddenly ascended, to the disappointment of many earlier claimants. Surrounded by the families of dethroned emperors, by a warlike nobility, and an army accustomed to rebellion, his position required even greater aptitude as a diplomatist and administrator than ability as a commander-in-chief.

(Two dethroned emperors, Michael VII and Nicephorus III, were living in Constantinople, and four sons of emperors who had received the imperial title during the reigns of their fathers. These were, Constantine Ducas Porphyrogenitus, the son of Constantine X; Leo and Nicephorus Diogenes, sons of Romanus IV and Eudocia (Anna Comnena proves they were crowned, 19-266); and Constantine Ducas, son of Michael VII, who was for some time the titular colleague of Alexius. There were also several rebel emperors who had worn the crown and the red boots for a time, like the Cesar John Ducas, Bryennius, Basilakes, and Melissenos. The three blind kings’ sons were nothing to this congregation of emperors).

That Alexius was a man of courage cannot be doubted, though, even as a soldier, he trusted more to cunning and deceit than to valour and tactics. There was also a mixture of vanity, presumption, and artifice in his character, which seem to indicate that he was a lucky adventurer, indebted in a great measure to the utter worthlessness of all his competitors for his signal success. His talents, indeed, were chiefly employed in balancing the personal interests of those around him, in neutralizing the effect of their vices, and in turning the vicissitudes of public events to his individual advantage. The mind of Alexius presents us with a Greek type, which becomes predominant as we advance in Byzantine history. The Roman traits, which had given a firmer political character to its earlier annals, had been long fading away, and under the dynasty of Comnenus they disappeared. Alexius never framed any permanent line of policy for improving the national resources, or performing the duties incumbent on the imperial government; his conduct was entirely directed by temporary contingencies and personal accidents; in short, he was a politician, not a states­man. He never aspired beyond the game of personal intrigue, and in that game he acted without principle, mistaking deceit for wisdom, as his daughter, who records his actions, candidly testifies by many an anecdote in her courtly ignorance of the value of common honesty. Personal courage in the field, and low cunning in the cabinet, present so incompatible a union in a great historical character, that we are apt to consider the combination an anomaly of Byzantine society; but an impartial examination of the authentic memoirs of modern courts would convince us that a candid biography of many brilliant sovereigns, written by a daughter to display her learning and eloquence, might afford curious revelations concerning the moral obtuseness of other courts and greater princes.

In weighing the vices of Alexius we must not overlook his merits. When he ascended the throne, the empire was in a state of anarchy and rebellion—its territories were invaded by the Patzinaks, the Turks, and the Normans—yet he succeeded in arresting its partition; and at a later period, when Europe poured into his dominions innumerable hosts of crusaders, whose military force set all direct opposition at defiance, his prudence and administrative knowledge carried the empire through that difficult crisis in safety. His admirers may truly say that, by activity, courage, and patience, he conducted the government through a period of the greatest difficulty, and, like Leo III, saved the empire on the very brink of ruin; but the historian must add, that he made no attempt to reorganize the administration according to the exigencies of a new state of society, nor did he seek to infuse new vigour and moral principles into the decayed institutions of his subjects. Now, it was by doing these things, more than by defeating the Saracens, that Leo III merited the title of the saviour and second founder of the Eastern Empire. Whether any measures Alexius could have adopted would have effected a reform in the social and political evils which were destroying the Byzantine power, and enabled it to prolong its existence, is not a question which history can solve.

While Alexius was placing the imperial crown on his head, his followers were transferring the wealth of the imperial city to their knapsacks. But as soon as his prize was secured, he felt that, in order to retain possession of it, he must immediately repress the disorders of the troops and assuage the indignation of the people. The soldiers were bribed with the little money which the extravagant administration of Nicephorus III had left in the public treasury, to return to their standards and submit to discipline. As it was impossible to make restitution to the plundered citizens, Alexius sought to appease the general indignation by addressing himself to the religious prejudices of the people. The Greek Church, unlike the Roman, has generally been the servile instrument of princes. The emperor was sure of obtaining its pardon, which he hoped would prove effectual in appeasing the indignation of the laity. Those who had not suffered would be edified by the emperor’s piety, and those who had been plundered would no longer venture to complain loudly. Alexius openly accused himself as the unfortunate cause of the disorders committed by the army, loudly expressed his sincere repentance, and humbly implored the Patriarch and the synod to impose on him a penance to efface the stain of his sin. The Greek clergy considered that Heaven would be appeased by the emperor sleeping on the floor of his chamber with a stone for a pillow, by his wearing a hair-cloth shirt, and by his eating only dry bread and herbs, and drinking nothing but water, for a space of twenty days. To Alexius, who was young, hardy, and temperate, this punishment was not very terrific; and when he found that the pardon of Heaven could be so cheaply purchased, he availed himself of his knowledge, when in great want of money after his defeat by Robert Guiscard, to seize the wealth of the clergy. But the church, though it pardoned the plunder of laymen without restitution, would not rest satisfied with personal penance alone when the interests of the clergy suffered.

The Byzantine court operated so powerfully in accelerating the decline of the empire, and in preventing any reform in the government, that it is necessary to notice its constitution at the accession of Alexius. Under the Basilian dynasty, eunuchs and slaves had acted as generals and ministers, and the public administration had been conducted, as it generally is in the absolute monarchies of Asia, like a private estate. But Isaac I had been raised to the throne as the leader of the aristocracy, and Alexius was placed in the same position. In the interval, however, the resources and power of the central government had been much diminished, and Alexius was compelled to reward his aristocratic partisans with a lavish distribution of honours and pensions, which imposed a check on his own power and a heavy burden on the public revenues. In order to attach the family of Ducas to the existing state of things, the young Constantine, son of Michael VII, received the title of Emperor as the colleague of Alexius, and John Ducas quitted the monastic habit and resumed his rank as Caesar. The Emperor Alexius and the family of Comnenus occupied the great palace, and the assemblage of apartments clustered round it, which had been fortified by Nicephorus II Phokas, and towered proudly over the port Boukoleon and the hippodrome; while the Empress Maria, the widow of two living husbands, who had been driven from the throne into the monastery, resided with her son, the titular Emperor Constantine, and the whole family of Ducas, in the palace called Mangana, on the lower ground, towards what is now the Seraglio Point. The traitor Nicephorus Melissenos laid down his arms as soon as he saw his brother-in-law Alexius firmly seated on the throne, and received the rank of Caesar. The title of Augustus, in its Greek form Sevastos, was conferred on several nobles; but to observe some discrimination in the distribution, it was divided into four gradations, sevastos, protosevastos, panhypersevastos, and sevastokrator. New titles were invented to gratify inferior partisans, and every title, by insuring to its possessor a pension, swelled the imperial civil list, increased the burdens of the people, and encroached on the resources applicable to the maintenance of the army, the navy, and the judicial establishment. The profits of a career of court favour eclipsed the highest rewards that could be gained in the honourable service of the state during the longest life. Attachment to the personal interests of the emperor was held to be more important than official experience and talent in administration.

(Constantine Ducas wore the imperial robes, signed the imperial decrees, and was named after Alexius in the public prayers. He was betrothed to Anna Comnena, but died before they were married. The Roman empire of Germany at a subsequent period contested the pre-eminence in titular absurdities with that of Constantinople. The title of protosevastos or archaugustos, with the pension annexed to the dignity, was conferred on the doges of Venice, Dominico Silvio and Vital Faliero; and the latter was made King of Dalmatin, the title on which the doges founded their right to the sovereignty of the Adriatic. Aboulkassim, sultan of Nicaea, was created sevastotatos, or most august).

Though the personal position of Alexius at the commencement of his reign was controlled by the influence of the leading members of the aristocracy, he soon delivered himself from this restraint, and assumed despotic power. The admirable central organization of the administrative power enabled the emperor to suppress every attempt at provincial independence, and the political ideas and social habits of the people favoured the imperial authority as much as the mode of conducting public business. The emperor’s power was still the only guarantee against anarchy; it was, consequently, still popular, though it was no longer under the legal restraint which a firm and systematic administration of the Roman law had long imposed on the arbitrary acts of its inferior agents. After the time of Alexius, the firmest support of despotism in the Byzantine Empire was in the minds and habits of the Greek people, who from this period became the dominant race at Constantinople.

The government of the Roman Empire, as we have had occasion to observe, exhibited, during its decline, a strong tendency to congeal society into fixed orders and separate castes or classes. This tyrannical system had nearly destroyed the state and exterminated the population, when a great effort of the people and a series of reforming princes in the Iconoclast period saved the empire and modified its institutions into their Byzantine type. The effects of time became again visible at the end of the eleventh century; but at this latter period the spirit of conservatism pervaded the whole mass of society, and each individual citizen clung to the practice of fixed forms and existing usages with a tenacity that rendered any reform difficult. A persuasion that everything was so perfect that it ought to remain stationary, infused as much self-conceit into the minds of the people as it did presumption into the policy of the emperor. This attachment to a stationary condition of society was carried to such a degree that the relics of old formalities and ceremonious usages were considered the essential duties of life in civil and ecclesiastical affairs. In this way the Greek race voluntarily circumscribed its intellects and restrained its reasoning faculties, at the very moment when the nations of Western Europe were boldly entering on a career of reform and progress. Nor are we to suppose that all means of introducing improvement was shut out in the Eastern Empire, had the throne been occupied by an emperor of enlarged views. The respect universally entertained for the Roman law insured the support of popular opinion to every measure of judicial reform, and the whole frame of society was thus open to amelioration. But to enter on the path of law and equity would have compelled the emperor and the ruling classes to make some concessions of fiscal reform, and the patriotism necessary to make any considerable sacrifice of personal interest was utterly wanting in every class of Byzantine society at this period.

The throne which Alexius had gained by intrigue and daring was considered by others also as a lawful prize. No sovereign, therefore, had to contend with so many rebels. The first rival who claimed the throne was a Byzantine monk, who presented himself to Robert Guiscard in Italy as the dethroned emperor Michael VII. This deception could only have imposed on a willing mind, for the real Michael could be seen at Constantinople by hundreds who knew his person. Michael was so generally despised that, even had he cast off his episcopal robes and appeared in the Nor­man camp, he would have found few of his former subjects inclined to replace him on the throne he had forfeited. In the year 1084 while Alexius was busily engaged with the Norman war, several senators and officers of the army engaged in a conspiracy, which was discovered before, the leaders had enlisted many followers. As it was a matter of policy to conceal the importance of the plot, Alexius was satisfied with the banishment of the wealthiest culprits, and the confiscation of their estates. In 1091, Ariebes, an Armenian, and Constantine Humbertopoulos, who had assisted Alexius in mounting the throne, engaged in a conspiracy, and were treated in the same way. John Comnenos, governor of Dyrrachium, son of Isaac, the emperor’s elder brother, as well as Theodore Gabras, who governed Trebizond almost as an independent prince, with his son Gregory, who subsequently married Maria, the emperor’s second daughter, were also accused of treasonable projects. The Turkish pirate Tzachas, who had rendered himself master of Smyrna, Chios, Mitylene, Samos, and Rhodes, assumed the title of Emperor in the year 1092, and inflicted a sensible wound on the vanity of Alexius, by appearing constantly in public with all the ensigns peculiar to an emperor of the Romans. In the same year the fiscal oppression of the Byzantine administration produced revolts in Crete and Cyprus, where the leaders of the insurgents urged the inhabitants to render themselves independent; but Karykas, the Cretan leader, was abandoned by his followers, and put to death on the first appearance of the imperial fleet; while Rapsomates, after a feeble resistance, was captured in Cyprus, and order was restored in both islands.

These troubles were followed by an extensive conspiracy among the members of the imperial family, in which the ex-empress Maria and Michael Taronites, a brother-in-law of Alexius, took part. If we credit the narrative of Anna, Nicephorus Diogenes, son of Romanus IV and Eudocia, undertook to assassinate Alexius. Nicephorus and his brother Leo, who was killed in a battle with the Patzinaks, had been crowned in their infancy, but after their father’s captivity they were deprived of the imperial title, and confined in a monastery by the Caesar John Ducas and Michael VII. Nicephorus was admired for his handsome athletic figure, popular manners, skill in warlike exercises, generosity, and courage, so that whenever he appeared in public he was received by the people with friendly salutations. Such popularity is dangerous in a despotic government, yet it is said that he first excited suspicion at court by an open violation of etiquette, and then made some very awkward attempts to murder the emperor. Anna, indeed, represents his conduct as that of a person verging on insanity. He was arrested and put to the torture, which, it was said, compelled him to reveal his accomplices. He and Katakalon Kekavmenos, who had commanded under Alexius at the battle of Kalavrya, lost their eyes; the fortune of Michael Taronites was confiscated, but the ex-empress Maria, being the mother of Alexius by adoption, escaped all punishment. After the loss of his eyes, Nicephorus Diogenes devoted his time to study, and made great progress in geometry by means of figures in relief which were prepared for his use. The fate of Nicephorus affected public opinion so powerfully that an impostor, who assumed the character of Constantine, the eldest son of Romanus by his first marriage, was generally welcomed. Though Constantine had been killed at the battle of Antioch, in which Isaac Comnenus, the emperor’s elder brother, had been taken prisoner, twenty years before the appearance of the impostor, he yet found credit with many persons of rank in the capital. Alexius, in alarm, banished him to Cherson, from whence he escaped to the Romans, whom he induced to invade the empire. The hostile army advanced as far as Adrianople, when Alexius was released from the fear of this dangerous rebel by a Byzantine officer, who decoyed him into an ambuscade and took him prisoner. He was deprived of sights (AD 1094).

While the armies of the Crusaders threatened Constantinople, no one ventured to intrigue against the government of Alexius, who was generally considered the only man capable of directing the state. But in 1106, when affairs appeared more tranquil, new competitors were again eager to seize the throne. Salomon, a senator of great wealth, but a vain literary coxcomb, who affected the character of a philosopher, engaged in a plot with four brothers named Anemas, descendants of that Anemas who had been slain in a battle with Swiatoslaff. The plot was discovered; the wealth of the philosophic Salomon and several of his accomplices was confiscated. The four brothers, whose descent from the Saracen emir of Crete was not forgotten, were conducted through the streets of Constantinople mounted on oxen, the hair of their heads and beards torn out with pitch plaster, crowned with horns, and decorated with entrails. After this, they were imprisoned in a tower near the palace of Blachern, which retained the name of the Tower of Anemas until the city was conquered by the Turks. About the same time Gregory Tironites, who had acted as an independent prince in the government of Trebizond, was brought prisoner to Constantinople by his cousin John, and imprisoned in the same tower.

The following year (1107) a new plot was formed to murder Alexius by an illegitimate descendant of Aaron the Bulgarian prince, who was assassinated by his brother Samuel, king of Achrida. The emperor was encamped near Thessalonica, but the presence of the empress and her attendants rendered the execution of the plot difficult. Libels and satires were placed in the imperial tent, in the hope that Irene would be induced to quit the encampment. A search for the author of these libels brought to light the whole plot, yet Aaron was only banished, in consequence of his connection with the royal line of Bulgaria, whose blood flowed in the veins of the empress.

We are inclined to give Alexius credit for extreme moderation, when we find him condemning those who are said to have been convicted of plotting his murder merely to imprisonment and banishment; but as he condemned heretics to be burned alive, we are compelled to suspect that the accusation of having plotted against his life was in many cases a charge added to the real crimes of the culprit, merely to increase the public indignation, and that Alexius knew the charge was without foundation, though his daughter Anna readily adopted every prejudice against those who had certainly shown hostility to her father’s authority and person. The want of all political principle among the courtiers, and of all attachment to the government among the people, are, however, proved incontestably by these numerous conspiracies.

The unpopularity of Alexius among the people was caused by the severity with which the public taxes were collected, by the injustice of the monopolies he created for the profit of the fisc and of members of the imperial family, and by the frauds he committed in adulterating the coinage. This mode of cheating his subjects was carried to a greater extent by Alexius than it had been by any of his predecessors, and is one of the strongest symptoms of the incurable decline in the government of the Byzantine Empire. A government which systematically commits such frauds is utterly demoralized; and a people which is so weak as to submit to such oppression, has sunk into a hopeless state of degradation. Alexius paid the public debts in his own debased coinage, but he enforced payment of the taxes, as long as it was possible, in the pure coinage of earlier emperors. The ruin produced by these measures at last compelled him to adopt new regulations for collecting the land-tax; and the credit of his coinage became so bad throughout all the countries in Europe in which Byzantine gold had previously circulated, that the emperor was compelled, in all his public acts with foreigners, to stipulate that he would make all his payments in the gold coins of his predecessors of the name of Michael The decline of Byzantine commerce in the Mediterranean may be traced to these measures of Alexius, which ruined the credit of the Greek merchants, and transferred a large quantity of capital from the cities of the empire to the republics of Italy.

Ecclesiastical animosities and religious persecutions contributed their share to increase the disorders in the empire. Though Alexius was both superstitious and hypocritical, his necessities, after the Norman war, induced him to assemble a servile synod of Greek ecclesiastics, who authorized him to employ the wealth accumulated as offerings in the churches for the public service. But this act was violently opposed by many of the clergy, and Leo, bishop of Chalcedon, went so far as to maintain that the government had committed sacrilege in melting down sacred objects which were entitled to the adoration of Christians. Alexius took advantage of his imprudence in attributing more than orthodox importance to these objects; and his opinions being condemned by a synod as heretical, he was banished to Sozopolis, where, however, the people regarded him as a saint. The general indignation soon forced the emperor to yield to public opinion, and he published a golden bull ordering restitution to be made for all the sacred plate already employed for the public service, and declaring it to be sacrilege for any one in future to apply church plate to profane uses.

Soon after this Constantinople was troubled by disputes arising out of the opinions taught by a professor of philosophy named Italos, from the native country of his father. Italos had succeeded Psellos as the chief of the philosophers, and his lectures on the Platonic philosophy had gained him so much popularity and influence as a teacher that the clergy became jealous. They soon discovered a taint of heresy in his opinions, and the Patriarch Eustratios Garidhas, who supported him, was deposed. Nikolaos the Grammarian was appointed Patriarch, and Italos was compelled to recant his opinions publicly in the church of St Sophia, (A.D. 1084).

 

BOGOMILIANS.

 

The heresy of Italos afforded some mental occupation for the people of the capital, but it was followed by a Paulician rebellion, which inflicted many evils on the inhabitants of Thrace. Various Asiatics, generally tainted with heretical opinions, had been established in the neighbourhood of Philippopolis from the time of Constantine V, and had long been remarkable for their industry, and the vigour they displayed in conducting their local affairs. Their moral education was excellent, though their religious opinions were deficient in Grecian orthodoxy. Their lands were well cultivated and bravely defended, and their commercial dealings extended over a great part of Western Europe. After the conquest of the Paulician state at Tephrike by Basil I, numbers of that sect had established themselves in Thrace, where other Asiatic colonists united with them. When Alexius marched against Robert Guiscard, two thousand eight hundred of these Paulicians joined his army as the military contingent they were bound to furnish; but having lost three hundred men in the defeat at Dyrrachium, the remainder, instead of rallying in the imperial camp, returned home. After the conclusion of the war, Alexius determined to punish them for this desertion, and destroy their communal system. He established himself at Mosynopolis, where he summoned the principal men of the Paulicians to his presence. By separating them from one another he disarmed the whole. A judicial sentence was then promulgated, depriving them of their property; and their families were expelled from their houses with great cruelty. It happened that a Paulician, who had been baptized during the reign of Nicephorus III, and had attained the rank of domestikos, heard that his four sisters had been driven from their home. Eager to avenge the cause of his family and countrymen, he seized a fortress called Veliatova, and plundered the property of the orthodox Greeks and Bulgarians to the very walls of Philippopolis. In the year 1086 he effected a junction with a colony of Patzinaks which had crossed the Danube, and extended his expeditions over all Thrace. Pakuvian, the grand domestikos of the West, and Branas, were sent to arrest his progress, but the Byzantine army was completely defeated, and both its generals were slain. After this the Patzinak war insured impunity to their Paulician allies for a considerable period; but towards the end of his reign, Alexius found time to think of converting these heretics. Many were established in a new town called Alexiopolis or Neokastron. Some affected to be converted by the arguments of the emperor, but others persisted in their hereditary heresies. Partly on account of the aversion entertained by the provincial population to the imperial government, whose fiscal severity became from age to age more burdensome, and partly on account of national antipathies, roused into activity by the arrogance which the Greeks displayed as soon as they could assume the position of a dominant race, a very general desire was felt by the inhabitants of Thrace and Bulgaria to emancipate themselves from the ecclesiastical power of the Greek church. This sentiment had long supplied the Paulicians with a perpetual influx of votaries, and enabled them to increase in numbers while the population of the provinces around them was sensibly diminishing. Other heresies also derived a portion of their success from this general feeling of opposition to the central authority of the church and state.

The original constitution of the Eastern Church had been well suited to prevent the formation of heresies based on national feelings, for it admitted the formation of a separate ecclesiastical establishment in each nation, while its central government, by general councils, rendered the subdivision of the hierarchy into a number of independent churches highly advantageous both to the cause of morals among the priesthood and of religion among the people. The power of emperors and popes put an end to this early constitution of the church. The emperor enslaved the Patriarch of Constantinople, and the Patriarch enslaved those Christians who remained in communion with the Greek Church. Still, wherever a nation was politically independent, it wished also to be so ecclesiastically. Men may unite voluntarily to receive the dogmas of a common religion, but they cannot accept a foreign ecclesiastical establishment without some feeling of hostility to the foreign priesthood which invades their independence. This feeling gained so great strength in Bulgaria, as to render the Bulgarian hierarchy at last independent of the priesthood at Constantinople. Though the king and people of Bulgaria had adopted all the rites and ceremonies of the Eastern Church, and rejected the solicitations of the popes to acknowledge the supremacy of Rome, they nevertheless seized the opportunity, when it presented itself, to constitute their own ecclesiastical establishment as a national church, under a patriarch entirely independent of the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Constantinople. This was probably effected in practice long before it received its official recognition from the Byzantine emperor and the Patriarch of Constantinople. At length, however, the victorious army of Simeon, king of the Bulgarians, was enabled to dictate terms of peace to the Emperor Romanus I in the year 923, and one of the stipulations of the treaty appears to have been that the emperor and the Byzantine church should publicly recognised the primate of the Bulgarians as a patriarch equal in authority to the other patriarchs of the Eastern Church. In virtue of that treaty, the Patriarch of Constantinople was compelled to acknowledge the complete independence of the Bulgarian church, and to admit the Patriarch of Bulgaria to all the ecclesiastical honours and rank held by the patriarchs of Antioch, Alexandria, and Jerusalem. It is true that the conquest of Bulgaria by John I Zimiskes put an end to the national independence and the patriarchal dignity in about fifty years; but neither the Emperor John nor his successors could eradicate the feelings of hostility to the ecclesiastical domination of the Greeks, which had sunk deep into the hearts of the Bulgarian and Sclavonian population.

It is to the influence of these national feelings, rather than to the mystical religious doctrines which the Paulicians had brought with them from the East, that we must ascribe the growth of the sect called Bogomilians. Their name is derived from the Sclavonian language, and the sect had its origin among the Sclavonian population of Thrace and Bulgaria. It is not necessary to trace the first principle of their dissent from the Byzantine church to intellectual speculations, tending to harmonize the Oriental doctrines concerning the existence of good and evil as two distinct powers in the universe with the Gospel dispensation; but, on the other hand, there can be no doubt that the Paulicians and Catharists, who had derived their religious sentiments directly from Oriental sources, mingled some of their mystical tenets with the opinions of the Bogomilians. Among the mass of the Sclavonians in the Byzantine empire, however, the origin of heresy was simply hatred of the Greek church on account of its simony, aversion to the Greek ecclesiastics on account of their corruption, and a craving for some purer religious instruction than was offered by an established church, in which religion was suffocated by mechanical forms and unmeaning ceremonies. This is proved clearly by the sympathies which the Bogomilians manifested for the memory as well as the doctrines of the Iconoclasts, and their hostility to the adoration of the Virgin and of saints. At the same time, there is convincing proof that they adopted some of their heretical opinions from the Paulician and Euchite teachers, who never ceased to preach the doctrines of an Oriental theosophy throughout Thrace and Bulgaria during the tenth and eleventh centuries.

The Bogomilian heresy was propagated among the Sclavonian population for some time before it excited the attention of the church at Constantinople; but at last its followers became so numerous as to cause alarm among the Byzantine clergy. When the Emperor Alexius was fully informed of the progress the sect was making, he readily joined the Patriarch in rousing the prejudices of the orthodox against the new heresy. His politic spirit felt the importance of forming a close alliance with the clergy on a question where the interests of the church were more directly involved than those of the state; and he was eager to avail himself of a favourable opportunity of awakening passions in the minds of the people which would tend to divert their attention from the political errors, fiscal abuses, and lavish expenditure of the imperial government. The Bogomilian teachers had, however, made so little public display of their opinions, that they were only discovered by means of spies; and perhaps they might have escaped all notice in the political history of the time, had the Emperor Alexius not engaged in personal discussions with Basilios their leader; a controversy which the imperial theologian terminated by committing his inflexible opponent to the flames as a heretic. The conduct of Alexius in the whole transaction fixes a deeper stain on his character than any mystical speculation could reflect on his adversary.

A Bogomilian who was put to the torture by the imperial officers revealed to them that a monk named Basilios was regarded as the leader of the sect, and that he had selected twelve teachers to act as his apostles. When Basilios was brought before the emperor, his demeanour was modest and respectful; his figure was good, but his thin beard gave his withered countenance the air of an ascetic more than of an enthusiast. His manners and conversation made the emperor look on him as a worthy antagonist. The Emperor Alexius, as his daughter informs us repeatedly, prided himself more on gaining his ends than on choosing honourable paths. He received Basilios with an appearance of frankness, and he even invited him to enter on the discussion of religious opinions, in order to make a public display of the political cunning with which he could deceive a heresiarch who had deceived thousands. The learned Anna even boasts that her father knew how to rub sweets on the rim of the cup he induced his antagonist to swallow, and how, with a dose of flattery, he purged the Bogomilian monk of his heretical opinions. “I am anxious”, said the imperial hypocrite, “to hear the opinions of your reverence, and learn all the arguments by which you have laboured to correct the vain superstitions of our clergy”. The courtiers supposed that the ascetic was misled by flattery; it is more likely he deceived himself by enthusiasm, and expected to make Alexius a convert to truth. He knew but little of the emperor. Roused by his subject, however, Basilios fully explained all his objections to the established church, and revealed the full extent of his heretical opinions, while an imperial secretary, concealed behind a curtain, committed his words to writing. When the discussion was terminated, the emperor drew aside the curtain and showed Basilios that he had been speaking with the patriarch and the most bigoted members of the senate and clergy as his audience. His conviction and condemnation as a heretic before the patriarchal tribunal of Nikolaos the Grammarian followed as a matter of course, and as he refused to renounce his opinions, he was ordered to be burned at the stake. This sentence was passed about the year 1110, but it was not carried into execution until the year 1118; for Anna mentions that it was one of the last, and, in her opinion, one of the most glorious acts of her father's life to burn the heretic. Every solicitation was employed to induce Basilios to retract, and own himself a convert to the imperial arguments, but all was vain; and the courageous demeanour of the heretic induced the people to believe that he expected angels to descend from heaven to release him from the stake. The clergy, however, pretended that he was tormented in his cell by demons, who stoned him during the night for revealing their secrets. He was burned in the hippodrome, and suffered with the firmness of the noblest martyrs. The spectacle of a fellow-creature committed to the flames was so agreeable to the populace of Constantinople, that they shouted to the emperor to bring out more heretics to be burned; but Alexius prudently cut short the tumult by dismissing the assembly. On another occasion, the emperor ordered two fires to be lighted in the tchukanesterion for the purpose of burning other Bogomilians; but some, having shown a disposition to recant, were immediately released, and the others who remained firm in their opinions were remanded to prison.

It is necessary to notice an example of the superstition of Alexius, in order to show how completely his mind was ruled by the spirit of false devotion prevalent in his age and nation. As Alexius was riding with his elder brother Isaac, before he ascended the throne, a reverend old man in the garb of a priest approached and whispered in his ear the words of the Psalmist, “Advance prosperously and reign, because of truth, meekness, and righteousness”. He then exclaimed, “0 Emperor Alexius” and suddenly disappeared. Both brothers sought the strange priest in vain; and though Alexius pretended to consider the apparition as an illusion of the imagination, his daughter asserts that in his heart he was persuaded that he had received a direct revelation from St John the Evangelist, the son of thunder. On a later occasion, he gave a curious instance of his confidence in a belief that God habitually revealed his will to mortals. In the year 1094, when the Romans invaded the empire to support the pretended Diogenes, Alexius, in the presence and with the participation of the Patriarch Nikolaos, consulted the will of Heaven by depositing on the high altar of St Sophia's two rolls inscribed with the questions whether the Romans were to be attacked or not to be attacked. A priest ignorant of the contents of the two rolls, was ordered to approach the altar, after the Patriarch had performed divine service, and take up one of the papers, which was unfolded, and its contents read to the emperor. The communication thus obtained appeared to him an oracle of God, commanding him to march against the enemy.

When the emperor was so completely under the guidance of superstition, it is not surprising that his conduct was extremely inconsistent. At times the suggestions of reason and true religion could not fail to overpower his fanatical fancies. We find him, accordingly, at times favouring popular preachers whose avowed theme was the eulogy of some beloved saint, and at times persecuting these orators because their doctrines were suspected of heretical or seditious tendencies. At times he tolerated, and at times he persecuted astrologers; for these impostors frequently made the imperial crown one of the prizes which futurity allowed them to distribute. An Athenian astrologer was allowed to sell his predictions to the Constantinopolitans unmolested, while an Alexandrian was banished for mixing too much truth in his predictions. A hermit named Nilos, who had gained great popularity as a public preacher, was accused of heresy, and the emperor was led by his inordinate vanity to engage in personal controversy with the enthusiast; but the monk foiled his theological skill, and defied his earthly power by expressing his readiness to suffer martyrdom for the truth.

 

TREATY OF PEACE WITH THE TURKS, A.D. 1081.

 

One of the earliest acts of the reign of Alexius was to conclude a treaty of peace with the Seljouk emir Suleiman, who acted in Asia Minor as if he were completely independent of the Grand Sultan Malekshah. The treachery of Nicephorus Melissenos had placed Suleiman in possession of Nicaea, and his troops occupied several posts on the shores of the Bosphorus and the Sea of Marmora; while Alexius, who required the whole forces of the empire to resist the invasion of Robert Guiscard, was compelled to purchase peace at any price. Under such circumstances, it was only to be expected that the immediate neighbourhood of Constantinople could be kept free from the Turks, and accordingly the boundaries of the Roman Empire in Asia Minor were by this treaty reduced to very narrow limits. The country immediately opposite the capital, as far as the mouth of the river Sangarius and the head of the gulf of Nicomedia, was evacuated by the Turks, as well as the coast of the Sea of Marmora, from the little stream called Drako, which falls into the gulf of Nicomedia, westward to the city of Prusias. Already the mountains of the Turkish territory were visible from the palace of Alexius and the dome of St Sophia; but the Crusades were destined to repel this torrent of Mohammedan invasion from the shores of Europe for several centuries.

The spirit of enterprise and conquest which, when placed under the guidance of religious enthusiasm, carried the bravest warriors of western Europe as Crusaders to the East, had, in the preceding generation, under the direction of civil wisdom, produced the conquest of England and southern Italy by the Normans. These conquests had raised their military reputation and self-confidence to the highest pitch; and Robert Guiscard, who was lord of dominions in Italy far superior in wealth to the duchy of Normandy, hoped to eclipse the exploits of Duke William in England by conquering the Byzantine empire. But as he knew that he must expect a more prolonged resistance than England had offered to its conqueror, he sought a pretext for commencing the war which would conceal his own object, and have a tendency to induce a party in the country to take up arms against the government he was anxious to overthrow. His daughter Helena had been betrothed to Constantine Dukas, the son of Michael VII, and was still so young that she was residing in the imperial palace at Constantinople, to receive her education, when Michael was dethroned. Nicephorus III sent the child to a convent, and Robert her father stood forward as the champion of Michael’s right to recover the throne from which he had been expelled. Under the cover of this pretext, the Norman expected to render himself master of Constantinople, or at all events to gain possession of the rich provinces on the eastern shore of the Adriatic.

The preparations of Robert Guiscard were far advanced when Alexius ascended the throne. To inflame the zeal of his troops, he persuaded Pope Gregory VII that a Greek monk, who had assumed the character of Michael VII, was really the dethroned emperor, and thus induced the Pope to approve of his expedition, and to grant absolution to all the invaders of the Byzantine empire, as if they had been about to commence a holy war. The soldiers were impressed with a deep conviction of the justice of their cause at its outset, and when the imposture of the Greek monk was generally acknowledged, they were inflamed with hopes of plunder and glory.

In the month of June 1081, Robert Guiscard sailed from Brindisi with a well-appointed fleet of a hundred and fifty ships, carrying an army of thirty thousand chosen troops. His first operation was to render himself master of the rich island of Corcyra (Corfu), which then yielded an annual revenue of fifteen hundred pounds’ weight of gold to the Byzantine government. He then seized the ports of Butrinto, Avlona, and Kanino, on the mainland, and laid siege to the important city of Dyrrachium, the strongest fortress on the eastern coast of the Adriatic, and the capital of Byzantine Illyria. It was fortunate for the empire that George Paleologos, one of its bravest officers, had entered the place before Robert commenced the siege.

