JEWELS OF THE WESTERN
CIVILIZATION
HISTORY OF GREECE FROM BC 146 TO AD 1864
VOLUME II
HISTORY OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE FROM A.D. 717 TO 1057
BOOK I
THE CONTEST WITH THE
ICONOCLASTS,
THE ISAURIAN DYNASTY
Sect. I
CHARACTERISTICS OF BYZANTINE
HISTORY
The institutions of Imperial Rome had long
thwarted, the great law of man’s existence which impels him to better his
condition, when the accession of Leo the Isaurian to the throne of
Constantinople suddenly opened a new era in the history of the Eastern Empire.
Both the material and intellectual progress of society had open deliberately
opposed by the imperial legislation. A spirit of conservatism persuaded the legislators
of the Roman Empire that its power could not decline, if each order and
profession of its citizens was fixed irrevocably in the sphere of their own
peculiar duties by hereditary succession. An attempt was really made to divide
the population into castes. But the political laws which were adopted to
maintain mankind in a state of stationary prosperity by these trammels,
depopulated and impoverished the empire, and threatened to dissolve the very
elements of society. The Western Empire, under their operation, fell a prey to
small tribes of northern nations; the Eastern was so depopulated that it was
placed on the eve of being repeopled by Slavonian colonists, and conquered by
Saracen invaders.
Leo III mounted the throne, and under his
government the empire not only ceased to decline, but even began to regain much
of its early vigour. Reformed modifications of the old Roman authority
developed new energy in the empire. Great political reforms, and still greater
changes in the condition of the people, mark the eighth century as an epoch of
transition in Roman history, though the improved condition of the mass of the
population is in some degree concealed by the prominence given to the disputes
concerning image-worship in the records of this period. But the increased
strength of the empire, and the energy infused into the administration, are
forcibly displayed by the fact, that the Byzantine armies began from this time
to oppose a firm barrier to the progress of the invaders of the empire.
When Leo III was proclaimed Emperor, it seemed
as if no human power could save Constantinople from falling as Rome had fallen.
The Saracens considered the sovereignty of every land, in which any remains of
Roman civilization survived, as within their grasp. Leo, an Isaurian, and an
Iconoclast, consequently a foreigner and a heretic, ascended the throne of
Constantine, and arrested the victorious career of the Mohammedans. He then
reorganized the whole administration so completely in accordance with the new
exigencies of Eastern society, that the reformed empire outlived for many
centuries every government contemporary with its establishment.
The Eastern Roman Empire, thus reformed, is
called by modern historians the Byzantine Empire, and the term is well devised
to mark the changes effected in the government, after the extinction of the
last traces of the military monarchy of ancient Rome. The social condition
of the inhabitants of the Eastern Empire had already undergone a considerable
change during the century which elapsed from the accession of Heraclius to that
of Leo, from the influence of causes to be noticed in the following pages; and
this change in society created a new phase in the Roman Empire. The gradual
progress of this change has led some writers to date the commencement of the
Byzantine Empire as early as the reigns of Zeno and Anastasius, and others to
descend so late as the times of Maurice and Heraclius. But as the Byzantine
Empire was only a continuation of the Roman government under a reformed system,
it seems most correct to date its commencement from the period when the new
social and political modifications produced a visible effect on the fate of the
Eastern Empire. This period is marked by the accession of Leo the Isaurian.
The administrative system of Rome, as modified
by Constantine, continued in operation, though subjected to frequent reforms,
until Constantinople was stormed by the Crusaders, and the Greek church
enslaved by papal domination. The General Council of Nicaea, and the dedication
of the imperial city, with their concomitant legislative, administrative, and
judicial institutions, engendered a succession of political measures, whose
direct relations were uninterrupted until terminated by foreign conquest. The
government of Great Britain has undergone greater changes during the last three
centuries than that of the Eastern Empire during the nine centuries which
elapsed from the foundation of Constantinople in 330 to its conquest in 1204.
Yet Leo III has strong claims to be regarded as
the first of a new series of emperors. He was the founder of a dynasty, the
saviour of Constantinople, and the reformer of the church and state. He was the
first Christian sovereign who arrested the torrent of Mohammedan conquest; he
improved the condition of his subjects; he attempted to purify their religion
from the superstitious reminiscences of Hellenism, with which it was still
debased, and to stop the development of a quasi-idolatry in the orthodox
church. Nothing can prove more decidedly the right of his empire to assume a
new name than the contrast presented by the condition of its inhabitants to
that of the subjects of the preceding dynasty. Under the successors of
Heraclius, the Roman Empire presents the spectacle of a declining society, and
its thinly-peopled provinces were exposed to the intrusion of foreign colonists
and hostile invaders. But, under Leo, society offers an aspect of improvement
and prosperity; the old population revives from its lethargy, and soon
increases, both in number and strength, to such a degree as to drive back all
intruders on its territories. In the records of human civilization, Leo the
Isaurian must always occupy a high position, as a type of what the central
power in a state can effect even in a declining empire.
Before reviewing the history of Leo’s reign, and
recording his brilliant exploits, it is necessary to sketch the condition to
which the Roman administrative system had reduced the empire. It would be an
instructive lesson to trace the progress of the moral and mental decline of the
Greeks, from the age of Plato and Aristotle to the time of the sixth ecumenical
council, in the reign of Justinian II; for the moral evils nourished in Greek
society degraded the nation, before the oppressive government of the Romans
impoverished and depopulated Greece. When the imperial authority was fully
established, we easily trace the manner in which the intercommunication of
different provinces and orders of society became gradually restricted to the
operations of material interests, and how the limitation of ideas arose from
this want of communication, until at length civilization decayed. Good roads
and commodious passage-boats have a more direct connection with the development
of popular education, as we see it reflected in the worlds of Phidias and the
writings of Sophocles, than is generally believed. Under the jealous
system of the imperial government, the isolation of place and class became so
complete, that even the highest members of the aristocracy received their ideas
from the inferior domestics with whom they habitually associated in their own
households—not from the transitory intercourse they held with able and
experienced men of their own class, or with philosophic and religious teachers.
Nurses and slaves implanted their ignorant superstitions in the households
where the rulers of the empire and the provinces were reared; and no public
assemblies existed, where discussion could efface such prejudices. Family
education became a more influential feature in society than public instruction;
and though family education, from the fourth to the seventh century, appears to
have improved the morality of the population, it certainly increased their
superstition and limited their understandings. Emperors, senators, landlords,
and merchants, were alike educated under these influences; and though the
church and the law opened a more enlarged circle of ideas, from creating a
deeper sense of responsibility, still the prejudices of early education
circumscribed the sense of duty more and more in each successive generation.
The military class, which was the most powerful in society, consisted almost
entirely of mere barbarians. The mental degradation, resulting from
superstition, bigotry, and ignorance, which forms the marked social feature of
the period between the reigns of Justinian I and Leo III, brought the Eastern
Empire to the state of depopulation and weakness that had delivered the Western
a prey to small tribes of invaders.
The fiscal causes of the depopulation of the
Roman Empire have been noticed in a prior volume, as well as the extent to
which immigrants had intruded themselves on the soil of Greece. The corruption
of the ancient language took place at the same time, and arose out of the
causes which disseminated ignorance. At the accession of Leo, the disorder in
the central administration, the anarchy in the provincial government, and the
ravages of the Slavonians and Saracens, had rendered the condition of the
people intolerable. The Roman government seemed incapable of upholding legal
order in society, and its extinction was regarded as a proximate event. All the
provinces between the shores of the Adriatic and the banks of the Danube had
been abandoned to Slavonian tribes. Powerful colonies of Slavonians had been
planted by Justinian II in Macedonia and Bithynia, in the rich valleys of the
Strymon and the Artanas. Greece was filled with
pastoral and agricultural hordes of the same race, who became in many districts
the sole cultivators of the soil, and effaced the memory of the names of
mountains and streams, which will be immortal in the world’s literature. The
Bulgarians plundered all Thrace to the walls of Constantinople. Thessalonica
was repeatedly besieged by Slavonians. The Saracens had inundated Asia Minor
with their armies, and were preparing to extirpate Christianity in the East.
Such was the crisis at which Leo was proclaimed emperor by the army, in Amorium AD 716.
Yet there were peculiar features in the condition
of the surviving population, and an inherent vigour in the principles of the
Roman administration, that still operated powerfully in resisting foreign
domination. The people felt the necessity of defending the administration of
the law, and of upholding commercial intercourse. The ties of interest
consequently ranged a large body of the inhabitants of every province round the
central administration at this hour of difficulty. The very circumstances which
weakened the power of the court of Constantinople, conferred on the people an
increase of authority, and enabled them to take effectual measures for their
own defence. This new energy may be traced in the resistance which Ravenna and
Cherson offered to the tyranny of Justinian II. The Orthodox Church, also,
served as an additional bond of union among the people, and, throughout the
wide extent of the imperial dominions, its influences connected the local
feelings of the parish with the general interests of the church and the empire.
These misfortunes, which brought the state to the verge of ruin, relieved
commerce from much fiscal oppression and many monopolies. Facilities were thus
given to trade, which afforded to the population of the towns additional
sources of employment. The commerce of the Eastern Empire had already gained by
the conquests of the barbarians in the West, for the ruling classes in the
countries conquered by the Goths and Franks rarely engaged in trade or
accumulated capital. The advantage of possessing a systematic administration of
justice, enforced by a fixed legal procedure, attached the commercial classes
and the town population to the person of the emperor, whose authority was
considered the fountain of legal order and judicial impartiality. A fixed
legislation, and an uninterrupted administration of justice, prevented the
political anarchy that prevailed under the successors of Heraclius from ruining
society in the Roman Empire; while the arbitrary judicial power of provincial
governors, in the dominions of the caliphs, rendered property insecure, and
undermined national wealth.
There was likewise another feature in the
Eastern Empire which deserves notice. The number of towns was very great, and
they were generally more populous than the political state of the country would
lead us to expect. Indeed, to estimate the density of the urban population, in
comparison with the extent of territory from which it apparently derived its
supplies, we must compare it with the actual condition of Malta and Guernsey,
or with the state of Lombardy and Tuscany in the middle ages. This density of
population, joined to the great difference in the price of the produce of the
soil in various places, afforded the Roman government the power of collecting
from its subjects an amount of taxation unparalleled in modern times, except in
Egypt. The whole surplus profits of society were annually drawn into the
coffers of the state, leaving the inhabitants only a bare sufficiency for
perpetuating the race of tax-payers. History, indeed, shows that the agricultural
classes, from the labourer to the landlord, were unable to retain possession of
the savings required to replace that depreciation which time is constantly
producing in all vested capital, and that their numbers gradually diminished.
After the accession of Leo III, a new condition
of society is soon apparent; and though many old political evils continued to
exist, it becomes evident that a greater degree of personal liberty, as well as
greater security for property, was henceforth guaranteed to the mass of the
inhabitants of the empire. Indeed, no other government of which history has
preserved the records, unless it be that of China, has secured equal advantages
to its subjects for so long a period. The empires of the caliphs and of
Charlemagne, though historians have celebrated their praises loudly, cannot, in
their best days, compete with the administration organized by Leo on this
point; and both sank into ruin while the Byzantine Empire continued to flourish
in full vigour. It must be confessed that eminent historians present a totally
different picture of Byzantine history to their readers. Voltaire speaks of it
as a worthless repertory of declamation and miracles, disgraceful to the human
mind. Even the sagacious Gibbon, after enumerating with just pride the extent
of his labours, adds, “From these considerations, I should have abandoned
without regret the Greek slaves and their servile historians, had I not
reflected that the fate of the Byzantine monarchy is passively connected with
the most splendid and important revolutions which have changed the state of the
world”. The views of byzantine history, unfolded m the following pages, are
frequently in direct opposition to these great authorities. The defects and
vices of the political system will be carefully noticed, but the splendid
achievements of the emperors, and the great merits of the judicial and
ecclesiastical establishments, will be contrasted with their faults.
The history of the Byzantine Empire divides
itself into three periods, strongly marked by distinct characteristics.