Alexius immediately hastened to the relief of Dyrrachium with as large an army as it was in his power to assemble. He had endeavoured to raise up every obstacle to Robert’s expedition, and still hoped that the Emperor of Germany, Henry IV, would cause a serious diversion in his favour by attacking the Norman dominions in Italy. To induce the German emperor to do this, Alexius had paid him a subsidy of 144,000 byzants, and sent him many valuable presents; but Henry was too deeply engaged in his contest with Pope Gregory to spare either time or troops to act against the Normans in southern Italy, and the Byzantine Empire gained little by his alliance. The Venetians proved more valuable allies. Alexius solicited their assistance, as bound to aid the empire by the ties of their ancient allegiance; and he engaged not only to pay them for their services, but also to make good any losses of ships which they might sustain by the war. The interests of Venice bound them to the cause of the Byzantine government at this time. They were alarmed lest their lucrative trade with Greece and the Levant should be placed at the mercy of the rapacious Normans, in case Robert Guiscard should succeed in gaining possession of the entrance of the Adriatic. They plunged, therefore, into the war without hesitation or reserve.

The Doge Dominic Sylvio sailed from Venice with a powerful fleet to attack the Normans before the Emperor Alexius could collect his army and march to the relief of Dyrrachium. The Norman fleet, which was commanded by Bohemund, the illustrious son of Robert Guiscard, suffered a complete defeat, and the communications of the invading army with Italy were cut off. This difficulty only excited Robert to press the siege with additional vigour. He employed every device then known for the attack of towns. Towers of wood were prepared in frame; battering-rams were used to shake the walls, and balists to sweep the defenders from their summits. But the fortifications of Dyrrachium were too solid to be seriously injured by the feeble machines the Normans had prepared. The immense blocks of stone that formed their foundations were the work of the ancient Greeks who first colonized Epidamnus. The more modern superstructure was so broad that four horsemen could ride abreast on its summit, and it was flanked at proper intervals by towers raised eleven feet above the line of the curtain.

The mode of attack generally most successful in that age consisted in filling up the ditch, and pushing forward a high wooden tower close to the walls. This structure, which moved on rollers, was furnished with a drawbridge, which, reaching the ramparts of the place, enabled the storming party to come to an engagement with its defenders hand to hand. Robert had at first attempted to take Dyrrachium by escalade, and for that purpose had brought up the usual battering machines as close as possible to the body of the place, but all his attacks had been repulsed. Showers of stones, and torrents of burning naphtha and Greek fire, had broken the ladders and burned the tortoises and pavisses of the assailants, while Paleologos, in several desperate sallies, had destroyed the greater part of the battering-rams and balists. The only hope of taking the place before the arrival of the emperor was at last concentred on a mighty wooden tower which Robert Guiscard had constructed from the timbers of his ships which the Venetians had rendered useless. This fabric, higher than the towers of Dyrrachium, was built out of reach of the flaming missiles of the besieged, and well protected against their sallies. The interior consisted of a broad staircase, to enable companies of armed men to mount in close order to the summit, whence a draw­bridge hung suspended to fall on the ramparts of the enemy. When this tower was completed, an inclined plane and wooden tram-way brought it close to the edge of the ditch with as much ease as a ship glides from the stocks into the sea. But Paleologos and his engineers had watched the progress of the work with attention, and before the mighty tower was put in motion, a framework of masts and yards was constructed on the tower of the city against which it was directed. The appearance of a slender scaffold to resist their mighty tower only excited the contempt of the Normans, and the monster was advanced slowly to the very edge of the ditch without any opposition from the besieged. Five hundred chosen men, in complete armour, were ready to rush on the drawbridge, and already crowded the staircase, when the order was suddenly given to halt. The long masts and yards on the city tower had already descended, and wedged the drawbridge firmly against the body of the structure, where it served as a door to enclose its occupants, and prevent them from making any use of their arms.

At the same instant an immense quantity of combustible materials was projected from the walls, and the tower was in a short time enveloped in flames and smoke, while the whole attack was terminated by a vigorous sortie, which enabled Paleologos to destroy its last relics.

In the middle of October, Alexius at last approached Dyrrachium. He had been joined on his march by Pakurian, the grand-domestikos, with the European troops stationed at Adrianople, and by Bodin, king of Servia, who brought an auxiliary force of active Sclavonian mountaineers to aid the heavy Byzantine infantry. The imperial army was composed of so great a variety of troops that an enumeration of its different corps and nations will afford the reader some information concerning the military condition of the empire at this interesting period, just before it was visited by the great armies of the Crusaders. The legion of the guards, which usually did duty on the outer walls of the great palace at Constantinople, was commanded by Constantine Opos. The Macedonian legion, recruited in great part from the Sclavonian population of that province, was under the orders of Antiochos. The Thessalian, composed of Greeks, was commanded by Alexander Kavasilas. The contingent of Turkish troops, from a colony settled near Achrida, to overawe the Sclavonian population, and keep open the communication with the Adriatic by the Via Egnatia, was led by Tatikios, an active and able soldier, son of a Saracen who had been taken prisoner by John Comnenus, the emperor’s father. The body-guard called Vestiarites was commanded by Panukometes; the Frank mercenaries by Constantine Humbertopulos, a nephew of Robert Guiscard; and the Varangians by Nampites. A corps of two thousand eight hundred Paulicians, from the colonies in the neighbourhood of Philippopolis, had also joined the imperial army, under their own leaders, Xantas and Kuleon. The military proceedings of Alexius, when he reached the neighbourhood of Dyrrachium, were very injudicious. The position of the Normans was extremely dangerous, hemmed in on one side by the numerous army of the emperor, and exposed on the other to constant attacks on the part of an active garrison. Their foraging parties were daily destroyed by the Dalmatians and Albanians, so that, if Alexius had taken up a strong position, and thrown out his light troops all-round the Norman camp, he would soon have destroyed their cavalry, and reduced them to capitulate. But he was jealous of the military glory acquired by Paleologos, and resolved to eclipse it.

The first measure of Alexius betrayed the meanness of his disposition. He ordered Paleologos to quit Dyrrachium, in order that he might confer with him in the imperial camp, and he thus relieved Robert Guiscard from an active enemy in his rear on the day of battle. In opposition to the advice of all the most experienced officers in his army, the emperor then decided on risking a general engagement, though it was evident that by this rash proceeding he offered the enemy the only chance for safety that now remained to them. The battle which took place was as disgraceful to the Byzantine arms as to the emperor’s judgment. Alexius commanded the centre in person; his brother-in-law, the Caesar Nicephorus Melissenos, who had put the Turks in possession of Nicaea and the greater part of Bithynia, commanded the right wing, and Pakurian the left. The Varangian guard, having quitted their horses in order to make a display of their valour, led the van on foot. For some time the attack of the Varangians on the Norman line was completely successful, and one wing of Robert’s army was broken. A part of the cavalry was forced back to the sea-shore, where the Venetians began to assail them from boats. But Robert regained the advantage by promptly bringing up a fresh division of his troops to attack the flank of the Varangians, to whom the emperor brought no succour. The victors were compelled to retreat to a church in order to make a stand against the Norman cavalry. In the meantime, after a short engagement, the rest of the Byzantine army was broken and fled. Several nobles of the highest rank perished on the field, and the emperor himself was slightly wounded, and compelled to fly without a follower. The King of Servia had remained an idle spectator of a battle which he probably considered as an act of imperial folly, and he retired from the field as soon as his allies were defeated. The loss of the vanquished amounted to about six thousand; but from the loss of the military chest and baggage, and the defective arrangements adopted by Alexius in his confidence of victory, many corps dispersed, and could never be brought back to their standards. The Paulicians, who had behaved with courage and lost three hundred men, finding that they had no hope either of plunder or pay, returned home, in spite of all the exertions of the emperor to detain them.

After the battle, Paleologos found it impossible to enter Dyrrachium; but Alexius succeeded in transmitting orders to the garrison, appointing an Albanian general named Komiskorta governor of the place, and intrusting the custody of the citadel to the Venetians. In the month of February 1082, a Venetian, who guarded one of the towers, betrayed the city to Robert, who had previously put his army into winter-quarters at Glabinitza and Joanina, in order to escape the severe cold of the winter farther north. Alexius collected the remains of the Byzantine army at Deavolis, and repaired himself to Thessalonica, where he passed the winter collecting a second army; which he was enabled to do, as he had replenished his military chest from the church plate of the richest cathedrals and monasteries in his dominions. The affairs of Italy, before the opening of the second campaign, fortunately compelled Robert Guiscard to quit Illyria, and leave his son Bohemund in command of the Norman army.

The progress of the Normans was arrested by the number of fortified towns in the mountains of Illyria and Epirus, most of them the remains of Hellenic cities or Roman municipalities, whose strong walls secured them against any attack short of a regular siege. The whole summer of 1082 passed without any operation of importance, and Bohemund established his army in its old winter-quarters at Joanina. In the spring of 1083, Alexius had collected an army so powerful that he again marched forward to attack the Normans. In order to break the terrible charge of their cavalry, which no Byzantine horse could resist, the emperor placed a number of chariots before his own troops, armed with barbed poles extending in front like a line of lances, and in these chariots he stationed a strong body of heavy-armed infantry. Bohemund, however, on reconnoitring this strange unwieldy measure of defence, broke up his line of cavalry into two columns, and, leaving the centre of the Byzantine army with the chariots unassailed, fell with fury on the extremity of the two wings. The resistance was short, and the Emperor Alexius again fled with precipitation to Achrida, where Pakurian assembled the fugitives. Bohemund considered it of more importance to the success of his enterprise to render himself master of Arta, than to pursue the beaten army. While he was engaged besieging Arta, Alexius, before the end of autumn, had collected troops sufficient to risk a battle to relieve the besieged city; but he was again defeated by Bohemund, and, seeing his inability to contend with the young Norman in the field, he left Arta to its fate, and retired to Constantinople.

The Normans soon overran all Epirus, and invaded Macedonia, extending their incursions as far as Skopia; but they failed to reduce the citadel of Achrida, though they gained possession of the town. Bohemund, finding that he was unable to take Ostrovos and Berrhoea, could not venture to advance into the plain of Thessalonica, though he penetrated by Vodhena as far as Moglena, and proceeded by Pelagonia and Kastoria into Thessaly, where, after making himself master of Tricala and Tziviskos, he laid siege to Larissa, in which he intended to establish his winter-quarters. This city, however, was defended by Leo Kephalas with great obstinacy; and Alexius, having procured a subsidiary force of seven thousand light cavalry from Suleiman, the Sultan of Nicaea, again took the field in the spring of 1084. After passing Mount Kellia, he quitted the high-road, and, diverging to his left, descended by the southern side of Ossa, having avoided the vale of Tempe. Passing Exeban, a Vallachian village near Andronia, he encamped at Plavitza, on the banks of a stream of the same name. From thence he advanced by the gardens of Delphina to Tricala, from which the Normans had retired. He there learned, by a letter from Leo Kephalas, that Larissa was reduced to the last extremity, and must surrender unless it received immediate succour. Alexius immediately formed his army into two divisions, and advanced to engage the Normans before Larissa. His preparation for a battle was on this occasion made with considerable skill. The principal division of his forces, with which he left the imperial standard, was ordered to engage the enemy with caution, and, after some fighting, to retire in order to a pass called Lykostoma, or the Wolfs Mouth, where they would be protected by the nature of the ground from further pursuit. Alexius, with the other division, at the same time marched with a chosen body of men through the pass of Livatanino, and, avoiding Reveniko, took post at Allage, where he lay concealed until Bohemund should have pursued the other division of his army to a considerable distance. When he found that his stratagem had proved successful, he issued from his concealment, and stormed the Norman camp. This exploit was facilitated by a body of archers, who were instructed to shoot the horses of the Normans as they were forming to make a sally.

The wounded horses became unmanageable, and the dismounted Normans, though terrible on horseback, were almost helpless, on account of the weight of their armour and their pointed boots, which impeded their motions on foot. Bohemund, believing that he had again defeated the emperor, was boasting that he had driven him into the wolf's jaws, when a messenger arrived with the news that his camp was lost and Larissa relieved. He immediately galloped back with all his knights, but he found that Alexius had already-established himself so strongly in the camp that there was no hope of recovering it. Still the Byzantine army feared the Norman lance too much to venture any engagement in the plain; but next day Bohemund, seeing that he was in danger of being cut off from his resources, retreated to Kastoria. As soon as the Norman army was cut off from plunder, and without any hope of making further conquests, it began to display a mutinous spirit; and Bohemund was compelled to return to Italy, to obtain supplies of money and fresh troops. Brienne, the constable of Apulia, who commanded in his absence, found himself compelled to surrender Kastoria to the Emperor Alexius, and to engage not to bear arms again against the Byzantine Empire.

While Bohemund was carrying on the war against the Emperor of the East, Robert Guiscard had driven the Emperor of the West out of Rome; and after vanquishing Henry IV, he had plundered the Eternal City like another Genseric. He was now ready to resume his schemes of ambition in the East. Collecting a powerful fleet to carry over his victorious army into Epirus, he raised the siege of Corfu, which was invested by the combined naval forces of the Byzantine Empire and the Venetian republic. The united fleets were completely defeated in a great naval battle, in which, according to Anna Comnena, they lost thirteen thousand men. But in the month of July 1085, Robert died in the island of Cephalonia, and with him perished all the Norman projects of conquest in the Byzantine Empire. Dyrrachium was recovered by Alexius with the assistance of the Venetian and Amalphitan merchants established in the place, and the services of the Venetians in this war were rewarded by many commercial privileges which were conferred on them by a golden bull. The Amalphitan merchants at Constantinople were also obliged to place themselves under Venetian protection, and pay dues to the Venetian corporation. The Venetians had been so displeased with their doge, Dominico Silvio, to whose negligence they ascribed their defeat by the Normans, that he had been deposed, and Vital Faliero appointed doge in his stead. On Faliero the Emperor Alexius conferred the title of Protosevastos, to which he attached a considerable pension, and the title of the republic to the sovereignty of Dalmatia and Croatia was formally recognised. From this time the doge appears to have styled himself lord of the kingdoms of Dalmatia and Croatia.

 

PATZINAK WAR, A.D. 1085.

 

It was fortunate for Alexius that neither the Patzinaks nor the Seljouk Turks availed themselves of his defeats during the Norman war to attack the empire. Their united efforts would, in all probability, have destroyed the Byzantine Empire, and might have exterminated the Greek race. The dominions of the Patzinaks at this time extended along the northern bank of the Danube, from the Carpathian Mountains to the shores of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azof. Over these extensive plains the nomad Patzinaks wandered as lords of the country, amidst a numerous fixed population of Sclavonians and Vallachians. It seems at variance with our modern theories concerning the great superiority which civilization is supposed to confer in the arts of war and government, to find the Patzinaks carrying on the administration of their extensive dominions from a movable camp of waggons, and displaying a degree of military and political skill which rendered them for several generations formidable enemies to the Byzantine empire. But it requires no very profound knowledge of history to perceive that military superiority often exists distinct from social civilization, that literary cultivation affords no guarantee for national wisdom and honour, and that theological learning is no proof of individual virtue.

During the Norman war the Patzinaks were themselves attacked by a new horde of Komans. But when the tyranny of Alexius drove the Paulicians into rebellion, a union was formed between large bodies of Patzinaks and Romans, who invaded the empire under the guidance and with the assistance of the persecuted Paulicians. Their success in defeating the Byzantine army under the grand-domestikos Pakuvian has been already noticed. In the following spring, A.D. 1087, a fresh army of invaders, to the number of eighty thousand men, ravaged Thrace under the command of Tzelgu, but were at last defeated by Nikalaos Mavrokatakalon, and their leader slain. The Byzantine army soon after proved again unfortunate; and in the following campaign the emperor, in order to recover the ground then lost crossed the range of Mount Haemus by the central pass called the Iron Gates, in opposition to the counsels of Nicephorus Bryennius, his blind rival, who, when he heard of the imprudent determination of Alexius, observed, “Well! on the other side of the mountains it will soon appear who is best mounted”. The emperor pushed forward as far as Dorostylon, but he was there met by the Patzinaks and completely defeated. The enemy made such good use of their victory that they pursued the imperial troops over Mount Haemus, and wintered in the valley of the Hebrus, about seven leagues from its mouth, in the neighbourhood of Kypsele and Taurokomon.

In the spring of the year 1089 the Patzinaks advanced to the vicinity of Constantinople, and the whole campaign was passed in a variety of movements, which led to no certain result except that the barbarians ravaged the country between Adrianople and the capital without sustaining any serious loss. The Princess Anna recounts an occurrence during this campaign which places in a strong light both the weakness of her father and the extreme difficulty of his position. A Patzinak chief named Neantzes, having deserted his countrymen, became a great favourite with the emperor. But Alexius having laid a plan to surprise the Patzinak army by a sudden attack, a soldier discovered that Neantzes contrived to hold a parley with some of his countrymen, and from his knowledge of their language he was satisfied that the deserter was a double traitor. He immediately repaired to the emperor's tent and denounced Neantzes. The Patzinak was summoned to answer the charge, but as soon as his accuser had concluded his narrative, Neantzes drew his sabre, and before anyone could interpose or the soldier make a movement either to defend himself or escape, he slew his accuser in the emperor's presence. Yet, either from timidity or suspicion, the emperor overlooked this insolent act of rebellion; nay, he had even the baseness to attempt to conceal his natural indignation, by making Neantzes a present of one of his own horses. The Patzinak, who knew well that his conduct was unpardonable, used the emperor’s horse to make his escape to his countrymen.

Though Alexius could gain no advantage of any importance over the Patzinaks in the field of battle, and was forced to leave all Bulgaria and the greater part of Thrace exposed to their devastations, he nevertheless contrived to destroy considerable numbers of their cavalry in different skirmishes, and his daughter loudly celebrates these partial successes. On one occasion he was besieged at Tzurulos. A rapid but smooth slope lay before the town like a long glacis. Along the top of this slope the emperor ranged all the wheels of his baggage-waggons attached to their axles, and when the Patzinak cavalry had charged half way up the slope, to capture the plunder they saw without the walls, the wheels of the waggons were let loose to run down on them. When the Patzinaks broke their ranks to escape this new mode of attack, the Byzantine troops sallied out of the place and inflicted on them a serious loss. The Patzinak army, however, maintained its ground, and wintered at Bulgarophygia and Nizitza.

In the spring of the year 1090 the emperor took up his position at Choirobacches, and the Patzinak army soon encamped before the place. They were so strong that they were able to detach a body of six thousand cavalry to plunder the country within ten miles of Constantinople, but their confidence became so great that the emperor was enabled to surprise their camp before Choirobacches, and put a considerable number of their troops to the sword. He then disguised his own cavalry by making use of the standards of the Patzinaks, and in this way he destroyed many of their troops who were returning from plundering in the vicinity of Constantinople. But the enemy’s force was not broken by this victory, and their innumerable light horse continued to ravage every corner of Thrace. The inordinate vanity of Alexius, nevertheless, induced him to celebrate this trifling advantage (though it was insufficient to protect the country round his capital from hostile attacks) by a triumphal procession back to Constantinople. The advanced guard of his army wore for the occasion the dress and carried the arms of Patzinaks, as if the emperor was prouder of his own stratagems than of the valour of his army. The prisoners followed, each led by a peasant; then came a body of soldiers, bearing aloft the heads of the slain on their lances; and after this display, the emperor, surrounded by his household and usual body-guard, with the imperial standards, and followed by the trophies of his success. The pageant excited the spleen of Nicephorus Melissenos, who characterized his brother-in-law’s vanity with more justice than his brother-in-law had treated his treason. Melissinos sneered at the emperor's victory, as bringing joy to the empire without gain, and grief to the Patzinaks without loss.

Alexius, however, at last succeeded in concluding a treaty with the Komans, by which these barbarians engaged to send a large army to cooperate with him in Thrace. In order to prepare for a great effort Nicephorus Melissenos was sent to assemble the armed peasants of Thrace and Macedonia called Vlachs, and join the regular forces of the empire, which the emperor conducted in person to Enos. The imperial army was there increased by the arrival of the Komans, who were about forty thousand strong; and the Patzinaks, who had concentrated all their troops, found themselves hemmed in between two hostile armies. A great battle was fought at a place called Levounion, in which these barbarians, who had so long ravaged Thrace, were completely defeated on Tuesday the 29th of April 1091. The number of prisoners who were captured by the Byzantine troops was so great that fear induced the soldiers to put many to death during the night after the battle. The remainder, with the families captured in their camp, were established as colonists at Moglena, where they long continued to supply recruits to the imperial armies. The Komans, distrusting the treachery of Alexius, hastened to regain their own seats beyond the Danube, with the booty and prisoners they had secured. A few who remained behind were rewarded by Alexius with additional presents, to secure the goodwill of their nation.

The wars carried on by Alexius with Bodin king of Servia, and Balkan prince of Dalmatia and Rascia, though they occupied a considerable force at different times, exerted too little influence on the general condition of the Byzantine Empire to be noticed in detail.

On the other hand, the fortunes of the Seljouk Turks influenced the course of European history. We have already seen that their conquests in Asia Minor were facilitated by two causes—by the destruction of the Christian population, and the treachery of the Byzantine rulers. Their incessant plundering incursions systematically exterminated the agricultural classes who were beyond the immediate protection of fortified towns; while the disgraceful cessions of territory they obtained from emperors and rebel chiefs yielded them the possession of as many provinces as they conquered. History records few periods in which so large a portion of the human race was in so short a period reduced from an industrious and flourishing condition to degradation and serfage. Yet the details of this great catastrophe are almost utterly neglected by the Byzantine historians, though its causes can be directly traced to the proceedings of the imperial administration and the conduct of the leading members of the aristocracy of Constantinople. Family prejudice and courtly blindness concealed from the minds of the Prince Nicephorus Bryennius and his spouse, the Princess Anna, how much of the decline of human society was the work of their own relations; and national prejudices, combined with political servility, rendered other contemporary writers more anxious to conciliate patrons by liberal eulogies than to trace the causes of the calamities they witnessed by a searching investigation of the truth. 

 

SELJOUK TURKS

 

It has been already noticed that the defeat of the Emperor Romanus IV by Alp Arslan left all Asia Minor exposed to the ravages of the Seljouks, who even then pushed their plundering incursions as far as Nicaea and Nicomedia. Shortly after Suleiman, the son of Koutoulmish, was entrusted with a subordinate sovereignty in Asia Minor by the Grand Sultan Malekshah, and thus became the founder of the Seljouk sultanat of Roum. The dominion of Suleiman over the greater part of Asia Minor was recognised by a treaty with the Byzantine Empire in 1074, when Michael VII purchased the assistance of a Turkish auxiliary force against the rebellion of Oursel and his own uncle John Dukas. Nicephorus III ratified the treaty concluded with Michael VII, augmented the power of the Turks, and abandoned additional numbers of Christians to their domination, to gain their aid in dethroning his lawful prince; and Nicephorus Melissenos, when he rebelled against Nicephorus III, repeated a similar treason against the traitor, and, in hopes of gaining possession of Constantinople, yielded up the possession of Nicaea to Suleiman, which that chief immediately made the capital of his dominions. It must not be forgotten that the hatred which a considerable portion of the Christian population bore to the Byzantine government, on account of the oppressive nature of its financial administration, and to the Greek Church on account of its rapacity, simony, and cruelty, greatly facilitated the consolidation of the Seljouk power. The overthrow of the Iconoclasts and the destruction of the Paulicians were victories of the Greek race and church over the native Asiatics, which were neither forgotten nor forgiven. The strict centralization of power which the emperors of the Basilian family had established also accelerated the disunion in a population destitute of homogeneous elements, by leaving the native population solely dependent on foreign governors for defence, protection, and justice. The effect of this was a tendency towards the formation of several independent principalities in Asia Minor even before the conquests of the Seljouks; and one of these states, the Armenian kingdom of Cilicia, long defied the Turkish power. The administration of the Iconoclast emperors had restored Asia Minor to a high degree of prosperity, wealth, and population; but in the time of John I Zimiskes, individual nobles had succeeded in obtaining possession of enormous estates, which were chiefly devoted to pasturage, and thus the diminution of the Christian population had commenced from internal causes of decay in the Byzantine empire before the Seljouk invasions. The nomad Turks consequently, partly on account of this want of inhabitants, and partly on account of the void created by their own devastations, colonized the country to a wonderful extent, and in the course of a single generation became the majority of the inhabitants of Cappadocia, Phrygia, and Galatia. And in this rapid colonization of the country by the Turks, we must seek for the explanation of the obstinate and effectual resistance which these countries were able to offer to the Crusaders, though they had been so recently conquered by the Mohammedans.

When Alexius ascended the throne, the Seljouk conquests in Asia Minor were still considered as a portion of the dominions of the Grand Sultan Malekshah, the son of Alp Arslan, and Suleiman, the sultan of Nicaea, was only his lieutenant, though as a member of the house of Seljouk, and as cousin of Malekshah, he was honoured with the title of Sultan. The prominent position which his posterity occupied in the wars of the Crusaders, their long relations with the Byzantine empire, and the independent position they held as sultans of Iconium, have secured to them a far more lasting place in history than has been obtained by the superior but less durable dynasty of the grand sultans. But at the commencement of the Seljouk domination in Asia Minor, there were other emirs who commanded extensive provinces in Asia Minor with as much independence as Suleiman. Of these, Elchan, who possessed Cyzikus; Tzachas, who acted the pirate at Smyrna; and Charatike, who seized Sinope, are particularly mentioned; while Artuk and Tutak are recorded as having held the command of large armies for particular objects. Toutoush, the brother of Malekshah, who acted as his governor at Damascus at the same time, became the founder of the Syrian dynasty of Seljouk sultans.

The treaty by which the river Drako was declared the boundary between the dominions of Alexius and Suleiman has been mentioned, and the assistance which the Turkish cavalry afforded to the Byzantine empire in the war with the Normans. But as no limits were placed to the progress of Suleiman towards the south, he did not consider himself bound to refrain from the conquest of Antioch, though that city still nominally formed part of the Byzantine Empire. Philaretos the Armenian, who had commanded under Romanus IV at the unfortunate battle of Manzikert, after passing through many vicissitudes, still governed Antioch, which he held rather as an independent prince than as an officer of the imperial government; but, like most of the Christian princes who continued to keep possession of cities and districts surrounded by the Turkish conquests, he acknowledged allegiance to the Emperor of Constantinople. When, however, he was informed of the successful termination of the Norman war, he feared that Alexius would be able to deprive him of his power in Antioch; and to secure his position, he resolved to embrace the Mohammedan faith, and maintain his independence by means of Turkish mercenary troops. His son, pretending that he wished to prevent his father’s apostacy, by rendering it unavailing, fled to Suleiman at Nicaea, and offered to put that prince in possession of Antioch before his father could execute his purpose. The importance of the prize roused the activity of Suleiman, who hastened to Antioch, and, arriving unexpectedly before the walls, rendered himself easily master of the city under the guidance of the treacherous son of Philaretos. This conquest involved Suleiman in war with the Emir of Aleppo and with Toutoush, the brother of Malekshah, by whom he was completely defeated in the neighbourhood of Aleppo; and it is said that, to avoid falling into the hands of his enemies, he committed suicide, which is a strong proof that the manners of the Seljouk Turks were not yet completely disciplined to the principles of the Koran (AD 1086).

This civil war between two of his near relations and most powerful officers drew the attention of Malekshah to the affairs of Asia Minor. Aboulkassim, who had been entrusted by Suleiman with the direction of the administration at Nicaea when he departed on his expedition to Antioch, attempted to maintain himself in a state of independence. Malekshah, in order to secure the assistance, or rather the neutrality, of the Byzantine Empire while he reduced his rebellious vassals to order, concluded a treaty with Alexius, by which the empire recovered several maritime cities from the Turks. But whatever engagements Alexius entered into with Malekshah, he showed himself always ready to treat with Aboulkassim, if by so doing he could gain some immediate advantage; and, according to the testimony of his daughter, he obtained possession of Sinope by cheating the grand sultan, and of Nicomedia by a fraudulent violation of the hospitality he had offered to Aboulkassim. He, however, conferred on that Mussulman the rank of Sevastotatos; and when Nicaea was besieged by the troops of Malekshah, he sent a Byzantine corps under Tatikios to aid in its defence, but with secret orders to gain possession of the place for himself should the treachery appear practicable. Aboulkassim, at last, finding that his own resources were insufficient to maintain his independence, preferred throwing himself on the generosity of Malekshah to intrusting his fortunes to the aid of so faithless an ally as Alexius proved to all persons and on all occasions. He was soon after slain by his enemies, and his brother Pulchas was compelled to surrender Nicaea to Kilidy-Arslan, the son of Suleiman (A.D. 1092).

The Turkish chief who attacked the empire with the greatest energy during the reign of Alexius was Tzachas, the emir of Smyrna. He had been a prisoner at Constantinople during the reign of Nicephorus III, and by entering the Byzantine service had gained the rank of protonobilissimus. When Alexius mounted the throne, and the imperial patronage was monopolized by the native aristocracy, Tzachas, seeing he had nothing more to hope from the Byzantine government, assembled a fleet of forty decked vessels, called agraria, and by a series of bold and successful enterprises rendered himself master of Clazomene, Phocaea, and Chios. His power increased so steadily that in the year 1090 he defeated the Byzantine fleet under the command of Niketas Kastamonites. For two years he carried on war with the naval forces of Alexius; and having made Smyrna the capital of his dominions in the year 1092, he assumed the title of Emperor, adopting all the insignia of the imperial rank used by the sovereigns of Constantinople, and by so doing inflicted a deeper wound on the heart of Alexius than he could have struck by any loss of territory. Though Tzachas was at length defeated by John Dukas, the brother of the empress, and lost Samos and several other islands he had conquered, he was still strong enough to besiege Abydos in the year 1093. But Alexius succeeded in inspiring Kilidy-Arslan, who had married Tzachas’ daughter, with distrust of his father-in-law; and if we believe Anna, the Sultan of Nicaea was induced by the calumnies of the emperor to assassinate Tzachas with his own hand at a festival. This crime strengthened the alliance between the suborner and the murderer. But many of the Seljouk tribes beyond the Sangarius were sufficiently independent to pay little attention to the treaties of Kilidy-Arslan, and frequently infested the territories of the empire by their incursions. To protect the neighbourhood of Nicomedia, which was now the frontier city of the diminished empire, Alexius cleared out an ancient canal between the lake of Sophon and the gulf of Astacus, which was said to have been originally constructed by the Emperor Anastasius as a defence to the Asiatic territory in the immediate vicinity of his capital, when he fortified its contiguous district in Europe by constructing the great Thracian wall from the Euxine to the Propontis. Alexius erected also a fortress called the Iron Tower, in which he placed a garrison to defend the passage of the canal. The lake and the lower course of the river Sangarius required only a few guards to form an effectual barrier against the plundering incursions of the Turkish nomads. About the time this work was completed, reports reached Constantinople of the great preparations the western nations of Europe were making to deliver Jerusalem from the Turks. Alexius was not without alarm at the multitudes which threatened to enter his dominions; but he hoped to employ the arms of the Franks in such a way as would enable him to restore the Byzantine Empire to some portion of its ancient power and dominion in the East.

 

THE CRUSADES

 

The influence of the Crusades on the progress of European civilization, and the change they produced in the relative condition of the governments and people in the western nations, offers too wide a field even for cursory notice, in a work which confines its investigations strictly to the political history of the Byzantine Empire. I must, therefore, confine my observations on the Crusades to their effects on the government of Constantinople, and on the condition of the Greek Christians. These effects were very different from those which they produced on the Latin nations. In the West, we can trace the germs of much social improvement to the immediate results of the Crusades; but in the East, during the whole period of their continuance, they were an unmitigated evil to the great body of the Christian population. For a time, religious feelings induced the leaders to behave to the Byzantine Empire with some respect, as it was a Christian state; but when ambition and fashion, rather than religious feeling, led men to the holy wars, the Eastern Christians suffered more from the Crusaders than the Mohammedans. It is our task, therefore, to view the Crusades chiefly as the irruption of undisciplined armies seeking to conquer foreign lands, and to retain possession of their conquests by military power; and in this light these celebrated expeditions effected so little in comparison with the forces they brought into the field, and with the individual military pretensions of the leaders, and the government of their Eastern conquests was so ruinous and unjust, that the character of the Western Europeans was for many ages regarded by the Eastern Christians with feelings of contempt and hatred.

Like all the great movements of mankind, the Crusades must be traced to the coincidence of many causes which influenced men of various nations and discordant feelings, at the same period of time, to pursue one common end with their whole heart. Religious zeal, the fashion of pilgrimages, the spirit of social development, the energies that lead to colonization or conquest, and commercial relations, only lately extended so widely as to influence public opinion, all suddenly received a deep wound. Every class of society felt injured and insulted, and unity of action was created as if by a divine impulse. The movement was facilitated by the circumstance that Europe began to adopt habits of order just at the time when Asia was thrown into a state of anarchy by the invasions of the Seljouk Turks.

Great numbers of pilgrims had always passed through the Byzantine Empire to visit the holy places in Palestine. We still possess an itinerary of the road from Bordeaux to Jerusalem, by the way of Constantinople, written in the fourth century for the use of pilgrims. Though the disturbed and impoverished state of Europe, after the fall of the Western Empire, diminished the number of pilgrims, still, even in times of the greatest anarchy, many passed annually through the Eastern Empire to Palestine. The improvement which dawned on the western nations during the eleventh century, and the augmented commerce of the Italians, gave additional importance to the pilgrimage to the East. About the year 1064, during the reign of Constantine X, an army or caravan of seven thousand pilgrims passed through Constantinople, led by the Archbishop of Mayence and four bishops. They made their way through Asia Minor, which was then under the Byzantine government; but in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem they were attacked by the Bedouins, and only saved from destruction by the Saracen emir of Kamla, who hastened to their assistance. These pilgrims are reported to have lost three thousand of their number, without being able to visit either the Jordan or the Dead Sea. The invasions of the Seljouks increased the disorders in Palestine. The prosperity of the pilgrims suffered as well as their piety. The Easter fair of Jerusalem was of importance to most European nations. Genoese and Pisan fleets traded to Palestine before the Crusades, and the merchants of Amalfi had already founded that glorious hospital of St John, which became a bulwark of Christianity in Rhodes and Malta. At the time of the first crusade, the fleets of the Italian states would have sufficed to transport large armies to Palestine, had conquest been the sole object of the Crusaders; for we have seen that, in a single battle with Robert Guiscard, Venice could lose a whole fleet, with thirteen thousand men on board, without receiving a mortal wound.