The first period commences with the reign of Leo
III in 716, and terminates with that of Michael III in 867. It comprises the
whole history of the predominance of the Iconoclasts in the established church,
and of the reaction which reinstated the orthodox in power. It opens with the
efforts by which Leo and the people of the empire saved the Roman law and the
Christian religion from the conquering Saracens. It embraces a long and violent
struggle between the government and the people, the emperors seeking to
increase the central power by annihilating every local franchise, and even the
right of private opinion, among their subjects. The contest concerning
image-worship, from the prevalence of ecclesiastical ideas, became the
expression of this struggle. Its object was as much to consolidate the
supremacy of the imperial authority, as to purify the practice of the church.
The emperors wished to constitute themselves the fountains of ecclesiastical as
completely as of civil legislation.
The long and bloody wars of this period, and the
vehement character of the sovereigns who filled the throne, attract the
attention of those who love to dwell on the romantic facts of history.
Unfortunately, the biographical sketches and individual characters of the
heroes of these ages he concealed in the dullest chronicles. But the true
historical feature of this memorable period is the aspect of a declining
empire, saved by the moral vigour developed in society, and of the central authority
struggling to restore national prosperity. Never was such a succession of able
sovereigns seen following one another on any other throne. The stern
Iconoclast, Leo the Isaurian, opens the line as the second founder of the
Eastern Empire. His son, the fiery Constantine, who was said to prefer the door
of the stable to the perfumes of his palaces, replanted the Christian standards
on the banks of the Euphrates. Irene, the beautiful Athenian, presents a
strange combination of talent, heartlessness, and orthodoxy. The finance
minister, Nicephoras, perishes on the field of battle
like an old Roman. The Armenian Leo falls at the altar of his private chapel,
murdered as he is singing psalms with his deep voice, before day-dawn. Michael
the Amorian, who stammered Greek with his native Phrygian accent, became the
founder of an imperial dynasty, destined to be extinguished by a Slavonian
groom. The accomplished Theophilus lived in an age of romance, both in action
and literature. His son, Michael, the last of the Amorian family, was the only
contemptible prince of this period, and he was certainly the most despicable
buffoon that ever occupied a throne.
The second period commences with the reign of
Basil I in 867, and terminates with the deposition of Michael VI in 1057.
During these two centuries the imperial sceptre was retained by members 01 the
Basilian family, or held by those who shared their throne as guardians or
husbands. At this time the Byzantine Empire attained its highest pitch of
external power and internal prosperity. The Saracens were pursued into the
plains of Syria. Antioch and Edessa were reunited to the empire. The Bulgarian
monarchy was conquered, and the Danube became again the northern frontier. The
Slavonians in Greece were almost exterminated. Byzantine commerce filled the
whole Mediterranean, and legitimated the claim of the emperor of Constantinople
to the title of Autocrat of the Mediterranean Sea. But the real glory of this
period consists in the power of the law. Respect for the administration of
justice pervaded society more generally than it had ever done at any preceding
period of the history of the world—a fact which our greatest historians have
overlooked, though it is all-important in the history of human civilization.
The third period extends from the accession of
Isaac I Comnenus in 1057, to the conquest of the Byzantine Empire by the
Crusaders, in 1204. This is the true period of the decline and fall of the
Eastern Empire. It commenced by a rebellion of the great nobles of Asia, who
effected an internal revolution in the Byzantine empire by wrenching the
administration out of the hands of well-trained officials, and destroying the
responsibility created, by systematic procedure. A despotism supported by
personal influence soon ruined the scientific fabric which had previously
upheld the imperial power. The people were ground to the earth by a fiscal
rapacity, over which the splendour of the house of Comnenus throws a thin veil.
The wealth of the empire was dissipated, its prosperity destroyed, the
administration of justice corrupted, and the central authority lost all control
over the population, when a band of 20,000 adventurers, masked as crusaders,
put an end to the Roman empire of the East.
In the eighth and ninth centuries the Byzantine
Empire continued to embrace many nations differing from the Greeks in language
and manners. Even in religion there was a strong tendency to separation, and
many of the heresies noticed in history assumed a national character, while the
Orthodox Church circumscribed itself more and more within the nationality of
the Greeks, and forfeited its ecumenical characteristics. The empire still
included within its limits Romans, Greeks, Rumenians,
Isaurians, Lycaonians, Phrygians, Syrians, and Gallo-Grecians. But the great
Thracian race, which had once been inferior in number only to the Indian, and
which, in the first century of our era, had excited the attention of Vespasian
by the extent of the territory it occupied, was now exterminated. The country
it had formerly inhabited was peopled by Slavonian tribes, a diminished Roman
and Greek population only retaining possession of the towns, and the
Bulgarians, a Turkish tribe, ruling as the dominant race from Mount Hemus to the Danube. The range of Mount Hemus
generally formed the Byzantine frontier to the north, and its mountain passes
were guarded by imperial garrisons. Slavonian colonies had established
themselves over all the European provinces, and had even penetrated into the
Peloponnesus. The military government of Strymon, above the passes in the plain
of Heraclea Sintica, was formed to prevent the
country to the south of Mounts Orbelos and Skomios from becoming an independent Slavonian province.
The provincial divisions of the Roman Empire had
fallen into oblivion. A new geographical arrangement into Themes appears to
have been established by Heraclius, when he recovered the Asiatic provinces
from the Persians: it was reorganized by Leo, and endured as long as the
Byzantine government. The number of themes varied at different periods. The
emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus, writing about the middle of the tenth,
century, counts sixteen in the Asiatic portion of the empire, and twelve in the
European.
Seven great themes are particularly prominent in
Asia Minor, Optimaton, Opsikion, the Thrakesian, the Anatolic, the
Bukellarian, the Kibyrraiot, and the Armeniac. In each of these a large
military force was permanently maintained, under the command of a general of
the province, and in Opsikion, the Thrakesian, and the Kibyrraiot, a naval
force was likewise stationed under its own officers. The commanders of the
troops were called Strategoi, those of the navy Drangarioi.
Several subordinate territorial divisions existed, called Tourms,
and separate military commands were frequently established for the defence of
important passes, traversed by great lines of communication, called Kleisouras. Several of the ancient nations in Asia Minor
still continued to preserve their national peculiarities, and this circumstance
has induced the Byzantine writers frequently to mention their country as
recognized geographical divisions of the empire.
The European provinces were divided into eight
continental and five insular or transmarine themes, until the loss of the
exarchate of Ravenna reduced the number to twelve. Venice and Naples, though
they acknowledged the suzerainty 01 the Eastern Empire, acted generally as
independent cities. Sardinia was lost about the time of Leo's accession, and
the circumstances attending its conquest by the Saracens are unknown.
The ecclesiastical divisions of the empire
underwent frequent modifications; but after the provinces of Epirus, Greece,
and Sicily were withdrawn from the jurisdiction of the Pope, and placed
under that of the Patriarch of Constantinople by Leo III, that patriarchate
embraced the whole Byzantine Empire. It was then divided into 52 metropolitan
dioceses, which were subdivided into 649 suffragan bishoprics, and 13
archbishoprics, in which the prelates were independent but without any
suffragans. There were, moreover, 34 titular archbishops.
Sect. II
REIGN OF LEO III THE ISAURIAN,
A.D. 717-741
When Leo was raised to the throne, the empire
was threatened with immediate ruin. Six emperors had been dethroned within the
space of twenty-one years. Four perished by the hand of the public executioner,
one died in obscurity, after being deprived of sight, and the other was only
allowed to end his days peacefully in a monastery, because Leo felt the
imperial sceptre firmly fixed in his own grasp. Every army assembled to
encounter the Saracens had broken out into rebellion. The Bulgarians and
Slavonians wasted Europe up to the walls of Constantinople; the Saracens
ravaged the whole of Asia Minor to the shores of the Bosphorus.
Amorium was the principal city of the theme Anatolikon. The Caliph Suleiman had sent his brother,
Moslemah, with a numerous army, to complete the conquest of the Roman Empire,
which appeared to be an enterprise of no extraordinary difficulty, and Amorium was besieged by the Saracens. Leo, who commanded
the Byzantine troops, required some time to concert the operations by which he
hoped to raise the siege. To gain the necessary delay, he opened negotiations
with the invaders, and, under the pretext of hastening the conclusion of the
treaty, he visited the Saracen general engaged in the siege with an escort of
only 500 horse. The Saracens were invited to suspend, their attacks until the
decision of Moslemah—who was at the head of another division of the Mohammedan
army—could be known. In an interview which took place with the bishop and
principal inhabitants of the Amorium, relating to the
proffered terms, Leo contrived to exhort them to continue their defence, and
assured them of speedy succour. The besiegers, nevertheless, pressed forward
their approaches. Leo, after his interview with the Amorians,
proposed that the Saracen general should accompany him to the headquarters of
Moslemah. The Saracen readily agreed to an arrangement which would enable him
to deliver so important a hostage to the commander-in-chief. The wary Isaurian,
who well knew that he would be closely watched, had made his plan of escape. On
reaching a narrow defile, from which a cross road led to the advanced posts of
his own army, Leo suddenly drew his sabre and attacked the Saracens about his
person; while his guards, who were prepared for the signal, easily opened a way
through the two thousand hostile cavalry of the escort, and all reached the
Byzantine camp in safety. Leo’s subsequent military dispositions and diplomatic
negotiations induced the enemy to raise the siege of Amorium,
and the grateful inhabitants united with the army in saluting him Emperor of
the Romans. But in his arrangements with Moslemah, he is accused by his enemies
of having agreed to conditions which facilitated the further progress of the
Mohammedans, in order to secure his own march to Constantinople. On this march
he was met by the son of Theodosius III, whom he defeated. Theodosius resigned
his crown, and retired into a monastery, while Leo made his triumphal entry
into the capital by the Golden Gate, and was crowned by the Patriarch in the
church of St. Sophia on the 25th of March, 717.
The position of Leo continued to be one of
extreme difficulty. The Caliph Suleiman, who had seen one private
adventurer succeed the other in quick succession on the imperial throne, deemed
the moment favourable for the final conquest of the Christians; and,
reinforcing his brother’s army, he ordered him to lay siege to Constantinople.
The Saracen Empire had now reached its greatest extent. From the banks of the Sihun and the Indus to the shores of the Atlantic in
Mauretania and Spain, the orders of Suleiman were implicitly obeyed. The recent
conquests of Spain in the west, and of Fergana, Cashgar,
and Sind in the East, had animated the confidence of the Mohammedans to such a
degree that no enterprise appeared difficult. The army Moslemah led against
Constantinople was the best appointed that had ever attacked the Christians: it
consisted of eighty thousand fighting men. The caliph announced his intention
of taking the field in person with additional forces, should the capital of the
Christians offer a protracted resistance to the arms of Islam. The whole
expedition is said to have employed one hundred and eighty thousand; and the
number does not appear to be greatly exaggerated, if it be supposed to include
the sailors of the fleet, and the reinforcements which reached the camp before
Constantinople.
Moslemah, after capturing Pergamus,
marched to Abydos, where he was joined by the Saracen fleet. He then
transported his army across the Hellespont, and, marching along the shore of
the Propontis, invested Leo in his capital both by land and sea. The strong
walls of Constantinople, the engines of defence with which Roman and Greek art
had covered the ramparts, and the skill of the Byzantine engineers, rendered
every attempt to carry the place by assault hopeless, so that the Saracens were
compelled to trust to the effect of a strict blockade for gaining possession of
the city. They surrounded their camp with a deep ditch, and strengthened it
with a strong dyke. Moslemah then sent out large detachments to collect forage
and destroy the provisions, which might otherwise find their way into the
besieged city. The presence of an active enemy and a populous city required
constant vigilance on the part of a great portion of his land forces.
The Saracen fleet consisted of eighteen hundred
vessels of war and transports. In order to form the blockade, it was divided
into two squadrons: one was stationed on the Asiatic coast, in the ports of
Eutropius and Anthimus, to prevent supplies arriving
from the Archipelago; the other occupied the bays in the European shore of the
Bosphorus above the point of Galata, in order to cut off all communication with
the Black Sea and the cities of Cherson and Trebizond. The first naval
engagement took place as the fleet was taking up its position within the
Bosphorus. The current, rendered impetuous by a change of wind, threw the heavy
ships and transports into confusion. The besieged directed some fire-ships
against the crowded vessels, and succeeded in burning several, and driving
others on shore under the walls of Constantinople. The Saracen admiral,
Suleiman, confident in the number of his remaining ships of war, resolved to
avenge his partial defeat, by a complete victory. He placed one hundred chosen
Arabs, in complete armour, in each of his best vessels, and, advancing to the
walls of Constantinople, made a vigorous attempt to enter the place by assault,
as it was entered long after by Doge Dandolo. Leo was well prepared to repulse
the attack, and, under his experienced guidance, the Arabs were completely
defeated. A number of the Saracen ships were burned by the Greek fire which the
besieged launched from their walls. After this defeat, Suleiman withdrew the
European squadron of his fleet into the Sosthenian
bay.
The besiegers encamped before Constantinople on
the 15th August, 717. The Caliph Suleiman died before he was able to send any
reinforcements to his brother. The winter proved unusually severe. The country
all round Constantinople remained covered with deep snow for many weeks. The
greater part of the horses and camels in the camp of Moslemah perished; numbers
of the best soldiers, accustomed to the mild winters of Syria, died from having
neglected to take the requisite precautions against a northern climate. The
difficulty of procuring food ruined the discipline of the troops. These
misfortunes were increased by the untimely death of the admiral, Suleiman. In
the meantime, Leo and the inhabitants of Constantinople, having made the
necessary preparations for a long siege, passed the winter in security. A
fleet, fitted out at Alexandria, brought supplies to Moslemah in spring. Four
hundred transports, escorted by men-of-war, sailed past Constantinople, and,
entering the Bosphorus, took up their station at Kalos
Agros. Another fleet, almost equally numerous,
arrived soon after from Africa, and anchored in the bays on the Bithynian
coast. These positions rendered the current a protection against the fire-ships
of the garrison of Constantinople. The crews of the new transports were in
great part composed of Christians, and the weak condition of Moslemah’s army filled them with fear. Many conspired to
desert. Seizing the boats of their respective vessels during the night, numbers
escaped to Constantinople, where they informed the emperor of the exact
disposition of the whole Saracen force. Leo lost no time in taking advantage of
the enemy's embarrassments. Fire-ships were sent with a favourable wind among
the transports, while ships of war, furnished with engines for throwing Greek
fire, increased the confusion. This bold attack was successful, and a part of
the naval force of the Saracens was destroyed. Some ships fell a prey to the
flames, some were driven on shore, and some were captured by the byzantine
squadron. The blockade was now at an end, for Moslemah’s
troops were dying from want, while the besieged were living in plenty; but the
Saracen obstinately persisted in maintaining possession of his camp in Europe.
It was not until his foraging parties were repeatedly cut off, and all the
beasts of burden were consumed as food, that he consented to allow the standard
of the Prophet to retreat before the Christians. The remains of his army were
embarked in the relics of the fleet, and on the 15th August, 718, Moslemah
raised the siege, after ruining one of the finest armies the Saracens ever
assembled, by obstinately persisting in a hopeless undertaking. The troops were
landed at Proconnesus, and marched back to Damascus,
through Asia Minor; but the fleet encountered a violent storm in passing
through the Archipelago. The dispersed ships were pursued by the Greeks of the
islands, and so many were lost or captured, that only five of the Syrian
squadron returned home.
Few military details concerning Leo’s defence of
Constantinople have been preserved, but there can be no doubt that it was one
of the most brilliant exploits of a warlike age. The Byzantine army was
superior to every other in the art of defending fortresses. The Roman arsenals,
in their best days, could probably have supplied no scientific or mechanical
contrivance unknown to the corps of engineers of Leo’s army, for we must
recollect that the education, discipline, and practice of these engineers had
been perpetuated in uninterrupted succession from the times of Trajan and
Constantine. We are not to estimate the decline of mechanical science by the
degradation of art, nor by the decay of military power in the field. The
depopulation of Europe rendered soldiers rare and dear, and a considerable part
of the Byzantine armies was composed of foreign mercenaries. The army of Leo,
though far inferior in number to that of Moslemah, was its equal in discipline
and military skill; while the walls of Constantinople were garnished with
engines from the ancient arsenals of the city, far exceeding in power and
number any with which the Arabs had been in the habit of contending. The vanity
of Gallic writers has magnified the success of Charles Martel over a plundering
expedition of the Spanish Arabs into a marvellous victory, and attributed the
deliverance of Europe from the Saracen yoke to the valour of the Franks. A veil
has been thrown over the talents and courage of Leo, a soldier of fortune, just
seated on the imperial throne, who defeated the long-planned schemes of
conquest of the caliphs Welid and Suleiman. It is
unfortunate that we have no Isaurian literature.
The catastrophe of Moslemah’s
army, and the state of the caliphate during the reigns of Omar II and Yesid II, relieved the empire from all immediate danger,
and Leo was enabled to pursue his schemes for reorganizing the army and
defending his dominions against future invasions. The war was languidly carried
on for some years, and the Saracens were gradually expelled from most of their
conquests beyond Mount Taurus. In the year 726, Leo was embarrassed by
seditions and rebellions, caused by his decrees against image-worship. Hescham seized the opportunity, and sent two powerful
armies to invade the empire. Caesarea was taken by Moslemah; while another
army, under Moawyah, pushing forward, laid siege to
Nicaea. Leo was well pleased to see the Saracens consume their resources in
attacking a distant fortress; but though they were repulsed before Nicaea, they
retreated without serious loss, carrying on immense plunder. The plundering
excursions of the Arabs were frequently renewed by land and sea. In one of
these expeditions, the celebrated Sid-al-Battal
carried on an individual who was set up by the Saracens as a pretender to the
Byzantine throne, under the pretext that he was Tiberius, the son of Justinian
II. Two sons of the caliph appeared more than once at the head of the invading
armies. In the year 739, the Saracen forces poured into Asia Minor in immense
numbers, with all their early energy. Leo, who had taken the command of the
Byzantine army, accompanied by his son Constantine, marched to meet Sid-al-Battal, whose great fame rendered him the most dangerous
enemy. A battle took place at Acroinon, in the
Anatolic theme, in which the Saracens were totally defeated. The valiant Sid,
the most renowned champion of Islamism, perished on the field; but the fame of
his exploits has filled many volumes of Moslem romance, and furnished some of
the tales that have adorned the memory of the Cid of Spain, three hundred years
after the victory of Leo. The Western Christians have robbed the Byzantine
empire of its glory in every way. After this defeat the Saracen power ceased to
be formidable to the empire, until the energy of the caliphate was revived by
the vigorous administration of the Abassides.
Leo’s victories over the Mohammedans were an
indispensable step to the establishment of his personal authority. But the
measures of administrative wisdom which rendered his reign a new era in Roman
history are its most important feature in the annals of the human race. His
military exploits were the result of ordinary virtues, and of talents common in
every age; but the ability to reform the internal government of an empire, in
accordance with the exigencies of society, can only be appreciated by those who
have made the causes and the progress of national revolutions the object of
long thought. The intellectual superiority of Leo may be estimated by the
incompetence of sovereigns in the present century to meet new exigencies of
society. Leo judiciously availed himself of many circumstances that favoured
his reforms. The inherent vigour which is nourished by parochial and municipal
responsibilities, bound together the remnants of the free population in the
eastern Roman Empire, and operated powerfully in resisting foreign domination.
The universal respect felt for the administration of justice, and the general
deference paid to the ecclesiastical establishment, inspired the inhabitants
with energies wanting in the West. Civilization was so generally diffused, that
the necessity of upholding the civil and ecclesiastical tribunals, and
defending the channels of commercial intercourse, reunited a powerful body of
the people in every province to the central administration, by the strongest
ties of interest and feeling.
The oppressive authority of the court of
Constantinople had been much weakened by the anarchy that prevailed throughout
the empire in the latter part of the seventh century. The government had
been no longer able to inundate the provinces with those bands of officials who
had previously consumed the wealth of the curia; and the cities had been
everywhere compelled to provide for their own defence by assuming powers
hitherto reserved to the imperial officers. These new duties had inspired the
people with new vigour, and developed unexpected talents. The destructive
responsibility of fiscal guarantees and personal services, imposed by the
administration of imperial Rome as a burden on every class of its subjects,
from the senator to the ticket-porter, was lightened when the Western Empire
fell a prey to foreign conquerors, and when the Eastern was filled with foreign
colonists. The curiales and the corporations at last
relieved themselves from the attempt of the Roman government to fix society in
a stationary condition, and the relief was followed by immediate improvement.
Troubled times had also made the clergy more
anxious to conciliate public opinion than official favour. A better and more
popular class of bishops replaced the worldly priest satirized by Gregory Nazianzenos. The influence of this change was very great,
for the bishop, as the defender of the curia, and the real head of the people
in the municipality, enjoyed extensive authority over the corporations of
artisans and the mass of the labouring population. From a judge he gradually
acquired the power of a civil governor, and the curia became his senate. The
ordinary judicial tribunals being cut off from direct communication with the
supreme courts, peculiar local usages gained force, and a customary law arose
in many provinces restricting the application of the code of Justinian. The
Orthodox Church alone preserved its unity of character, and its priests
continued to be guided by principles of centralization, which preserved their
connection with the seat of the patriarchate at Constantinople, without
injuring the energetic spirit of their local resistance to the progress of the
Mohammedan power. Throughout the wide extent of the Eastern Empire, the
priesthood served as a bond to connect the local feelings of the parish with
the general interests of the Orthodox Church. Its authority was, moreover,
endeared to a large body of the population from its language being Greek, and
from its holy legends embodying national feelings and prejudices. Repulsive as
the lives of the saints now appear to our taste, they were the delight of
millions for many centuries.
From the earnest period to the present hour, the
wealth of most of the cities in the East has been derived from their importance
as points of commercial communication. The insane fury of the Emperor Justinian
II, in devastating the nourishing cities of Ravenna and Cherson, failed to ruin
these places, because they were then the greatest commercial entrepôts of the
trade between India and Europe. But the alarm felt for the ruin of commerce
throughout the Christian world, during the anarchy that existed in the last
years of the seventh, and early years of the eighth centuries, contributed much
to render men contented with the firm government of Leo, even though they may
have considered him a heretic. On the other hand, the prevailing anarchy had
relieved commerce both from much fiscal oppression and many official
monopolies. The moment the financial burdens of the commercial classes were
lightened, they experienced an the advantage of possessing a systematic
administration of justice, enforced by a fixed legal procedure, and
consequently they very naturally became warm partisans of the imperial
authority, as, in their opinion, the personal influence of the emperor
constituted the true fountain of legal order and judicial impartiality. A fixed
legislation saved society from dissolution during many years of anarchy.
The obscure records of the eighth century allow
us to discern through their dim atmosphere a considerable increase of power in
popular feelings, and they even afford some glimpses of the causes of this new
energy. The fermentation which then pervaded Christian society marks the
commencement of modem civilization, as contrasted with ancient times. Its force
arose out of the general diminution of slave labour. The middle classes in the
towns were no longer rich enough to be purchasers of slaves, consequently the
slave population henceforward became a minority in the Eastern Empire; and
those democratic ideas which exist among free labourers replaced the
aristocratic caution, inseparable from the necessity of watching a numerous
population of slaves. The general attention was directed to the equal
administration of justice. The emperor alone appeared to be removed above the
influence of partiality and bribery; under his powerful protection the masses
hoped to escape official and aristocratic oppression, by the systematic
observance of the rules of Roman law. The prosperity of commerce seemed as
directly connected with the imperial supremacy as judicial equity itself, for
the power of the emperor alone could enforce one uniform system of customs from
Cherson to Ravenna. Every trader, and indeed every citizen, felt that the
apparatus of the imperial government was necessary to secure financial and
legal unity. Above all, Leo, the conqueror of the hitherto victorious Saracens,
seemed the only individual who possessed the civil as well as the military
talents necessary for averting the ruin of the empire. Leo converted the strong
attachment to the laws of Rome prevalent in society into a lever of political
power, and rendered the devotion felt for the personal authority of the
sovereign the means of increasing the centralization of power in the reformed
fabric of the Roman administration. The laws of Rome, therefore, saved
Christianity from Saracen domination more than the armies. The victories of Leo
enabled him to consolidate his power, and constitute the Byzantine Empire, in
defiance of the Greek nation and the Orthodox Church; but the law supplied him
with this moral power over society.