In the year 1076 the Seljouk Turks took possession of Jerusalem, and immediately commenced harassing the pilgrims with unheard-of exactions. The Saracens had in general viewed the pilgrims with favour, as men engaged in fulfilling a pious duty, or pursuing lawful gain with praiseworthy industry, and they had levied only a reasonable toll on the pilgrims, and a moderate duty on their merchandise; while, in consideration of these imposts, they had established guards to protect them on the roads by which they approached the holy places. The Turks, on the contrary, acting like mere nomads, uncertain of retaining possession of the city, thought only of gratifying their avarice. They plundered the rich pilgrims, and insulted the poor. The religious feelings of the Christians were irritated, and their commerce ruined; a cry for vengeance arose throughout all Europe, and men’s minds were fully prepared for an attempt to conquer Palestine, when Peter the Hermit began to preach that it was a sacred duty to deliver the tomb of Christ from the hands of the Infidels.

Pope Gregory VII was the first pontiff who attempted to excite the European nations to attack the Mohammedans as a religious duty. The Emperor Michael VII had entered into communications with the Papal See, for the ostensible object of uniting the Greek and Latin churches, but principally with the hope of obtaining military succours against the Turks. In 1074, Gregory, moved by the danger to which Christianity was exposed by the rapid progress of the Seljouks, called on the Christians of Europe to take up arms to defend their suffering brethren against the Mohammedans, and proposed to lead the troops himself to Constantinople. Many prepared to accompany the Pope at that time; but the state of Europe, and the various political projects in which Gregory involved himself, rendered this first project of a crusade abortive. 

Unfortunately, too, the Pope did more, by his violent interference in the affairs of the Eastern Empire, to estrange the Greeks, than either the exigencies of Byzantine policy or the hopes of assistance could efface. In the year 1078, among the numerous excommunications, anathemas, and execrations which Gregory launched at emperors, bishops, and princes, he thought fit to excommunicate Nicephorus III. Whether this was done because Nicephorus failed to pay an annual subsidy of 24 lb. of gold, granted by Michael VII to the monastery of Mount Cassino, or because he married the Empress Maria when Michael was compelled to descend from the throne and become a priest, the step was equally impolitic; as so violent and unwarranted an attack on the independence of the empire, by a foreign priest, was sure to unite the Greek clergy and people in opposition to the papal pretensions. Victor III, moved by the spirit which then inspired the court of Rome to assume the direction of European policy, urged the maritime states of Italy to attack the Mohammedans. Like his predecessor Gregory VII, he promised remission of sins to all who engaged in this holy war. The Pisans and Genoese, eager to attack the Saracen pirates who still continued to infest the Italian seas, finding that the papal exhortations secured them a supply of volunteers, fitted out their fleets and invaded Africa, where they met with some success, and from whence they carried off considerable booty. Every year brought the hostility of the Christians to the Mohammedans more prominently before the public. Peter the Hermit began to preach, and at last, in 1095, Pope Urban II assembled a council at Placentia, where ambassadors from Alexius presented themselves to solicit assistance, and enrol some of the distinguished soldiers of the Franks in the service of the Eastern Empire. At the council of Clermont, which was held a short time after, many princes took the cross, and the religious enthusiasm spread with such fervour among a. d. the people that many assembled without loss of time, and commenced their march to deliver Jerusalem.

The conduct of these first bands of Crusaders produced a very unfavourable impression on the inhabitants of the Byzantine Empire. Only a part of the expedition consisted of soldiers, and even these troops paid little attention to the orders of Walter the Pennyless, a soldier of some military experience, who was the nominal leader of the army. The majority of this first swarm of Crusaders consisted of pilgrims without arms, order, or discipline, followed by crowds of women and children. Few had made adequate preparation for the journey, or possessed any knowledge of the difficulties they must necessarily encounter, and all were without the requisite pecuniary resources. They had hardly entered the Byzantine Empire before their money was exhausted, and they then began to plunder the Bulgarian villages, and carry off the provisions and cattle of the inhabitants, as if they had been in an enemy’s country. This conduct roused the fury of the peasantry, accustomed to war by the incessant plundering incursions of the Hungarians, Patzinaks, and Romans, who fell upon the dispersed bands of the Crusaders, and would in all probability have destroyed the whole expedition, had not the imperial officer who commanded at Naissos saved the greater part, supplied them with rations, and sent them forward to Constantinople. But that hundreds of the unarmed pilgrims, and of the women and children, were seized and sold as slaves to pay for the ravages committed by the plunderers, cannot be doubted. A still more numerous body of pilgrims soon followed, under the personal guidance of Peter the Hermit himself. Though supplied with provisions by the governor of Naissos, this body committed such disorders that at last they were attacked by the garrison of Naissos, and only seven thousand reached Constantinople with Peter. These first divisions of the Crusaders were not so numerous nor powerful as to excite any alarm in Alexius, who had often encountered more numerous armies of Patzinaks, Romans, Turks, and Normans; and as he expected to turn their services to his advantage, he received Peter the Hermit with kindness, and supplied his followers with provisions. But the ravages committed by these undisciplined bands in Servia, Bulgaria, and Thrace sowed the seeds of a deep-rooted hatred of the western nations in the hearts of the Sclavonian and Greek subjects of the Byzantine empire. The bitter fruits of this antipathy will be often apparent in the following pages of this history.

The followers of Walter the Pennyless and Peter the Hermit were soon swelled into a considerable army by fresh arrivals at Constantinople. They were transported over to Asia by the Byzantine fleet, where their imprudence and want of discipline quickly caused their ruin. The various nations composing the army formed separate bands, and their desultory attacks on the Turks led to numbers being cut off in detail. The main body marched to attack Nicaea, and was completely defeated in a battle, from which only three thousand men escaped into the Byzantine territory.

The great army of the first Crusade only began to march eastward about the time this advanced guard was destroyed. In the summer of the year 1096, the chivalry of Flanders, Normandy, and France began to move towards Constantinople by various routes. Hugh of Vermandois, brother of Philip I king of France; Robert II duke of Normandy; Robert count of Flanders; Stephen count of Blois and Chartres, with some other independent leaders of inferior rank, took the well-known road through Italy, where they passed the winter. Bohemund, now Prince of Tarentum, caught something of their religious enthusiasm, which he engrafted on his own private schemes of personal ambition and rapacity; but he was accompanied by his kinsman Tancred, one of the noblest characters of the crusade. Hugh of Vermandois, proud of everything—of his high birth, of his having received a consecrated banner from the Pope, and of his tall person—was impatient to reach Constantinople before any of his comrades, hoping to impose on the Byzantine court by his grandeur. Embarking at Bari with a small suite, he landed in the neighbourhood of Dyrrachium. He soon learned how little respect the Greeks entertained either for the piety or splendour of crusading princes. John Comnenus, the emperor’s nephew, was governor of Dyrrachium, and as he was well informed of the views of the imperial court, he detained the great Hugh until he should receive orders from the capital. When Alexius heard that the man of highest rank among the Crusaders was in his power, he began to speculate in what manner he could turn the accident to the greatest advantage. He sent Butumites, an officer of rank, to conduct the Count of Vermandois to Constantinople with becoming honour; and though he really detained him as a hostage, he received him with distinction, and endeavoured to gain his goodwill, in which he soon succeeded. Hugh of Vermandois, notwithstanding his presumption and the royal blood of France, was the first leader of the crusade who was induced to do homage and swear fealty to the Greek emperor. But the circumstance of his arrest, and the degradation of his homage, spread distrust through the army, which had now passed the north-western frontier of the empire, under the guidance of Godfrey of Bouillon.

Godfrey, the future king of Jerusalem, conducted the most warlike if not the most numerous body of the Crusaders. Though attended by irregular bands, who committed great disorders in the march through Hungary and Bulgaria, he maintained such discipline among his regular troops that his cavalry arrived at Philippopolis in good condition. He there learned that the brother of the liege lord of most of the crusading barons was a prisoner at Constantinople, and he sent an embassy to demand his immediate release. Alexius’ refusal to comply with this demand was the signal for commencing hostilities. Godfrey advanced by Adrianople and Selymbria, laying waste the country and pillaging the inhabitants, until he reached the walls of Constantinople. Alexius, alarmed at the energy and numbers of his enemies, sent Hugh to the camp of the Crusaders, and peace was thereby restored, but confidence could not be so easily re-established.

It was about Christmas, 1096, that this division of the army reached the Bosphorus. Its hostile attitude and the news that Bohemund, his ancient enemy, was approaching, in company with another division, whose number exceeded this army by which he had more than once been defeated, increased the alarm of Alexius. The emperor now exerted all his ability, and used every machination of flattery, force, and bribery, to secure himself against the evil designs of Bohemund, whom he regarded as the heir of his father’s ambitious projects, by engaging the crusading chief to do homage to the Eastern Empire, and swear fidelity to his person. It was with considerable difficulty that Godfrey was persuaded by Hugh of Vermandois to consent to this measure. At last, however, a treaty was concluded between Alexius and the Crusaders. On the one hand, the emperor engaged to assist the Crusaders to recover the Holy Sepulchre, to supply them with an auxiliary force, to protect all the pilgrims who passed through his dominions, and to take care that the armies of the Crusaders should be amply supplied with provisions, in open markets, at reasonable prices. On the other hand, the leaders of the crusade promised to commit no disorders in the empire, to treat Alexius as their liege lord while within his dominions, to deliver up to him all the cities which had recently belonged to the empire as soon as they recovered them from the Turks, and to do him homage and swear fidelity to his throne. The word of an emperor was regarded a sufficient guarantee for the faith of Alexius; but the princes of the crusade, being already the liegemen of other sovereigns, took an oath of fidelity, and did homage to Alexius, in regular form, to the extent of the engagements contracted by their treaty. On the nature and extent of these engagements, it is probable that the contracting parties, even at the time, placed a different interpretation, and they have been the subject of a good deal of discussion since.

Bohemund would have avoided doing homage and swearing fealty to Alexius if possible; but he soon perceived that he must follow his companions, and endeavour to profit for the time by the favour of Alexius, rather than appear openly as his enemy. Still, both he and Alexius for some time could not refrain from acting on feelings of mutual suspicion and jealousy, which led them into serious political errors; indeed, the hostile feelings and intriguing ambition of Bohemund, rendered his presence in the crusading camp no small addition to the numerous causes of quarrel which occurred between the Greeks and the Crusaders. Fortunately for Alexius, the alliance he had contracted with Robert the Frison in 1088, secured him the friendship of his son Robert count of Flanders, one of the most powerful and valiant leaders of the expedition, whose influence in some degree counter­acted the intrigues of the crafty Norman.

It was with the greatest difficulty, and not without actual hostilities with Godfrey, that Alexius succeeded in persuading the leaders to transport their troops over to Asia. All wished to enter Constantinople, and none wished to quit it when they had entered. Its luxuries and amusements so enchanted the young warriors of the West, that they would fain have postponed their vows in the pursuit of pleasure. Godfrey, with the first division of the army, did not cross the Bosphorus until the middle of March 1097. In the meantime Bohemund, Robert count of Flanders, Robert duke of Normandy, Stephen count of Blois, and Eustace count of Bologne, followed one another in succession from the ports on the Adriatic, and after doing homage to Alexius, and receiving valuable presents from him, collected all their followers in Asia. Raymond count of St Giles and Toulouse was the last of the chiefs who joined the army. He had been the first to take the cross, but his preparations occupied much time, for he made a vow never to return to his rich domains, having resolved to spend the rest of his life in the East as a Christian soldier. Could he have foreseen that the power of his family and the wealth of his subjects were soon to become the spoil of another crusade, what would have been the bitterness of his feelings? Raymond collected so large an army that he deemed it prudent to avoid as much as possible the routes of those who preceded him. His own line of march was, nevertheless, very ill chosen. After passing through the north of Italy, instead of descending the valley of the Save, he proceeded from Friouli through Dalmatia. The country was mountainous, destitute of roads, and thinly peopled; the inhabitants were poor, and avoided the strangers, concealing their cattle and provisions in their most sequestered valleys. Hostilities took place; Raymond put out his prisoners’ eyes and cut off their hands and noses to intimidate their countrymen, and thereby increased his difficulties. At last he reached Scodra, where he was met by Bodin king of Servia, but the poverty of the country was so great that no adequate supplies of provisions could be obtained; and this army of Crusaders, though better prepared for their journey than any other, suffered greater hardships. Even after reaching Dyrrachium, as they had to march over ground traversed by their predecessors, they were compelled to fight their way through the Albanian, Sclavonian, and Bulgarian population of Epirus, Macedonia, and Thrace.

The conduct of Alexius to Raymond was at first extremely haughty and imprudent. Raymond left his troops at Redestos, and repaired to Constantinople to wait on the emperor; but his refusal to do homage like the other princes offended the vanity of Alexius, who, thinking the troops of the count were exhausted by fatigue, cut off their supplies of provisions, and sent armed men to harass them in their quarters, hoping by these measures to force Raymond to do homage. The Count of St Giles was neither to be moved by fear of the emperor nor by the solicitations of the other Crusaders. He declared that he had not taken the cross to enter the service of any earthly sovereign, but that if the Byzantine emperor would place himself at the head of the expedition, he was ready to obey all his orders. The proceedings of Alexius threatened war, and it required all the prudence of Godfrey and Robert of Flanders to prevent the indignation of Raymond letting loose his army on the environs of Constantinople. Bohemund, gained over for the time by the liberality of Alexius, went so far as to tell the Count of Toulouse that, in case of hostilities breaking out, he should hold it his duty to serve Alexius as his liege lord. This threat the haughty Raymond never forgave. The other leaders at last arranged the quarrel. Raymond swore to observe the treaty entered into by the other Crusaders, and never to undertake anything against the life or the honour of Alexius, but he refused to do him homage. A more intimate acquaintance with the honourable though haughty character of the count showed the emperor the impolicy of the quarrel. He perceived that no projects of worldly ambitions caused the refusal of Raymond, nor could power ever be held by a Crusader less inclined to seek wealth and conquest at the expense of the empire. He found that the word of Raymond was as good a guarantee as the oath of others, and he then endeavoured, by every means in his power, to gain the good opinion of one he had received in the beginning so ill. As Raymond, though severe and haughty, was frank and loyal, he soon forgave the hostilities of Alexius, but he never pardoned the insolent threat of the upstart Bohemund.

The conduct of Alexius towards the Crusaders was certainly deficient both in candour and prudence, but he had a very difficult part to act; and it must be admitted that all his fears and distrust were fully justified by the rapine of the private soldiers, who plundered his subjects, and the insolence of the chiefs, who insulted his authority. The memorable anecdote of the insolence of a petty French chieftain, who has been supposed by Ducange to have been a count of Paris, and who rudely seated himself on the imperial throne at a solemn audience, is familiar both to the readers of history and romance. His conduct must have appeared to the Byzantine courtiers an act of high treason deserving death, and it was regarded by the princes of the crusade as an intolerable piece of rudeness and brutality. The Franks and Greeks were at this time in social conditions which rendered it impossible for them to associate together without feelings of mutual contempt. The narration of Anna Comnena enables us to contrast in a curious manner the experienced anility of the Byzantine court with the idleness and mental inanity of the Western aristocracy. She complains, with great reason, of the presumption, vanity, and loquacity of the chiefs, who, considering themselves entitled by their rank to converse with the emperor, compelled him to sacrifice hour after hour of his valuable time listening to their pretensions and solicitations. Alexius knew that these men were independent chiefs, and he was anxious to avoid giving them offence, for their power so often exceeded their judgment that the neglect of a childish demand or the irritation of an unintentional slight might plunge his empire in a dangerous and bloody war. The personal behaviour of Alexius was more judicious than his political system. He did everything to conciliate the nobles, and his patience, good-humour, and liberality overcame many difficulties, but his health suffered from the fatigue of the interminable audiences he gave the leaders amidst the toils of his other occupations. The silly loquacity of men who wasted their days in idle talk and vain boasting made a very unfavourable impression on the Byzantine nobles, whose social intercourse retained much of Roman gravity, formalized by Oriental ceremony. The chiefs of the crusade also displayed an unseemly eagerness to obtain money and presents from the emperor. Tancred, the flower of Norman chivalry, openly expressed his disgust at the rapacity of his companions. When solicited to do homage to Alexius, which he would fain have avoided, he could not repress his sneers at their venality. Looking one day at the magnificent tent of the emperor, which all were admiring, Tancred exclaimed, “If Alexius would give me that tent full of money, and as much more as he has given to our princes, I might think of doing him homage”.

The feudal nations and the subjects of the Byzantine Empire formed different estimates of the exigencies of society. Political order, security of property, and the supremacy of the judicial administration, were, in the opinion of the Eastern Christians, the true objects of government. Personal independence, and the right of each noble to redress his wrongs with his own sword, were the most valuable privileges of freemen, in the opinion of the Frank nations, lie authority of a central administration, which made the most powerful noble submit to the law, was regarded by the feudal barons as an intolerable despotism; while the right of private war, as it existed in western Europe, was considered by the Greeks as a state of anarchy suitable only to a society of lawless bandits. Nor were the feelings of the Eastern and Western clergy towards one another calculated to infuse any addition of Christian charity into the intercourse of the Greeks and Franks. The unfounded and arrogant pretensions of the popes excited the opposition of the whole Greek Church, and were ably exposed by its more learned members. The general ignorance of the Latin clergy raised feelings of contempt, which were changed into abhorrence when the Greeks beheld men calling themselves bishops clad in coats of mail, riding through the streets on fiery chargers, and returning from battle covered with blood. On the other hand, the Latin priests despised the Eastern clergy as a timeserving and slavish body, utterly unfit to uphold the dignity of the priesthood, and they condemned those doctrines as heretical which taught that the clergy were bound to submit to the civil magistrate. In addition to these incongruities, the rival nations mutually reproached one another as insolent, false, and treacherous.

One of the primary causes of the quarrels between the Crusaders and the subjects of the Byzantine Empire arose from the attempts made by the government and its officials to make unfair profits in selling provisions to the strangers. The financial administration of Alexius was remarkable for its rapacity and bad faith. He had cheated his own subjects by issuing debased coin in payment of his debts, and enriched his treasury by oppressive monopolies. He attempted the same system with the Crusaders; but when he beheld the numbers of the armies they assembled under the walls of Constantinople, he saw the necessity of laying aside his previous practice, and attempted, by a liberal distribution of money and provisions, to efface the memory of his earlier frauds. For a time the crusading army appeared to be no better than a host of Byzantine mercenaries; the imperial paymasters carried bags of gold byzants to the leaders, and distributed quarter byzants, or tetartera, among the inferior officers and men.

 

CONQUEST OF NICAEA, A.D. 1097.

 

The first warlike operation of the Crusaders against the Turks was the siege of Nicaea, a city which, by the terms of their treaty with Alexius, they were bound to restore to the empire. The Byzantine army was so much inferior to that of the Crusaders in number, that the emperor deemed it prudent to watch the siege from a camp at Pelekanon, without taking part in the attack. His general, Tatikios, joined the besiegers with two thousand light cavalry; and a number of boats were transported on waggons from Kios to the Ascanian Lake and filled with Byzantine troops, under the command of Butumites, to blockade Nicaea on the side towards the lake. The Sultan Kilidy-Arslan was defeated in an attempt to raise the siege, and the inhabitants, seeing that they could not long resist the incessant assaults of the Franks, entered into secret arrangements with the Byzantine troops on the lake, and admitted them into the city on receiving a charter from the emperor promising that the lives and property of the Turkish inhabitants should be respected. By this treaty the Byzantine forces entered the city unknown to the Crusaders, who were informed of its surrender by seeing the Byzantine ensigns displayed on the walls. Many of the besiegers were enraged at being thus deprived of the plunder of the first Mohammedan city they had attacked. Alexius, however, pacified the discontent by dividing great part of the public property that fell into his hands among the Crusaders, and furnishing them with abundant supplies of provisions, to enable them to hasten forward through Asia Minor. The emperor at the same time placed a strong garrison in Nicaea, and enrolled in his service many Franks who were without the means of continuing their journey.

The crusading army quitted the neighbourhood of Nicaea about the end of June, and reached Antioch on the 21st October 1097. The country through which they passed had long been the ordinary line of march for the Byzantine armies, and an excellent road for the transport of baggage and provisions had existed only thirty years before, when Romanus IV Diogenes commenced his unfortunate war with Alp Arslan; but the country was now everywhere depopulated, the roads had become impassable, the bridges were broken down, the cisterns ruined, and the wells filled up. The assistance of the petty Armenian princes in Cilicia and Mount Taurus proved of more use to them than the alliance of Alexius. Never, perhaps, had any country fallen so rapidly from civilization to barbarism, or changed the great body of its inhabitants, its language, religion, and mode of life so completely as Asia Minor in the latter half of the eleventh century. A single generation accomplished what a thousand years have often in other circumstances vainly laboured to effect. But the Crusaders, in defiance of sufferings and opposition, advanced steadily, if slowly, storming every city that refused to assist them. At Germanicia, Baldwin, the brother of Godfrey, quitted the grand army, which continued its march to Antioch, and moved eastward to take possession of Edessa, a city which still acknowledged allegiance to the Byzantine emperor. It had surrendered to Pouzan, one of the generals of Malekshah, in the year 1087, but during the contests of the Turks and Saracens in the north of Syria it had recovered its independence. Baldwin now sullied the honour of the Franks, by exciting the people to murder their governor Theodore, and rebel against the Byzantine authority; he then took possession of the place in his own name, and founded the Frank principality of Edessa, which lasted about forty-seven years. This was a direct violation of the treaty with Alexius. Antioch was besieged for seven months. It was winter, and the sufferings of the Crusaders were so great that many deserted the army. Tatikios retired with the Byzantine auxiliaries to Cyprus. Robert duke of Normandy went off to Laodicea, and it required three citations of the chiefs to recall him to his duty. William viscount of Melun, and Peter the Hermit himself, attempted to escape to Europe, but were brought back to the camp by Tancred. At length Antioch was taken by the treachery of an officer, who admitted Bohemund into one of its towers. The departure of the Byzantine contingent served as a good pretext for refusing to cede the city of Antioch to Alexius, who had afforded them no assistance, nor attempted any diversion in their favour, when they were placed in a very critical position immediately after gaining possession of the city. Alexius was advancing with a considerable army in the spring of 1098, in the hope of securing Antioch to himself but on reaching Philomelium he heard that it had already surrendered; but at the same time he was informed that an immense army, under Kerboga, the emir of Mossoul, which had been sent by the Grand Sultan Barkyarok, was about to make an attempt to recover the place. Several deserters from the crusading army, and particularly Stephen count of Blois and Chartres, brought alarming accounts of the magnitude of the Turkish army, and of the unprepared condition of the Crusaders. Their reports induced Alexius to make a precipitate retreat to Constantinople; and in order to retard the progress of the Turks, whom he imagined were already pursuing his army, he invited all the Christians in Phrygia to retire with their families and property into the provinces of the Byzantine empire, and thus save themselves from the inroads of the Mohammedans. The Crusaders defeated the Turkish army, and Bohemund became prince of Antioch rather by his own intrigues than in consequence of any regular concession on the part of the leaders of the crusade.

As Alexius had employed the summer of 1097 in recovering possession of Smyrna, Ephesus, Sardis, Philadelphia, and many other cities on the west coast of Asia Minor, the Crusaders determined to ask some explanation of his neglecting to make a diversion in their favour when they were attacked by Kerboga. Hugh of Vermandois and Baldwin of Hainault were sent to Constantinople as ambassadors for this purpose, and to invite the emperor to join the army and march at its head to Jerusalem; on that condition they offered to put him in possession of Antioch and all their other conquests. But in case of his refusal, the ambassadors were instructed to declare that, Alexius having failed to perform his engagements, the treaty was annulled, and the Crusaders renounced the fealty they had sworn. All this was strictly in accordance with feudal usages, and Alexius had no reason to complain of the proceeding. The mission proved every way unfortunate. Baldwin was never heard of and was probably murdered by the bands of brigands who infested Asia Minor. Hugh of Vermandois, finding Alexius occupied with other business, and not likely to afford his companions any assistance, abandoned their cause, and returned to France.

It is not surprising that Alexius declined joining the Crusaders. He knew that he was not likely to be obeyed, and he might doubt whether he would be able to force Baldwin and Bohemund to surrender their conquests. His own absence from Constantinople might also be attended with danger, in an empire where pretenders to the throne were constantly starting up, and where feelings of loyalty and hereditary right were almost unknown. Besides this, the arrival of fresh bands of Crusaders required the presence of a considerable military force, under his immediate direction, to protect Constantinople and the environs. Armed pilgrims, who considered that by taking the cross they had purchased absolution for every crime, could only be restrained from plundering the emperor’s subjects by fear of the consequences; for we must not overlook the fact, that the Crusaders began about this time to drain off poverty and crime from the western nations of Europe, somewhat as emigration and transportation perform that service for Great Britain at present. It was also a matter of greater importance to the security of the Byzantine Empire that the Turks should be expelled from Bithynia and Phrygia than from Syria and Palestine.

Unfortunately for the Byzantine Empire, Alexius was more eager to gain some diplomatic advantage over the Latins than to promote the prosperity of his subjects and consolidate the strength of the empire. He sent an embassy to the leaders of the crusade, which found them encamped before Archas. His ambassadors demanded that all the towns they had conquered in Syria should be surrendered to the imperial officers. The princes of the crusade, already disgusted with the cowardly manner in which he had deserted their cause before the battle with Kerboga, and no longer standing in need of his assistance, since they had opened communications with the fleets of the Italian republics, treated his ill-timed demand with scorn, and dismissed his envoys with reproaches. Nevertheless the emperor gained possession of the city of Laodicea in Syria, which, however, he soon lost. The inhabitants of Laodicea had thrown off the Turkish yoke, with the assistance of a Flemish pirate named Guymer, about the time the Crusaders took Antioch. The Byzantine fleet soon after landed a garrison, and Guymer, who was endeavouring to establish himself as an independent prince, was thrown into prison. But the Crusaders, on their march from Antioch to Acre, entered Laodicea, and the Byzantine garrison retired to Cyprus. Guymer gained his liberty. Raymond of Toulouse, who was left in possession of the city, now surrendered it to the officers of Alexius, rather than leave it to be occupied by his enemy Bohemund. Andronicus, the Byzantine governor, however, was unable to retain possession of it for any length of time. Tancred soon laid siege to it, and compelled it to capitulate.

In the meantime the Crusaders, who continued to arrive at Constantinople, gave Alexius almost as much trouble, and threatened the empire with as great danger, as the expedition under Godfrey. Jerusalem was already in the hands of the grand army, when a body of Lombards, accompanied, but certainly not commanded, by their archbishop, entered Bulgaria. Their conduct was more lawless than that of the followers of Walter the Pennyless and Peter the Hermit. They remained sometime in the environs of Constantinople, awaiting the arrival of a number of French and German pilgrims who were known to have taken the cross. Their insolence alarmed Alexius, who insisted on their passing over into Asia before new bands arrived, as it would be impossible to furnish all with provisions. With this requisition they refused to comply, and it was necessary to compel them by force. Hostilities broke out; the Lombards attempted to storm the quarter of Blachern, and it was with great difficulty that the Archbishop of Milan and Raymond of Toulouse succeeded in re-establishing order, and persuading them to cross the Bosphorus. They were soon after joined by the Count of Blois and the Constable of the Emperor of Germany. The brilliant appearance of their camp, which was soon filled with wealthy nobles, raised the confidence of the Lombards to the highest pitch. They spoke with contempt of the exploits of the first army which had taken Jerusalem, and, scorning to follow in the track of others, they determined to march to Bagdad, and destroy the caliphate. Raymond of Toulouse was appointed their leader, but he had little power over the disorderly Italians. Alexius, however, supplied them with five hundred Turkopuls to serve as guides,—an admirable species of light cavalry, but whose origin made them an object of suspicion to the Crusaders.

This army took Ancyra without difficulty, and crossed the Halys without order or precaution, plundering the inhabitants indiscriminately whether they were Christians or Mohammedans. On one occasion the inhabitants of a town came out to meet them in solemn procession, headed by their priests, bearing the crucifix and pictures of their protecting saints. Some acts of hostility had taken place in the neighbourhood, and the dress of the Greek priests being different from that of the Latin clergy, the Crusaders would not listen to a word of explanation, but immediately massacred the peaceful citizens and the ministers of religion. Their brutal conduct and want of discipline caused their ruin. Before they reached Amasia they were surrounded by the Turks, their foraging parties were cut off; they could obtain no information, for the Christians feared them more than the Turks. They were at last attacked and completely defeated. A few only of the leaders escaped, by haying maintained some discipline among their personal followers. Raymond, who had long foreseen the inevitable issue of the enterprise, saved himself with the Turkopuls by a precipitate flight.

This unfortunate expedition was followed by others equally disastrous. The Count of Nevers, with a large army, was defeated; and he himself with a few others, reached Antioch on foot. The Count of Poitiers and Hugh of Vermandois made their line of march a scene of disorder and devastation. Before they reached Adrianople they were involved in hostility with the Bulgarian and Sclavonian subjects of the empire, and with the Patzinak and Koman mercenaries in the Byzantine service. The imperial troops were defeated, the governor of Adrianople was taken prisoner, and Alexius was compelled to make every concession they wished, in order to facilitate the progress of these furious pilgrims, and allow them to expend their vigour in contests with the infidels. This army reached Phrygia during the season of the great heats. The harvests were already removed, the forage exhausted, the wells on their road filled up, and the cisterns emptied. Disaster and defeat followed in quick succession. At last their camp was captured and the army dispersed. Hundreds of ladies had joined this band, which it was supposed would make their pilgrimage a triumphal precession, under the leading of the great Hugh: these ladies now became slaves of the Mussulmans, and for many years the slave-markets of Bagdad and the harems of the East were supplied with noble ladies, whom the defeats of the Crusaders were continually consigning to perpetual slavery. Hugh of Vermandois escaped to Tarsus, where he died of fatigue, and the Count of Poitiers reached Antioch with only six attendants. The Latins would not allow that their disasters were caused by their own misconduct and imprudence; they persisted in attributing all their misfortunes to the treachery of the Greeks; and though Alexius delivered many from captivity, the Crusaders generally regarded him as an enemy.

The personal jealousy of Alexius and Bohemund in the end became the immediate cause of war between the Greeks and Latins. Alexius could not forget his defeat in Epirus, and he sought revenge by endeavouring to expel Bohemund from Antioch. Nothing could be more ill-judged, for the city was too distant from the center of his power to be a possession of any value, and the conquest was sure to involve him in hostilities with the Crusaders. In the year 1103 Bohemund was taken prisoner by the Emir Danishmend, who had formed a principality embracing Sevaste and all the country round. Alexius, hoping to gain possession of Antioch, offered to purchase Bohemund from Danishmend; but Kilidy-Arslan claiming the prisoner, as representative of the grand sultan in Asia Minor, Danishmend, to secure some profit to himself, released Bohemund on receiving a sum of money paid down, and a promise of support should either Alexius or Kilidy-Arslan attack him. Alexius, foiled in his attempt to make Bohemund his prisoner, attacked Antioch. The Byzantine Empire was thus rashly brought into collision with the Crusaders; and the Greeks, already involved in a contest of commercial interests with the maritime states of Italy, were soon excluded from a considerable portion of the trade of the Mediterranean at a time when it was receiving a great extension. The Byzantine army, commanded by Butumites and Monastras, advanced from Cilicia, but gained no advantage. The imperial fleet, on the other hand, commanded the sea, and reduced Bohemund to the greatest difficulty. He, however, succeeded in forming an alliance with the Pisans, who sent a fleet to his aid. Part of the Pisan force was detached to plunder Corfu, Cephallenia, Leucadia, and Zante. The main body fell in with the Byzantine fleet between Rhodes and Patara. The Greeks were commanded by Tatikios and Landolph, a Lombard officer of great naval experience; their vanguard was led by Perichytanes, a Peloponnesian noble, who traversed the whole Pisan fleet, sending out streams of Greek fire from both sides of his vessel; but he was not seconded with promptitude, and the engagement, though advantageous to the imperial forces, reflected little honour on the Greek navy. A storm proved more injurious to the Pisans than the battle, and only a small part of their ships gained the port of Laodicea. The Byzantine army now occupied Seleucia and Korykos, near the mouth of the Kalykadnus, and repaired the fortifications of these towns. A naval division on the station completely commanded the channel between Cilicia and Cyprus, and excluded the allies of Bohemund from shelter on the Asiatic coast, so that the communications of the Prince of Antioch were cut off during the winter, when the navigators of the time feared to venture into the open sea to the south of Cyprus.

In 1104 a Genoese fleet, engaged in conveying pilgrims and merchandise to the East, was instructed to assist the Prince of Antioch, with whose dominions the Genoese had established commercial relations. The Genoese succeeded in avoiding the Byzantine fleet. The Greek admiral in the meantime captured the city of Laodicea, but could not take the citadel, though it was only defended by one hundred cavalry and five hundred infantry. The army in Cilicia, under the command of Monastras, having received considerable reinforcements, proceeded to attack the Normans with vigour, and captured Tarsus, Adana, and Mopsuestia (Mamistra). The result of the campaign convinced Bohemund that without fresh troops he could not make head against the forces of the Byzantine Empire; but it was no longer an easy matter for succours to escape the Greek cruisers. Bohemund, seeing that his own presence would be necessary to obtain adequate assistance from the West, resolved to run every risk. In order to deceive any spies the emperor might have placed in Antioch, he is said to have spread a report of his own death; and Tancred assumed the direction of the government of Antioch.1 A coffin was then prepared in which he could conceal himself, and in this way he was embarked at the port of Suda, in a vessel of which all the equipage were dressed in mourning. The Princess Anna adds that a dead fowl was shut up with him in the coffin; that even in case the vessel should be visited by the Greek officers, they might be deterred from opening the coffin by the offensive odour. “I must acknowledge”, says the learned lady, “that there is nothing capable of overcoming the obstinacy with which the barbarians pursue their plans”, Bohemund reached the coast of Italy in safety, but a contrary wind delayed him at the entrance of the Adriatic until his provisions and water were exhausted. He ventured to visit Corfu in order to obtain refreshments and purchase provisions; and the governor, not possessing a sufficient force to attack this redoubted enemy of the empire, permitted the communication. On quitting Corfu, Bohemund sent this message to the Byzantine governor—“Inform your master that the Prince of Antioch has arisen from the dead, and will soon give proofs of his vitality”.