As long as Mohammedanism was only placed in
collision with the fiscality of the Roman government and the intolerance of the
Orthodox Church, the Saracens were everywhere victorious, and found everywhere
Christian allies in the provinces they invaded. But when anarchy and misfortune
had destroyed the fiscal power of the state, and weakened the ecclesiastical
intolerance of the clergy, a new point of comparison between the governments of
the emperors and the caliphs presented itself to the attention. The question, how
justice was administered in the ordinary relations of life, became of vital
interest. The code of Justinian was compared with that of the Koran. The courts
presided over by judges and bishops were compared with those of the Moolahs. The convictions which arose in the breasts of the
subjects of the Byzantine emperors changed the current of events. The torrent
of Mohammedan conquest was arrested, and as long as the Roman law was
cultivated in the empire, and administered under proper control in the provinces,
the invaders of the Byzantine territory were everywhere unsuccessful .The
inhabitants boasted with a just pride, that they lived under the systematic
rule of the Roman law, and not under the arbitrary sway of despotic power.
Such was the state of the Roman Empire when Leo
commenced his reforms. We must now proceed to examine what history has recorded
concerning this great reformer. Some fables concerning his life and fortunes
owe their existence to the aversion with which his religious opinions were regarded
by the Greeks, and they supply us with the means of forming a corrector view of
the popular mind than of the emperor’s life. At the same time, it must be
recollected that they embody the opinions of only a portion of his subjects,
adopted towards the close of his reign.
Leo was born at Germanicia, a city of Armenia
Minor, in the mountains near the borders of Cappadocia and Syria. Germanicia
was taken by the Saracens, and the parents of Leo emigrated with their son to
Mesembria in Thrace. They were persons of sufficient wealth to make the Emperor
Justinian II a present of five hundred sheep, as he was advancing to regain
possession of his throne with the assistance of the Bulgarians. This well-timed
gift gained young Leo the rank of spatharios, the
personal favour of the tyrant, and a high command on the Lazian
frontier. His prudence and courage raised him, during the reign of Anastasius
II, to the command of the Anatolic theme.
But another history of his life, unknown to the
early historians, Theophanes and Nicephorus, though both these orthodox writers
were his bitter enemies and detractors, became current in after times, and
deserves notice as presenting us with a specimen of the tales which then fed
the mental appetite of the Greeks. Prodigies, prophecies, and miracles were
universally believed. Restricted communications and neglected education were
conducting society to an infantine dotage. Every unusual event was said to have
been predicted by some prophetic revelation; and as the belief in the prescience
of futurity was universal, public deceivers and self-deceivers were always
found acting the part of prophets. It is said to have been foretold to Leontius
that he should ascend the throne, by two monks and an abbot. The restoration of
Justinian II had been announced to him while he was in exile by a hermit of
Cappadocia. Philippicus had it revealed in a dream, that he was to become
emperor; and he was banished by Tiberius II, (Apsimar,) when this vision became
publicly known. It is not, therefore, wonderful that Leo should have been
honoured with communications from the other world; though, as might have been
expected from his heretical opinions, and the orthodoxy of his historians,
these communications are represented to have been made by agents from the lower
rather than the higher regions.
A circumstance which it was believed had
happened to the Caliph Yezid I, proved most
satisfactorily to the Greeks that Satan often transacted business publicly by
means of his agents on earth. Two Jews—for Jews are generally selected by the
orthodox as the fittest agents of the demon—presented themselves to the caliph
claiming the gift of prophecy. They announced that, if he should put an end to
the idolatrous worship of images throughout his dominions, fate had predestined
him to reign for forty years over a rich and flourishing empire. Yezid was a man of pleasure and a bigot, so that the
prophecy was peculiarly adapted to flatter his passions. The images and
pictures winch adorned the Christian churches were torn down and destroyed
throughout the caliph’s dominions. But Yezid was
occupied carrying his decree into execution when he died. His son, Moawyah II, sought the Jewish prophets in vain. The prince
of darkness concealed them from his search, and transported them into the heart
of Asia Minor, where they had new services to perform.
A young man named Conon, who had quitted his
native mountains of Isauria, to gain his living as a pedlar in the wealthier
plains, drove his ass, laden with merchandise, to a grove of evergreen oaks
near a bubbling fountain, to seek rest during the heat of the day, and count
his recent gains. The ass was turned loose to pasture in the little meadow
formed by the stream of the fountain, and Conon sat down in the shade, by the
chapel of St. Theodore, to eat his frugal meal. He soon perceived two
travellers resting like himself, and enjoying their noontide repast. These
travellers entered into conversation with young Conon, who was a lad of
remarkable strength, beauty, and intelligence. They allowed the fact to
transpire that they were Jews, prophets and astrologers, who had recently
quitted the court of the caliph at Damascus, which very naturally awakened in
the mind of the young pedlar a wish to know his future fortune, for he may have
aspired at becoming a great post-contractor or a rich banker. The two Jews
readily satisfied his curiosity, and, to his utter astonishment, informed him
that he was destined to rule the Roman Empire. As a proof of their veracity,
the prophets declared that they sought neither wealth nor honours for
themselves, but they conjured Conon to promise solemnly that, when he ascended
the throne, he would put an end to the idolatry which disgraced Christianity in
the East. If he engaged to do this, they assured him that his fulfilling the
will of Heaven would bring prosperity to himself and to the empire. Young
Conon, believing that the prophets had revealed the will of God, pledged
himself to purify the Christian Church; and he kept this promise, when he
ascended the throne as Leo the Isaurian. But as the prophets had made no
stipulation for the free exercise of their own creed, and their interest in
Christianity pointed out the true faith, Leo did not consider himself guilty of
ingratitude, when, as emperor, he persecuted the Jewish religion with the
greatest severity.
Such is the fable by which the later Byzantine
historians explain Leo’s hostility to image-worship. This adventure appeared to
them a probable origin of the ecclesiastical reforms which characterize Leo’s
domestic policy. In the bright days of Hellenic genius, such materials
would have been woven into an immortal tale; the chapel of St Theodore, its
fountain, and its evergreen oaks, Conon driving his ass with the two unearthly
Jews reclining in the shade, would have formed a picture immortal in the minds
of millions; but in the hands of ignorant monks and purblind chroniclers, it
sinks into a dull and improbable narrative. Unfortunately it is almost as
difficult to ascertain the precise legislative and executive acts by which Leo
reformed the military, financial, and legal administration, as it is to obtain
an impartial account of his ecclesiastical measures.
The military establishment of the empire had
gradually lost its national character, from the impossibility of recruiting the
army from among Roman citizens. In vain the soldier’s son was fettered, to his
father’s profession, as the artisan was bound to his corporation, and the
proprietor to his estate. Yet the superiority of the Roman armies seems to have
suffered little from the loss of national spirit, as long as strict discipline
was maintained in their ranks. For many centuries the majority of the imperial
forces consisted of conscripts drawn from the lowest ranks of society, from the
rude mountaineers of almost independent provinces, or from foreigners hired as
mercenaries; yet the armies of all invaders, from the Goths to the Saracens,
were repeatedly defeated in pitched battles. The state maxims which separated
the servants of the emperor from the people, survived in the Eastern provinces
after the loss of the Western, and served as the basis of the military policy
of the Byzantine Empire, when reformed by Leo. The conditions of soldier and
citizen were deemed incompatible. The law prevented the citizen from assuming
the position of a soldier, and watched with jealousy any attempt of the soldier
to acquire the rights and feelings of a citizen. An impassable barrier was
placed between the proprietor of the soil, who was the tax-payer, and the defender
of the state, who was an agent of the imperial power. It is true that, after
the loss of the Western provinces, the Roman armies were recruited from the
native subjects of the empire to a much greater degree than formerly; and that,
after the time of Heraclius, it became impossible to enforce the fiscal
arrangements to which the separation of the citizen from the soldier owed its
origin, at least with the previous strictness. Still the old imperial maxims
were cherished in the reign of Leo, and the numerous colonies of Slavonians,
and other foreigners, established in the empire, owed their foundation to the
supposed necessity of seeking for recruits as little as possible from among the
native population of agriculturists. These colonies were governed by peculiar
regulations, and their most important service was supplying a number of troops
for the imperial army. Isauria and other mountainous districts, where it was
difficult to collect any revenue by a land-tax, also supplied a fixed military
contingent.
Whatever modifications Leo made in the military
system, and however great were the reforms he effected in the organization of
the army and the discipline of the troops, the mass of the population continued
in the Byzantine empire to be excluded from the use of arms, as they had been
in the Roman times; and this circumstance was the cause of that unwarlike
disposition, which is made a standing reproach from the days of the Goths to
those of the Crusaders.
The state of society engendered by this policy
opened the Western Empire to the northern nations, and the empire of
Charlemagne to the Normans. Leo’s great merit was that without any violent
political change he infused new energy into the Byzantine military
establishment, and organized a force that for five centuries defended the
empire without acquiring the power of domineering in the state. As the army was
destitute of patriotic feeling, it was necessary to lessen the influence of its
commanders. This was done by dividing the provinces into themes, appointing a
general of division for each theme, and grouping together in different stations
the various corps of conscripts, subject nations, and hired mercenaries. The
adoption likewise of different arms, armour, and manoeuvres in the various
corps, and their seclusion from close intercommunication with the native
legions, guarded against the danger of those rebellious movements which in
reality destroyed the Western Empire. As much caution was displayed in the
Byzantine Empire to prevent the army from endangering the government by its
seditions, as to render it formidable to the enemy by its strength.
The finances are soon felt to be the basis of
government in all civilized states. Augustus experienced the truth of this as
much as Louis XIV. The progress of society and the accumulation of wealth have
a tendency to sink governments into the position of brokers of human
intelligence, wealth, and labour; and the finances form the symbol indicating
the quantity of these which the central authority can command. The reforms,
therefore, which it was in the power of Leo III to effect in the financial
administration, must have proceeded from the force of circumstances rather than
from the mind of the emperor. To this cause we must attribute the durability of
the fabric he constructed. He confined himself to arranging prudently the
materials accumulated to his hand. But no sovereign, and indeed no central
executive authority, can form a correct estimate of the taxable capacity of the
people. Want of knowledge increases the insatiable covetousness suggested by
their position; and the wisest statesman is as likely to impose ruinous burdens
on the people, if vested with despotic power, as the most rapacious tyrant. The
people alone can find ways of levying on themselves an amount of taxation
exceeding any burdens that the boldest despot could hope to impose; for the
people can perceive what taxes will have the least effect in arresting the
increase of the national wealth.
Leo, who felt the importance of the financial
administration as deeply as Augustus, reserved to himself the immediate
superintendence of the treasury; and this special control over the finances was
retained by his successors, so that, during the whole duration of the Byzantine
empire, the emperors may be regarded as their own ministers of finance. The
grand Logothetes, who was the official minister, was in reality nothing more
than the emperor’s private secretary for the department. Leo unquestionably
improved the central administration, while the invasions of the Saracens and
Bulgarians made him extremely cautious in imposing heavy fiscal burdens on the
distant cities and provinces of his dominions. But his reforms were certainly
intended to circumscribe the authority of municipal and provincial
institutions. The free cities and municipalities which had once been entrusted
with the duty of apportioning their quota of the land-tax, and collecting the
public burdens of their district, were now deprived of this authority. All
fiscal business was transferred to the imperial officers. Each province had its
own collectors of the revenue, its own officials charged to complete the
registers of the public burdens, and to verify all statistical details. The
traditions of imperial Rome still required that this mass of information should
be regularly transmitted to the cabinet of the Byzantine emperors, as at the
birth of our Saviour.
The financial acts of Leo’s reign, though they
show that he increased the direct amount of taxation levied from his subjects,
prove nevertheless, by the general improvement which took place in the
condition of the people, that his reformed system of financial administration
really lightened the weight of the public burdens. Still, there can be no doubt
that the stringency of the measures adopted in Greece and Italy, for rendering
the census more productive, was one of the causes of the rebellions in those
countries, for which his Iconoclastic decrees served as a more honourable
war-cry. In Calabria and Sicily he added one-third to the capitation; he
confiscated to the profit of the treasury a tribute of three talents and a half
of gold which had been remitted annually to Rome, and at the same time he
ordered a correct register to be kept of all the males born in his dominions.
This last regulation excites a burst of indignation from the orthodox historian
and confessor Theophanes, who allows neither his reason nor his memory to
restrain his bigotry when recording the acts of the first Iconoclast emperor.