Bohemund hastened to Rome in order to excite the Pope to aid him against the Emperor Alexius. Pope Pascal II, who adopted all the ambitious schemes of Gregory VII, and strove to establish the papal domination over all Christian princes, approved of the projects of the Norman. Bohemund then visited France, to collect troops for a crusade against the Byzantine Empire. He was received with great honour. Philippe I of France gave him his daughter Constance in marriage, and this alliance alarmed Alexius to such a degree that he forgot his imperial pride so far as to write letters to the republics of Pisa, Genoa, and Venice, refuting the injurious reports which Bohemund had spread concerning his conduct, and declaring that it was a disgraceful calumny to call him an enemy of the Christians and a traitor to the Crusaders. As a proof of the calumnious nature of Bohemund’s accusations, he immediately obtained the release of three hundred knights who were prisoners at Cairo.

Alexius made every preparation to encounter this crusade against the Greeks. He formed a camp at Thessalonica in the autumn of 1105, and sent his nephew Alexius Komnenos to take the command at Dyrrachium, and put that important place in a good state of defence. Isaac Koutostephanos was also sent into the Adriatic with a powerful fleet assembled in the ports of the Aegean Sea. Bohemund was not ready to invade the empire until the autumn of 1107. In the meantime Koutostephanos made an attempt to surprise Brindisi, in which he failed. The Normans on this occasion captured a few of the mercenaries of Turkish race who served in the Byzantine armies. These prisoners may have been Patzinaks, Uzes, Romans, or Turks of the colony at Achrida, and were probably Christians; but their dress and arms were different from anything in use throughout the west of Europe, so that Bohemund presented them to the Pope as a convincing proof that the emperor of Constantinople was in close alliance with the enemies of Christianity. Bohemund, with his usual skill, availed himself of an opportunity to cross the Adriatic when the Greek fleet had retired to Chimaera. He left the port of Bari with two hundred transports and thirty war-galleys, and arrived safely at Avlona on the 9th October 1107, where he landed his army. The cavalry alone amounted to five thousand.

This army resembled that with which William the Conqueror subdued England. It was composed of experienced military adventurers, whom the hope of a richer conquest than that of England had assembled under the banner of the Prince of Tarentum and Antioch. But, fortunately for the Byzantine Empire, instead of fighting a battle immediately on its landing, it was compelled to pass the winter before the walls of Dyrrachium. The strength of that fortress, and the ample supplies with which it had been furnished, saved Alexius from the necessity of giving battle until it suited his convenience; and he had every advantage in his favour. Bohemund was compelled to leave his warriors idle, while his engineers were preparing movable towers, tortoises, and battering-rams; and in the meantime Alexius assembled his army at Thessalonica. The Byzantine court was the real cause of the ruin of the Eastern Empire; its expenses were so great that every branch of the public service was paralyzed to supply its demands whenever money was scarce in the treasury at Constantinople. That Caesars and sevasts might be maintained in becoming pomp, the emperors had long been in the habit of disbanding a considerable part of the native troops at every cessation of active hostilities; and when this happened, court influence, not length of service, decided what officers and troops were to profit by the arrangement. The vanity of Alexius, the necessity he was under of conciliating several powerful aristocratic families, and the exigencies of his numerous relations, had always prevented his reducing the expenses of the court within reasonable bounds; and while the pomp and magnificence of his court at Constantinople surpassed every other in Europe, we find him constantly commencing his military operations with new armies enrolled for the occasion. This circumstance is alone sufficient to explain why his continual wars were productive of such trifling results. Alexius had considered it politic to form an aristocratic guard, consisting of two thousand chosen youths, who were trained with care to military exercises, and instructed in military science. Of these archontopuls, three hundred were sent forward, as soon as Bohemund landed, to secure the passes between Achrida and Dyrrachium.

At the approach of spring, Bohemund began to push forward his works. His ships being useless in consequence of the superiority of the Byzantine fleet, he destroyed them, and employed the timber in the construction of his towers and military engines; but the interruption of his communications with Italy soon proved disastrous to his army. The country round Dyrrachium had been laid waste in the preceding war, and was now either depopulated, or well protected by fortified towns and castles, in which the cultivators had secured their property. From these posts Byzantine troops watched the movements of every forager, and rendered it difficult for the besieging army to obtain the smallest supplies of provisions. On the other hand, the magazines of Dyrrachium were abun­dantly furnished both with provisions and military stores, the garrison was numerous and in high spirits, the ramparts were well garnished with military engines, and the governor was active and popular. Bohemund assaulted the place in vain; he advanced his towers and battering-rams, which were of extraordinary size, up to the walls, and he worked mines under the foundations; but his assaults were repulsed, his towers and battering-rams were reduced to ashes, and his miners were suffocated at their work.

Alexius advanced as far as Deavolis, which commands the most important and easiest pass over the great range of mountains between Epirus and Macedonia to the south of Achrida. Experience had convinced him that his mercenaries and militia were unable to resist the Normans in the open field; so he determined to remain in his camp, and direct a series of desultory operations for wearing out the strength of the invaders. His love of intrigue showed itself in a mean artifice he used to spread distrust in the camp of Bohemund. Letters, addressed by the emperor to several of the Norman leaders, in which he pretended to have received information concerning the plans of Bohemund, were sent in a way that they fell into that prince's hands. The artifice appears not to have deceived the crafty Norman, who was more inclined to suspect the perfidy of Alexius than of his companions. He communicated the letters to his officers, and left everyone in the command of the positions they had previously occupied. If this anecdote of imperial policy had been communicated to us in some frank chronicle written by a prejudiced monk, we might have doubted its accuracy, and suspected the writer of having given a calumnious colouring to the incident; but the fact is attested by the beloved daughter of the imperial diplomatist, and affords us a valuable portraiture of the moral obtuseness of the Byzantine court, for Anna Comnena never suspected that she was holding up her father’s conduct to the contempt of every honourable man.

The prudence of Alexius in his military proceedings soon placed Bohemund in great difficulties. The mountain passes were all fortified with strong entrenchments. Avlona, Yericho, and Canina were occupied by Michael Kekavmenos; Petroula by Alexander Kavasilas; Divri by Leo Nikerites; and the Kleisoura, or passes of Albania, by Eustathios Kamytzes. But the population of the country, which consisted in great part of Albanians, hardly viewed the Byzantine troops with more favour than the Norman; and when Bohemund paid his guides well, he was enabled to plunder at times with considerable success. While the war was thus prosecuted on shore with very little effect, the negligence of Koutostephanos and the Byzantine nobles on board the fleet, who ran into port when the sea became stormy, enabled the Italians to send a large convoy with provisions and reinforcements to Bohemund. At length, however, Mavrokatakalon having superseded Koutostephanos in the command of the fleet, and the Patzinak, Turkish, and Alain cavalry having posted themselves nearer and nearer to the Norman camp, Bohemund found his army reduced to a state of absolute famine, and made propositions of peace to the governor of Dyrrachium. These proposals were transmitted to the emperor, who still occupied his camp at Deavolis; and Alexius required that Bohemund should visit him in person to settle the terms of the treaty.

Two princes less deserving of trust could hardly have engaged in a negotiation; but after numerous precautions and mutual guarantees, their interests induced them to come to terms, and peace was concluded in the month of September 1108. Bohemund and his principal officers signed an act containing the obligations imposed on them, while Alexius, in order to preserve all his imperial superiority, only ratified these conditions, and made the concessions required on his part in the form of a golden bull. By this treaty, the stipulations of the alliance between the Crusaders and Alexius concluded in 1107 were annulled, in as far as they were applicable to the relations between the emperor and the Prince of Antioch. Bohemund again declared himself the liegeman of Alexius, and of his son John Porphyrogenitus, and bound himself to make war against all the enemies of the emperor who were not invulnerable like the angels, nor endowed with bodies of iron. He engaged to hold his principality in Asia as a fief of the Byzantine Empire, and to surrender any place he might take in future which had in old time belonged to the Byzantine emperors. He bound himself to make war on Tancred in case he should not cease all hostility in Cilicia, and promised immediately to surrender the whole coast between the Cydnus and the Hermon, and the cities of Laodicea, Gabala, Valanea, Marathos, Tortosa, and Antarados in Syria, and to accept the investiture of the principality of Antioch from the emperor by a golden bull. The limits of his principality were defined as extending to Germanicia, with the exception of the country in the possession of the two Armenian brothers, Leo and Theodore, princes of the house of Reuben, who were subjects of the Byzantine Empire. A pension of two hundred talents or pounds’ weight of gold, in byzants of the coinage of the Emperor Michael, was granted to Bohemund, who swore never to separate his interests from those of Alexius and his son John; but to observe all the stipulations of the treaty by the passion of our Saviour—by the Gospel which has subdued the world —by the crown of thorns—and by the nails and lance which pierced the body of the Redeemer. After this termination of all his ambitious schemes of conquest, the Norman prince hastened back to Italy, leaving his army to winter in Epirus, where Alexius promised to supply them with provisions. In the following spring many entered the Byzantine service, some proceeded to Jerusalem, and some returned to Italy. Bohemund, though compelled to remain quiet for some time, was collecting another army, either for the purpose of extending the limits of his principality of Antioch, or of seeking to avenge his defeat, when death put an end to his schemes in the month of February 1111.

The indefatigable energy of Alexius deserves the highest praise. As soon as he had put an end to the war with Bohemund, he turned all his attention to the affairs of Asia Minor; but in the conduct of the war, and in the policy of his civil administration, he allowed his ambition to blind his judgment. Instead of confining his operations to the country nearest to Constantinople, and to the Aegean Sea, he engaged in hostilities with Tancred and the Crusaders on the coast of Syria, leaving the Turks in undisturbed possession of the greater part of the intervening country, though the condition of the Seljouks at the time rendered it probable that a combined attack of the Franks and Greeks might have expelled them from the whole country between Constantinople and Antioch. The brave Sultan Kilidy-Arslan perished in the year 1106. His sons Melek and Massoud succeeded to his dominions, and Melek, the eldest, ruled the western part of Asia Minor. But though a brave soldier, his administration was weak, and many of the Turkish provincial governors assumed an independent position, and were called Sultans. During the ten years that Melek reigned, the Seljouk dominions were a scene of intestine war, Alexius acted with no great energy against the Turks at this period, but during their civil war he succeeded in getting possession of the whole coast of Asia Minor from the Hellespont to Attalia. He repaired the walls of Adramyttium, which had been destroyed by Tzachas, and endeavoured to make it a flourishing commercial city, as it had formerly been, by repeopling it with the inhabitants of the surrounding country. This was perhaps not the most likely way to restore prosperity to Adramyttium, but the reparation of the fortifications excited the jealousy of the nomad Turks in the province, and they assembled a large force to attack the new colony. They were completely defeated in an engagement, and the Greeks captured their camp, with their wives and children. The inhuman cruelty with which the Christians treated their prisoners on this occasion roused the fury of the whole Turkish nation, and gave an energy to their military operations against the Byzantine territory which checked all the plans of the emperor for its improvement. Hassan, the emir of Cappadocia, invaded the empire at the head of twenty-four thousand men, resolved to exact a bloody vengeance for the carnage at Adramyttium. The prudence of Philokales, the governor, who had rebuilt Adramyttium, and happened to be at Philadelphia on his way to assume the command of Attalia, saved the coast of western Asia from ruin. Hassan, not expect­ing to meet with any opposition in the field, formed his army into three divisions, in order to extend the sphere of his ravages. These divisions were directed against Sardis, Smyrna, and Pergamus; but the Byzantine troops under Philokales, issuing from Philadelphia, successively defeated the two first divisions, and compelled the third to abandon the attack on Pergamus, and save itself by a precipitate retreat.

The progress of the Turkish war was interrupted by the hostilities Alexius carried on with Tancred, which involved the empire in a maritime warfare with the Genoese and Pisans, whose piratical expeditions against the islands and coasts of the Aegean proved ruinous to the commerce and trade of the Greeks. In the year 1112, while the emperor was encamped in the Thracian Chersonesus preparing to send a fleet against the Latins, five Genoese galleys entered the Hellespont, and plundered the neighbourhood of Abydos. Four, it is true, were captured by the Byzantine fleet, but one escaped to encourage its countrymen to new acts of piracy.

The imposing force Alexius had assembled in Asia Minor enabled him to conclude a temporary peace with Sultan Melek in the year 1112, yet, as the conditions of the treaty are not recorded by his daughter, it seems probable that no cession of territory was made. New armies of Turks arriving in Asia Minor from the frontiers of Persia, and Melek exercising no very extensive authority over the Seljouk chiefs, the sultanat of Iconium was soon again involved in hostilities with the Byzantine Empire. Bithynia, Mysia, the Troad, and the coast of Paphlagonia were ravaged by the Seljouks in successive campaigns. Brusa, Apollonias, and Cyzikos were taken and plundered, the governor of Nicaea was defeated and made prisoner, the inhabitants abandoned the cultivation of the open country, and either emigrated to Europe or clustered round castles in which they could quickly seek protection, or else formed their dwellings in places of difficult access, where they could escape the search of invading armies. These places of refuge and concealment, called Kataphygia, now began to assume a certain degree of political importance in the Byzantine government. The imperial troops often defeated the invaders, but new bands of Turks and Turkomans daily extended the field of their devastations.

The last campaign of Alexius was in the year 1116. The Sultan of Iconium had assembled a large army, composed not only of his own troops and those of the emirs who acknowledged his authority, but also of an army of auxiliaries sent to his assistance by the Sultan of Aleppo. The Turks expected to carry their ravages as far as the shores of the Bosphorus, and to retake the cities which the Crusaders had compelled them to surrender. Alexius determined to avert the danger by carrying the war into the heart of the dominions of Melek before his preparations were completed. After defeating a body of Turks on the banks of the Bhyndacus, near Lopadion, and clearing the neighbourhood of Nicaea from their nomadic hordes, the emperor advanced with his army by Dorylaeum to Santabaris. Here the army was divided into three columns. One, under Stypeiotes, was detached to the left, in order to attack the Turks who had assembled at Amorium, and, falling in with the enemy at Poimanenon, it gained a complete victory. The second division, under Kamytzes, was sent forward to drive back a Turkish force stationed at Polybotos. When this service had been performed, the main body of the army, under the command of the emperor in person, advanced to Kedrea, on the road to Polybotos. Finding, however, that the sultan had carried off all the provisions from the country through which he had proposed to advance, the emperor began to see the necessity of retiring. To pretend that his retreat was dictated by the command of Heaven, he performed a ceremony worthy of his superstition and hypocrisy. Writing on two papers the questions whether he should advance to attack Iconium or stop at Philomelion (Ak Sheher), he deposited his interrogatories on the altar of a church in which he passed the night in prayer. In the morning the priest entering took up one of the papers, and announced that the will of Heaven had fixed Philomelion as the limit of the campaign. In the meantime all the Turkish hordes were hastening to the scene of warfare. A strong body advancing to join the Emir Monolykos, by crossing the bridge over the Sangarius at Zompi (Tchanderl), was defeated by a Byzantine corps, under Bardas, in the plain of Amorium; but to this corps Alexius was compelled to detach reinforcements, to enable it to preserve its advantage over the enemy. The emperor then advanced to Mesonacta, near the Lake of the Forty Martyrs, and continuing his advance, soon reached Philomelion, which he took at the first assault. After ravaging the possessions of the Turks, and summoning the Christians who desired to escape from their Kataphygia to retire under the escort of his army, he commenced his retreat in the most deliberate manner, arranging his order of march so as to afford effectual protection to the immense number of Christian families and enormous quantity of spoil that accompanied his troops. The forces of Melek and Monolykos hung on his flanks and rear, and compelled him to fight a battle in the plain of Polybotos; but they were defeated with loss, and Alexius continued his retreat to Ampous. The subsequent attacks of the Turks were equally unsuccessful, and at last the sultan sent proposals of peace to the emperor. A meeting between Alexius and Melek, who came attended by the old warrior Monolykos, took place between Augustopolis and Acroinion, at which the terms of a treaty were arranged. What these terms were we are not informed; but the emperor terminated his retreat with honour, bringing all the Christian colonists, with their families and property, safe into the Byzantine territory. Melek perished shortly after, the victim of assassination and fratricide. His brother Massoud, who was his murderer, succeeded him on the throne of Iconium.

Violent attacks of gout, accompanied by increasing weakness, warned Alexius of his approaching end. Near the conclusion of his reign he gained great popularity by burning the Bogomilian heresiarch Basil, and by founding a splendid hospital and orphan asylum.

The deathbed of Alexius affords a melancholy picture of the effects of his duplicity in the bosom of his own family. It seems like a satire on his reign. His habitual distrust of all men had induced him to make his wife and his learned daughter his chief companions, and to employ them in aiding him to perform the routine duties of the imperial administration. The Empress Irene and the Princess Anna proved apt pupils in the school of political intrigue. They deluded themselves into the belief that they understood the whole art of government, and proposed that Anna’s husband, the Caesar Nicephorus Bryennios, should share the task of government with them. To effect this, Irene endeavoured to persuade Alexius to nominate the Caesar his successor, though his eldest son John had been invested with the imperial title for twenty-six years. The empress entertained an aversion for John, whose short and ugly figure showed to little advantage in the pageants of the court, while his love of truth and frank character appeared to her a proof of rudeness and stupidity. During the last illness of the emperor she frequently pressed him to declare Nicephorus his successor; but Alexius, who was well acquainted with his son’s talents, listened patiently to her advice without following it. When the emperor's end approached, Irene took more daring measures to secure the realization of her wishes. The palace was filled with her creatures, and the Varangian guards on duty were gained over, and prepared to dispute the title of John to the throne. In the meantime John, who had watched all his mother’s intrigues, took prompt and decided measures for securing his succession, without bringing matters to an open rupture. While the empress was absent from his father's bedside, he entered his chamber and drew the imperial signet from his finger; an act of which the dying emperor perfectly understood the import, and of which, consistent with his habitual dissimulation, he said nothing to the empress on her return. John immediately employed the signet to assume the direction of the public administration—the treasury, the army, and the fleet. He then hastened to the palace, where the Varangians for a time disputed his authority, and he had some difficulty in avoiding a collision between these foreign guards and the people who supported him; but at length he gained possession of the great palace, which was the citadel of Constantinople. The empress, finding that all her schemes were thus rendered abortive, rushed to the apartment of her dying husband and accused her son of treason, urging him to declare another successor; but Alexius only raised his hands and eyes to heaven, to indicate that his concerns on earth were terminated, and that his thoughts were now directed to another world. The empress, interpreting the gesture according to the emperor's habitual system of duplicity, supposed the movement was made to avoid giving a direct answer, and as she gazed on the dying emperor exclaimed, “You die as you have lived, a hypocrite”.

The Emperor Alexius died in the year 1118, aged seventy, having reigned thirty-seven years, four months and a-half.

 

Sect. II

The reign of John II, A.D. 1118-1143

 

John Comnenus was the most amiable character that ever occupied the Byzantine throne. He was stainless in his private conduct, frank, merciful, generous, prudent, active and brave, economical without avarice, and pious without superstition. Even the Latins bear testimony to his virtue, while the love of his own subjects is declared by the singular exception his government offers of exemption from rebellion and sedition. The only traitors during his reign, which lasted almost a quarter of a century, were members of his own family. The moral and political feelings of his sister and brother appear to have been corrupted by their father’s duplicity and their mother’s ambition.

The position of John when he mounted the throne was one of some difficulty and danger. His virtues alarmed the courtiers, and were almost unknown to the people. He was consequently compelled to secure his authority by administrative arrangements and military power, and to do this without any effusion of blood was his first care. To avoid all chance of collision with the members of the conspiracy organized by his mother, he never quitted the great palace until he was assured that all his commands for preserving order in the capital and its immediate vicinity had been carried into execution. During this interval his father’s funeral was celebrated; and though he took care that the ceremony should be performed with imperial pomp, he did not venture to be present.

The selfishness of his own relations, and the treachery of the Byzantine aristocracy, made a deep impression on his mind. Though they never destroyed his feelings of family affection, nor infused any tinge of melancholy into his equable disposition, they led him, at an early age, to seek elsewhere for a friend. A Turkish lad, remarkable for his personal grace and amiable disposition, fell into the hands of the Emperor Alexius at the capture of Nicaea, and was placed as a domestic slave and personal companion with his son John Porphyrogenitus, who was nearly of the same age. The two youths were educated together, and became sincerely attached to one another. In Axouchos John found the frank character and the love of truth which he sought in vain among his own relations and the Greek courtiers. Years ripened the youthful friendship into mutual respect. Axouchos showed himself a man of talent as well as of courage and virtue; and John, seeing that the fidelity of all his father’s ministers had been tampered with by his mother, made the Turkish slave his prime-minister. Axouchos proved himself worthy of the high post; but whatever may have been the amount of his virtues, the very circumstance that the people regarded the appointment of a slave to the rank of minister as a boon to humanity, must be taken as a proof of the oppressive conduct of the aristocracy, the corruption of the general administration, and the decay of wise institutions and right feelings in the people.

The government of John II was disturbed by no internal troubles. Two conspiracies occurred during his reign; one headed by his literary sister Anna, and the other by his brother Isaac, but both proved abortive. The Princess Anna induced several members of the imperial family to join in a plot for placing the imperial crown on the head of her husband Nicephorus Bryennios. For the success of her plan it was necessary that her brother should be murdered, or that his eyes should be put out; and when her more humane husband testified some reluctance to proceed with the plot, the learned princess expressed her contempt for his feminine weakness, as she termed it, in very strong terms, contrasting it with what she considered her own manly inhumanity. The conspiracy was revealed, and John thought it necessary to confiscate his sister's wealth in order to check her future intrigues. He bestowed her palace, which was richly and luxuriously furnished, on Axouchos; but that minister, who thought more of performing the duties of his situation for the emperor's advantage than of enriching himself by the imperial favour, suggested that it would be more politic to restore the palace to Anna. John felt all the prudence as well as the justice of his minister’s advice, and replied, “I should, indeed, be unworthy to reign, if I could not forget my anger as readily as you forget your interest”. Anna was reinstated in her palace.

Isaac, the only surviving brother of the emperor, was always treated with the greatest kindness and the highest honour. But it would appear that his capacity and disposition prevented his being entrusted with as great a share of political power as he wished, and, dissatisfied with his position, he fled to the court of the Sultan Massoud at Iconium, accompanied by his eldest son John. During this voluntary exile he led many predatory incursions into the Byzantine Empire, but at last, finding himself both poorer and more neglected at Iconium than he had been at Constantinople, he made his peace with his brother, and was reinstated in his former wealth and rank. The conduct of his son John, however, soon caused a new alienation of feeling between the brothers. John accompanied the emperor his uncle at the siege of Neocaesarea. An Italian knight, highly esteemed for his valour, happened to be dismounted, which the emperor observing, ordered his nephew to remount him on an Arabian horse he was riding, adding, “You have other excellent horses at hand”. The pride of the young prince was hurt, and he turned to the Italian, saying, “Take some other horse, and try if you can make me quit my saddle with your lance”. A look of the emperor, however, made him think it wise to dismount and surrender his horse. Shortly after he rode oft joined the Turks, with whom he had formerly lived, and embraced the Mohammedan religion. His father Isaac also appears to have engaged in some plots, concerning the details of which we have no information, but he was banished by his brother to Heracleia in Pontus towards the end of his reign.

The historical records of the reign of John II are very imperfect, and relate only to his warlike enterprises. Hence it has been supposed that he was either too strongly biassed in favour of military fame, or that he considered success in war as the surest means of increasing the power and restoring the prosperity of the empire, overlooking the necessity of infusing new vigour into the social organization of the motley population of the Byzantine provinces, and of reforming the gross abuses of the fiscal administration. There can be no doubt that the general opinion of the age viewed military success as the true preservative against all political evils, and the emperor’s popularity with the inhabitants of Constantinople must have been considerably increased by the conviction that such was his opinion. The material prosperity of the people of Constantinople was closely identified with the augmentation of the imperial dominions, and only indirectly influenced by the general wellbeing of the rest of the empire. This identification of prejudices and interests between the inhabitants of the capital and the rulers of the state is one of the usual results of strict administrative centralization, and its basis is generally laid by some sacrifice of the interests of the people in the provinces for the profit of the crowds congregated in the vicinity of the sovereign. Rome and Constantinople, by their public distributions of provisions and expensive public amusements, afford proofs of this fact quite as strong as any Eastern despotism, and modern Europe offers something similar in the state of Paris.

The superiority assumed by the Byzantine armies whenever John appeared in the field, proves that he was an able general as well as a brave soldier. His troops showed perfect confidence in his military skill, even when his operations proved unsuccessful; and he used their services with that daring energy which marks the existence of the highest military qualities in a leader. His enterprises were at times foiled; but neither failure nor retreat ever produced discomfiture to his army. His opinions concerning the constitution of the force under his command were those of a professional soldier, not of a patriotic general nor of a feudal monarch. The native militia of the Byzantine provinces, and the nobles of the empire, who were in the habit of returning to pass the winter, after each campaign, in their domestic quarters, were a force on which he placed no reliance; to use his own phrase, he desired soldiers whose thoughts were concentrated in a military life, and who were ready at every season and for any enterprise he might command. This naturally led to a preference of mercenary troops, and his choicest army appears to have been composed of very few Byzantine subjects; its principal divisions consisting of Macedonians, which doubtless means Sclavonians and Bulgarians, of Scythians, which signifies Patzinaks and Romans, of Turks and veterans, or guards. His military policy was pursued with skill and energy; the plan of each campaign was well conceived and ably executed; he gained for himself great military renown, and he made the Byzantine armies a terror both to the Turks and Franks. But there appears to have been a want of political system in his Asiatic wars, and he seems to have expended too much of the military resources of his dominions on distant expeditions to Syria, and unnecessary attacks on Armenian Cilicia, from which no permanent advantage could be expected. It cannot be doubted that, even during his victorious reign, the social condition, and perhaps the numerical population, of the empire continued to decline; and before a generation had elapsed from the death of his son Manuel I, the Byzantine Empire was overthrown, and a Flemish count occupied the imperial throne.

The private conduct of the Emperor John indicates that he viewed with regret the internal evils which weakened the moral and political energy of Greek society; for we must now observe that the Byzantine Empire had assumed a Greek character. Yet we have no reason to suppose that he adopted any measures to root out the administrative abuses or reform the social state of his dominions. The undertaking may have appeared to him one in which the power of government could effect very little; and he may have thought that Divine Providence alone could bring about the revolution in men's thoughts and conduct necessary to produce any effectual improvement. Many persons even at the present day may be of the same opinion, and ask, with reference to our time, what Catholic emancipation, municipal and parliamentary reform, improved central administration, and free trade, could have effected towards improving the general condition of the inhabitants of the British empire, without an extensive emigration, and the accidental discovery of gold in California and Australia, events with which Government had certainly very little connection. But to these persons it may be replied, that unless the previous changes had placed the social and political condition of all British subjects on a harmonious scale, the subsequent events might have increased many evils which they have contributed to diminish. And thus it is not impossible, that if John had endeavoured to improve the administration of justice in the provinces, to relieve trade from monopolies, to secure the fruits of their labour to the agriculturists, and to diminish the burden of fiscal oppression on his people, his reign might have opened a new era of prosperity to the Greek nation. Perhaps, like Leo III, he might have ranked as a restorer of the Eastern Empire under a Greek phase.

There are so many points of similarity between the situation of the empire at the accession of Leo III and at the accession of the family of Comnenus, that they must have made some impression on the mind of the Emperor John II, had history been then studied for political instruction. At both periods the Mohammedans had overrun Asia Minor and threatened Constantinople. In both cases they were driven back, and the empire gained time to reorganize its resources. In the first instance, however, the victory was gained by Leo and the Byzantine army; but in the second, the advantage was derived from the accidental passage of foreign Crusaders. We have seen in the preceding volume with what political prudence Leo profited by his military successes. He boldly forsook the beaten track of Roman conservatism, and created the Byzantine Empire by reforming the whole circle of the imperial administration; and by so doing he infused new life into Christian society. The inhabitants of the Eastern Empire, who appeared to be on the eve of extinction when he mounted the throne, increased rapidly in numbers and wealth before his reign was concluded; while the scheme of policy he traced out for his successors, gave three centuries and a half of prosperity to the Byzantine empire.

When Alexius Comnenus seized the throne, the Byzantine administration required to be once more reformed. New evils had again depopulated the empire and enfeebled the government. Everything was falling to decay. The systematic administration of the Roman Empire, which had preserved the fabric of the imperial power in many periods of difficulty, was now swept away, and replaced by temporary expedients and arbitrary counsels. The emperor had become more despotic as his instruments of government became weaker, and his officials more incapable. The expenses of the imperial court now absorbed the greater part of the revenues of the state; and the army and navy were diminished and neglected, while princes, courtiers, and chamberlains were multiplied and honoured. The civil, financial, and judicial administration was treated as a field for enriching those favoured by the emperor and by the emperor’s favourites. The Roman law, which for ages had formed the bulwark of individual rights and the basis of public prosperity in the Eastern Empire, no longer protected the persons and the property of the people against the rapacity of the imperial officers. Ever since the death of Basil II the public property of the state had been visibly going to ruin.

Roads, bridges, aqueducts, ports, public warehouses, and city fortifications, arsenals, war­like machines, and ships, were everywhere becoming unserviceable. Even cisterns, wells, farm-houses, plantations, and other signs of rural civilization, were disappearing over extensive districts where they had once flourished. Colonies of nations in the rudest state of civilization, like the Turks, Patzinaks, and Romans, to whom the cultivation of gardens, vineyards, olive-grounds, silk, and plants used in manufactures was unknown, were established on sites once occupied by populous cities. A little grain was raised in the enclosures of ruined gardens, while sheep pastured through abandoned vineyards, orchards, and olive-groves. It is evident that agricultural industry must have been sadly degraded, and the depopulation of the empire must have made great progress, before the Emperor Alexius could have found vacant lands in the rich plains about Thessalonica and Philippopolis, for the colonies he planted at Moglena and Alexiopolis. In the period of anarchy which preceded the reign of Leo III, the civilized inhabitants of the Byzantine Empire were driven into cities and walled towns; and under such circumstances the Greek race must have diminished much more rapidly than the rude colonists who entered the country could increase.

We shall have occasion to remark that the policy of John, with reference to the agricultural population in Asia Minor was not very enlightened. With the short-sighted view of diminishing the revenues of the Sultan of Iconium, he ruined a flourishing class of Christian agriculturists, who maintained some local independence by paying taxes to the Turks. These people were compelled by the emperor to abandon their farms, with all those improvements which the expenditure of capital for ages on their property had effected, in order to colonize some ruined site in the empire, where all capital of a similar kind had been already annihilated. There can be no doubt that such a colony would soon become extinct.

It is not difficult, even at this distance of time, to point out the measures which ought to have been adopted in order to arrest the decline and depopulation of the empire; but how far the adoption of these measures would have tended to improve the moral condition of the Greek nation must, of course, remain problematical; and without a great improvement in the moral rectitude and political energy of the Greeks at this period, no exertions of the central administration would have sufficed to save the Byzantine empire. The first task was to root out the all-pervading corruption of court influence. Without this, there was no possibility of restoring the systematic and equitable administration of justice. All the benefits which Roman law had conferred on society for so many ages were now nullified by the despotic power of inferior officials; and as long as the expenditure of the court absorbed the greater part of the public revenues, no effective system of administrative control could be framed to check the abuses of the agents of the court in the provinces. The secondary measures were, to sweep away all the monopolies and privileges which were ruining Greek commerce, and to reform the fiscal exactions which were annihilating all capital invested in agriculture. Had such measures of improvement been perseveringly pursued during the quarter of century that John reigned, the Byzantine Empire might perhaps have escaped its impending ruin, and the Greek race its subsequent debasement.

The Emperor John II was engaged in constant wars; but the inhabitants of the empire enjoyed during his reign a degree of internal security to which they had been long strangers. No armies of plunderers ravaged Thrace, Macedonia, Bithynia, and Ionia; and the Greeks especially were secured from all hostile attacks, and were afforded an opportunity of recovering their former commercial and manufacturing activity. The Patzinaks, the Hungarians, and the Servians, indeed, ventured at different times to invade the northwestern provinces of the empire; but they were soon repulsed, and permanent peace was established.

In the autumn of 1122, the Patzinaks, who had remained quiet ever since their defeat in 1091, crossed the Danube in great force, and spread over the country north of Mount Haemus. The emperor established a camp at Beroea to cover the passes, and passed the winter with the army. At the approach of spring, the Patzinaks advanced to force the passes, but were completely defeated. Even the barrier of waggons, which served as an entrenchment to their encampment, was broken through by the Varangian guard with their battle-axes. This victory terminated the war, and broke the force of the Patzinaks so completely, that it was long commemorated as a feast by the. Byzantine Church. The most robust of the prisoners were droughted into the imperial army—some were sold as slaves for the profit of the victorious soldiers, and many were settled as colonists on waste lands in the European provinces, where their descendants were still dwelling at the time of the Latin conquest.

A war with the Servians who had invaded the empire, ended in their complete defeat, and the Servian prisoners were established as colonists on waste lands in the neighbourhood of Nicomedia.