He likens Leo’s edict to Pharaoh’s conduct to the children of Israel, and adds
that the Saracens, Leo’s teachers in wickedness had never exercised the like
oppression—forgetting, in his zeal against taxation, that the Caliph Abdelmelik had established the haratch or capitation of
Christians as early as the commencement of the reign of Justinian II,
AD 692.
An earthquake that ruined the walls of
Constantinople, and many cities in Thrace and Bithynia, induced Leo to adopt
measures for supplying the treasury with a special fund for restoring them, and
keeping their fortifications constantly in a state to resist the Bulgarians and
Saracens. The municipal revenues which had once served for this purpose had
been encroached upon by Justinian I, and the policy of Leo led him to diminish
in every way the sphere of action of all local authorities.
The care of the fortifications was undoubtedly a
duty to which the central government required to give its direct attention; and
to meet the extraordinary expenditure caused by the calamitous earthquake of
740, an addition of one-twelfth was made to the census. This tax was called the
dikeraton
because the payment appears to have been generally made in the silver coins
called keratia,
two of which were equal to a miliaresion, the coin which represented one-twelfth of the nomisma, or gold
Byzant. Thus a calamity which diminished the public resources increased the
public burdens. In such a contingency it seems that a paternal government and a
wise despot ought to have felt the necessity of diminishing the pomp of the
court, of curtailing the expenses of ecclesiastical pageants, and of reforming
the extravagance of the popular amusements of the hippodrome, before imposing
new burdens on the suffering population of the empire. Courtiers, saints, and
charioteers ought to have been shorn of their splendour, before the groans of
the provinces were increased. Yet Leo was neither a luxurious nor an avaricious
prince; but, as has been said, already, no despotic monarch can wisely measure
the burden of taxation.
The influence of the provincial spirit on the
legislation of the empire is strongly marked in the history of jurisprudence
during Leo’s reign. The anarchy which had long interrupted the official
communications between the provinces and the capital lent an increased
authority to local usages, and threw obstacles in the way of the regular
administration of justice, according to the strict letter of the voluminous
laws of Justinian. The consequence was that various local abridgments of the
law were used as guide-books, both by lawyers and judges, in the provincial
tribunals, where the great expense of procuring a copy of the Justinianean collection prevented its use. Leo published a
Greek manual of law, which by its official sanction became the primary
authority in all the courts of the empire. This imperial abridgment is called
the Ecloga:
it affords some evidence concerning the state of society and the classes of the
people for which it was prepared. Little notice is taken of the rights of the
agriculturists; the various modes of acquiring property and constituting
servitudes are omitted. The Ecloga has been censured for its imperfections by Basil I,
the founder of a legislative dynasty, who speaks of it as an insult to the
earlier legislators; yet the orthodox lawgiver, while he pretended to reject
every act of the heretical Isaurian, servilely imitated all his political
plans. The brevity and precision of Leo’s Ecloga were highly appreciated
both by the courts of law and the people, in spite of the heterodox opinions of
its promulgator. It so judiciously supplied a want long felt by a large portion
of society, that neither the attempt of Basil I to supplant it by a new
official manual, nor the publication of the great code of the Basilika in
Greek, deprived it of value among the jurisconsults of the Byzantine Empire.
The legislative labours of Leo were not
circumscribed to the publication of the Ecloga. He seems to have sanctioned various minor codes, by
which the regulations in use relating to military, agricultural, and maritime
law were reduced into systematic order. The collections which are attached to
the copies of the Ecloga,
under the heads of military, agricultural, and Rhodian laws, cannot, however,
be considered as official acts of his reign; still, they are supposed to afford
us a correct idea of the originals he published. Some abstract of the
provisions contained in the Roman legislation on military affairs, was rendered
necessary by the practice of maintaining corps of foreign mercenaries in the
capital. A military code was likewise rendered necessary, in consequence of the
changes that took place in the old system, as the Asiatic provinces were
gradually cleared of the invading bands of Saracens. The agricultural laws
appear to be a tolerably exact copy of the enactments of Leo. The work bears
the impress of the condition of society in his time, and it is not surprising
that the title which perpetuated the merits and the memory of the heterodox Leo
was suppressed by orthodox bigotry. The maritime laws are extremely interesting,
from affording a picture of the state of commercial legislation in the eighth
century, at the time when commerce and law saved the Roman Empire. The exact
date of the collection we possess is not ascertained. That Leo protected
commerce, we may infer from its reviving under his government; whether he
promulgated a code to sanction or enforce his reforms, or whether the task was
completed by one of his successors, is doubtful.
The whole policy of Leo’s reign has been
estimated by his ecclesiastical reforms. These have been severely judged by all
historians, and they appear to have encountered a violent opposition from a
large portion of his subjects. The general dissatisfaction has preserved
sufficient authentic information to allow of a candid examination of the merits
and errors of his policy. Theophanes considers the aversion of Leo to the
adoration of images as originating in an impious attachment to the Unitarianism
of the Arabs. His own pages, however, refute some of his calumnies, for he
records that Leo persecuted the unitarianism of the
Jews, and the tendency to it in the Montanists. Indeed, all those who
differed from the most orthodox acknowledgment of the Trinity, received very
little Christian charity at the hands of the Isaurian, who placed the cross on
the reverse of many of his gold, silver, and copper coins and over the gates of
his palace, as a symbol for universal adoration. In his Iconoclast opinions,
Leo is merely a type of the more enlightened laymen of his age. A strong
reaction against the superstitions introduced into the Christian religion by
the increasing ignorance of the people, pervaded the educated classes, who were
anxious to put a stop to what might be considered a revival of the ideas and
feelings of paganism. The Asiatic Christians, who were brought into frequent
collision with the followers of Mahomet, Zoroaster, and Moses, were compelled
to observe that the worship of the common people among themselves was sensual,
when compared with the devotion of the infidels. The worship of God was
neglected, and his service transferred to some human symbol. The favourite
saint was usually one whose faults were found to bear some analogy to the vices
of his worshipper, and thus pardon was supposed to be obtained for sin on
easier terms than accords with Divine justice, and vice was consequently
rendered more prevalent. The clergy had yielded to the popular ignorance; the
walls of churches were covered with pictures which were reported to have
wrought miraculous cures; their shrines were enriched by paintings not made
with hands; the superstitions of the people were increased, and the doctrines
of Christianity were neglected. Pope Gregory II, in a letter to Leo, mentions
the fact, that men expended their estates to have the sacred histories
represented in paintings.
In a time of general reform, and in a government
where ecclesiastics acted as administrative officials of the central authority,
it was impossible for Leo to permit the church to remain quite independent in
ecclesiastical affairs, unless he was prepared for the clergy assuming a
gradual supremacy in the state. The clergy, being the only class in the
administration of public affairs connected with the people by interest and
feelings, was always sure of a powerful popular support. It appeared,
therefore, necessary to the emperor to secure them as sincere instruments in
carrying out all his reforms, otherwise there was some reason to fear that they
might constitute themselves the leaders of the people in Greece and Asia, as
they had already done at Rome, and control the imperial administration
throughout the whole Eastern Empire, as completely as they did m the Byzantine
possessions in central Italy.
Leo commenced his ecclesiastical reforms in the
year 726 by an edict ordering all pictures in churches to be placed so high as
to prevent the people from kissing them, and prohibiting prostration before
these symbols, or any act of public worship being addressed to them. Against
this moderate edict of the emperor, the Patriarch Germanos
and the Pope Gregory II made strong representations. The opposition of interest
which reigned between the church and the state impelled the two bodies to a
contest for supremacy which it required centuries to decide, and both Germanos and Gregory were sincere supporters of
image-worship. To the ablest writer of the time,—the celebrated John Damascenus, who dwelt under the protection of the caliph at
Damascus, among Mohammedans and Jews,—this edict seemed to mark a relapse to
Judaism, or a tendency to Islamism. He felt himself called upon to combat such
feelings with all the eloquence and power of argument he possessed, the empire
was thrown into a ferment; the lower clergy and the whole Greek nation declared
in favour of image-worship. The professors of the university of Constantinople,
an institution of a Greek character, likewise declared their opposition to the
edict. Liberty of conscience was the watchword against the imperial authority.
The Pope and the Patriarch denied the right of the civil power to interfere
with the doctrines of the church; the monks everywhere echoed the words of John
Damascenus: “It is not the business of the emperor to
make laws for the church. Apostles preached the gospel; the welfare of the
state is the monarch’s care; pastors and teachers attend to that of the
church”. The despotic principles of Leo’s administration, and the severe
measures of centralization which he enforced as the means of reorganizing the
public service, created many additional enemies to his government.
The rebellion of the inhabitants of Greece,
which occurred in the year 727, seems to have originated in a dissatisfaction
with the fiscal and administrative reforms of Leo, to which local
circumstances, unnoticed by historians, gave peculiar violence, and which the
edict against image-worship fanned into a flame. The unanimity of all classes,
and the violence of the popular zeal in favour of their local privileges and
superstitions, suggested the hope of dethroning Leo, and placing a Greek on the
throne of Constantinople. A naval expedition, composed of the imperial fleet in
the Cyclades, and attended by an army from the continent, was fitted out to
attack the capital. Agallianos, who commanded the
imperial forces destined to watch the Slavonians settled in Greece, was placed
at the head of the army destined to assail the conqueror of the Saracens. The
name of the new emperor was Kosmas. In the month of April the Greek fleet
appeared before Constantinople. It soon appeared that the Greeks, confiding in
the goodness of their cause, had greatly overrated their own valour and
strength, or strangely overlooked the resources of the Iconoclasts. Leo met
the fleet as it approached his capital, and completely defeated it. Agallianos, with the spirit of a hero, when he saw the
utter ruin of the enterprise, plunged fully armed into the sea rather than
surrender. Kosmas was taken prisoner, with another leader, and immediately
beheaded. Leo, however, treated the mass of the prisoners with mildness.
Even if we admit that the Greeks displayed
considerable presumption in attacking the Isaurian emperor, still we must
accept the fact as a proof of the populous condition of the cities and islands
of Greece, and of the flourishing condition of their trade, at a period
generally represented as one of wretchedness and poverty. Though the
Peloponnesus was filled with Slavonian emigrants, and the Greek peasantry were
in many districts excluded from the cultivation of the land in the seats of
their ancestors, nevertheless their cities then contained the mercantile wealth
and influence, which passed some centuries later into the possession of Venice,
Amalfi, Genoa, and Pisa.
The opposition Leo encountered only confirmed
him in his persuasion that it was indispensably necessary to increase the power
of the central government in the provinces. As he was sincerely attached to the
opinions of the Iconoclasts, he was led to connect his ecclesiastical reforms
with his political measures, and to pursue both with additional zeal. In order
to secure the active support of all the officers of the administration, and
exclude all image-worshippers from power, he convoked an assembly, called a silention,
consisting of the senators and the highest functionaries in the church and
state. In this solemn manner it was decreed that images were to be removed from
all the churches throughout the empire. In the capital the change met with no
serious opposition. The population of Constantinople of every period of its
history has consisted of a mixed multitude of different nations; nor has the
majority ever been purely Greek for any great length of time. Nicetas, speaking of a time when the Byzantine Empire was
at the height of its power, and when the capital was more a Greek city than at
any preceding or subsequent period, declares that its population was composed
of various races. The cause of image-worship was, however, generally the
popular cause, and the Patriarch Germanos steadily
resisted every change in the actual practice of the church until that change
should be sanctioned by a general council.
The turn now given to the dispute put an end to
the power of the Eastern emperors in central Italy. The Latin provinces of the
Roman Empire, even before their conquest by the barbarians, had sunk into
deeper ignorance than the Eastern. Civilization had penetrated farther into
society among the Greeks, Armenians, and Syrians, than among the Italians, Gauls, and Spaniards. Italy was already dissatisfied with
the Constantinopolitan domination, when Leo’s fiscal and religious reforms
roused local interests and national prejudices to unite in opposing his
government. The Pope of Rome had long been regarded by orthodox Christians as
the head of the church; even the Greeks admitted his right of inspection over
the whole body of the clergy, in virtue of the superior dignity of the Roman
see. From being the heads of the church, the popes became the defenders of the
liberties of the people. In this character, as leaders of a lawful opposition
to the tyranny of the imperial administration, they grew up to the possession
of immense influence in the state. This power, having its basis in democratic
feelings and energies, alarmed the emperors, and many attempts were made to
circumscribe the papal authority. But the popes themselves did more to diminish
their own influence than their enemies, for instead of remaining the protectors
of the people, they aimed at making themselves their masters. Gregory II, who
occupied the papal chair at the commencement of the contest with Leo, was a man
of sound judgment, as well as an able and zealous priest. He availed himself of
all the advantages of his position, as political chief of the Latin race, with
prudence and moderation; nor did he neglect the power he derived from the
circumstance that Rome was the fountain of religious instruction for all
western Europe. Both his political and ecclesiastical position entitled him to
make a direct opposition to any oppressive measure of the emperor of
Constantinople, when the edicts of Leo III concerning image-worship prompted
him to commence the contest, which soon ended in separating central Italy from
the Byzantine Empire.