Hostilities broke out between the emperor and Stephen king of Hungary, in consequence of John, whose wife was a Hungarian princess, protecting Bela, who was regarded as the rightful heir to the Hungarian throne. Stephen took Belgrade, which he destroyed, and employed the materials to construct a new town called Zeugmin (Semlin) on the northern bank of the Save. The Hungarian army marched forward to Triaditza, and the emperor established his headquarters at Philippopolis, where, with a strong body of Italian heavy and Turkish light cavalry, he shut up the passes, and waited until he was informed that his flotilla had entered the Danube. He then crossed Mount Haemus, and, driving the Hungarians before him, effected a junction with his flotilla, and defeated a powerful Hungarian army near the fort of Chram. He established a garrison in Branitzova, and returned to Constantinople. The Hungarians, taking the field during the winter, recaptured Branitzova, and the emperor was obliged again to place himself at the head of his army; but both parties, after some severe fighting, became convinced that nothing was to be gained by continuing the war, and peace was concluded, in which the Servians, and perhaps the Venetians, were comprised, on terms favourable to the extension of Byzantine commerce.

(Stephen II was the son of Coloman, who had put out the eyes of his brother Almus and nephew Bela to secure the throne to Stephen, for the brother in Hungary succeeded before the son. Coloman and Almus were sons of Geïsa I, the elder brother of Ladislas, the father of the Empress Irene, John’s wife. L'Art de vérifier les Data makes Irene (Pyriska) daughter of Geïsa I. But as Geïsa died in 1077, and she was married during the reign of Coloman in 1104, when John was sixteen years of age, it is impossible to place her birth earlier than 1088. Cinnamus says she was the daughter of Ladislas; but he errs in making Almus and Stephen also sons of Ladislas. Bela, though blind, succeeded to the throne of Hungary on the death of Stephen. The series of Hungarian kings is—Geïsa I, from 1075 to 1077; Ladislas, to 1005; Coloman, to 1114; Stephen II, to 1131; Bela II, to 1141).

Previous to this time, the Venetian republic had generally been a firm ally of the Byzantine Empire, and, to a certain degree, it was considered as owing homage to the Emperor of Constantinople. That connection was now dissolved, and those disputes commenced which soon occupied a prominent place in the history of Eastern Europe. The establishment of the Crusaders in Palestine had opened a new field for the commercial enterprise of the Venetians, and in a great measure changed the direction of their maritime trade; while the frequent quarrels of the Greeks and Franks compelled the trading republics of Italy to attach themselves to one of the belligerent parties, in order to secure a preference in its ports. For a short time, habit kept the Venetians attached to the empire; but they soon found that their interests were more closely connected with the Syrian trade than with that of Constantinople. They joined the kings of Jerusalem in extending their conquests, and obtained considerable establishments in all the maritime cities of the kingdom. From having been the customers and allies of the Greeks, they became their rivals and enemies. The commercial fleets of the age acted too often like pirates; and it is not improbable that the Emperor John had good reason to complain of the aggressions of the Venetians. Hostilities commenced; the Doge Dominico Michieli, one of the heroes of the republic, conducted a numerous fleet into the Archipelago, and plundered the islands of Rhodes and Chios, where he wintered. Next year he continued his depredations in Samos, Mitylene, Paros, and Andros. Modon was also taken and occupied by the Venetians, to serve them as a harbour of refuge on their voyages to and from Syria. The war which the emperor carried on in Dalmatia and Servia appears to have been connected with his hostilities against the Venetians, but the events are hardly noticed by any Byzantine writer. They were really insignificant in the history of the empire, though they appeared of vast importance to the republic of Venice. Peace was re-established by the emperor reinstating the Venetians in the enjoyment of all the commercial privileges they had enjoyed before the war broke out. The attention of the Emperor John was early directed to the affairs of Asia, but he employed the forces of the empire too often rather to extend the authority and increase the fame of his government than to consolidate the prosperity of his dominions.

He left the power of the Turks almost unbroken, while he wasted the wealth and strength of the empire in harassing the Armenians of Cilicia and the Franks of Antioch. Two of his early campaigns (AD 1120 and 1121) were devoted to regaining possession of Laodicea and Sozopolis, and clearing the country between the Meander and Attalia from Turkish garrisons and encampments. After the termination of the Hungarian war, John again placed himself at the head of his army in Asia Minor. Three campaigns appear to have been successfully devoted to re-establishing the Byzantine authority on the southern coast of the Black Sea; yet even towards the end of his reign, an alliance between Mohammed the successor of Danishmend, on whom the Turks of Paphlagonia and Pontus were dependent, and Massoud the sultan of Iconium, forced the emperor to form a winter camp on the banks of the Rhyndacus to protect Bithynia, AD 1139.

Before this (AD 1137) the emperor reduced the Armenian principality of Cilicia to complete dependence on the government at Constantinople. His conquest, however, was not effected without great exertions and considerable loss, while the hatred of the Greeks which it roused in the breasts of the warlike Armenian population of the Cilician mountains favoured the progress of the Turks. Leo, the sovereign of Armenian Cilicia, after carrying on war for some time with the Turks of Antioch, concluded peace with them, and endeavoured to gain possession of Seleucia, the frontier fortress of the Byzantine Empire, and a city of considerable commercial importance. The Emperor John appeared in person, at the head of a powerful army, to punish the Armenian prince, and compel his ally the Prince of Antioch to do homage to the empire, according to the treaty with Bohemund. Tarsus, Adana, and Mopsuestia, were soon reduced by the operations of the Byzantine engineers; but Anabarza and Vahkah, where the natural strength of the position opposed great obstacles to an attack, were only taken by the perseverance of the emperor after an obstinate resistance. After the loss of Vahkah, Leo and his family sought refuge and concealment in the fastnesses of Mount Taurus, but were captured and imprisoned at Constantinople. Leo died in captivity: on some suspicion of treason the emperor ordered the eyes of his son Reuben to be put out, and the Armenian prince died of the operation; but the other son of Leo, named Thoros, returned to Cilicia after the death of John, and re-established the power of the Armenians in Cilicia.

After the reduction of Cilicia the emperor compelled the Prince of Antioch to acknowledge the sovereignty of the Byzantine Empire. The reigning prince was Raymond of Poitiers, who had married Constance the infant daughter of Bohemund II. Constance had been proposed by the people of Antioch to the Emperor John as a wife for his youngest son Manuel, but from some unknown cause he had refused the match. The people of Antioch, and indeed all the inhabitants of the Syrian cities, were extremely hostile to the administrative and judicial authority assumed by the Byzantine clergy; they were, consequently, warmly opposed to the emperor’s pretensions to the sovereignty over Antioch. Raymond, however, knew that his forces were insufficient to oppose the army of John. When, therefore, he was summoned to do homage as a vassal, and prepare to receive the emperor, he solicited an interview. At this meeting it was stipulated that Antioch should remain under the existing administration, civil and ecclesiastical, but that Raymond was to hold the principality as a dependence of the Byzantine Empire, and do homage to John as his sovereign. On the other hand, the emperor engaged to unite his arms with those of the Prince of Antioch and the Count of Edessa, to drive the Turks out of Aleppo, Shizar, Hama, and Hems, the investiture of which he promised to confer on the Prince of Antioch.

The following campaign (AD 1138) was carried on against the Turks in Syria, while the Seljouks of Iconium were left unmolested in the rear of the Byzantine army. This appears to have been a very ill-judged enterprise. It added to the renown of the emperor and displayed the superiority of his army, but it conferred no advantage on his empire. Piza, a strong fortress on a rock near the banks of the Euphrates, was taken, and given up to Joscelin, count of Edessa. But the emperor could make no impression on Aleppo, and he only extracted a large sum of money from Shizar. His two allies, Raymond and Joscelin, gave him no assistance, and the manner in which they spent their time in feasting and gambling disgusted the emperor, who felt little anxiety to extend their dominions. He saw that unless he could make Antioch his place of arms, and the headquarters of his army during the winter, there would be great difficulty in making any permanent conquests in Syria. He therefore proposed to Raymond to admit the Byzantine troops into Antioch. The proposition alarmed both the prince and the people; and after the Emperor John had entered the place to treat of the arrangements which it would be necessary to make, a popular tumult arose, which compelled him to withdraw, and he retired with his army from Syria to wait for a more favourable opportunity.

While he had been pursuing his schemes of ambition in the south, the Turks had ravaged the country along the banks of the Sangarius. The emperor was occupied, during the summer of 1139, with an expedition into Paphlagonia and Pontus, in which he advanced as far as Neocaesarea. In this campaign his youngest son Manuel distinguished himself by his valour, and his nephew John fled to the Turks, as has been already mentioned. In winter the army was encamped on the banks of the Rhyndacus, to protect the rich plains of Bithynia.

The emperor now prepared a powerful army, at the head of which he proposed to march to Jerusalem and re-establish the Byzantine supremacy in Syria. The Frank princes, the King of Jerusalem, the Pope, and the Latin clergy, all viewed his project with fear and jealousy, and were eager to thwart his operations. The year 1141 was occupied by military operations against the Sultan of Iconium, in order to secure the frontiers of the empire from all danger during the emperor's absence in Syria. One of the measures adopted by John during this campaign has been already blamed.

On the frontiers of Lycaonia, nearly in a direct line between Attalip and Iconium, there is a large fresh­water lake surrounded by mountains, called Pasgusa by Cinnamus. This lake, the Koralis of Strabo, is about twenty miles long and eight broad, and is distant upwards of forty miles from Iconium. Many islands are interspersed on its surface, which in the time of John II were inhabited by a numerous Christian population, enjoying a considerable degree of municipal liberty, and carrying on a flourishing trade with Iconium under the protection of the sultan. The emperor now summoned these islanders to receive Byzantine garrisons; but as the islands were well fortified, and the people feared the fiscal rapacity of the imperial administration, and hated the ecclesiastical tyranny of the Greek Church, they rejected the summons, and prepared to resist the emperor. But though the lake and the island fortifications had proved an effectual defence against the Seljouk Turks, they could oppose only a weak barrier to the scientific attacks of John. Boats were soon constructed, battering-rams and storming-towers were floated on rafts close to the walls, and after a brave resistance the island fortresses were taken and their inhabitants made prisoners. Byzantine garrisons for a while retained possession of these conquests, but when deprived of their industrious inhabitants the islands became useless, and the shores of the lake were deserted.

The emperor passed the winter near Anazarba, on the frontiers of Cilicia, holding his army ready to enter Syria and take possession of Antioch in spring. But while he was revolving his projects, and arranging everything necessary for his march to Jerusalem, an accident suddenly terminated his life. While he was hunting on Mount Taurus, it happened that he received the charge of a wild boar with his hunting-spear, and in his struggle with the wild beast a poisoned arrow from his own quiver wounded his hand. At first he paid no attention to the wound, and when his arm began to swell with the effect of the poison, he refused to submit to amputation, which would then, perhaps, have proved unavailing. Without loss of time, he made every arrangement necessary for the tranquil transmission of the imperial power to his youngest son, Manuel, whom he selected for his successor on account of his superior talents. John II expired tranquilly on the 8th of April 1143, after a reign of twenty-four years, seven months, and twenty-five days, at the age of fifty-five.

 

Sect. III

Reign of Manuel I, A.D. 1143-1180

 

Manuel was not unworthy of his father’s preference, but the possession of absolute power at an early age brings temptations which no man can resist. Perhaps if Manuel had enjoyed the advantage of passing a few additional years under his father’s eye, he might in his maturer age have become a wise and great prince. He possessed courage, ability, and strength of character; nor was he deficient in literary cultivation, political sagacity, or theological knowledge; but he ascended the throne of a corrupted empire before his passions were disciplined. We need not wonder, therefore, at finding that his vices developed themselves so rapidly as to choke many of his virtues. Neither the institutions of Byzantine society nor the political organization of the government enabled the. higher and middling classes of the capital to acquire the knowledge or the virtues necessary to invest them with the authority of public opinion, so that Manuel felt little moral restraint, and rarely considered it an imperative duty to make his conduct conformable to the dictates of his judgment by sacrificing his inclinations. A middle class could hardly be said to exist any longer in the empire, and the Byzantine officials were corrupted by every vice.

Manuel’s authority as emperor was peaceably recognised at Constantinople in consequence of the energy and prudence of Axouchos, his father’s friend and prime-minister, who hastened to the capital, and took all the necessary precautions before the death of John II was publicly known. The young emperor’s elder brother, Isaac, was confined in a monastery and closely watched, while the intrigues of his brother-in-law, the Caesar Roger, were easily rendered abortive. The support of the clergy was purchased by a yearly pension equal to the value of two hundred pounds’ weight of gold, and the goodwill of the Patriarch was secured by a further donation of one hundred pounds, which Manuel placed on the high altar of St Sophia’s at the time of his coronation. The army was attached by promotions, bounties, and furloughs; and the citizens of Constantinople were gained by the grant of a donative of two pieces of gold to every householder in the capital. The circumstances attending Manuel's accession compelled him to hasten in person to Constantinople, in order to receive the imperial crown in St Sophia’s. Custom and popular prejudice rendered the immediate performance of this ceremony absolutely necessary to give a legal sanction to his occupation of the throne, for it often happens that, long after law and religion are neglected, forms and ceremonies exert despotic power over nations deaf to the voice of justice and truth.

Manuel possessed both the personal advantages and mental qualities most admired by his contemporaries. He was tall, handsome, vigorous, and brave; skilled in all military exercises, and indefatigable as a sportsman and a soldier. But his headlong courage degenerated into rashness, and his personal skill made him seek the fame of a daring knight oftener than was prudent in an able general. His unlimited power and violent passions rendered his wars as much a matter of amusement as his hunting parties, and induced him to engage in them with as little reference to their effects on the welfare of his subjects. The wealth of the empire was lavished on brilliant fêtes and tournaments, which were renowned through all Europe as the most magnificent spectacles of the kind that had ever been seen. But the dignity of the empire was forgotten in the emperor’s private society, and his love of pleasure was unrestrained by morality and religion. The Byzantine court, already familiar with every vice, was taught by him to tolerate even the crime of incest.

Two anecdotes may be selected to give a picture of the state of society early in Manuel's reign. At one of the social meetings in which he indulged, the conversation of his relations present turned on his own and his father's military exploits. His nephew, John, the son of his deceased brother Andronicus, extolled the deeds of the Emperor John as superior to those of Manuel, and the preference was admitted to be just by Manuel himself who loved his father, and respected his memory. But the emperor's brother Isaac and his cousin Andronicus engaged in a violent altercation on the subject, in which something which Andronicus said offended Isaac to such a degree that he drew his sword, and made a blow at his cousin's head. The emperor, with his usual boldness and promptitude, warded off the blow with his arm, and John Ducas, another cousin of the emperor’s, assisted in parrying it with his hunting-whip. Manuel, however, received a wound from his brother’s sword, even through his gold-embroidered dress, of which he carried the mark to his grave. His cousin Andronicus showed little gratitude to the emperor in his future life. The circumstances of this affair made a deep impression on the mind of Manuel, to whom it revealed a degree of concealed ill-will and envy the existence of which he had not previously suspected, and he is said ever after to have worn armour under his clothes.

The other anecdote exhibits the court in a state of society so disgusting, that we should be unable to believe the possibility of so much vice under the eye of a Christian clergy and an established church, unless we possessed convincing proofs of the fact. It shows us how far crime may proceed where the aristocracy have no feelings of moral responsibility, and where the church is the creature of a corrupted state. The amours of Andronicus with his cousin Eudocia were the object of much remark, as the connection was considered incestuous among the Greeks. It was notorious, however, that the emperor was carrying on an adulterous and incestuous intercourse with his niece Theodora, the sister of Eudocia. Andronicus, therefore, openly made a jest of his own and his sovereign's infamy, observing that water from the same fountain has the same taste. Yet while such was the state of the court, Manuel gave his imperial sanction to an ecclesiastical prohibition of the marriage of his subjects to the seventh degree of consanguinity.

At this time the aristocracy of Western Europe far surpassed the nobles of the Byzantine Empire in all warlike accomplishments. The military spirit of the times of Nicephorus Phokas, John Zimiskes, and Basil the Bulgarian-slayer, had passed away. This degeneracy of the Greeks induced the Emperor John II to fill his ranks with Turkish mercenaries, and it now caused Manuel to adopt the habits and prejudices of Western chivalry, and in military affairs to show a strong preference in favour of the Franks. Both Manuel's wives were Latin princesses. His first was Bertha, called by the Greeks Irene, who was daughter of the Count of Sulzbach, and sister of the wife of Conrad, emperor of Germany. His second was Maria, the daughter of Raymond and Constance of Antioch, and this marriage mingled the blood of Alexius and Bohemund in an unlucky alliance. His daughter Maria, after having been betrothed to Bela III before he became king of Hungary, promised to William the Good, king of Sicily, and asked in marriage by the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa for his son, Henry VI, was at a ripe age (years, however, not having in any way impaired her beauty) bestowed on Rayner, second son of William, marquis of Montferrat, who received the rank of Caesar at the marriage, which took place in 1180. At the same time, the emperor's young son Alexius was married to Agnes, the daughter of Louis VII, king of France. To this disposition of the emperor Manuel in favour of the Latins we may trace something of the hostile feeling which the Greek clergy showed to his government on more than one occasion, and there can be no doubt that it was from political and personal reasons, not from religious preference, that Manuel endeavoured to effect a union with the papal church.

(The Patriarch Kosmas of Aegina was deposed by a synod of bishops of the court party. He was accused of favouring the heretical opinions of his friend Niphon, a monk convicted of holding some of the doctrines of the Bogomilians. But the real ground of the deposition of Kosmas was his hostility to Manuel’s views, and the suspicion the emperor entertained that he was intriguing with his brother Isaac. The deposed Aeginetan patriarch had very little Christian charity. He appears to have been an ecclesiastic worthy of Manuel’s court, for when he heard his sentence, he heaped curses on the heads of his accusers, on the synod, and on the emperor; and his frantic rage went so far that he implored Heaven the empress might never have a child.— Kosmas was patriarch for only ten months, until February 1147).

To form a correct estimate of the position occupied by the Byzantine Empire at this period in the international system of the Christian states, we must bear in mind the superior intellectual cultivation of its rulers and its immense pecuniary resources. Though the Byzantine nobility were inferior to the Western barons in warlike accomplishments, they surpassed even the Latin clergy in intellectual culture. Even the Emperor Manuel, who rivalled the valour of Richard Coeur-de-Lion in the field, was instructed in all the learning of his age. His knowledge of surgery enabled him to dress the broken arm of Baldwin III, king of Jerusalem, and his theological studies enabled him to direct the determinations of the synods of the Byzantine church. After a long dispute with the Greek clergy, he succeeded in expunging an anathema against the God of Mahomet from the church catechism, and replacing it by an anathema against Mahomet and his doctrines.

The relative superiority of the Byzantine Empire to the other Christian states was still very great, though the foundations of its prosperity and strength were already undermined. This superiority was also rendered more apparent in a political point of view, from the immense power conferred on the emperor by the centralization of the whole governmental authority in his person, and by the arbitrary power he was thereby enabled to exercise over the fortunes of his subjects. But we shall see that the splendour of Manuel’s reign was purchased by the expenditure of the capital as well as of the income of the empire, and the diminished resources of his dominions became apparent immediately after his death. The wasteful extravagance of his court and his tournaments, together with the expense of the large military establishments he maintained, kept his treasury so low that he was compelled to use both oppression and rapacity in order to fill it; his financial administration was marked by injustice; wealth was seized wherever he could lay his hands on it; the people were impoverished by monopolies, and individuals were enriched by privileges, so that the inhabitants of the provinces began to contemplate subjection to the Franks and the Mohammedans as an alternative by which they could escape spoliation. Unfortunately for the empire, the family of Comnenus was a fruitful stock, and every member of the house required to be provided with an income suitable to their imperial rank; so that if we glance our eye over the long catalogue of these Byzantine princes in the volume of Ducange, and estimate their cost to the state by the fact that, when prisoners, their ransom was generally rated at twenty thousand pieces of gold, there can be no doubt that an army of one hundred thousand men, with its officers and materials of war, might have been maintained for the same expenditure.

But when we look beyond the corruption of the administration, the vices of the court, and the servility of the clergy, we perceive that a desire for improvement still existed in those classes who were free from the immediate circle of official influence. The degraded condition of society was felt, and some anxiety to escape its evils was manifested. The scanty records of the civil and ecclesiastical jurisprudence of the time, and the pedantic remains of Byzantine literature, allow us to trace this spirit in the history of the law and of the church. Unfortunately for the Eastern Empire, the Greeks, in whom these feelings could alone have produced some practicable political reform, sacrificed their nationality to the pride of calling themselves Romans, and to the profit arising from appropriating to themselves the innumerable offices in the public and in the ecclesiastical administration. The Greeks never made any national opposition to the ruinous abuses of the imperial government. The only constitutional remedy on which all classes in the empire could ever agree, was to depose an emperor when his conduct became intolerable. The officials, who shared in the plunder of the people, declared that no earthly power was entitled to circumscribe the imperial authority, and the people were unable to discover any practical guarantee for their natural rights. The consequence was, incapacity in the rulers and apathy in the subjects, so that the subjugation of the Byzantine Empire by foreigners became at last an easy task

The Greeks were almost excluded from military service by fiscal regulations, for they were regarded by the emperors as more useful in their capacity of tax­payers than they were likely to become as soldiers; yet their prosperity was neglected, their country was left unprotected, and was ravaged by invaders, who destroyed their property, ruined their manufactures, and carried away their artisans to exercise their industry in other lands. A national feeling at length arose among the provincial clergy in Greece, but it was prevented from producing any political effects favourable to popular liberty, by being diverted into a bigoted hatred against the Latins.

We derive some valuable information concerning the condition of the Byzantine Empire during the reign of Manuel from the travels of the Jewish rabbi, Benjamin of Tudela. Whether Benjamin visited in person all the countries he describes is a matter of no great importance, for he certainly records the observations of an eyewitness. The state of the Eastern Empire is sketched with as much clearness and precision as is generally displayed even by modern travellers. The wealth of Constantinople, the power and magnificence of the Emperor Manuel, the commercial activity and manufacturing industry of the Greeks, the riches and luxury of the Byzantine nobles, the unwarlike spirit of the people, the mercenary composition of the imperial armies, and the heterogeneous population of various races and indifferent states of civilization that peopled the provinces, from the Vallachians of Thessaly to the Armenians of Cilicia, are all pointed out by this observing traveller, who, free both from the prejudices of the Latin monk and the antipathies of the Byzantine official, gives us a deeper insight into the composition of the empire than the eulogies of Greek historians, or the calumnies of Western chroniclers.

The external policy of Manuel’s reign was guided by a desire to gain renown; the internal was solely directed by a determination to augment the receipts of the imperial treasury. But he was not insensible to the increasing power of the commercial republics of Italy, as we see by the treaties he concluded with the Pisans and the Genoese, and by his protection of the Amalphitans, who had formed a colony at Constantinople when their city was taken by the Normans. Manuel’s object was, by these alliances, to counterbalance the great influence the Venetians had acquired over the Byzantine finances by the immense privileges conceded to them by Alexius I, as a reward for their services in the Norman war. Anna Comnena enumerates these concessions in a curious passage, which throws great light on the history of Byzantine commerce, and proves that her father’s generosity must have inflicted a severe loss on the native merchants of the empire. A whole street of warehouses was given to the Venetians in the capital. The Amalphitan shopkeepers were compelled to pay them tribute. Their merchandise was exempt from custom duties, and they were permitted to trade over the whole extent of the empire as far as Constantinople and the entrance of the Black Sea, with some special privileges. It is difficult to fix the precise nature of the advantages which they acquired by this treaty over the native merchant; but there is no doubt that it marks the commencement of a system of a commercial policy on the part of the Byzantine government to which we must attribute the ruin of Greek commerce in the Mediterranean, and the estrangement of the Greeks from the imperial administration. These concessions were also made the ground of many abuses on the part of the Venetians, who, because they paid little, endeavoured to pay nothing, and thus innumerable disputes arose with the fiscal officers as well as with the native merchants. The mutual dissatisfaction arising from such discussions broke out into open hostilities during the reign of John II; and Manuel, warned by his father's difficulties, endeavoured to render the empire independent of the Venetians, by encouraging their commercial rivals to visit his dominions.

In attempting to estimate the effect produced on the trade and manufactures of the inhabitants of the Byzantine Empire by the privileges conceded to the Venetians, it is necessary to avoid drawing our inferences from the state of commerce in modern times. The difficulties of transport both by sea and land confined commerce within a smaller sphere, and restricted it to fewer articles. Jews exacted fifty per cent interest, barons gloried in plundering merchants, and merchants often acted as pirates. To us it would seem that immunity from import duties must have very soon thrown the whole trade of the empire into the hands of the Venetians. But we know that this was not the case, and we observe three circumstances which exercised great influence in preventing the immunity from proving as injurious to the imperial treasury as it must have been to private traders. The first was the exclusion of all foreign ships from the Black Sea. The second, the monopoly which the Byzantine government retained of the commerce in grain and all kinds of provisions, both as regarded importation and exportation. And the third was, that the rents of shops and warehouses formed no trifling portion of the imperial revenues at Constantinople; though it is not easy to say how the privileges granted to the Venetians raised the value of this species of property. Other circumstances probably contributed to modify the natural effect of fiscal immunities, and to render them less oppressive to the general trade of the empire than is apparent from historical records. Still, there can be no doubt that the preference accorded by the Byzantine emperors to foreigners during the twelfth century was one of the principal causes of the decline of Greek commerce, which ought to be attributed rather to the direct effect of the fiscal measures of the house of Comnenus than to the increased commercial activity of the Italian republics caused by the Crusades.

 

TREATIES WITH PISA AND GENOA.

 

The Emperor Alexius I had concluded a commercial treaty with Pisa towards the end of his reign. Manuel renewed this alliance, and he appears to have been the first of the Byzantine emperors who concluded a public treaty with Genoa. The pride of the emperors of the Romans, as the sovereigns of Constantinople were styled, induced them to treat the Italian republics as municipalities still dependent on the empire of the Caesars, of which they had once formed a part; and the rulers both of Pisa and Genoa yielded to this assumption of supremacy, and consented to appear as vassals and liegemen of the Byzantine emperors, in order to participate in the profits which they saw the Venetians gained by trading in their dominions. Several commercial treaties with Pisa and Genoa, as well as with Venice, have been preserved. The obligations of the republics are embodied in the charter enumerating the concessions granted by the emperor, and the document is called a chrysobulum, or golden bull, from the golden seal of the emperor attached to it as the certificate of its authenticity.

In Manuel’s treaties with the Genoese and Pisans, the republics bind themselves never to engage in hostilities against the empire; but, on the contrary, all the subjects of the republics residing in the emperor's dominions become bound to assist him against all assailants: they engage to act with their own ships, or to serve on board the imperial fleet, for the usual pay granted to Latin mercenaries. They promise to offer no impediment to the extension of the empire in Syria, reserving to themselves the factories and privileges they already possess in any place that may be conquered. They submit their civil and criminal affairs to the jurisdiction of the Byzantine courts of justice, as was then the case with the Venetians and other foreigners in the empire. Acts of piracy and armed violence, unless the criminals were taken in the fact, were to be reported to the rulers of the republic whose subjects had committed the crime, and the Byzantine authorities were not to render the innocent traders in the empire responsible for the injuries inflicted by these brigands. The republicans engaged to observe all the stipulations in their treaties in defiance of ecclesiastical excommunication, or the prohibition of any individual, crowned or not crowned.

Manuel, in return, granted to the republicans the right of forming a factory, erecting a quay for landing their goods, and building a church; and the Genoese received their grant in an agreeable position on the side of the port opposite Constantinople, where in after times their great colony of Galata was formed. The emperor promised to send an annual present of from four hundred to five hundred gold byzants, with two pieces of a rich brocade then manufactured only in the Byzantine empire, to the republican governments, and sixty byzants, with one piece of brocade, to their archbishops. These treaties fixed the duty levied on the goods imported or exported from Constantinople by the Italians at four per cent; but in the other cities of the empire, the Pisans and Genoese were to pay the same duties as other Latin traders, excepting, of course, the privileged Venetians. These duties generally amounted to ten per cent. The republics were expressly excluded, by the Genoese treaty, from the Black Sea trade, except when they received a special license from the emperor. In case of shipwreck, the property of the foreigners was to be protected by the imperial authorities and respected by the people, and every assistance was to be granted to the unfortunate sufferers. This humane clause was not new in Byzantine commercial treaties, for it is contained in the earliest treaty concluded by Alexius I with the Pisans. On the whole, the arrangements for the administration of justice in these treaties prove that the Byzantine Empire still enjoyed a greater degree of order than the rest of Europe.

The state of civilization in the Eastern Empire, as we have had already occasion to observe, rendered the public finances the moving power of the government, as in the nations of modern Europe. This must always tend to the centralization of political authority, for the highest branch of the executive will always endeavour to dispose of the revenues of the state according to its views of necessity. This centralizing policy led Manuel to order all the money which the Greek commercial communities had hitherto devoted to maintaining local squadrons of galleys for the defence of the islands and coasts of the Aegean, to be remitted to the treasury at Constantinople. The ships were compelled to visit the imperial dockyard in the capital to undergo repairs, and to receive provisions and pay. A navy is a most expensive establishment; kings, ministers, and people are all very apt to think that when it is not wanted at any particular time, the cost of its maintenance may be more profitably applied to other objects. Manuel, after he had secured the funds of the Greeks for his own treasury, soon left their ships to rot, and the commerce of Greece became exposed to the attacks of small squadrons of Italian pirates who previously would not have dared to plunder in the Archipelago. It may be thought by some that Manuel acted wisely in centralizing the naval administration of his empire; but the great number, the small size, and the relative position of many of the Greek islands with regard to the prevailing winds, render the permanent establishment of naval stations at several points necessary to prevent piracy; and unless local interests possess considerable influence in appropriating the funds required for this purpose, it is a duty which is always in danger of being neglected by the central administration. The monarchy established in Greece by the three protecting powers has annihilated the navy of Hydra, Spezia, and Psara, and piracy is at present only kept down by the steamers of the protecting powers. But no general rule can be safely applied to a problem in practical administration. Manuel and Otho ruined the navy of Greece by their unwise measures of centralization; Pericles, by prudently centralizing the maritime forces of the various states, increased the naval power of Athens, and gave additional security to every Greek ship that navigated the sea.

The same fiscal views which induced Manuel to centralize the naval administration when it was injurious to the interests of the empire, prompted him to act diametrically opposite with regard to the army. The Emperor John had added greatly to the efficiency of the Byzantine military force by improving and centralizing its administration, and he left Manuel an excellent army, which rendered the Eastern Empire the most powerful state in Europe. But Manuel, from motives of economy, abandoned his father's system. Instead of assembling all the military forces of the empire annually in camps, where they received pay, and were subjected to strict discipline, towards the end of his reign he distributed even the regular army in cities and provinces, where they were quartered far apart, in order that each district, by maintaining a certain number of men, might relieve the treasury from the burden of their pay and subsistence while they were not on actual service. The money thus retained in the central treasury was spent in idle festivals at Constantinople, and the troops, dispersed and neglected, became careless of their military exercises, and lived in a state of relaxed discipline. Other abuses were quickly introduced; resident yeomen, shopkeepers, and artisans were enrolled in the legions, with the connivance of the officers. The burden of maintaining the troops was in this way diminished, but the army was deteriorated. In other districts, where the divisions were exposed to be called into action, or were more directly under central inspection, the effective force was kept up at its full complement, but the people were compelled to submit to every kind of extortion and tyranny. The tendency of absolute power being always to weaken the power of the law, and to increase the authority of the executive agents of the sovereign, soon manifested its effects in the rapid progress of administrative corruption. The Byzantine garrisons in a few years became prototypes of the shop keeping janissaries of the Ottoman Empire, and bore no resemblance to the feudal militia of Western Europe, which Manuel had proposed as the model of his reform. This change produced a rapid decline in the military strength of the Byzantine army, and accelerated the fall of the empire.

For a considerable period the Byzantine emperors had been gradually increasing the proportion of foreign mercenaries in their service; this practice Manuel carried farther than any of his predecessors. Besides the usual Varangian, Italian, and German guards, we find large corps of Patzinaks, Franks, and Turks enrolled in his armies, and officers of these nations occupying situations of the highest rank. A change had taken place in the military tactics of the East, caused by the heavy armour and powerful horses which the Crusaders brought into the field, and by the greater personal strength and skill in warlike exercises of the Western troops, who had no occupation from infancy but gymnastic exercises and athletic amusements. The nobility of the feudal nations expended more money on arms and armour than on other luxuries; and this becoming the general fashion, the Western troops were much better armed than the Byzantine soldiers. War became the profession of the higher ranks, and the expense of military undertakings was greatly increased by the military classes being completely separated from the rest of society. The warlike disposition of Manuel led him to favour the military nobles of the West who took service at his court; while his confidence in his own power, and in the political superiority of his empire, deluded him with the hope of being able to quell the turbulence of the Franks, and set bounds to the ambition and power of the popes.

The wars of Manuel were sometimes forced on him by foreign powers, and sometimes commenced for temporary objects; but he appears never to have formed any fixed idea of the permanent policy which ought to have determined the constant employment of all the military resources at his command, for the purpose of advancing the interest of his empire and giving security to his subjects. His military exploits may be considered under three heads:—His wars with the Franks, whether in Asia or Europe; his wars with the Hungarians and Servians; and his wars with the Turks.

His first operations were against the principality of Antioch. The death of John II caused the dispersion of the fine army he had assembled for the conquest of Syria; but Manuel sent a portion of that army, and a strong fleet, to attack the principality. One of the generals of the land forces was Prosuch, a Turkish officer in high favour with his father. Raymond of Antioch was no longer the idle gambler he had shown himself in the camp of the Emperor John; but though he was now distinguished by his courage and skill in arms, he was completely defeated, and the imperial army carried its ravages up to the very walls of Antioch, while the fleet laid waste the coast. Though the Byzantine troops retired, the losses of the campaign convinced Raymond that it would be impossible to defend Antioch, should Manuel take the field in person. He therefore hastened to Constantinople, as a suppliant, to sue for peace; but Manuel, before admitting him to an audience, required that he should repair to the tomb of the Emperor John, and ask pardon for having violated his former promises. When the Hercules of the Franks, as Raymond was called, had submitted to this humiliation, he was admitted to the imperial presence, swore fealty to the Byzantine Empire as Prince of Antioch, and became the vassal of the Emperor Manuel. The conquest of Edessa by the Mohammedans, which took place in the month of December 1144, rendered the defence of Antioch by the Latins a doubtful enterprise, unless they could secure the assistance of the Greeks.

Manuel involved himself in a war with Roger, king of Sicily, which perhaps he might have avoided by more prudent conduct. An envoy he had sent to the Sicilian court concluded a treaty, which Manuel thought fit to disavow with unsuitable violence : this gave the Sicilian king a pretext for commencing war, but the real cause of hostilities must be sought in the ambition of Roger and the hostile feelings of Manuel. Roger was one of the wealthiest princes of his time; he had united under his sceptre both Sicily and all the Norman possessions in southern Italy; his ambition was equal to his wealth and power, and he aspired at eclipsing the glory of Robert Guiscard and Bohemund by some permanent conquests in the Byzantine Empire. On the other hand, the renown of Roger excited the envy of Manuel, who, proud of his army, and confident of his own valour and military skill, hoped to reconquer Sicily. His passion made him forget that he was surrounded by numerous enemies, who would combine to prevent his employing all his forces against one adversary. Manuel consequently acted imprudently in reveal­ing his hostile intentions; while Roger could direct all his forces against one point, and avail himself of Manuel’s embarrassments. He commenced hostilities by inflicting a blow on the wealth and prosperity of Greece, from which it never recovered.

At the commencement of the second crusade, when the attention of Manuel was anxiously directed to the movements of Louis VII of France, and Conrad, emperor of Germany, Roger, who had collected a powerful fleet at Brindisi, for the purpose either of attacking the Byzantine empire or transporting the Crusaders to Palestine, availed himself of an insurrection in Corfu to conclude a convention with the inhabitants, who admitted a garrison of one thousand Norman troops into their citadel. The Corfiotes complained with great reason of the intolerable weight of taxation to which they were subjected, of the utter neglect of their interests by the central government, which consumed their wealth, and of the great abuses which prevailed in the administration of justice; but the remedy they adopted, by placing themselves under the rule of foreign masters, was not likely to alleviate these evils. The Sicilian admiral, after landing the Norman garrison at Corfu, sailed to Monemvasia, then one of the principal commercial cities in the East, hoping to gain possession of it without difficulty; but the maritime population of this impregnable fortress gave him a warm reception, and easily repulsed his attack. After plundering the coasts of Euboea and Attica, the Sicilian fleet returned to the west, and laid waste Acarnania and Aetolia; then entered the Gulf of Corinth, and debarked a body of troops at Crissa. This force marched through the country to Thebes, plundering every town and village on the way. Thebes offered no resistance, and was plundered in the most deliberate and barbarous manner. The inhabitants were numerous and wealthy. The soil of Boeotia is extremely productive, and numerous manufactures established in the city of Thebes gave additional value to the abundant produce of agricultural industry. A century had elapsed since the citizens of Thebes had gone out valiantly to fight the army of Sclavonian rebels in the reign of Michael IV the Paphlagonian, and that defeat had long been forgotten. But all military spirit was now dead, and the Thebans had so long lived without any fear of invasion that they had forgotten the use of arms. The Sicilians found them not only unprepared to offer any resistance, but so surprised that they had not even adopted any effectual measures to secure or conceal their movable property. The conquerors, secure against all danger of interruption, plundered Thebes at their leisure. Not only gold, silver, jewels, and church plate were carried off, but even the goods found in the ware­houses, and the rarest articles of furniture in private houses, were transported to the ships. Bales of silk and dyed leather were sent off to the fleet as deliberately as if they had been legally purchased in time of peace. When all ordinary means of collecting booty were exhausted, the citizens were compelled to take an oath on the Holy Scriptures that they had not concealed any portion of their property; yet many of the wealthiest were dragged away captive, in order to profit by their ransom; and many of the most skilful workmen in the silk-manufactories, for which Thebes had long been famous, were pressed on board the fleet to labour at the oar.

From Boeotia the army passed to Corinth. Nicephorus Kaluphes, the governor, retired into the Acro-Corinth, but the garrison appeared to his cowardly heart not strong enough to defend this impregnable fortress, and he surrendered it to George Antiochenus, the Sicilian admiral, on the first summons. On examining the fortress of which he had thus unexpectedly gained possession, the admiral could not help exclaiming that he fought under the protection of Heaven, for if Kaluphes had not been more timid than a virgin, Corinth should have repulsed every attack. Corinth was sacked as cruelly as Thebes; men of rank, beautiful women, and skilful artisans, with their wives and families, were carried away into captivity. Even the relics of St Theodore were taken from the church in which they were preserved; and it was not until the whole Sicilian fleet was laden with as much of the wealth of Greece as it was capable of transporting that the admiral ordered it to sail. The Sicilians did not venture to retain possession of the impregnable citadel of Corinth, as it would have been extremely difficult for them to keep up their communications with the garrison. This invasion of Greece was conducted entirely as a plundering expedition, having for its object to inflict the greatest possible injury on the Byzantine Empire, while it collected the largest possible quantity of booty for the Sicilian troops. Corfu was the only conquest of which Roger retained possession; yet this passing invasion is the period from which the decline of Byzantine Greece is to be dated.

The century and a-half which preceded this disaster had passed in uninterrupted tranquillity, and the Greek people had increased rapidly in numbers and wealth. The power of the Sclavonian population sank with the ruin of the kingdom of Achrida; and the Sclavonians who now dwelt in Greece were peaceable cultivators of the soil, or graziers. The Greek population, on the other hand, was in possession of an extensive commerce and many flourishing manufactures. The ruin of this commerce and of these manufactures has been ascribed to the transference of the silk trade from Thebes and Corinth to Palermo, under the judicious protection it received from Roger ; but it would be more correct to say, that the injudicious and oppressive financial administration of the Byzantine emperors destroyed the commercial prosperity and manufacturing industry of the Greeks; while the wise liberality and intelligent protection of the Norman kings extended the commerce and increased the industry of the Sicilians.

When the Sicilian fleet returned to Palermo, Roger determined to employ all the silk-manufacturers in their original occupations. He consequently collected all their families together, and settled them at Palermo, supplying them with the means of exercising their industry with profit to themselves, and inducing them to teach his own subjects to manufacture the richest brocades, and to rival the rarest productions of the East. Roger, unlike most of the monarchs of his age, paid particular attention to improving the wealth of his dominions by increasing the prosperity of his subjects. During his reign the cultivation of the sugar-cane was introduced into Sicily. The conduct of Manuel was very different: when he concluded peace with William, the son and successor of Roger, in 1158, he paid no attention to the commercial interests of his Greek subjects; the silk-manufactures of Thebes and Corinth were not reclaimed and reinstated in their native seats; they were left to exercise their industry for the profit of their new prince, while their old sovereign would have abandoned them to perish from want. Under such circumstances, it is not remarkable that the commerce and the manufactures of Greece were transferred in the course of another century to Sicily and Italy.

Though Manuel has been blamed with justice for his conduct to the Crusaders, it would be wrong to give credit to all the accusations of the Latin writers, who frequently attribute to his conduct disasters which arose solely from the rashness and incapacity of the Franks. The Crusaders, ashamed of their defeats, indulged their national and ecclesiastical antipathies by attributing all their misfortunes to Manuel, forgetting that every accusation brought against him could with equal truth be made against the Latin princes and nobles of Syria, in whose conduct the crimes assumed a blacker dye. The truth is, that all the Christian princes in the East, whether Greek, Latin, or Armenian, watched with fear and jealousy the conduct of the great Western monarchs who took the cross. Princes were not then amenable to the tribunal of public opinion, and the powerful, consequently, generally regarded it as a glorious exploit to seize every country of which they could hope to retain possession. When, therefore, the crusading monarchs were unable to conquer the Mohammedans, they were too apt to conquer the Christians.

 

CONRAD III, EMPEROR OF GERMANY.

 

The second crusade commenced in 1147. Conrad III, emperor of Germany, was the first prince who marched eastward; and he took the route through Hungary which had been followed by the first Crusaders. His army was numerous and well furnished; but it was embarrassed by an immense crowd of pilgrims, over whom the military chiefs could exercise very little control It had, however, the advantage of being attended by a numerous body of workmen, to make roads and construct bridges; for the army feared nothing but delay. The agents of the Emperor Manuel, who were sent to count these troops as they crossed the Danube, reported that the number exceeded ninety thousand; and if we may trust the report of contemporary chronicles, seventy thousand of these were horsemen. During their progress through the Eastern Empire, they were accompanied by a strong body of Byzantine troops, under the command of Prosuch, who advanced parallel to their line of march, and endeavoured to restrain the plundering propensities of the pilgrims, who thought they were entitled to help themselves to everything they desired, as they had received ample absolutions for every crime they might commit. The precautions of Conrad and the prudence of Manuel were insufficient to preserve order. The Greek suttlers, accustomed to cheat and to be cheated by their own government, defrauded the German soldiers; and the bands of robbers, whom the false piety of the Papal Church had allowed to take the cross, plundered the open country as a hostile district. The Bulgarians and Greeks took up arms to revenge themselves. A relation of Conrad, falling sick, rested in a monastery at Adrianople, where some Byzantine soldiers murdered him, and plundered his effects. The news reached the German emperor when he was already two days’ march beyond Adrianople; but he immediately sent back his nephew, the celebrated Frederic Barbarossa, to punish this act of treachery. Frederic, naturally more violent than his uncle, set fire to the monastery, and attacked the Byzantine troops in the vicinity; but after some slaughter, Prosuch succeeded in appeasing his anger and preventing a battle.

The Emperors Manuel and Conrad had married sisters; but pride and etiquette prevented their meeting, and they became engaged in disputes which produced various acts of hostility between their armies. The Germans destroyed many of the splendid villas round Constantinople, and thereby ruined one of the greatest ornaments of that capital. But as Conrad was eager to pursue his route before Louis VII of France could witness the disorder which already began to manifest itself in his army, and as Manuel was anxious to transport one army into Asia before the other reached the Bosphorus, the two emperors arranged their quarrels, and the Byzantine navy transported the Germans into Asia. Manuel also supplied Conrad with guides for his march to Antioch; and to his treachery in furnishing guides instructed to mislead the army, the Crusaders attributed all their subsequent misfortunes, forgetting that the road from Constantinople to Antioch was quite as well-known as that from Vienna to Constantinople, and that the real cause of their disasters was to be found in their own rashness, and in the natural difficulty of finding provisions for a large army, whose flanks were infested with brigands in the guise of pilgrims, whom the Emperor Conrad could not venture to hang, as they were the chosen sheep of the Pope. Conrad had unfortunately selected the summer as the season for marching through the arid plains of Phrygia. It is not surprising, therefore, that the men died of fever, and the horses from want of forage. But it cannot be denied that the envious and malignant policy which marked the proceedings of the Byzantine court in its communications with Western Europe did much to increase the unavoidable difficulties of the Crusaders. It was undoubtedly a measure of prudence to exclude them from all walled towns; but it was an act of the basest infamy to mix chalk with the flour that was sold to them, and to coin false money to defraud them when they exchanged their gold and silver. Yet Nicetas tells us that Manuel was guilty of these meannesses. The Turkish cavalry attacked the German army when it was weakened by disease, and Conrad, with the portion of his cavalry still capable of service, was compelled to retreat. After meeting Louis VII at Nicaea, he again advanced with the French monarch as far as Ephesus; but sickness compelled him to return to Constantinople, where Manuel gave him the kindest welcome as soon as he had ceased to be an object of fear.

Louis conducted his march with more prudence than Conrad. He possessed more control over his troops, and he was not attended by so many idle followers and disorderly brigands. But Louis found even the European provinces of the Byzantine Empire on his line of march so hostile, that he had to force his way through the country up to the walls of Constantinople. Manuel received Louis with demonstrations of friendship; but while the French army was encamped before Constantinople, it became known that the Byzantine emperor had concluded a truce with the Sultan of Iconium. A council was held in the French camp, and the Bishop of Langres proposed that the Crusaders should commence their military operations for the deliverance of Christ’s sepulchre by conquering the heretics of Constantinople. He employed all his eloquence to incite his countrymen to attack the Greeks; but the French nobles declared that they had taken the cross to fight with infidels and defend Jerusalem, not to destroy Christian cities or punish heretics. The King of France was so anxious to preserve amicable relations with the Byzantine government, and so eager to march forward, that he permitted his barons to do homage to Manuel, in order to remove all jealousy on the part of that emperor, and gave him the fullest assurance of the good faith of the French army. Louis also enforced the strictest discipline possible in his age, and punished any soldiers who committed acts of brigandage with as much cruelty as they had exercised in their depredations; some had their hands and feet cut off.

In Asia the French army kept nearer the coast than the Germans, which enabled them to proceed farther in the Byzantine territory. But when they entered the Turkish dominions they soon began to suffer the same evils as their predecessors, and only a small part gained Attalia in an efficient state. With these troops Louis embarked for Antioch, leaving upwards of seven thousand men behind. These soldiers, abandoned by their leaders and ill-treated by the inhabitants of the country, perished in attempting to force their way to Syria by land. At Antioch, Louis found the Frank princes of Syria no better disposed to favour his expedition than he had found the Greek emperor at Constantinople. Every intrigue was employed to delay his march to Jerusalem; and when at last Conrad returned, and he and Louis united their forces with the troops of Baldwin III, king of Jerusalem, and laid siege to Damascus, the enterprise failed in consequence of the jealousy or treachery of the Syrian barons, the Templars, and the Prince of Antioch. But in western Europe every failure, whether it was caused by the folly of the Crusaders, the perfidy of the Latin Christians in Syria, or the jealousy of the Byzantine government, equally tended to increase the outcry against the treachery of the Greeks.

The destruction of the crusading armies left at liberty to turn all his attention to Corfu; but the Patzinaks having availed themselves of the opportunity afforded by the passage of the Crusaders to plunder in Bulgaria, it was first necessary to clear the country of this enemy. The whole summer of 1148 was employed in this task. In the following year the Byzantine forces invested Corfu by sea and land. The position of the citadel is extremely strong, occupying the base of a bold rocky promontory which rises abruptly out of the sea with a double head. The city itself was strongly fortified by art as well as by its natural position. When the emperor had assembled all his forces before the place, he ordered a general assault under the cover of showers of missiles from all the military machines then in use, which were planted in his ships and along the shore so as to enfilade the points which were assailed; but the advantage of their position enabled the Sicilian garrison to repulse the attack, and the Grand-duke Koutostephanos, who commanded the fleet was slain as he encouraged his men to plant a ladder against the walls. In spite of this defeat Manuel continued to press on his attacks at a considerable sacrifice of men without gaining any advantage, until an unexpected circumstance had nearly rendered him master of the citadel It was observed that a gully in the rock would admit the assailants into the body of the place, if they could gain possession of a single wall that covered it towards the sea. A lofty tower was constructed on the hulls of several transports, which were bound firmly together, and on this tower a ladder was fixed which reached the ramparts. Pupakes, a Turkish officer of the guard of Axouchos, and four brothers of Frank descent named Petraliphas, led a body of four hundred chosen troops to the assault. Pupakes mounted the ladder and reached the rampart with a few followers; but while the rest of the forlorn hope were mounting, the ladder broke with their weight, and many were precipitated into the sea or dashed to pieces on the rocks of the citadel. Pupakes, and those who had gained a firm footing, cleared for themselves a space on the wall; but when they saw there was no hope of receiving further aid, they availed themselves of the confusion into which they had thrown the garrison, and with singular audacity and presence of mind they descended from the ramparts and escaped by a wicket to the Byzantine army. Manuel, undismayed by this failure, continued to direct his attacks against the place with great courage, but with a degree of impatience which often proves injurious to the military operations of sovereigns who command their own armies. At length a quarrel occurred between the Byzantine troops and the Venetian marines, in the large naval force which the republic had sent to act against the Normans in conjunction with the emperor. The tumult threatened to become a general engagement, when Axouchos, unable to appease the combatants, determined at least to separate them. By ordering his guards to charge the Venetians, he forced them to retire to their ships. The republicans, furious at their discomfiture, immediately weighed anchor and sailed to attack a division of the Greek fleet which was stationed in the channel between Cephalonia and Ithaca, to prevent the Sicilians from throwing supplies into Corfu on that side. The Venetians burned several of the Greek ships and captured the emperor’s own galley, in which they placed a negro clad in the imperial robes with a crown on his head; and having seated him on a throne placed under a canopy, they paraded before the Byzantine camp at Corfu, saluting their black pageant of an emperor with all the multifarious and servile prostrations practised at the Constantinopolitan court. The Emperor Manuel, however, had the good sense to smile at this buffoonery, in which his dark complexion was ridiculed; and by his prudence he succeeded in bringing the Venetians back to their duty. A fleet sent by Roger to relieve Corfu was defeated, and the garrison, being cut off from all hope of succour, at length capitulated. The Norman and Sicilian troops were allowed to retire with their arms; but Theodore Capellan, their commander, fearing to encounter the indignation of Roger, or satisfied that his courage and military skill would be better appreciated by Manuel, entered the Byzantine service.

The emperor resolved to make the recovery of Corfu a step to the invasion of Sicily. A division of the Byzantine fleet ravaged the coast of Sicily, and Manuel twice attempted to invade the island, but was driven back to Avlona by storms; and the damage his ships sustained compelled him to abandon the undertaking for the time, nor did future wars ever allow him to resume this enterprise. His officers, however, were ordered to persist in a vain struggle to restore the Byzantine domination in southern Italy, in order to form a base for operations against Sicily. The war was prolonged for several years. On one occasion a Sicilian fleet of forty sail passed the Hellespont, and appeared unexpectedly before Constantinople while the emperor was absent; but the city was too well fortified to be exposed to any danger from such a force. The Sicilian admiral, after proclaiming his sovereign master of the sea, shooting a flight of gilded arrows at the walls of the great palace, and plundering some houses at Damalis on the Asiatic coast, retired. The Byzantine generals enrolled considerable bodies of mercenaries at Ancona and Venice, and obtained some success in Apulia; but at last Alexius Comnenus, the son of the Princess Anna the historian, having been defeated and taken prisoner, and Constantine Angelos, who was sent to regain the superiority with a powerful fleet, having met with the same fate, Manuel became inclined to peace. The terms of the treaty satisfied the vanity of the Byzantine emperor, and served the policy of the Sicilian king. The Byzantine officers and soldiers who were prisoners in Sicily were released without ransom; but Manuel, with that indifference to useful industry, and to the feelings of his peaceful subjects, and with the ignorance of the true sources of national strength, as well as riches, which is so common among princes, left the artisans of Thebes and Corinth to pass their lives in bondage under the Norman king. The fact that they were well treated, and settled as freemen with their families around them, reflects honour on Roger and additional disgrace on Manuel. As they were living in a climate similar to that of their native cities, and in the midst of a population speaking the Greek language, they probably were happier in their favoured exile than they could have been under the fiscal oppression that reigned in Byzantine Greece. The peace between Manuel and William the Bad, Roger’s son and successor, was concluded in the year 1155.

The appearance of the crusading monarchs of Germany and France, and the events of the war with the King of Sicily, gave Manuel a more correct knowledge of the resources and wealth of Western Europe than he had previously possessed. He began to fear their power as well as to esteem their valour, and during the remainder of his reign he watched the politics of a Italy with great attention. On more than one occasion he assisted the Italian cities in their struggle for liberty against Frederic Barbarossa, both with troops and money. He feared lest a general pacification of the Western states should enable some crusading monarch to employ an irresistible force against the Byzantine Empire and the Greek Church.

For about twenty years, from 1148 to 1168, the chief field of Manuel’s personal exploits was on the northern frontier of his empire. His first campaign, after the fall of Corfu, was against the Sclavonian princes who ruled in Servia and Dalmatia, whom the Byzantine emperors always affected to consider as vassals, and who had been really dependent on the empire as long as the state of the roads enabled the population of these mountainous districts to transport their produce with profit to the markets of the populous cities in Macedonia and Thrace. But the decay of communications by land had depopulated and barbarized the mountain districts, while the inhabitants of the sea-coast began to be more closely connected with Italy, by their commercial interests, than with the Byzantine Empire. During the Sicilian war, the Prince of Servia had leagued himself with Roger; Manuel now marched into his country in order to punish him. The Hungarians sent a powerful army to his assistance, and the united forces encountered the emperor on the banks of the Drin, not far from its junction with the Save. Manuel led his own troops to the attack, and behaved in the battle rather as a valiant knight than as a prudent general. At the head of his noble guard, he charged Bachin, the Servian archzupan, with his lance; but the Servian general was a man of immense size, and his heavy armour turned aside the imperial lance. Bachin rushed at Manuel with his drawn sword, and cut away the linked veil that hung before the emperor’s face as a visor. The broken clasps wounded Manuel’s cheek, yet he instantly closed with his antagonist, and, seizing him by the sword arm, secured him as a prisoner. The result of this combat decided the victory in favour of the imperial troops. Peace followed; for the Servian prince, abandoning all hope of resistance after the defeat of the archzupan, swore fidelity to the emperor as a vassal, engaging to furnish a contingent of two thousand men to the Byzantine army whenever it took the field in Europe, and five hundred when the Servian auxiliaries were required to pass over into Asia. This treaty, after subsisting some years, was violated by Primislas, prince of Servia, on which Manuel again invaded the country, dethroned Primislas, and conferred the government on his younger brothers Beluses and Deses. The latter, entering into secret alliances with Frederic Barbarossa and Stephen III of Hungary, prepared to revolt; but he was arrested by Manuel as a perfidious vassal, tried, condemned, and imprisoned at Constantinople. His successor Neeman continued to give the emperor as much trouble as his predecessors, planning rebellion when an opportunity presented itself and making the humblest submissions whenever the emperor was prepared to invade Servia. All the wars which Manuel carried on in Europe were of secondary importance to his contest with the kings of Hungary, though by prudence and policy he might easily have avoided the necessity of wasting so large a portion of the military resources of his empire on this unnecessary and unprofitable war. His pretext for commencing hostilities was the circumstance that Geïsa II had afforded assistance to the Prince of Servia at the battle of the Drin; but the real cause of his engaging in this ill-judged enterprise was a hope that he should be able to conquer a part of Hungary, in consequence of the continual disputes in that country concerning the succession to the crown. Manuel coveted the possession of the country between the Save and the Danube. This district was the centre of a rapidly increasing commerce. In order to avoid the oppressive duties and fiscal severity of the Byzantine government, a very considerable portion of the trade which had once taken the routes by Cherson and Trebizond to Constantinople now avoided the empire, and passed along the northern shores of the Caspian and Black Seas, through the territory of the Patzinaks, until it reached Zeugmin. The commerce of the Greeks was thus declining in the north as well as the south. The Patzinaks, Russians, and Hungarians became their rivals in the carrying trade by land, as the Venetians, Pisans, and Genoese were by sea; while the Jews and Lombards were beginning to supplant them as capitalists.

 

HUNGARIAN WAR. A.D. 1151.

 

Manuel invaded Hungary in the year 1151, when Geïsa II was carrying on war in Russia. Zeugmin was taken. The emperor abandoned the place to be pillaged by his troops, making a merit of sparing the lives of the inhabitants. This mode of commencing the war naturally rendered all the mercantile classes his determined enemies, in a country where traders were men accustomed to encounter danger, and frequently possessed both military skill and influence. The Byzantine army, after laying waste the province between the Save and Danube, crossed the latter river, stormed several cities, and spread its ravages far and wide. Geïsa, on returning from the war in Russia, found that his forces were insufficient to encounter Manuel in the field. He therefore solicited a truce, which the emperor readily granted, that the Byzantine army might carry off the immense booty it had collected without molestation. These spoils were exhibited with great triumph at Constantinople. In the following year Geïsa commenced hostilities by laying siege to Branisova, the command of which Manuel had imprudently intrusted to his unprincipled cousin Andronicus, who was suspected of inviting the Hungarians to recommence the war, hoping that their movement would aid his own treasonable plots. But the promptitude of the emperor saved Branisova and deranged the projects of Andronicus. In the following year (1153) peace was concluded with Hungary, which lasted until the death of Geïsa II in 1161.

On Geïsa’s death, Manuel made the Hungarian law of succession to the throne a pretext for attacking the kingdom. As in many of the European monarchies of the time, the brother of the last monarch was preferred to his son. But Geïsa II had done everything in his power to change this order of succession in Hungary, and to secure the succession to his son Stephen III. The great majority of the Hungarians supported his views and ratified his choice; for they feared lest the brothers of Geïsa, who had resided long at the Byzantine court, should sacrifice the independence of Hungary. Manuel, deeming the time favourable for his own schemes of conquest, supplied Ladislas, the elder of the two brothers of Geïsa II, with liberal aid. Stephen III was driven from the throne, but Ladislas died after a reign of six months. Stephen, the youngest brother of Geïsa, who had married Maria Comnena, the daughter of Isaac, the emperor’s eldest brother, succeeded Ladislas. The exactions of Stephen soon rendered his government so unpopular that the Hungarians took up arms, expelled him from the kingdom, and replaced his nephew Stephen III on the throne. Manuel sent a Byzantine army into Hungary to assist the husband of his niece, and the elder Stephen again recovered his crown; but the Byzantine troops had hardly crossed the Danube on their return before their royal client was compelled to follow them, and present himself once more as an exile at the imperial court. Manuel, perceiving that his endeavours to force a worthless monarch on the Hungarians would only lead to an interminable war, consented to treat with Stephen III, whom he acknowledged King of Hungary, on condition that Bela, his younger brother, should be recognised as heir to the Hungarian crown; Bela engaging to adopt the Greek church, and marry Maria, the only child of Manuel. A treaty of peace was concluded on this basis in 1163, and the ceremony of the betrothal of Maria and Bela (whose name was changed to Alexios by the Greeks) was performed in the church of Blachern. Manuel conferred the title of Despot on the Hungarian prince, and looked forward to the union of Hungary with the Byzantine Empire as an achievement which would reflect immortal glory on his reign, and raise the Eastern Empire to the highest degree of power among the states of Europe.

This peace proved of short duration, for Manuel not only refused to disarm the elder Stephen, but even permitted him to enrol troops, and invade Hungary from the Byzantine territory. Stephen III, who justly held the emperor responsible for these hostilities, sequestrated the appanage of Bela in order to indemnify Hungary for the losses it suffered, and Manuel recommenced the war. He entered Hungary in person at the head of a large army, and, bearing down all opposition, marched to Peterwardein; but as his object was to conciliate the Hungarian people, he, on this occasion, prevented his troops from plundering, and offered to conclude peace if Stephen III would restore Bela’s appanage. Stephen III preferred the chance of war, for he was on the eve of effecting his junction with his ally Uladislas, king of Bohemia, who had brought a powerful army to his assistance. The Hungarian and Bohemian armies effected their junction, but Manuel was not deterred by their numbers from advancing to attack them. He crossed the Danube, and encamped at Titul on the banks of the Teisse, in front of the two kings. The brilliant appearance of the Byzantine army after its rapid movements, the order with which it had marched, the high military reputation of the emperor, the moderation of his demands, and the justice of the King of Bohemia, prevented a battle. He persuaded Stephen III to surrender Bela’s appanage, and Manuel immediately retired. But the emperor, not having engaged to disarm the elder Stephen, still allowed him to assemble troops within the frontiers of the empire, and make plundering incursions into Hungary. The King of Hungary, finding that he had been deceived, reassembled his army, and, laying siege to Zeugmin, took that important city before it could receive assistance. His uncle Stephen was taken prisoner soon after, and, falling ill, is reported to have been murdered by a physician, who was suborned to bleed him with a poisoned lancet.

The capture of Zeugmin enraged Manuel, who now resolved to dethrone Stephen, and place his son-in-law Bela on the throne. To effect this he formed alliances with the Emperor of Germany, Frederic Barbarossa, with the Venetians, and with several of the princes who then governed different parts of Russia. In 1166 he assembled a powerful army at Sardica, and marched to Zeugmin. Attacking the place with his ordinary impetuosity, he soon carried it by storm. The King of Hungary, seeing that he could offer no resistance in the field, sent an embassy to the emperor to demand peace, offering to cede Zeugmin, Sirmium, and Dalmatia to Manuel. To these offers Manuel replied by asking the Hungarian envoys, with a sneer, if their king possessed other cities named Zeugmin and Sirmium, and a second province called Dalmatia, for his troops were already in possession of the places usually known by those names. In this campaign, the Byzantine army, under the immediate command of the emperor, conquered all the country between the Save and the Danube; while a second army, under the command of John Dukas, subdued all Hungarian Dalmatia, a province which then contained fifty-seven towns, among which were the cities of Trau, Sebenico, Spalatro, Dioclea, Scardona, Salona, and Ostrourypitza.

Next year (1167) the Byzantine army in Hungary was commanded through two Byzantine nobles, Gabras and Branas, by whose cowardice it was completely defeated.

(Michael Gabras was the husband of Eudocia Comnena, the paramour of Andronicus. The two historians of Manuel’s reign, Cinnamus and Nicetas, both record an anecdote which reveals the corruption of the Byzantine court. The defeated generals were accused of ruining the army by their misconduct, before they made the final exhibition of their cowardice on the field of battle. In spite of former jealousies, they agreed to stand by one another in their defence. When Gabras was examined by the emperor in council, he referred to Branas as a man who could give disinterested evidence concerning his behaviour as commander-in-chief. Branas was in consequence brought before the emperor to be examined; but he requested that Gabras, as his superior officer, might bear testimony to his conduct, as second in command, in order that he might speak more freely concerning Gabras. On this appeal, Gabras praised the personal valour of Branas, particularly in covering the retreat. When he concluded, Branas coolly observed, “I am surprised you know so well what I performed, for I swear by the head of the emperor, that when I turned myself, I hardly got a glimpse of you galloping off in the distance”.)

The Hungarian general, Dionysius, was an officer of great military talent. To repair the losses caused by this disaster, the emperor took the field in person in 1168; but the state of his health prevented his accompanying all the movements of the army, the immediate command of which he intrusted to his nephew, Andronicus Koutostephanos. The Hungarians had a well-appointed and numerous army under the command of Dionysius. The Byzantine council of war decided that Koutostephanos should engage the enemy without loss of time; and the emperor, who was extremely superstitious, was delighted with his decision when he learned that, just as the council rose, a Hungarian, who was galloping towards the Byzantine camp, had fallen from his horse. This trifling accident he viewed as a lucky omen, and Koutostephanos was ordered to hasten forward. But the astrologers who accompanied the emperor, being anxious to avoid falling into neglect, assured Manuel that he should himself suffer some misfortune if the engagement took place next day. Manuel was weak enough to send a courier to his general at their suggestion, ordering him to suspend the attack for twenty-four hours. Koutostephanos had already made his dispositions for battle when the imperial order reached him, and he thought there would be more danger in withdrawing his troops from their positions, and passing a whole day inactively, than in despising the predictions of the astrologers, for he had no confidence in the tactics of the stars. He knew well that nothing but a complete victory would serve as his apology for disobeying the imperial order; and as delay seemed to him likely to diminish his chances, the order was instantly given for attacking the Hungarians. The battle was long and bloody. Dionysius had drawn up his best troops in one solid mass, at the head of which he expected to break through the ranks of the Byzantine army, and then destroy its divisions in detail. He himself fought beside the national standard of Hungary, which was displayed on a tall mast fixed in an immense waggon, and elevated high above the field, that it might serve both as a guide for the attacks and a rallying-point for the repulses of the Hungarian squadrons. The plan of Dionysius was foiled by the dispositions of Koutostephanos. The cavalry, which composed the best part of the Hungarian army, was broken by the Byzantine horse, and after a desperate struggle driven from the field. The great standard was taken; Dionysius saved himself with difficulty; two thousand suits of complete armour were collected from the slain, against which the lances of the Byzantine cavalry had been shivered in vain, and whose wearers had only perished when their helmets were crushed by the weight of the terrible mace-of-arms. Only eight hundred prisoners were taken, for the imperial cavalry was too much exhausted to continue the pursuit; but these prisoners were the heaviest-armed and bravest knights in the enemy’s army: among their number were many of the highest nobility, and five Bans.

This battle, which was fought near Zeugmin, put an end to the war. Peace was concluded in 1168, Stephen III ceding to the empire Zeugmin, Sirmium, and Dalmatia, so that Manuel only gained the same terms after the victory of Koutostephanos which he might have obtained in the year 1166. When Manuel returned to Constantinople, he made a triumphal entry into the city, riding on horseback, with Andronicus Koutostephanos by his side. The imperial cavalcade was preceded by a chariot of silver gilt, drawn by four white horses, in which a picture of the Virgin Mary was displayed to the superstitious inhabitants, who considered the protection of the Virgin as a surer defence for the empire than either a well-disciplined army or a wise administration. This was Manuel's last triumph, and the battle of Zeugmin was one of the last great victories gained by the Byzantine arms. The splendour of the Eastern Empire now began to wane, and was rapidly obscured, never to recover its brightness.

 

WAR WITH VENICE, A.D. 1171.