The possessions of the Eastern emperors in Italy
were still considerable. Venice, Rome, Ravenna, Naples, Bari, and Tarentum were
all capitals of well-peopled and wealthy districts. The province embracing
Venice and Rome was governed by an imperial viceroy or exarch who resided at
Ravenna, and hence the Byzantine possessions in central Italy were called the
Exarchate of Ravenna. Under the orders of the exarch, three governors or dukes
commanded the troops in Ravenna, Rome, and Venice. As the native militia
enrolled to defend the province from the Lombards formed a considerable portion
of the military force, the popular feelings of the Italians exercised some
influence over the soldiery. The Constantinopolitan governor was generally
disliked, on account of the fiscal rapacity of which he was the agent; and
nothing but the dread of greater oppression on the part of the Lombards, whom
the Italians had not the courage to encounter without the assistance of the
Byzantine troops, preserved the people of central Italy in their allegiance.
They hated the Greeks, but they feared the Lombards.
Gregory II sent Leo strong representations
against his first edicts on the subject of image-worship, and after the silention he
repeated these representations, and entered on a more decided course of
opposition to the emperor’s ecclesiastical reforms, being then convinced that
there was no hope of Leo abandoning his heretical opinions. It seems that
Italy, like the rest of the empire, had escaped in some degree from the
oppressive burden of imperial taxation during the anarchy that preceded Leo’s
election. But the defeat of the Saracens before Constantinople had been
followed by the establishment of the fiscal system. To overcome the opposition
made to the financial and ecclesiastical reforms, the exarch Paul was ordered
to march to Rome and support Marinus, the duke, who found himself unable to
contend against the papal influence. The whole of central Italy burst into
rebellion at this demonstration against its civil and religious interests. The
exarch was compelled to shut himself up m Ravenna; for the cities of Italy,
instead of obeying the imperial officers, elected magistrates of their own, on
whom they conferred, in some cases, the title of duke. Assemblies were held,
and the project of electing an emperor of the West was adopted; but the
unfortunate result of the rebellion of Greece damped the courage of the Italians;
and though a rebel, named Tiberius Petasius, really
assumed the purple in Tuscany, he was easily defeated and slain by Eutychius, who succeeded Paul as exarch of Ravenna. Luitprand, king of the Lombards, taking advantage of these
dissensions, invaded the imperial territory, and gained possession of Ravenna;
but Gregory, who saw the necessity of saving the country from the Lombards and
from anarchy, wrote to Ursus, the duke of Venice, one of his warm partisans,
and persuaded him to join Eutychius. The Lombards
were defeated by the Byzantine troops, Ravenna was recovered, and Eutychius entered Rome with a victorious army. Gregory died
in 731. Though he excited the Italian cities to resist the imperial power, and
approved of the measures they adopted for stopping the remittance of their
taxes to Constantinople, he does not appear to have adopted any measures for
declaring Rome independent. That he contemplated the possibility of events
taking a turn that might ultimately lead him to throw off his allegiance to the
Emperor Leo, is nevertheless evident, from one of his letters to that emperor,
in which he boasts very significantly that the eyes of the West were fixed on
his humility, and that if Leo attempted to injure the Pope, he would find the
West ready to defend him, and even to attack Constantinople. The allusion to
the protection of the king of the Lombards and Charles Martel was certainly, in
this case, a treasonable threat on the part of the Bishop of Rome to his
sovereign. Besides this, Gregory II excommunicated the exarch Paul, and all the
enemies of image-worship who were acting under the orders of the emperor,
pretending to avoid the guilt of treason by not expressly naming the Emperor
Leo in his anathema. On the other hand, when we consider that Leo was striving
to extend the bounds of the imperial authority in an arbitrary manner, and that
his object was to sweep away every barrier against the exercise of despotism in
the church and the state, we must acknowledge that the opposition of Gregory was
founded in justice, and that he was entitled to defend the municipal
institutions and local usages of Italy, and the constitution of the Romish
church, even at the price of declaring himself a rebel. The election of Gregory
III to the papal chair was confirmed by the Emperor Leo in the usual form; nor
was that pope consecrated until the mandate from Constantinople reached Rome.
This was the last time the emperors of the East were solicited to confirm the
election of a pope. Meanwhile Leo steadily pursued his schemes of
ecclesiastical reform, and the opposition to his measures gathered strength.
Gregory III assembled a council in Rome, at which the municipal authorities,
whose power Leo was endeavouring to circumscribe, were present along with the
nobles; and in this council the whole body of the Iconoclasts were
excommunicated. Leo now felt that force alone could maintain Rome and its
bishops in their allegiance. With his usual energy, he despatched an expedition
under the command of Manes, the general of the Kibyrraiot theme, with orders to
send the pope a prisoner to Constantinople, to be tried for his treasonable
conduct. A storm in the Adriatic, the lukewarm conduct of the Greeks in the
imperial service, and the courage of the people of Ravenna, whose municipal
institutions enabled them to act in an organized manner, caused the complete
overthrow of Manes. Leo revenged himself for this loss by confiscating all the
estates of the papal see in the eastern provinces of his empire, and by
separating the ecclesiastical government of southern Italy, Sicily, Greece,
Illyria, and Macedonia, from the papal jurisdiction, and placing these
countries under the immediate authority of the Patriarch of Constantinople.
From this time, AD 733, the city of Rome enjoyed
political independence under the guidance and protection of the popes; but the
officers of the Byzantine emperors were allowed, to reside in the city, justice
was publicly administered by Byzantine judges, and the supremacy of the Eastern
Empire was still recognized. So completely, however, had Gregory III thrown off
his allegiance, that he entered into negotiations with Charles Martel, in order
to induce that powerful prince to take an active part in the affairs of Italy.
The pope was now a much more powerful personage than the Exarch of Ravenna, for
the cities of central Italy, which had assumed the control of their local
government, entrusted the conduct of their external political relations to the
care of Gregory, who thus held the balance of power between the Eastern emperor
and the Lombard king. In the year 742, while Constantine V, the son of Leo, was
engaged with a civil war, the Lombards were on the eve of conquering Ravenna,
but Pope Zacharias threw the whole of the Latin influence into the Byzantine scale,
and enabled the exarch to maintain his position until the year 751, when Astolph, king of the Lombards, captured Ravenna. The exarch
retired to Naples, and the authority of the Byzantine emperors in central Italy
ended.
The physical history of our globe is so
intimately connected with the condition of its inhabitants, that it is well to
record those remarkable variations from the ordinary course of nature which
strongly affected the minds of contemporaries. The influence of famine and
pestilence, during the tenth and eleventh centuries, in accelerating the
extinction of slavery, has been pointed out by several recent writers on the
subject, though that effect was not observed by the people who lived at the
time. The importance of the late famine in Ireland, as a political cause, must
be felt by anyone who attempts to trace the origin of that course of social
improvement on which the Irish seem about to enter. The seventy of the winter
of 717 aided Leo in defeating the Saracens at Constantinople. In the year 726,
a terrific irruption of the dormant submarine volcano at the island of Thera
(Santorini) in the Archipelago, was regarded by the bigoted image-worshippers
as a manifestation of divine wrath against Leo’s reforms. For several days the
sea between Thera and Therasia boiled up with great
violence, vomiting forth flames, and enveloping the neighbouring islands in
clouds of vapour and smoke. The flames were followed by showers of dust and
pumice-stone, which covered the surface of the sea, and were carried by the
waves to the shores of Asia Minor and Macedonia. At last a new island rose out
of the sea, and gradually extended itself until it joined the older rocky islet
called Hieron.
In the year 740 a terrible earthquake destroyed
great part of the walls of Constantinople. The statue of Arcadius, on the
Theodosian column in Xerolophon, and the statue of
Theodosius over the golden gate, were both thrown down. Churches, monasteries,
and private buildings were ruined: the walls of many cities in Thrace and Bithynia,
particularly Nicomedia, Praenetus, and Nicaea, were
so injured as to require immediate restoration. This great earthquake caused
the imposition of the tax already alluded to, termed the dikeration.
Leo has been accused as a persecutor of
learning. It is by no means impossible that his Asiatic education and
puritanical opinions rendered him hostile to the legendary literature and
ecclesiastical art then cultivated by the Greeks; but the circumstance usually
brought forward in support of his barbarism is one of the calumnies invented by
his enemies, and re-echoed by orthodox bigotry. He is said to have ordered a
library consisting of 33,000 volumes, in the neighbourhood of St. Sophia’s, to
be burned, and the professors of the university to be thrown into the flames. A
valuable collection of books seems to have fallen accidentally a prey to the
flames during his reign, and neither his liberality nor the public spirit of
the Greeks induced them to display any activity in replacing the loss.
Leo III died in the year 741. He had crowned his
son Constantine emperor in the year 720, and married him to Irene, the daughter
of the Khan of the Khazars, in 733.
CONSTANTINE
V COPRONYMUS, A.D. 741-775
Constantine V, called Copronymus,
ascended the throne at the age of twenty-two, but he had already borne the
title of emperor as his father’s colleague one and twenty years, for the
Byzantine empire preserved so strictly the elective type of the Roman imperial
dignity, that the only mode of securing the hereditary transmission of the
empire was for the reigning emperor to obtain his son’s election during his own
lifetime. Historians tell us that Constantine was a man possessing every vice
disgraceful to humanity, combined with habits and tastes which must have
rendered his company disgusting and his person contemptible. Yet they record
facts proving that he possessed great talents, and that, even when his fortunes
appeared desperate, he found many devoted friends. The obloquy heaped on his name
must therefore he ascribed to the blind passion inspired by religious bigotry.
The age was not one of forbearance and charity. The wisest generally considered
freedom of opinion a species of anarchy incompatible with religious feeling,
moral duty, and good government; consequently, both iconoclasts and
image-worshippers approved of persecution, and practised calumny in favour of
what each considered the good cause. Constantine tortured the
image-worshippers—they revenged themselves by defaming the emperor. But the
persecutions which rendered Constantine a monster in the eyes of the Greeks and
Italians, elevated him to the rank of a saint in the opinion of a large body of
the population of the empire, who regarded the worship of pictures as a species
of idolatry abhorrent to Christianity. His religious zeal, political success,
courage, military talents, together with the prosperity that attended his
government, all conspired to make him the idol of the Iconoclasts, who regarded
his tomb as a sacred shrine until it was destroyed by Michael the orthodox
drunkard.
Constantine was able, prudent, active, and
brave; but he was not more tender of human suffering than monarchs generally
are. The Patriarch Nicephorus justly accuses him of driving monks from their monasteries,
and converting sacred buildings into barracks. In modern times, orthodox papist
sovereigns have frequently done the same thing, without exciting much
ecclesiastical indignation. But when the Patriarch assures us that the
emperor’s mind was as filthy as his name, we may be allowed to suspect that his
pen is guided by orthodoxy instead of truth; and when we find grave historians
recording that he loved the odour of horse-dung, and carried on amours with old
maids, we are reminded of the Byzantine love of calumny which could delight in
the anecdotes of Procopius, and believe that the Emperor Justinian was a man of
such diabolical principles, that he was not ashamed to walk about his palace
for many hours of the night without his head. An account of the reign of
Constantine by an intelligent Iconoclast, even if he represented the emperor as
a saint, would be one of the most valuable illustrations of the history of the
eighth century which time could have spared. He was accused of rejecting the
practice of invoking the intercession of the Virgin Mary, though it is admitted
he called her the Mother of God. He was also said to have denied the right of
any man to be called a saint; and he had even the audacity to maintain, that
though the martyrs benefited themselves by their sufferings, their merit,
however great it might be, was not a quality that could be transferred to
others. His enemies regarded these opinions as damnable crimes. Few
reputations, however, have passed through such an ordeal of malice as that of
Constantine, and preserved so many undeniable virtues.