 

Though Manuel had suppressed his anger, and overlooked at the time the insolence of the Venetians during the siege of Corfu, he never forgot it; nor was he prudent enough to conceal the jealousy he felt at the increasing power and wealth of the republic. His ill-will was displayed in the strictness with which he interpreted every clause of the treaties and charters conceding to them their commercial privileges and immunities in the Byzantine Empire. It was natural, therefore, that the conquest of the southern part of Dalmatia by John Ducas in 1166, and the negotiations of Manuel with Frederic Barbarossa, should alarm the Venetian senate, and render war with the Eastern Empire an event which it might soon be impossible to avoid. In this state of feeling, Manuel availed himself of some tumults between the Venetians and Lombards settled at Constantinople to impose new restrictions on the Venetians. Ever since the time of Alexius I the Venetians had possessed a street or quarter of their own, where their warehouses were situated. This quarter possessed its own quay, and enjoyed the privileges of a free port. All Venetian subjects were bound to reside within its limits, and justice was there administered, in the differences of Venetian subjects, according to the laws of Venice. But the numbers of the Venetians established in the empire soon increased, and many resided beyond the limits of the privileged quarter. Their wealth and character obtained for them matrimonial alliances with many respectable native families. It seems, at first sight, a strange fact that so many of the foreign races which took up their residence within the limits of the Byzantine empire should have increased more rapidly than the Greeks, and that relic of the Roman conquerors which still formed the dominant portion of Byzantine society; but a little attention to the history of the empire reveals the fact that fiscal oppression deprived the natives of all hope of bettering their condition, and compelled them to rest contented if they could preserve the possessions they had inherited from their ancestors unimpaired, while among the higher ranks social corruption and pride of caste prevented all increase of numbers. On the other hand, the condition of foreign settlers, and particularly of the Venetians, was very different: they escaped the worst effects of imperial rapacity, and their social manners still rendered a numerous family a greater enjoyment, and a surer means of obtaining consideration in the decline of life, than a large house and a gallery of pictures and statues. But though the moral and political state of Venetian society was superior to that of Greek, it had also great defects. The spirit of personal independence, which gave strength and dignity to the republic, too often degenerated in the individual Venetian into disorderly conduct and insolence to others. They frequently raised tumults in the streets of Constantinople, and set the imperial officers and the laws of the empire at defiance.

Manuel determined to make the great party-quarrel of the Venetians and Lombards the pretext for increasing his power over the Venetians settled in his empire. Every Venetian was ordered to reside within the quarter set apart for their habitation; all who continued to dwell without those limits were commanded to take the oath of allegiance as subjects of the emperor, in order to secure for themselves and their property the protection of the Byzantine laws. Many Venetians complied with this ordinance rather than sacrifice the landed property they possessed; but they could not so readily lay aside their disorderly habits, and forget their party contests. The Venetians repeated their attacks on the Lombards, overpowered their opponents, and plundered their warehouses. The Emperor Manuel was justly enraged at the insolent contempt shown for his authority in his own capital. To avenge the injured laws of his empire, and, as was generally thought, to gratify at the same time his own avarice, he ordered all the Venetians in his dominions to be arrested, and their property to be sequestrated, (A.D. 1171.)

The government of Venice regarded the emperors conduct in this affair as a direct violation of their treaty; they held that he was only authorized to arrest those who had taken part in the tumult, and that any claim for pecuniary indemnification ought to have been addressed to the Venetian senate, whose refusal to pay the demand could alone authorize the sequestration of private property. The republic, therefore, fitted out a fleet to exact reparation from Manuel; and in the spring of 1172 the Doge Vital Michieli II sailed with one hundred galleys and twenty carracks to attack the recent conquests of John Dukas in Dalmatia. Trau and Kagusa were besieged and taken, and the Byzantine forces were soon expelled from all Dalmatia. The doge then sailed to the Archipelago, where, however, he was not so fortunate as he had been in the Adriatic. After losing some time in a vain attempt to render himself master of Chalcis in Euboea, he took possession of the island of Chios, where he passed the winter. The Greeks everywhere showed the greatest animosity to the Venetians, whose commercial immunities had robbed them of a considerable portion of their trade, a. d. and the doge became sensible that he had no chance of making any permanent conquest in the Aegean. The merchants of Venice already felt the loss of their commerce with Constantinople, and the senate began to fear lest the privileges which the Venetians had previously enjoyed should be conferred on the Pisans or the Genoese. An embassy was dispatched to solicit peace with the Byzantine Empire, but the terms offered were rejected by Manuel.

In the meantime a dreadful pestilence broke out in the Venetian fleet at Chios; while the imperial fleet, which had been almost entirely destroyed in an unsuccessful invasion of Egypt during the year 1170, was again ready for sea. In the spring of 1173, one hundred and fifty Byzantine galleys issued from the Hellespont to attack the Venetians. The republican force was so enfeebled by the ravages of the plague that the doge abandoned Chios on the approach of the enemy, and retired successively to Lesbos, Lemnos, and Skyros, gradually abandoning numbers of his ships, as the crews were thinned by disease. At last he quitted the Archipelago altogether, and returned to Venice with seventeen ships; the rest had either been abandoned from want of hands to navigate them, or they had been captured by the Greeks.

Before quitting the Grecian seas the doge sent a second embassy to the Emperor Manuel. One of the ambassadors was Henry Dandolo, a man whose name will live for ever in the annals of the Byzantine Empire and in the history of the Greek race. Thirty years after this he again visited Constantinople, and was the principal agent in destroying the Eastern Empire and enslaving the Greek people. The propositions of the doge were again rejected, and the ambassadors had perhaps reason to complain of the rudeness of their reception. The Doge Vital Michieli was held to be responsible for misfortunes he could not prevent, and the Venetians, being as ungovernable in their passions at home as abroad, assassinated him in a public assembly. The social condition of the republic evidently called for reform. It was universally admitted that there was a necessity for adding to the vigour of the law. The ruling men in the senate made this necessity a pretext for changing the old aristocratic democracy into an administrative oligarchy.

To revenge themselves for their losses in the East the Venetians resolved to destroy the city of Ancona, which was their rival in the trade of the Adriatic, and might, through the protection of the Emperor of Constantinople, supplant them in their commerce with the East. The Emperor Frederic Barbarossa, who was anxious to gain possession of Ancona for himself, joined the republic; and while the Venetian fleet blockaded the port, a German army besieged the city by land. The inhabitants defended themselves most valiantly, and all the attacks of the besiegers were repulsed; but towards the end of autumn their provisions failed, and hunger compelled to demand a capitulation. The Archbishop of Mayence, who commanded the German army, insisted that they should surrender at discretion, when the people of Ancona, who hesitated to accept such hard terms, were saved from the dangerous experiment of trusting to the mercy of the warlike ecclesiastic by the patriotism of an Italian lady and of a wealthy citizen of Ferrara. An Italian army, levied by their exertions, advanced to Ancona and defeated the Germans. The ships in the port, elated with the victory of their allies, sailed out, and by their sudden attack threw the Venetians into confusion, so that the siege and blockade were both raised. William Adelard, the patriotic citizen of Ferrara, carried the news of this success to the Emperor Manuel, who received him with honour. The expenses of the Italian army were repaid, rich presents were sent to the noble Italian lady, whose name the Greek historian refuses to record, but which from other sources we learn was Aldruda, countess of Bertinoro.

The repeated losses which the Venetians had sustained disposed them to seek peace with the Byzantine Empire on the best terms they could procure, while Manuel was equally desirous to terminate his unprofitable contest with the republic, in order to devote all his forces to arrest the progress of the Turks, who were daily increasing their power in Asia Minor. A treaty of peace was concluded about the end of the year 1174, which restored the Venetians to the position they occupied in 1171, before the war broke out. Their ancient privileges were confirmed, and Manuel engaged to pay fifteen hundred pounds’ weight of gold in a fixed number of instalments as an indemnity for the property of the Venetian merchants which had been confiscated.

 

WAR WITH ANTIOCH AND ARMENIAN CILICIA.

 

The Asiatic wars of Manuel were generally commenced and conducted with the same indifference to the dictates of sound policy and the real interest of his empire as the European. Instead of forming a firm alliance with the Armenian sovereigns of Cilicia and the Frank princes of Antioch, and directing the united forces of the confederacy to break the power of the sultans of Iconium, and to expel the Turks from Phrygia and Bithynia, the emperor wasted the resources of the Christians and aided the growth of the Turkish power by his repeated attacks on Cilicia and Antioch, and his constant endeavours to force their princes to acknowledge a temporary vassalage to the Byzantine crown. Success unfortunately favoured his arms in the projects least conducive to his interests. Raymond of Poitiers, prince of Antioch, was defeated, and compelled to own himself a vassal of the imperial throne, as he had done during the life of the Emperor John. This was Manuel's first warlike exploit as emperor, and it took place in the year 1144, during the summer which preceded the conquest of the Christian principality of Edessa by Zengui. Raymond perished in a battle with Noureddin, sultan of Aleppo, in 1149. Reynold of Chatillon married Constance of Antioch, his widow, and conducted the government of the principality more like a leader of robbers than a civilized prince. He renewed the war with Manuel by invading Cyprus, which he plundered in the most barbarous manner. Manuel, however, could not find time to punish Reynold until the year 1155, but he then imposed on him the deepest humiliation. The emperor advanced to Mopsuestia with an army which Reynold was unable to resist. The Patriarch of Antioch, who had been grossly insulted by the Frank prince, would have either admitted the Byzantine troops into the city or betrayed Reynold into the emperor's hands, had Manuel not been more desirous to chastise his enemy than to occupy his principality. The Prince of Antioch was also in reality only the regent of his wife’s dominions. He was allowed to retain his authority on presenting himself at the emperor's court in Mopsuestia with a rope round his neck, after marching barefooted and bareheaded through the streets to the imperial residence. When he entered the emperor's presence he fell on his knees, and implored mercy with uplifted hands. After long solicitation he received his pardon, on binding himself to furnish a contingent of troops to the Byzantine armies, and engaging to treat the Greek patriarch with the respect due to his rank in the Orthodox Church, and to furnish him with an official residence within the walls of Antioch, (A.D. 1155.)

Armenian Cilicia was at this time governed by Thoros, an able prince and gallant soldier, whose position exposed him to be attacked on every side. The Byzantine emperors regarded the Armenian principality as a portion of their dominions; and the prosperity it enjoyed, from being usually governed in a less oppressive manner than the provinces of the empire, excited their rapacity. The Byzantine emperors, the sultans of Iconium, and the princes of Antioch, were all eager to make conquests from the Armenians, so that Thoros was compelled either to fight with these powerful neighbours or form alliances with one against the others as circumstances dictated. Manuel had twice entrusted his cousin Andronicus with the command of armies destined to subdue Thoros, but the folly and rashness of that debauched prince led to their complete defeat, AD 1145 and 1152. At length, in the year 1155, Manuel led an army in person through the denies of Mount Taurus, and compelled Thoros to become his vassal and receive the investiture of his dominions by a golden bull, with the title of Pansevastos, to mark his subjection.

While Manuel remained at Mopsuestia, his court was visited by Baldwin III, king of Jerusalem, (who subsequently married his niece Theodora), by Reynold of Antioch—in a very humble manner, as we have already narrated—and by Thoros, the sovereign of Armenian Cilicia. All were solicitous of gaining the emperor’s favour, but Manuel derived little advantage either from his own brilliant military exploits or from the public submission of these proud and warlike princes. He had, nevertheless, the gratification of making a triumphal entry into Antioch in the midst of his Varangian guard—a pageant which greatly flattered his pride, because it appeared to elevate his power above that of his father. He had also the pleasure of exhibiting his skill in all the exercises of chivalry at a grand tournament, where he unhorsed every antagonist, and left the Frank knights amazed at his skill, strength, and daring. Even Noureddin, the Sultan of Aleppo, who was as politic as he was valiant, sought to avoid war with so powerful an enemy, and purchased peace by releasing Bertrand, the Grand Master of the Templars, with six thousand French and German prisoners, the remains of the armies of Louis VII and Conrad III, who were languishing in hopeless slavery. Manuel returned to Constantinople covered with personal renown. 

In 1161 Manuel married the beautiful Maria, daughter of Raymond of Poitiers and Constance princess of Antioch. Raymond, count of Tripoli, who had been led to believe that the emperor was on the eve of espousing his sister Melisenda, considered this marriage to be an insult which he was bound to avenge. In order to obtain what was held to be honourable satisfaction, he sent the twelve galleys he had prepared to conduct his sister to Constantinople to plunder the islands of the Archipelago. The Saracen pirates never committed greater cruelties than the Christians in Raymond’s ships. They spared neither age nor sex; monasteries and churches were pillaged, towns and villages were burned to the ground, and no inconsiderable portion of the inhabitants in many islands were exterminated. Yet Manuel was so occupied with his marriage festivities that he paid no attention to the sufferings of his subjects; and when the Byzantine fleet had chased the galleys of Raymond out of the Grecian seas, their ravages were forgotten by the government.

The lavish and wasteful administration of Manuel caused him to adopt many ill-judged schemes for recruiting his finances. Before his unjust sequestration of the property of the Venetian merchants, he had expected to fill his exhausted treasury by the spoils of Egypt. After the termination of the Hungarian war, he joined Amaury I, king of Jerusalem, in a project for the subjugation of Egypt, which was then in a state of anarchy. An imperial fleet, consisting of one hundred and fifty galleys, sixty cavalry transports, in which a well-appointed army was embarked, attended by ten dromons laden with provisions and engines of war, sailed for Egypt under the command of Andronicus Koutostephanos. Ten galleys of this fleet were fitted out by the city of Dyrrachium, and six by the island of Euboea; for Manuel had not yet confiscated the municipal revenues of the commercial cities in the empire to fill the central treasury at Constantinople, and be wasted on the pageantry of the imperial court. When Amaury beheld the strength of the Byzantine expedition, his avarice induced him to delay his own preparations, and it was near the end of October 1170 before he joined Koutostephanos under the walls of Damietta. The Byzantine general pushed the siege with vigour, and conducted himself in a manner worthy of the victor of Zeugmin; but the Franks of Jerusalem afforded him little assistance, and after remaining before the place fifty days, provisions began to fail, and Koutostephanos was compelled to conclude a truce with the Egyptians, in order to retire with his army by land into Syria. The fleet, on its return, was dispersed by a succession of storms, and few of the ships reached Constantinople in safety. Amaury had thwarted, and perhaps betrayed, the Egyptian expedition; but next year (1171) he was so alarmed at the progress of Saladin that he visited Constantinople to solicit assistance from Manuel. He was treated by the emperor with great magnificence; and during the three months he remained, as much money was spent in pageants, festivals, and tournaments, as would have raised a powerful army. Manuel seized any pretext for magnificent display; but the disasters of the Byzantine forces before Damietta deprived him of the wish, and weakened his power, to afford the King of Jerusalem any effective assistance.

 

WAR WITH THE SULTAN OF ICONIUM.

 

We must now review Manuel’s conduct and policy in his relations with the Seljouk Turks, who possessed the greater part of Asia Minor, and counted a numerous population of Greek Christians among their subjects. The Sultan of Iconium was the nearest and most dangerous enemy of the Byzantine Empire. Prudence required Manuel to devote his unwearied attention to oppose the progress of a power hostile to the civilization and the laws of the Christians, as well as to their political government. The emperor had seen that his father, even towards the end of his reign, after he had gained many victories over the Turks, was compelled to struggle hard to prevent their establishing themselves on the banks of the Rhyndacus, and had great difficulty in driving them from the plains of Bithynia. At the commencement of his own reign, Manuel appears, indeed, to have been fully persuaded of the necessity of circumscribing the Turkish dominions; and after he had arranged his differences with Raymond of Antioch, he led the well-disciplined army he had inherited from his father against the Sultan of Iconium. The Turkish troops were defeated whenever they could be brought to risk an engagement; yet, in this campaign of 1145, the Byzantine army was unable to advance beyond Philomelium, and in the following year it only reached the shores of the lake Pasgusa, which his father had depopulated. Manuel was, nevertheless, preparing an army to besiege Iconium, when the expedition of Roger of Sicily against Greece, and the movements of the leaders of the second crusade, compelled him to concentrate his best troops for the defence of Constantinople. He therefore concluded a treaty of peace with Massoud, the Sultan of Iconium, a measure of common prudence, which the Crusaders regarded as an act of signal treachery to the Christian cause. This peace endured without interruption until the death of Sultan Massoud

Had Manuel been able to appreciate the full extent of the alarming changes which were going on during his reign in the social condition of the various races that peopled his empire, he must have been struck with the necessity of making great exertions to increase the resources, the numbers, and the strength of the Greek population in the provinces nearest to the Turks; but no measures having this object in view are noticed by the historians of his reign. It appears, therefore, that neither the emperor nor his ministers attached sufficient importance to the decline which was taking place in the numbers of the Christian population of the Byzantine provinces in Asia Minor, while, perhaps, they neglected to contrast it with the steady increase of the Mohammedan population in the dominions of the Sultan of Iconium. The corruption of Byzantine society was certainly not entirely unobserved by Manuel; but his education taught him to believe that ecclesiastical formulas and strict orthodoxy were sufficient to cure every evil. The church, however, proved as ineffectual to oppose the progress of Mohammedanism, under the Seljouks, as it had proved in earlier times to arrest its advance under the Saracens; while, on the other hand, Manuel and his contemporaries were destitute of the enlightened views and the freedom from orthodox prejudices which had rendered Leo the Isaurian and his Iconoclast supporters capable of infusing new vigour into society by an equitable administration of the law. An increase of the Greek population in the Asiatic provinces could alone have enabled the Byzantine government to resist the pro­gress of the Turks; but to produce this increase, a great change would have been required both in the conduct of the administration and the condition of the people. Manuel must have diminished the expenses of his court, lightened the weight of taxation, improved the civil and judicial administration, enlarged the sphere of municipal activity, and facilitated the means of intercourse by land and sea; while the Greek people must have adopted habits of industry, self-reliance, and truth, from which they had been long weaned by the fiscal oppression of their masters; and they must have learned to regard the commandments of God as more binding than the superstitions, traditions, or canons of the church.

The Sultan Massoud, at his death, divided his dominions among his children, and his eldest son, Kilidy-Arslan II, succeeded to the sovereignty of Iconium. As Manuel was marching carelessly through the Turkish territory on his return from Antioch in the early part of the year 1157, his troops were attacked by the Turks. The war was renewed; but the new sultan, finding himself too weak to encounter the Byzantine army in the field, endeavoured to avert hostilities with the Christians until he had regained possession of the territories ceded to his brothers. Manuel, having induced many of the bands of Crusaders, who were in the habit of touching at Rhodes on their passage to Palestine, to join his army by the high pay he offered, collected an immense number of chariots and oxen in the Thrakesian theme to transport his military stores, and threatened to attack Iconium. Kilidy-Arslan, however, succeeded in averting the attack by consenting to surrender every place the Turks had occupied since the death of John II, by engaging to maintain an auxiliary corps of Turkish cavalry in the emperor’s service, and by promising to prevent any hostile inroads of the nomadic Turkmans into the Byzantine territory. These conditions prove that the Greeks had been losing ground during the reign of Manuel; and that, in spite of the great force he had assembled for the conquest of Iconium, he felt the difficulty of retaining possession of that city, even if he succeeded in taking it. Shortly after the conclusion of this treaty, Kilidy-Arslan visited Constantinople, where he was received with great pomp. This visit had a bad effect on the fortunes of the empire. Manuel despised the sultan on account of his mean appearance and submissive behaviour; while the astute Mussulman, who concealed his envious and daring character, perceived many of the weak points of the Byzantine power, and became eager to acquire a share of the wealth which he saw so ill defended.

The peace between the emperor and the sultan was in reality only a truce, during which both parties were ready to avail themselves of any opportunity of renewing the war with advantage. Both sovereigns found themselves ready for action about the same time. Kilidy-Arslan, having subdued all his brothers, reunited all the central provinces of Asia Minor under his dominion. Manuel, who had seen all his schemes of distant conquest, and all his labour for the acquisition of military glory prove delusive, now, when it was already too late, turned his attention to what ought to have been his first military duty as Emperor of Constantinople. He resolved to devote all his energies to driving back the tide of Turkish emigration. For this purpose he repeopled and fortified Dorylaeum, and a place at the most distant sources of the Maeander called Subleon. The sultan complained of the construction of these works as an infringement of the treaty; for both Dorylaeum and Subleon were situated in the midst of districts occupied by Turkish settlers. Manuel, however, whose object was to stop the constant encroachments of the Turkish nomads, persisted in completing these fortresses as the only means of expelling the Turks from the country round.

The war recommenced in the year 1176. The sultan had obtained large reinforcements from the Turks of Mesopotamia, who were accustomed to engage the chivalry of Europe on the plains of Syria, where they had begun to show themselves superior to the Franks. The emperor, besides assembling all his veterans from the frontiers of Hungary, enrolled new corps of Franks and Patzinaks. He collected large supplies of cattle for provisioning the army, and prepared a train of three thousand waggons for the transport of the stores and military engines necessary for the siege of Iconium. In the month of September, the army advanced, under the immediate command of Manuel, by Laodicea to Chonae (then a large and populous town), the birth­place of the historian Nicetas, who has left us a minute account of the events that followed. The emperor advanced, occupying Lampe Celaense, to Choma, and to a ruined fortress called Myriokephalon, which has become memorable by the total defeat of the Byzantine army. At this place Manuel received an embassy from Kilidy-Arslan, offering to conclude peace on the conditions of their former treaty; but the emperor replied that he would give an answer at Iconium, and immediately marched forward from Myriokephalon into the pass of Tzyvritze. The Turks had already begun to hang about the army, carrying away all the forage, and destroying the wells and springs, so that fatigue and bad water had already spread disease among the Christians.

Everything indicated the necessity of marching with caution; and the fate of the armies of Conrad of Germany and Louis of France ought to have served as an additional warning to Manuel Yet Manuel pushed forward without adopting the commonest precautions. Without sending forward his cavalry to clear the defiles and protect his flanks, he entered the valley of Tzyvritze, a long pass, over the southern side of which the mountains protrude in bold precipitous rocks, while to the north the hills which bound it open into several wide ravines. Into this dangerous defile the Byzantine army plunged with such carelessness that its different divisions were ten miles apart, separated by the long trains of waggons and cattle which accompanied their march. The Turks, who watched all the movements of the Christians from their ambuscades, began the attack as soon as the baggage reached the middle of the pass. The front and rear of the Byzantine army were assailed at the same time; but the advanced guard, driving back the Turkish cavalry that attempted to dispute their passage, secured the command of the summits which overlooked the exit, and formed a camp. In the meantime, other corps of Infidels had issued from concealment, and manned the summits on the southern side of the valley wherever the road compelled the Christians to approach the rocks. The right wing of the Byzantine army, commanded by Baldwin, the brother of the empress, was attacked in unfavourable ground, where it was cut off from the rest of the army by the long train of baggage-waggons, and, unable either to draw out its ranks to retreat or to receive any assistance, it was overwhelmed by the Turks, who descended from the heights: Baldwin and the bravest officers were slain, and the whole corps destroyed. Encouraged by this success, the victorious Turks seized the baggage-waggons, and employed them to close up the road, while they opened a communication with their countrymen placed in ambuscade among the ravines on the north side of the valley. The Turks then attacked the central division of the army, where the emperor commanded in person, surrounded by the imperial guard. The officers in vain attempted to form their troops, for they could find no space to charge the enemy. The narrow valley was blocked up by the sudden stoppage of the line of march. Waggons, cattle, cavalry, and infantry were soon crowded to­gether in the wildest confusion. The heavy-armed Byzantine lancers, which in an open field could have swept the Turkish hordes before them, stood useless amidst the overturned carriages and slaughtered oxen. The rear was now vigorously assailed, and fresh squadrons of the Mohammedans issued from the branches of the great valley to attack the flanks. Defence and flight were equally hopeless; the slaughter was immense, and the emperor, perplexed by the extent of the calamity, ceased to give any farther orders, but fought to deliver himself with his own sword like a common soldier. Some faithful followers kept close to him, and at last, by a desperate charge, he opened a passage through the enemy, and escaped with a few attendants. He had been recognised by the Turks, who eagerly sought to make him prisoner, and his armour was deeply stained with blood, and bore the mark of many a blow, before he gained the camp of his advanced guard at the issue of the defile.

When Manuel’s bodily exertions ceased, his mental sufferings commenced. On calling for a drink of water, he could only obtain it from the stream in the valley, which was stained with blood: he turned away with loathing, and as he poured it on the ground, exclaimed, “This is horrible! it is the blood of Christians”; but an officer standing near, to whom the recent disaster seemed a natural consequence of the emperor's inconsiderate rashness, coolly observed, “Never mind, O emperor! you have often drained Christian blood while you were expending the treasures extorted from your subjects”. Shortly after, a party of mules, laden with treasure, was overtaken by the Turks within sight of the camp; and as the Infidels deliberately cut open the money-bags, and began to divide the spoil, Manuel called to the troops to sally out and divide the treasure among themselves. But he was again rebuked for thus endangering the safety of his remaining soldiers. The same officer rudely exclaimed, “Your majesty would have done well to leave this treasure in the possession of your subjects; but it is better the Turks should now carry it off and retire with it, than that it should be recovered by the blood of your surviving troops, merely to excite them to assail us with greater vigour”. The emperor felt the justice of the rebuke, and the Turks carried off the treasure.

The rear of the army was commanded by Andronicus Koutostephanos, and that experienced general, with a small body of men whom he had rallied round him, succeeded, by a well-combined series of attacks on the Turks, in forcing his way through the whole length of the valley, and reached the camp of the advanced guard in the evening. His success afforded the strongest proof that the terrible disaster of the army was caused by the incapacity of Manuel as a general, rather than by the superior tactics of the Turkish force, or the insuperable difficulties of the ground. The conduct of Manuel, after the defeat, was as disgraceful as his military ignorance during the battle. He proposed to save his own person by flight, leaving the generals to conduct the retreat of the remains of his army as they should think fit. But Koutostephanos boldly opposed this arrangement, which had probably been suggested by some of the courtiers who would have accompanied the emperor, and who therefore persuaded Manuel that it was his duty to preserve the person of a Roman emperor from death or captivity at any sacrifice. There was as much sound policy as cowardice in the advice, for as Manuel had only an infant son, the danger of anarchy in the empire would have been great had he fallen. But it was now too late to make such reflections, and the remonstrances of Koutostephanos, who pointed out that the emperor's departure would cause the immediate dissolution of the army, and allow the Turks to advance to the shores of the Bosphorus without opposition, induced Manuel to abandon his disgraceful project.

The condition of the Byzantine troops proved to be much better than it appeared at the moment of the defeat. A considerable army of veterans had reached the camp in safety, and though they were far inferior in numbers to the Turkish squadrons that surrounded them, they felt themselves still superior to their enemy in a fair field of battle. They were no longer encumbered with a train of baggage to impede their movements, and they were consequently enabled to choose their point of attack. On the other hand, the Turkish army was disorganized by its victory, which had put the auxiliaries and nomad tribes in possession of so much booty that they were too much occupied in securing their own gains to pay attention to the Byzantine army. The wary sultan, who saw the numbers of his troops rapidly decreasing, determined to treat of peace with the emperor while his enemies were still under the influence of the panic caused by their disaster. On the day after the battle he sent an envoy to the imperial camp, and Manuel readily agreed to all the terms proposed by Kilidy-Arslan. He engaged to destroy the fortifications he had recently erected at Dorylaeum and Subleon, and to cede to the Turks all the country they had colonized during his reign. The Byzantine army then commenced its retreat, but many independent bands of Turkomans hung on its flanks, and molested it by desultory attacks. The first day’s march led the army over the field of slaughter, where the extent of Manuel's folly was forced on his attention by the most revolting aspect of heaps of unburied bodies. The surviving troops were soon placed in good quarters at Chonae and Philadelphia. Subleon, which was in the neighbourhood, was immediately dismantled and abandoned; but in a short time the emperor gained sufficient courage to act a dishonourable part and violate the engagements he had entered into to save himself and his army. He refused to destroy the fortifications of Dorylaeum. This caused the renewal of the war.

The sultan opened the campaign of 1177 by sending an army of twenty-four thousand men into the Byzantine territory, with orders to lay waste the country as far as the sea, and bring back from the coast some salt-water, some sea-sand, and the oars of an imperial galley. This army spread over the rich valley of the Meander, gained possession of Tralles and Antiocheia by capitulation, took Louma and Pentecheira by storm, and laid waste the country to the sea-shore. But as it was returning, laden with other booty besides the salt­water, the sea-sand, and the oars which the sultan was so anxious to see, it was attacked on the banks of the Maeander by John Vatatzes, and completely defeated. This victory restored the character and courage of the Byzantine troops.

The last military exploit of Manuel was a rapid march to relieve Claudiopolis, which was closely besieged by another Turkish army. His approach caused the enemy to raise the siege. Both the emperor and sultan being now satisfied that they were wasting the resources of their dominions in unprofitable hostilities, they entered into negotiations which soon led to the conclusion of peace.

The mind of Manuel never recovered from the shock his pride had received at the battle of Myriokephalon. The wounds and bruises appeared to affect his body in a very trifling degree, but he became melancholy, and his health gradually declined. His family affairs now forced themselves on his attention, and he was sur­prised to find that he had allowed his beautiful daughter Maria to attain the age of thirty without celebrating her marriage, though she had been betrothed to Bela III king of Hungary, and asked in marriage by the Emperor Frederic Barbarossa as a wife for his son Henry. In the month of March 1078, her marriage was celebrated with Rayner, son of the Marquess of Montferrat, a youth only seventeen years old; and at the same time Alexius, the emperor’s son by Mary of Antioch, who was in his eleventh year, was married to Agnes, daughter of Louis VII of France, who was only seven years old. Alexius and Agnes received the imperial crown, and were proclaimed emperor and empress.

Manuel displayed during his last illness all the deficiencies of an ill-regulated and undisciplined mind. Though confident in his faith and orthodoxy, he placed great dependence on the predictions of astrologers, and while his strength was rapidly declining he allowed these impostors to persuade him that the stars announced that he should still reign with glory for fourteen years. But in the month of September he became suddenly aware that his end was near: feeling his own pulse, he sighed deeply, struck his thigh with his hand, and ordered his attendants to bring him instantly the habit of a monk. In a few minutes he was divested of the imperial robes, and clad in a monachal garb which proved much too short for his tall figure. He expired, on the 24th of September 1180, at the age of fifty-eight, after a reign of thirty-seven years, and with him the power and glory of the Byzantine Empire perished. No sovereign of the Eastern Empire had possessed more absolute power. His reign was undisturbed by rebellion, and the circumstances of the age allowed the greatest latitude for social and political reforms. Men’s minds were in a state of fermentation in Western Europe; and though Roman political self-sufficiency and Greek ecclesiastical orthodoxy kept the population of the Eastern Empire in a comparatively torpid state, the necessity of making some great changes to prevent the decline of society was generally felt. Yet, while the Latin Christians were actively advancing in their progressive improvements, the Greeks remained stationary and conservative. In the West, the Crusades produced a revolution in ideas as well as in property. The popes made a bold attempt to constitute themselves the centre of all dominion in Europe, under the pretext of restraining the tyranny of kings. Liberty, not yet trammelled by the prejudices of Roman law nor overpowered by the authority of despotic centralization, made a noble effort in the north of Italy to unite municipal independence with political order. There can, therefore, be no doubt that, if the Emperor Manuel had possessed a mind capable of understanding the events which were passing before his eyes, without allowing his judgment to be obscured by traditions founded on social contingencies that no longer existed, he might have reformed the administration and laws of his empire, and laid the foundation of social improvements sufficiently extensive to have awakened the Greeks from the civil and ecclesiastical torpor into which their minds had fallen. By vigorous reforms, such as Leo III had adopted at the commencement of the eighth century, Manuel could, in all probability, have restored vital power to the Byzantine Empire, but he clung with conservative prejudices to a political and ecclesiastical order of things from which the life had departed. The consequence was that the crisis during which reform was practicable passed away, and the empire putrefied into a mass of political corruption.

 

Sect. IV

Reigns of Alexius II and Andronicus I, A.D. 1180-1185

 

The latter years of Manuel’s life effaced the lessons of prudence inculcated by his father. Following the guidance of his passions instead of his judgment, he had selected subservient courtiers to act as his ministers of state, so that, on his deathbed, it was not in his power to place his son under the guardianship of an independent-minded counsellor like his father’s friend Axouchos. As soon as Manuel was dead, every member of the imperial family, which was very numerous, aspired at the office of prime-minister; the court was thrown into a state of revolution, and the administration became a scene of anarchy. Unfortunately, no individual, who from his rank could pretend to the regency during the minority of Alexius II, possessed that moral rectitude of character which commands universal respect. Everyone knew that his rivals were as worthless as himself. All history testifies the importance of moral character in political contests; yet, strange to say, politicians and statesmen appear rarely to have fully appreciated its practical value.

Alexius was only thirteen years old at his father's death. His education was from that moment utterly neglected. His mother, Maria of Antioch, in the first paroxysms of her grief was so alarmed at her unprotected position, amidst an unprincipled nobility, that she retired into a monastery, and took the name of Xene. Alexius Comnenus, a grandson of the Emperor John II, who held the rank of protosevastos, secured to himself the office of prime-minister; and in order to strengthen his influence he persuaded the empress to quit her retirement and appear again at court, where her beauty, gaiety of heart, and sweetness of manner, gave her considerable power over the young nobility. Her steady support of the protosevastos, whose arrogance rendered him extremely unpopular, exposed Maria to many calumnies; and in spite of his age, personal defects, and disgusting effeminacy, it was generally believed that a criminal attachment induced her to maintain him in office. We must call to mind the prevalence of calumny in Byzantine history, the proneness of courtiers to employ calumny as an efficient weapon in their party contests, the readiness of the Greeks to hate Maria for her Latin descent, and the universal disposition of the people in a despotic government to speak evil of their superiors, before we admit the corruption that reigned in the court of Constantinople as a presumption of Maria’s immorality.

Though the protosevastos held the reins of government, he was unable to repress the seditious movements of the aristocracy: some nobles intrigued to drive him from his post; others threatened to oppose him unless he silenced their opposition by bestowing on them high rank and lucrative offices. The citizens of Constantinople, being without a political organization that entitled them to declare their opinions in public, were a mere mob, led away by every prejudice and rumour of the moment. The lowest of the population, consisting of men collected from every province of the empire, and every trading city of the East, were always eager for sedition as a means of pillage. Such a society, vibrating between servility and rebellion, and guided by personal ambition and individual avarice, was utterly deaf to the voice of patriotism.