Shortly after his succession, Constantine lost
possession of Constantinople through the treachery of his brother-in-law
Artavasdos, who assumed the title of emperor, and kept possession of the throne
for two years. Artavasdos was an Armenian noble who had commanded the troops of
the Armeniac theme in the reign of Theodosius III, and aided Leo to mount the
throne. He was rewarded with the hand of Anna, the Isaurian’s only daughter,
and with the dignity of curopalates,
second, only to that of Caesar, a rank then usually reserved, for the imperial
blood. Artavasdos had increased his influence by favouring the orthodox; his
long services in the highest administrative offices had enabled him to attach
many partisans to his personal cause in every branch of the public service. The
manner in which Constantine was engaged in a civil war with his brother-in-law
reflected no dishonour on the character of the young emperor.
The Saracens had pushed their incursions into
the Opsikian theme, where the imperial guards, under
the command of Artavasdos, were stationed. Constantine took the field in person
to oppose the enemy, and advanced to the plains of Krasos.
Here he ordered Artavasdos, who was at Dorylaeum, to
join him with the troops of the Opsikian theme. The
order alarmed Artavasdos, who seems to have been already engaged in treasonable
intrigues. Instead of obeying, he assumed the title of emperor, and attacked
Constantine so unexpectedly, that the imperial army was easily dispersed, and
the young emperor could only avoid being taken prisoner by galloping off alone.
When his own horse sank from fatigue Constantine was compelled to seize a
post-horse, which he happened to find ready saddled, in order to continue his
flight. He was fortunate enough to reach Amorium in
safety.
Artavasdos marched to Constantinople, where, it
appears from coins, he affected for some time to act as the colleague of
Constantine; and it is possible that some treaty may have been concluded
between the brothers-in-law. The usurper, however, soon considered himself
strong enough, with the support of the orthodox, to set Constantine aside. The
pope acknowledged him as emperor, pictures were replaced in the churches, a
strong body of Armenian troops was collected, and Nicephorus, the eldest son of
Artavasdos, was crowned as his father's colleague; while Niketas,
the second, took the command of the Armeniac theme, where the family possessed
great influence. All persons suspected of favouring Constantine were persecuted
as heretics hostile to picture-worship.
In the following year (742) Constantine
assembled an army composed chiefly of the troops of the Thrakesian and Anatolic
themes. With this force he marched to Chrysopolis,
(Scutari), hoping that a party in Constantinople would declare in his favour;
but, being disappointed, he was compelled to withdraw to Amorium,
where he passed the winter. In spring, Artavasdos marched to dislodge him,
ordering his son Niketas to bring up the Armenian troops
to operate on the right flank of the young emperor. All the country in the
usurpers line of march was ravaged, as if it was a territory he never hoped to
govern. Constantine, whose military genius had been cultivated by his father,
formed a daring plan of campaign, and executed it in the most brilliant manner.
While his enemies believed that they were advancing to attack him with superior
forces, he resolved to move forward with such celerity as to become the
attacking party, before they could approach near enough to combine any
simultaneous movements. His first attack was directed against Artavasdos, whose
numerous army was inferior in discipline to that of Niketas,
and over which he expected an easier victory. A general engagement took place
near Sardis, on quitting the Kelvian plain, watered
by the Kaister. The victory was complete. The usurper
was closely pursued to Cyzicus, from whence he escaped by sea to
Constantinople. Constantine then moved forward to meet Niketas,
who was defeated in a bloody battle fought at Modrina,
in the Boukellarian theme, to the east of the Sangarius. The Armenian auxiliaries and the troops of the
Armeniac theme sustained their high reputation, and long disputed the victory.
The emperor then marched to invest Constantinople,
crossing the Bosphorus with one division of his army, and sending another,
under the command of Sisinnios, the general of the
Thrakesian theme, to cross the Hellespont at Abydos, and reduce the cities on
the shores of the Propontis. The fleet of the Kibyrraiot theme was ordered to
blockade the capital by sea. All communications with Greece, one of the
strongholds of the image-worshippers, were thus cut off. Constantine repulsed
every sally by land, and famine quickly made frightful ravages in the dense
population of the capital, where no preparations had been made for a siege.
Constantine acted on this occasion in a very different manner from Artavasdos
during the campaign in Asia Minor. He felt that the people suddenly besieged
were his own subjects; and his enemies record that he allowed all the starving
population to seek refuge in his camp.
Niketas quickly reassembled the fugitives of his own
and his father’s army, and made an attempt to cut off Constantine’s
communications in Bithynia; but the emperor left the camp before
Constantinople, and, putting himself at the head of the troops in Asia, again
defeated Niketas near Nicomedia. Niketas
and the orthodox archbishop of Gangra were both
prisoners. The belligerent prelate was immediately beheaded as a traitor; but Niketas was carried to Constantinople, where he was
exhibited before the walls laden with fetters. Artavasdos still rejected all
terms of capitulation, and Constantine at last ordered a general assault, by
which he captured the city on the 2nd November, 743. Artavasdos escaped by sea
to a fortress called Pyzanitis, in the Opsikian theme, where he was soon after taken prisoner. His
eyes, and those of his sons, Nicephorus and Niketas,
were put out; and in this condition they were exhibited as a triumphal
spectacle to the inhabitants of Constantinople, at the chariot races given by
the emperor to celebrate his re-establishment on the throne. His brother-in-law
and nephews were then immured in a monastery. Some of their principal adherents
were beheaded. The head of Vaktageios, the principal
minister of the usurper, was exhibited for three days in the Augusteon—a custom perpetuated by the Ottoman emperors in
similar circumstances until our own times, the heads of rebel viziers having
adorned the gate of the Serail during the reign of
the late sultan. The Patriarch Anastasios was pardoned, and allowed to remain
in possession of his dignity; yet Theophanes says that his eyes were put out,
and he was exhibited in the circus, mounted on an ass, and exposed to the scorn
of the mob. Sisinnios, who had commanded one division
of the emperor’s army, was soon found to be engaged in treasonable intrigues,
and lost his eyes forty days after he entered the capital in triumph with his
sovereign.
Constantine no sooner found himself firmly
established on the throne, than he devoted his attention to completing the
organization of the empire traced out by his father. The constant attacks of
the Saracens and Bulgarians called him frequently to the head of his armies, for
the state of society rendered it dangerous to entrust large forces to the
command of a subject. In the Byzantine Empire few individuals had any scruple
of violating the political constitution of their country, if by so doing they
could increase their own power.
The incursions of the Saracens first required to
be repressed. The empire of the caliphs was already distracted by the civil
wars which preceded the fall of the Ommiad dynasty. Constantine took advantage
of these troubles. He reconquered Germanicia and Doliche,
and occupied for a time a considerable part of Commagene;
but as he found it impossible to retain possession of the country, he removed
the Christian population to Thrace, where he founded several flourishing
colonies, long distinguished by their religious opinions from the surrounding
population, A.D. 746.
The Saracens attempted to indemnify themselves
for these losses by the conquest of Cyprus. This island appears to have been
reconquered by Leo III, for it had been abandoned to the Mohammedans by
Justinian II. The fleet of the caliph sailed from Alexandria, and landed an
army at the port of Kerameia; but the fleet of the
Kibyrraiot theme arrived in time to blockade the enemy’s ships, and of a
thousand Mohammedan vessels three only escaped, A.D. 748. The war was
continued.
In 752 the imperial armies took the cities of
Melitene and Theodosiopolis, but some years later the
caliph Mansour recovered Melitene and Germanicia: he seems, however, to have
considered the tenure of the last so insecure, that he transported the
inhabitants into Palestine. The Saracens invaded the empire almost every
summer, but these incursions led to no permanent conquests. The agricultural
population along the frontiers of the two empires must have been greatly
diminished during these successive ravages; for farm-buildings and fruit-trees
were constantly destroyed, and slaves formed the most valuable booty of the
soldiers. The mildness and tolerant government of the emperor of Romania (for
that name began now to be applied to the part of Asia Minor belonging to the
Byzantine empire) was so celebrated in the East, in spite of his persecution of
the image-worshippers at Constantinople, that many Christians escaped by sea
from the dominions of the Caliph Al Mansour to settle in those of
Constantine. In the year 769 an exchange of prisoners took place, but
without interrupting the course of hostilities, which were continued, almost
incessantly on the frontiers of the two empires,
The vicinity of the Bulgarians to Constantinople
rendered them more dangerous enemies than the Saracens, though their power was
much inferior. The Bulgarians were a people who looked on war as the most
honourable means of acquiring wealth, and they had long pursued it with profit:
for as long as the Byzantine frontiers were populous, they obtained booty and
slaves by their incursions: while, as soon as it became depopulated by their
ravages, they were enabled to occupy new districts with their own pastoral
hordes, and thus increase their numbers and strength. To resist their
incursions, Constantine gradually repaired all the fortifications of the towns
on the northern frontier, and then commenced fortifying the passes, until the
Bulgarians found their predatory incursions attended with loss instead of gain.
Their king was now compelled to make the cause of the predatory bands a
national question, and an embassy was sent to Constantinople to demand payment
of an annual tribute, under the pretext that some of the fortifications erected
to guard the passes were situated in the Bulgarian territory, but, in reality,
to replace the loss of the plunder which had enabled many of the warlike
Bulgarians to live in idleness and luxury. The demands of the king were
rejected, and he immediately invaded the empire with a powerful army. The
Bulgarians carried their ravages up to the long wall; but though they derived
assistance from the numerous Slavonian colonies settled in Thrace, they were
defeated, and driven back into their own territory with great slaughter, A.D.
757.
Constantine carried on a series of campaigns,
systematically planned, for the purpose of weakening the Bulgarian power.
Instead of allowing his enemy to make any incursions into the empire, he was
always ready to carry the war into their territory. The difficulties of his
enterprise were great, and he suffered several defeats; but his military
talents and persevering energy prevented the Bulgarians from profiting by any
partial success they obtained, and he soon regained the superiority. In the campaigns
of 760, 763, and 765, Constantine marched far into Bulgaria, and carried off
immense booty. In the year 766 he intended to complete the conquest of the
country, by opening the campaign at the commencement of spring. His fleet,
which consisted of two thousand six hundred vessels, in which he had embarked a
considerable body of infantry in order to enter the Danube, was assailed by one
of those furious storms that often sweep the Euxine. The force which the
emperor expected would soon render him master of Bulgaria was suddenly ruined.
The shores of the Black Sea were covered with the wrecks of his ships and the
bodies of his soldiers. Constantine immediately abandoned the thought of
continuing the campaign, and employed his whole army in alleviating the
calamity to the survivors, and in securing Christian burial and funeral honours
to the dead. A truce was concluded with the enemy, and the Roman army beheld
the emperor as eager to employ their services in the cause of humanity and
religion, as he had ever been to lead them to the field of glory and conquest.
His conduct on this occasion gained him as much popularity with the people of
Constantinople as with me troops.
In the year 774 he again assembled an army of
eighty thousand men, accompanied by a fleet of two thousand transports, and
invaded Bulgaria. The Bulgarian monarch concluded a treaty of peace—which,
however, was broken as soon as Constantine returned to his capital. But the
emperor was not unprepared, and the moment he heard that the enemy had laid
siege to Verzetia, one of the fortresses he had
constructed to defend the frontier, he quitted Constantinople in the month of
October, and, falling suddenly on the besiegers, routed their army with great
slaughter. The following year his army was again ready to take the field; but
as Constantine was on his way to join it he was attacked by a mortal illness,
which compelled him to retrace his steps. Having embarked at Selymbria, in order to reach Constantinople with as little
fatigue as possible, he died on board the vessel at the castle of Strongyle,
just as he reached the walls of his capital, on the 23rd September, 775.
The long war with the Bulgarians was carried on
rather with the object of securing tranquillity to the northern provinces of
the empire, than from any desire of a barren conquest. The necessity of
reducing the Slavonian colonies in Thrace and Macedonia to complete obedience
to the central administration, and of secluding them from all political
communication with one another, or with their countrymen in Bulgaria, Serbia,
and Dalmatia, imposed on the emperor the necessity of maintaining strong bodies
of troops, and suggested the policy of forming a line of Greek towns and
Asiatic colonies along the northern frontier of the empire. When this was done,
Constantine began to root out the brigandage, which had greatly extended itself
during the anarchy which preceded his father’s election, and which Leo had
never been able to exterminate.
Numerous bands lived by plunder, in a state of
independence, within the bounds of the empire. They were called Skamars, and, like the Bagauds of
Gaul, formed organized confederacies of outlaws, originally consisting of men
driven to despair by the intolerable burden of taxation, and the severity of
the fiscal legislation. When the incursions of the Bulgarians had wasted the
fields of the cultivator, the government still called upon him to pay the full
amount of taxation imposed on his estate in prosperous times: his produce, his
cattle, his slaves, and his seed-corn were carried away by the imperial
officers. He could then only live by plundering his fellow-subjects, who had
hitherto escaped the calamities by which he had been ruined, and thus the
oppression of the imperial government was avenged on the society that submitted
to it without striving to reform its evils. Constantine rooted out these bands.
A celebrated chief of the Skamars
was publicly executed at Constantinople with the greatest barbarity, his living
body being dissected by surgeons after the amputation of his hands and feet.
The habitual barbarity of legal punishments in the Byzantine empire can hardly
relieve the memory of Constantine from the reproach of cruelty, which this
punishment proves he was ready to employ against the enemies of his authority,
whether brigands or image-worshippers. His error, therefore, was not only
passing laws against liberty of conscience—which was a fault in accordance with
the spirit of the age—but in carrying these laws into execution with a cruelty
offensive to human feelings. Yet on many occasions Constantine gave proofs of
humanity, as well as of a desire to protect his subjects.
The Slavonians on the coast of Thrace, having
fitted out some piratical vessels, carried off many of the inhabitants of
Tenedos, Imbros, and Samothrace, to sell them as slaves. The emperor on this
occasion ransomed two thousand five hundred of his subjects, preferring to
lower his own dignity, by paying a tribute to the pirates, rather than allow
those who looked to him for protection to pine away their lives in hopeless
misery. No act of his reign shows so much real greatness of mind as this. He
also concluded the convention with the Saracens for an exchange of prisoners,
which has been already mentioned—one of the earliest examples of the exchanges
between the Mohammedans and the Christians, which afterwards became frequent on
the Byzantine frontiers. Man was exchanged for man, woman for woman, and child
for child. These conventions tended to save the lives of innumerable prisoners,
and rendered the future wars between the Saracens and Romans less barbarous.
Constantine was active in his internal
administration, and his schemes for improving the condition of the inhabitants
of his empire were carried out on a far more gigantic scale than modern
governments have considered practicable. One of his plans for reviving
agriculture in uncultivated districts was by re-peopling them with colonies of
emigrants, to whom he secured favourable conditions and efficient protection.
On the banks of the Artanas in Bithynia, a colony of
two hundred thousand Slavonians was formed. The Christian population of
Germanicia, Doliche, Melitene, and Theodosiopolis was established in Thrace, to watch and
restrain the rude Slavonians settled in that province; and these Asiatic
colonists long continued to flourish and multiply. They are even accused of
spreading the heretical opinions which they had brought from the East
throughout great part of Western Europe, by the extent of their commercial
relations and the example of their prosperity and honesty.
It is not to be supposed that the measures of
Constantine's administration, however great his political abilities might be,
were competent to remove many of the social evils of his age. Agriculture was
still carried on in the rudest manner; and as communications were difficult and
insecure, and transport expensive, capital could hardly be laid out on land to
any extent with much profit. As usual under such circumstances we find years of
famine and plenty alternating in close succession. Yet the bitterest enemy of
Constantine, the abbot Theophanes, confesses that his reign was one of general
abundance. It is true, he reproaches him with loading the husbandmen with
taxes; but he also accuses him of being a new Midas, who made gold so common in
the hands of all that it became cheap. The abbot’s political economy, it must
be confessed, is not so orthodox as his calumny. If the Patriarch Nicephorus,
another enemy of Constantine, is to be believed, grain was so abundant, or gold
so rare, that sixty measures of wheat, or seventy measures of barley, were sold
for a nomisma,
or gold Byzant. To guard against severe drought in the capital, and supply the
gardens in its immediate vicinity with water, Constantine repaired the great
aqueduct of Valens. The flourishing condition of the towns in Greece at the
time is attested by the fact, that the best workmen in cement were sought in
the Hellenic cities and the islands of the Archipelago.
The time and attention of Constantine, during
his whole reign, were principally engaged m military occupations. In the eyes
of his contemporaries, he was judged by his military conduct. His strategic
abilities and indefatigable activity were the most striking characteristics of
his administration. His campaigns, his financial measures, and the abundance
they created, were known to all; but his ecclesiastical policy affected
comparatively few. Yet by that policy his reign has been exclusively judged and
condemned in modern times. The grounds of the condemnation are unjust. He has
not, like his father, the merit of having saved an empire from ruin; but he may
claim the honour of perfecting the reforms planned by his father, and of
re-establishing the military power of the Roman Empire on a basis that
perpetuated Byzantine supremacy for several centuries. Hitherto historians have
treated the events of his reign as an accidental assemblage of facts; but
surely, if he is to be rendered responsible for the persecution of the
image-worshippers, in which he took comparatively little part, he deserves
credit for his military successes and prosperous administration, since these
were the result of his constant personal occupation. The history of his
ecclesiastical measures, however, really possesses a deep interest, for they
reflect with accuracy the feelings and ideas of millions of his subjects, as
well as of the emperor.
Constantine was a sincere enemy of
image-worship, and in his age sincerity implied bigotry, for persecution was
considered both lawful and meritorious. Yet with all his energy, he was prudent
in his first attempts to carry out his father’s policy. While he was struggling
with Artavasdos, and labouring to restore the discipline of his troops, and
re-establish the military superiority of the Byzantine arms, he left the
religious controversy concerning image-worship to the two parties of the clergy
who then disputed for pre-eminence in the church. But when his power was
consolidated, he steadily pursued his father’s plans for centralizing the ecclesiastical
administration of the empire. To prepare for the final decision of the
question, which probably, in his mind, related as much to the right of the
emperor to govern the church, as to the question whether pictures were to be
worshipped or not, he ordered the metropolitans and archbishops to hold
provincial synods, in order to discipline the people for the execution of the
edicts he proposed to carry in a general council of the Eastern church.
This general council was convoked at
Constantinople in the year 754. It was attended by 338 bishops, forming the
most numerous assembly of the Christian clergy which had ever been collected
together for ecclesiastical legislation. Theodosius, metropolitan of Ephesus,
son o the Emperor Tiberius III, presided, for the
patriarchal chair had been kept vacant since the death of Anastasius in the
preceding year. Neither the Pope nor the patriarchs of Antioch, Alexandria, and
Jerusalem sent representatives to this council, which was solely composed of
the Byzantine clergy, so that it had no right to assume the rank of an
ecumenical council. Its decisions were all against image-worship, which it
declared to be contrary to scripture. It proclaimed the use of images and
pictures in churches to be a pagan and antichristian practice, the abolition of
which was necessary to avoid leading Christians into temptation. Even the use
of the crucifix was condemned, on the ground chat the only true symbol of the
incarnation was the bread and wine which Christ had commanded to be received
for the remission of sins. In its opposition to the worship of pictures, the
council was led into the display of some animosity against painting itself; and
every attempt at embodying sacred subjects by what it styled the dead and
accursed art, foolishly invented by the pagans, was strongly condemned. The
common people were thus deprived of a source of ideas, which, though liable to
abuse, tended in general to civilize their minds, and might awaken noble
thoughts and religious aspirations. We may fully agree with the Iconoclasts in
the religious importance of not worshipping images, and not allowing the people
to prostrate themselves on the pavements of churches before pictures of saints,
whether said to be painted by human artists or miraculous agency; while at the
same time we think that the walls of the vestibules or porticoes of sacred
edifices may with propriety be adorned with pictures representing those sacred
subjects most likely to awaken feelings of Christian charity. It is by
embodying and ennobling the expression of feelings common to all mankind, that
modern artists can alone unite in their works that combination of truth with
the glow of creative imagination which gives a divine stamp to many pagan
works. There is nothing in the circle of human affairs so democratic as art.
The council of 754, however, deemed that it was necessary to sacrifice art to
the purity of religion. “The godless art of painting” was proscribed. All who
manufactured crucifixes or sacred paintings for worship, in public or private,
whether laymen or monks, were ordered to be excommunicated by the church and
punished by the state. At the same time, in order to guard against the
indiscriminate destruction of sacred buildings and shrines possessing valuable
ornaments and rich plate and jewels, by Iconoclastic zeal, or under its
pretext, the council commanded that no alteration was to be made in existing
churches, without the special permission of the patriarch and the emperor—a
regulation bearing strong marks of the fiscal rapacity of the central treasury
of the Roman empire. The bigotry of the age was displayed in the anathema which
this council pronounced against three of the most distinguished and virtuous
advocates of image-worship, Germanos, the Patriarch
of Constantinople, George of Cyprus, and John Damascenus,
the last of the fathers of the Greek church.
The ecclesiastical decisions of the council
served as the basis for penal enactments by the civil power. The success of the
emperor in restoring prosperity to the empire, many of his subjects to believe
that he was destined to reform the church as well as the state, and few
thinking men could doubt that corruption had entered deep into both. In many
minds there was a contest between the superstitions of picture-worship and the
feeling of respect for the emperors administration; but there were still in the
Roman empire many persons of education, unconnected with the church, who
regarded the superstitions of the people with aversion. To them the reverence
paid by the ignorant to images said to have fallen from heaven, to pictures
painted by St. Luke, to virgins who wept, and to saints who supplied the lamps
burning before their effigies with a perpetual fountain of oil, appeared rank
idolatry. There were also still a few men of philosophic minds who exercised
the right of private judgment on public questions, both civil and
ecclesiastical, and who felt that the emperor was making popular superstition
the pretext for rendering his power despotic in the church as in the state. His
conduct appeared to these men a violation of those principles of Roman law and
ecclesiastical legislation which tendered the systematic government of society
in the Roman Empire superior to the arbitrary rule of Mohammedan despotism, or
the wild license of Gothic anarchy. The Greek Church had not hitherto made it
imperative on its members to worship images;—it had only tolerated popular
abuse in the reverence paid to these symbols—so that the ignorant monks who
resisted the enlightened Iconoclasts might, by liberal-minded men, be
considered as the true defenders of the right of private judgment, and as
benefactors of mankind. There is positive evidence that such feelings really
existed, and they could not exist without producing some influence on society
generally. Less than forty years after the death of Constantine, the tolerant
party was so numerous that it could struggle in the imperial cabinet to save
heretics from persecution, on the ground that the church had no authority to
ask that men should be condemned to death for matters of belief, as God may
always turn the mind of the sinner to repentance. Theophanes has recorded the
existence of these humane sentiments in his eagerness to blame them.
Many of the clergy boldly resisted the edicts of
Constantine to enforce the new ecclesiastical legislation against images and
pictures. They held that all the acts of the council of Constantinople were
void, for a general council could only be convoked by an orthodox emperor; and
they took upon themselves to declare the opinions of Constantine heterodox. The
monks engaged with eagerness in the controversy which arose. The Pope, the
patriarchs of Antioch, Alexandria, and Jerusalem, replied to the
excommunications of the council by condemning all its supporters to eternal
perdition. The emperor, enraged at the opposition he met with, enforced the
execution of his edicts with all the activity and energy of his character; his
political as well as his religious views urged him to be a persecutor. It is
evident that policy and passion were as much connected with his violence
against the image-worshippers as religious feeling, for he treated many
heretics with toleration who appeared to be quiet and inoffensive subjects,
incapable of offering any opposition to his political and ecclesiastical
schemes. The Theopaschites, the Paulicians, and the Monophysites enjoyed
religious toleration during his whole reign.
In the year 766 the edicts against image-worship
were extended in their application, and enforced with additional rigor. The use
of relics and the practice of praying to saints were prohibited. Many monks,
and several members of the dignified clergy, were banished; stripes, loss of
the eyes and of the tongue, were inflicted as legal punishments for