For about a year and a half the young emperor was allowed to amuse himself with hunting and gambling, while the whole court was occupied with plots and party intrigues. At last the Princess Maria, the emperor's sister, thought the moment favourable for driving the protosevastos from power by a popular sedition. But Alexius had taken care to secure the support of the numerous corps of foreign mercenaries in the capital; and Maria was compelled to retreat, with her young husband, the Caesar, and her armed partisans, into the precincts of St Sophia’s. Many, however, rallied to her standard, and a bloody battle was fought in the streets of Constantinople. The protosevastos feared to pursue the sister of his sovereign to extremity; and the Patriarch effected a compromise between the hostile parties, leaving matters as they were before the insurrection. This state of things could not continue long, and a darker storm was now gathering. All the discontented turned their eyes towards Andronicus, the adventurous and unprincipled cousin of the Emperor Manuel, whose strange personal exploits gave him a degree of fame he little deserved, but whose vices were now forgotten in consequence of his long absence from court. He had passed the latter years of Manuel's life as an exile in Paphlagonia; his reputation for courage and ability was great; time was supposed to have moderated the violence of his passions; and his hypocritical piety imposed on the superstitious Greeks, who thought that the saints and holy images he adored could efface, even from his conscience, the black stains of murder and incest. All ranks concurred in soliciting his presence at Constantinople; and he soon approached the capital, declaring that his object was to deliver the young emperor from the hands of the evil counsellors who surrounded him. His march met with little opposition on the part of the government; and the protosevastos Alexius was easily driven from power, and condemned to lose his sight. The Latins in Constantinople, who were attached to his interests through the support given him by the Empress Maria of Antioch, were massacred by the Greek populace with circumstances of the greatest cruelty; nor did Andronicus make any effort to put a stop to these murders. The property of all the Latins was pillaged, their houses destroyed; and men, women, children, and priests, torn from the sanctuaries to which they had fled, were barbarously slain. Many of the Franks, nevertheless, escaped to their ships in the port, and endeavoured to repay themselves for the losses they had sustained by plundering the coasts of the Propontis and the islands of Greece. This bloody tumult greatly widened the breach between the Latins and the Greeks, and inflamed the western nations of Europe with a thirst for revenge that soon filled the Aegean Sea with Frank pirates. It was avenged twenty years after by the Latin conquest of Constantinople.

It is needless to give a detailed account of the crimes of Andronicus; he used his unlimited power as all prudent persons must have foreseen that he would use it. The Princess Maria and her husband the Caesar were poisoned. The Empress Maria of Antioch was condemned to death for what was termed treasonable correspondence with her brother-in-law, Bela III, king of Hungary, and strangled. Andronicus Koutostephanos, the best general in the empire, was deprived of sight. John Vatatzes, who defeated the Turks at the Maeander, died shortly after raising the standard of revolt. The Patriarch Theodosius was removed from office, and Basilios Kamateros placed at the head of the Greek church, on his promising to do everything that Andronicus might desire. Andronicus then ordered himself to be proclaimed emperor, and immediately took precedence of Alexius II, who was soon after deposed, on the pretext that a single emperor was necessary in order to re-establish order in the empire. The unfortunate youth, who was not yet fifteen years old, was strangled with a bowstring in the prison to which he had been committed; and when Andronicus examined the corpse in order to be assured of his death, he kicked it carelessly, and exclaimed, “Thy father was a villain, thy mother a prostitute, and thou a fool”.

The corrupted state of society had brought the Byzantine Empire to the verge of ruin; Andronicus, who was no incorrect type of the higher classes in the nation over which he reigned, accelerated its destruction. The nobility and the higher clergy were the partners of his guilt, and often the agents of his crimes; while the citizens of Constantinople were generally the delighted spectators of his greatest cruelties.

Andronicus was the grandson of the Emperor Alexius I; Isaac, the younger brother of the Emperor John II, was his father. It has been noticed that Isaac’s rash and unsteady temper induced him to quit his brother’s court, and reside for a time with the Sultan of Iconium. His children were more violent and vicious than their father. The manner in which his eldest son John joined the Turks, and abjured the Christian religion, has also been recounted. The vanity of the Greeks, at a later period, sought consolation for their actual sufferings by forging a tale concerning the marriage of this Byzantine renegade with a daughter of the Seljouk sultan of Iconium; and from the offspring of this imaginary alliance it was pretended that the Ottoman dynasty was descended. Andronicus was Isaac’s second son; his expressive countenance, handsome figure, and tall robust frame were rendered doubly attractive by a singularly sweet and powerful voice, an easy-flowing elocution, and a graceful manner. These advantages, joined to daring courage and great skill in military exercises, made him for some time a favourite with his cousin the Emperor Manuel. His unprincipled conduct at last estranged them; and his life was subsequently marked by a series of the strangest adventures. No wandering Crusader nor nomad Turk ever lived a wilder or more romantic life than the princely Andronicus.

Early in the reign of Manuel he was taken prisoner by the Turks, as he had wandered from the emperor’s escort on a hunting party while crossing the Turkish territory in Phrygia. During the time he remained a captive at the court of Sultan Massoud he cultivated the acquaintance of the leading Turks, into whose society he was introduced by his Mussulman brother; and he learned the Turkish language, which was often useful to him in his future adventures. Manuel was accused of having neglected to pay his ransom, from jealousy of his skill in military exercises; but after his return, he saved his life by interposing his own arm to ward off a blow aimed at his cousin’s head. Andronicus was twice entrusted by the Emperor Manuel with the command of the army in Cilicia; on both occasions he was shamefully defeated by the Armenian prince Thoros. Subsequently he was appointed governor of Belgrade and Branisova, the two principal Byzantine fortresses on the Hungarian frontier; and either his negligence or treachery exposed the empire to serious danger. His public conduct at last completely alienated the affection of Manuel.

Though addicted to pleasure, and leading a life of the most shameless profligacy, Andronicus kept aloof from the rest of the court, and always assumed a marked superiority. Though no one was more eager in the chase, he never mixed in the noisy revels of the nobility, and showed himself an enemy to the pleasures of the table. He was a sober and abstemious profligate: his dinner was generally a single dish of roast meat; and after the fatigues of the longest day his supper frequently consisted of a crust of bread and a goblet of wine. But he indulged his two favourite passions, love and ambition, without respect for Divine or human laws. No principle of duty, and no bond of gratitude, restrained him when he thought power was within his grasp; and when inflamed by lust, he knew no ties of morality or religion. His amours were often carried on in the circle of his nearest relatives; and in the opinion of his country­men, he, as well as the Emperor Manuel, was stained with the crime of incest. Eudocia, the daughter of Manuel’s elder brother Andronicus, was the paramour of his youth, while her sister Theodora was the mistress of her uncle the emperor. Another Theodora, also the emperor’s niece, being the daughter of his brother Isaac, became his mistress at a later period, when she was the widow of Baldwin III, king of Jerusalem. Both these ladies shared his company with his lawful wife, and divided his affections with a crowd of actresses and dancing girls. The loves of Eudocia and Andronicus excited more anger in her family than the incestuous intercourse of her sister with the emperor; the rank of the sinner hid the crime of the blacker dye. After vainly endeavouring to separate the criminals, John, the brother of Eudocia, and Cantacuzenos, her brother-in-law, resolved to avenge their family by assassinating Andronicus. The court was encamped at Pelagonia in palaces of canvass, like those which may be still seen when an Oriental sovereign takes the field in state. As Andronicus was in the habit of visiting his cousin at unseasonable hours, a band of armed men was stationed to murder him as he quitted Eudocia. The lady’s spies warned her of the danger; and while her female attendants were making a noise to bring in lights, Andronicus cut a small passage with his sword in the back of the tent, and, creeping between the ropes and pegs, gained the canvass wall that enclosed Eudocia’s tents. This he also cut through, and crept away unobserved.

The political conduct of Andronicus, on several occasions, excited just suspicions. He was accused of holding treasonable intercourse with the King of Jerusalem, with the Sultan of Iconium, and with the King of Hungary; and there can be little doubt that he was only prevented from making an attempt to dethrone Manuel, by the superior political ability and the systematic energy of the emperor. Andronicus was so convinced of Manuel’s personal superiority that he appears to have designed assassinating him. At an imperial hunting-party he presented himself, uninvited, with the numerous train of armed followers which the great nobles of the Byzantine Empire maintained in their palaces; the emperor’s escort was too strong for any attempt at open violence; but during the night Andronicus was found disguised in an Italian dress, armed with a dagger, lurking near the tent of Manuel. His suspicious behaviour, scandalous conduct, and bitterly satirical expressions, gave his enemies an opportunity of bringing so many charges against him that the emperor at length committed him to prison.

Andronicus passed nine years of his life in confinement; his escapes from imprisonment and his captures were as singular as his crimes, and mark the restless activity of his mind, his self-possession, and his rashness. During his first imprisonment, chance led him to discover a secret recess in the tower where he was confined. After laying up a store of provisions, he withdrew into this retreat, and every search was made for him in vain. At last his wife was arrested as privy to his escape, and confined in the tower from which it was supposed he had escaped. On retiring into her bedchamber, the spectre of her husband made its appearance. He soon informed her how matters stood, and made arrangements with her for continuing his concealment, and obtaining a supply of provisions. The two prisoners lived most affectionately together, and their son John was the fruit of this period of domestic felicity. The guards were careless in watching the princess, whom they believed was their only prisoner, so that Andronicus at last found means of escaping. He was, however, soon recognised, arrested at Melangia in Bithynia, and again committed to prison, where he was loaded with chains. He was fortunate enough to escape a second time, by procuring an impression of the keys of his dungeon in wax. His son Manuel contrived to get new keys made from these models, and to convey them to his father, with a coil of ropes, in an amphora of wine. On a dark and rainy night Andronicus opened his prison doors unobserved, and reached the garden of the imperial palace, from the outer walls of which he descended at the place where John Zimiskes had mounted to murder Nicephorus; there he found a boat waiting to receive him. He reached Anchialus in safety, and Pupakes, whose gallant conduct at the siege of Corfu has been already mentioned, owing him gratitude for some personal obligations, furnished him with the means of continuing his flight. Andronicus was again tantalized with the fear of returning to a worse captivity than that from which he had escaped. He was recognised by a party of Vallachians, who resolved to deliver him up to the emperor. From their hands he escaped by stratagem. Counterfeiting a violent diarrhoea and excessive weakness, he persuaded his guards to make frequent halts; and when evening approached, and he was allowed to retire for a short distance from the road, he fixed his cloak and hat on the stick with which he had apparently supported himself with difficulty, and plunged into a neighbouring forest, from whence he ultimately reached the Russian principality of Halicz or Galicia.

The share Pupakes took in aiding the flight of his benefactor was discovered, and Manuel, forgetting the former services of the valiant Turk, ordered him to be publicly scourged, and led through the streets of Constantinople with a rope round his neck, preceded by a crier, who proclaimed at intervals, “This man is disgraced and punished for having aided the enemies of the emperor”. To which Pupakes himself always added, “There is no dishonour in the punishment, for it was incurred in assisting a benefactor instead of betraying him”. After this indignity Pupakes quitted the empire, and returned to the possessions of his uncle, who was an emir in the Seljouk Empire of Iconium, where Manuel met him once again charged with Andronicus, who could neither command his temper nor restrain his tongue in prosperity, was good-humoured and fair-spoken in adversity. At the court of Yaroslaf the prince of Galicia he became a great favourite, and was soon the constant companion of the prince. They hunted the urus together, and formed plans for invading the Byzantine Empire. Manuel at last considered that there was so much danger to be apprehended from the continuance of his cousin’s residence in Galicia, that he granted him a full pardon, and induced him to return to Constantinople.

It was after this flight that Andronicus was entrusted with the chief command in Cilicia for the second time. His conduct was that of a madman, and he marched to attack the Armenian prince Thoros with his army drawn up in a new and ill-judged manner. The experienced Armenian took immediate advantage of his folly, and broke his troops in many places, scattering the Byzantine army in utter confusion. Nicetas pretends that when Andronicus saw the defeat of his army, he conceived the hope of redeeming his blunders by an act of daring valour. He charged Thoros with his lance, though he was surrounded by a numerous staff, and the Armenian had barely time to interpose his shield between his breast and his enemy’s lance when he was hurled from his horse. Andronicus, abandoning his lance, which he believed was quivering in the heart of Thoros instead of being only fixed in his shield, burst through the Armenian guards, striking every man who encountered him to the ground with his mace. But before he could rally his own fugitive battalions, Thoros, who had risen from the ground unhurt, resumed the direction of the pursuit, prevented the scattered divisions of the Byzantine army from attempting a junction, and compelled Andronicus to seek safety in precipitate flight.

After this disgraceful defeat, it is probable that Andronicus was immediately superseded; but as both his liberty and his eyesight were in danger had he returned to Constantinople, he collected all the money he was able, and, quitting Cilicia with a splendid suite before the arrival of his successor, he presented himself at the court of Reynold of Antioch. Here he soon fell in love with the Princess Philippa, the sister of the Empress Maria, and inspired her with a passion so violent that she set at naught the counsels of her family, and consented to a marriage with her debauched lover. It is not easy to say how long Andronicus remained at Antioch, but he became at last alarmed lest he should be arrested by order of the Emperor Manuel in that vassal principality, and he fled to Jerusalem, where his passions soon involved him in new difficulties. At Jerusalem he met Theodora, the daughter of his cousin Isaac, whom he had not seen since her childhood. She was now the widow of Baldwin III of Jerusalem, and enjoyed the admiration and esteem of all the Frank nobles on account of her beauty, talents, and prudence. Andronicus became deeply enamoured with his fair cousin, and she returned his passion with equal violence. The state of society among the Latin Christians in Jerusalem was as debauched as at the court of Constantinople, so that the lovers carried on their amours with little affectation of secrecy. But when Manuel heard of this new insult to his brother’s family, he sent messages to the Syrian barons, offering great rewards to anyone who should seize Andronicus and put out his eyes; at the same time he requested Amaury, king of Jerusalem, with whom he had a close alliance, to arrest the fugitive. Theodora obtained information of these communications in time to warn Andronicus of his danger, and as there was no longer any hope of safety among the Christians, she consented to fly with him to the Turks. After visiting Damascus, and wandering for some time in Mesopotamia and Iberia, they settled at Koloneia, in Chaldea, where Andronicus, assembling a band of Turkish mercenaries, of renegades and refugees, formed a camp for making incursions into the empire, and carrying off Christians to sell as slaves. From this brigand life he derived a considerable revenue, and it is strange to find that the wretch who had maintained himself for years as a slave-dealer was subsequently invited to ascend the throne of Constantinople. In this infamous exile Theodora bore him two sons. The Greek church, it is true, excommunicated him for living with his cousin’s daughter, and making slaves of its flock; but Andronicus, who despised Divine laws, had no fear of ecclesiastical censures, from which either the possession of political power or the payment of a large sum of money could at any time release him.

The evils he inflicted on the Byzantine territory were so great, that Manuel repeatedly sent troops with orders to pursue him incessantly and capture his strongholds; but these operations were attended with little result until Nicephorus Paleologos, the governor of Trebizond, succeeded in capturing the fortress in which Theodora had sought safety. Her captivity induced Andronicus to negotiate his own pardon, and he received permission to present himself to the emperor. As he was now seriously alarmed for his future safety, he adopted every artifice his crafty mind suggested for flattering the vanity of Manuel. At a public audience, as soon as he entered the hall of reception, he fell on his knees, and drew from under his clothes a heavy iron chain, made fast to a collar round his neck; then, holding up his hands, he implored pardon from the emperor, weeping, protesting his repentance, and quoting passages from Scripture. Though a bitter sneerer, he was a profound hypocrite and an admirable actor; so that, in spite of his previous conduct, he more than once in his life persuaded everyone who beheld him that he had become an altered man. The Emperor Manuel, on seeing his cousin’s abasement, requested him to stand, and assured him of full pardon; but Andronicus continued his hypocritical wailings until he induced one of the courtiers to drag him by the chain to the emperor’s footstool. Some years later, when Andronicus was dragged through the streets of Constantinople, to perish in a frightful manner, men remembered that Isaac Angelos, his successor, had been the courtier who dragged him to Manuel’s feet. After receiving his pardon, Andronicus was ordered to reside at Oenaion in Pontus.

From this place of exile he had watched the progress of the intrigues in the Byzantine court after Manuel’s death, and he easily found partisans among the dissatisfied courtiers, who demanded his presence in the capital. His agents, however, were also employed in gaining the people; for wicked and worthless as Andronicus was, he perceived that the unprincipled behaviour of the court had excited a deep-rooted aversion to the whole family of Comnenos, and that, unless the people of the capital should declare boldly in his favour, the mercenary troops of the government might defeat his attacks. He therefore affected to pay the greatest attention to the last oath he had publicly taken in the Byzantine court, in which he had promised never to conceal from the emperor anything contrary to the interests of the empire, but as soon as such a thing might come to his knowledge to oppose it with all his power. This oath was now made a pretext for writing to the young emperor, and censuring the measures of the protosevastos; and the letters were of course composed rather with reference to the effect they were likely to produce on the public than on the court. His remonstrances were of course useless, so he resolved to save the empire by force. The treachery of Andronicus Angelos, the general of the imperial army, and of Andronicus Koutostephanos, the grand admiral, rendered him master of Constantinople.

Prosperity soon revived all the evil passions which age was supposed to have eradicated from the heart of Andronicus. The innate cruelty of his disposition, and the unforgiving malice of his depraved feelings, soon revealed themselves in his treatment of the most influential nobles. The aristocracy saw its leaders put to death on account of the influence they possessed, or merely to confiscate their wealth; while the people, whose burdens Andronicus lightened, and whose vengeance he gratified, loudly applauded his conduct. Angelos and Koutostephanos now saw their error, and conspired to drive Andronicus from the post of prime-minister, to which their treachery had raised him. The plot was discovered, and the brave Koutostephanos was arrested with his four sons, and other conspirators, all of whom were deprived of sight. The cowardly Angelos and his sons escaped. From that time the servility of the Byzantine nobles became greater than ever, and it only increased the contempt of Andronicus for their persons, while, by exciting his distrust, it increased his cruelty. John Cantacuzenos, in order to ingratiate himself with the tyrannical regent, ill-treated one of the eunuchs of the young emperor, who had attempted to warn his sovereign of the dangerous position of public affairs, and to persuade the prince to devote some attention to serious business, instead of publicly trifling away his time in idle, expensive, and vicious amusements, which were sure to render him unpopular. Cantacuzenos struck the eunuch on the face in the presence of Andronicus; but the wily old villain, suspecting that this enthusiastic meanness covered evil intentions, ordered the eyes of Cantacuzenos to be put out on hearing that he held some slight communication with his brother-in-law Constantine Angelos, who was in confinement on a charge of treason.

As soon as Andronicus had put to death all those who he thought possessed the power of resisting his schemes, and accumulated as much wealth in the public treasury as would enable him to diminish the public burdens, he ascended the throne, and put the young Alexius to death. He now looked forward to the tranquil enjoyment of power, and indulged his cruelty by putting to death the wealthiest members of the aristocracy. Yet so perverted was his character, that he could not refrain from insulting the universal feelings of mankind by outrages which no class could pardon. The Patriarch Theodosios was compelled to quit his office, because he refused to sanction the marriage of Alexius and Irene, the incestuous offspring of himself and Manuel with the two Theodoras; but the Greek church was at this time in the same demoralized condition as the Byzantine court, and the marriage ceremony was performed by the Archbishop or Patriarch of Bulgaria.

The nobility were not inclined to submit tamely to be decimated; some were eager to obtain power, some were burning to revenge their relations, and some, perhaps, were impelled by the duty of avenging the murder of their lawful prince. Various nobles took up arms at Nicaea, Prusa, and Lopadion before the murder of the young Alexius; but for a time, fortune smiled on the enterprises of the tyrant, and all these rebels were subdued and punished with unheard-of cruelty: numbers were hanged on the largest trees, and few were dismissed without losing a hand or a foot; even the Bishop of Prusa was deprived of his sight. Andronicus Lapardas, one of the generals of the army on the frontiers of Hungary who attempted to avenge the death of Alexius II, was also taken prisoner and deprived of sight.

Andronicus appears to have formed some general plan of improving the civil administration, and reforming the judicial system, by which he expected to render himself popular, and secure the support of the great body of the population. He reduced the expenditure of the court; but in rendering it less brilliant, he did not render it less vicious. He was too old to find pleasure in tournaments and fêtes. He had learned moderation in exile, and his habits of self-indulgence led him to live in a retired manner, even after he obtained the throne. This mode of life, however, made him neglect the amusements of the populace of Constantinople; and he soon became unpopular with the mob, who accused him of avarice in plundering the nobles for his own solitary gratification; while, in their opinion, it was one of the principal duties of the emperor to preside at the games of the hippodrome, and to plan a succession of fêtes for the public gratification. Old age had rendered Andronicus inactive, and his intense selfishness and domineering insolence of disposition persuaded him that all mankind would bend to his opinions. His first care, as emperor, was to prepare for lightening the public burdens by making extensive fiscal reforms. He abolished the practice of selling official charges, a measure which enabled him to suppress many useless offices. He selected able and experienced lawyers to act as judges, on whom he conferred ample salaries from the public treasury, prohibiting them, at the same time, under the severest penalties, from extorting money from the people. Indeed, it is possible that, if he had been able to control the malicious violence of his temper, and if his reign had been prolonged, the cultivators of the soil throughout the empire might have derived some permanent advantage from his government.

(Nicetas gives Andronicus great praise for his exertions to abolish the practice of plundering shipwrecked vessels which prevailed among the Greeks, and which preceding emperors had vainly endeavoured to suppress. The Emperor Manuel I, as well as his successors, had inserted a clause in the commercial treaties with the Italian republics to put an end to this barbarous custom. Andronicus himself would have been astonished at the system of salvage exacted by our law in favour of the British navy)

But his personal conduct inflamed the hatred of every class at Constantinople, where he was very soon regarded as a monster, in whose death all would rejoice. The seclusion in which he lived concealed from him the change that had taken place in the popular mind, and he continued to pursue his old course of cruelty, living shut up in his palace. His strange behaviour kept the attention of the capital fixed on his actions. The memory of the murdered Alexius seemed to haunt every man’s mind but his own. To calm the superstitious scruples of his instruments, he induced the Greek clergy to grant absolution to himself and his partisans for having violated their oaths of allegiance to Alexius II, thus allowing the church to assume the power of pardoning treason and murder. Heretics might well say that the Greek Church was now more corrupt and degraded than the imperial government; for the emperor committed his crimes to gain some definite object, but the clergy gratuitously assailed the principles of morality and religion. As an additional insult to the feelings of mankind, Andronicus, who had reached the age of seventy, though he still retained the appearance of a man of middle age, thought fit to marry Agnes of France, the child-widow of his murdered sovereign. The young empress was only eleven years old when she was led to the imperial palace by the hoary sinner, and placed among a crowd of actresses and dancing girls to complete her education.

 

REBELLION OF CYPRUS, A.D. 1184.

 

The vicious condition of every class of society had now undermined the political fabric of the empire. Few acknowledged the restraints of duty and religion, and the few who did so retired from public life. The successful rebellion of a man, almost as depraved, and far less able than Andronicus, revealed the facility with which the empire might be dismembered. Isaac, whose father’s name is unknown, but who was the nephew of Theodora, queen of Jerusalem, and who adopted the name of Comnenus, had been appointed governor of Tarsus in the reign of Manuel; and having been taken prisoner by the Armenians of Cilicia, was delivered from captivity by Andronicus, who authorized him to draw sixty thousand byzants from the revenues of Cyprus in order to pay his ransom. Reuben, the Prince of Armenian Cilicia, had made over his captive to Bohemund III, prince of Antioch, who, on receiving payment of half the ransom, allowed Isaac to visit Cyprus in order to expedite the collection of the remainder. Isaac, on reaching the island, availed himself of the authority he had received from Andronicus to dispose of the revenue, to act as governor, and, as soon as he could collect together a body of troops, he proclaimed himself emperor, as the only means of retaining his power. He equalled the cruelty of Andronicus in his public administration. This rebellion filled the heart of the tyrant with fear and rage. 

A prediction declared that a man, whose name commenced with the letter I, was destined to deprive him of his crown and his life; and this prediction now alarmed him, for he had no fleet which he could immediately dispatch with a force sufficient to suppress the rebellion. The island of Cyprus was completely separated from the Byzantine Empire. It was shortly after conquered by Richard, king of England, and its Greek inhabitants have ever since been subjected to foreign domination.

Constantine Makrodukas and Andronikos Dukas, two of the worst agents of the emperor’s cruelty, had become sureties for the good conduct of Isaac when Andronicus granted him the money necessary to pay his ransom. Undeterred by any feelings of political prudence, the tyrant determined to gratify his revenge by a public exhibition of his rage. On Ascension Day it was usual for the whole court to pay their respects to the sovereign. Andronicus was residing at the palace of Philopation, and thither the two sureties of the rebel Isaac repaired as suppliants, waiting in the inner court, lifting up their hands as petitioners, and seeking to be judged by a tribunal in order to prove their innocence. Even the tyrant’s most intimate friends thought the culprits would escape severe punishment. One man alone was entrusted with the order for their execution, and instructed how it was to be carried into effect. Stephen Aghiochristophorites, the agent of many murders, entered the assembly, and, taking up a large stone, struck Makrodukas with it, calling, at the same time, to all the nobles present who honoured the emperor to take stones from a pile placed purposely in the court of the palace, and put the enemies of their sovereign to death. The imperial guards stood by to watch their behaviour, so that none dared to appear dilatory. In this strange and barbarous manner the sureties of the rebel emperor of Cyprus were murdered by the servile nobles of Constantinople. Worthless as the Byzantine nobility had become, they could not conceal their indignation at this insult, and Alexius, the incestuous offspring of Manuel, whom Andronicus had married to his own illegitimate child Irene, conceived the monstrous idea of mounting the throne. His plot was discovered—his fellow-conspirators were put to death in the cruellest manner—his secretary was burned alive in the hippodrome—his own eyes were put out—and Irene was banished from her father’s presence for weeping over the misfortune of her husband.

The mad career of Andronicus was now drawing to an end. Alexius Comnenos, one of the grand-nephews of Manuel, had escaped to the court of William II, king of Sicily, where his account of the state of the Byzantine empire agreed so well with the reports which were daily brought by recent fugitives, that the Sicilian monarch resolved to support Alexius’ pretensions to the throne, in the hope of making some valuable conquests for himself A Sicilian fleet, under the command of Tancred, the cousin and successor of William II, and the Admiral Margaritone, with an army commanded by the Counts Richard d'Acerra and Aldoin, entered the Adriatic, and took Dyrrachium by assault, after a siege of a few days. The troops marched thence by land to attack Thessalonica, while the fleet circumnavigated the Peloponnesus. Andronicus seemed to feel little alarm when he heard of this attempt to drive him from the throne; he thought that the danger could not be great, as his rival’s name did not begin with I. His second son, John, who had been invested with the imperial title, was sent to assemble an army to relieve Thessalonica; and David Comnenos, who commanded in the place, was ordered to defend it to the last. The incapacity of David, the disorder that reigned in the garrison, and the discontent of the inhabitants, enabled the Norman troops to take Thessalonica on the 15th of August 1185, after a siege of ten days.

The cruelties committed by the Sicilians after they gained possession of Thessalonica, roused the indignation of the Byzantine population, and did more to arrest their further progress than the troops of Andronicus. The Latins and Greeks now regarded one another as heretics as well as political enemies; and their hostilities were marked by horrors of which we may estimate the fearful violence by reflecting on the cruelty of the government and populace of Constantinople, and remembering that it affords the best type of the feelings of society in the East. Nicetas furnishes us with a dreadful picture of the proceedings of the Silician army. Nineteen years after, he was himself a spectator of similar scenes acted by a Latin army in Constantinople. Many of the inhabitants of Thessalonica were expelled from their houses; people of rank were tortured to compel them to deliver up the treasures they were supposed to have concealed; some were hung up by the feet and suffocated by burning straw beneath them. Insult was added to cruelty: the altars in the Greek churches were denied; the religious ceremonies of the Greeks were ridiculed; and when the priests chanted their service in the nasal melody prevalent in the East, the Norman soldiers howled out a chorus in imitation of beaten hounds. At last, however, Eustathius, the celebrated Archbishop of Thessalonica, by his prudent conduct succeeded in conciliating the Sicilian generals, and inducing them to restrain the license of their troops, which they had too long tolerated.

The Sicilian army at last quitted Thessalonica to march to Constantinople; but all ranks were so eager for plunder that its progress was slow. Andronicus made some dispositions for the defence of his capital; and it was reported that he proposed to put every person to death who was imprisoned on a charge of treason. The report filled the population of Constantinople with alarm, for almost every family of any standing had one of its members in prison; the nobles were rendered desperate by a sense of danger—the people were indignant at the dismemberment of the empire, and at the conquests of the Latins. The tyrant, having given his orders to the agents of his cruelty, considered that the tranquillity of the capital was assured, and retired to enjoy himself with a crowd of parasites and courtesans at the palace of Meludion, on the shores of the Bosphorus.

 

INSURRECTION IN CONSTANTINOPLE

 

The storm that drove him from the throne, and terminated his existence, burst suddenly on his head from a quarter whence it was least expected. Aghiochristophorites deemed it necessary to arrest Isaac Angelos, though the emperor had such a contempt for his incapacity and cowardice that he refused to sign an order for his condemnation. The minister was therefore obliged to make the arrest in person, on his own responsibility. When Isaac heard that the terrible Aghiochristophorites, who was universally known to be the agent of the emperor’s greatest cruelties, was in the court of his palace, his very cowardice rendered him courageous, for he derived fury from despair. Instead of submitting tamely, he mounted his horse, and, rushing at Aghiochristophorites with his drawn sword, slew him on the spot. But he had neither the ability nor the courage to take any farther measures for his defence, and he sought an asylum in St Sophia’s. The absence of the emperor and the death of the minister allowed Isaac Angelos to remain unmolested. His friends ventured to join him; and the people, hearing that Aghiochristophorites was slain, rose in rebellion. The prisons were broken open, armed bands were formed, and Isaac was proclaimed emperor. All the nobility now assembled in the church of St Sophia, and the crown of Constantine, which stood on the high altar, was taken down in order to perform the ceremony of coronation; but the timidity of Isaac was so great that he sought to decline the dangerous honour. His uncle, John Dukas, stepped forward and offered his bald head to receive the crown his nephew feared to accept; but the people, thinking that he bore some resemblance to Andronicus, shouted loudly, “We will have no more old men to rule us, and no man with a forked beard shall be emperor”. Isaac was therefore compelled to receive the crown. It is remarkable that the coins of Andronicus distinctly portray the forked beard which excited the antipathy of the populace.

Andronicus hastened to Constantinople as soon as he was informed of the insurrection, and attempted to defend himself in the great palace; but his guards refused to attack the people, even though he himself mounted one of the towers and shot a few arrows against the crowd. The assailants, meeting with no opposition, burst open the gate Karea; and Andronicus, throwing off the imperial robes, and disguising himself in a pointed Russian bonnet, embarked in the galley which had brought him from the palace of Meludion, accompanied by his young empress Agnes of France, a favourite concubine named Maraptika, remarkable for her musical skill, and a few personal attendants. His object was to escape into Russia, but contrary winds kept him on the Bithynian coast, and he was captured by the agents of Isaac, brought back to Constantinople, and imprisoned in the tower of Anemas, with a heavy chain round his neck, and irons on his limbs.

We have not ventured to describe the torments Andronicus had often inflicted on his victims when he made a public display of his worst acts of cruelty, but the people now showed that they had been apt scholars. Isaac allowed the old emperor to be dragged by the chain from his prison, to be conducted through the streets of the capital, undergoing every insult, and then to be tortured in the most inhuman manner. The populace, headed by the relations of those whom he had put to death, among whom the women were conspicuous, beat the old man in the cruellest way, tore his hair from his head and his beard from his face. The Emperor Isaac insulted him when he was brought into his presence, and ordered his right hand to be cut off and his right eye to be put out. After this treatment he was thrust back into prison, where he remained more than a day without food or attendance. At last he was led out, and abandoned to the people for execution, who put out his remaining eye, and conducted him to the place where he was to suffer, mounted on a lean camel. Crowds followed throwing stones at him, beating him with long poles, and pricking him with spears. Hot water was thrown from the windows on his head, and he was compelled for hours to suffer tortures which nature recoils from recording. At last he was taken to the hippodrome, and hung up by the feet between two columns, near a group of ancient sculpture representing a she-wolf and a hyaena, where his sufferings were terminated by two Latin soldiers, who plunged their swords into his heart. Andronicus had borne all his torments with the greatest fortitude, exclaiming only at intervals, “Lord have mercy upon me, and bruise not a broken reed”.

(The reign of Andronicus lasted only a year, from September 1184 to September 1185; and his administration as guardian of Alexius II commenced about a year earlier. Nicetas gives a minute account of this period, and he is our only authority of any value. He records many curious anecdotes concerning Andronicus, which show that he was a man of sense when not governed by his passions. One anecdote is worth recording, as it relates to the historian John Cinnamus, who has so often been our guide in the preceding pages. Andronicus overheard the Bishop of New Patras (Hypate) and John Cinnamus disputing concerning the words of Christ, “My Father is greater than I”,—and though he was well reading Greek theology, his anger was so much excited by the sophistical distinctions and quibbles of the ecclesiastical disputants, that he threatened to throw the divine and the historian into the river Rhyndacus, which was flowing near, unless they ceased their cavils concerning the Divine words, which he deemed sufficiently explicit).

 

CHAPTER X.

THE FALL OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE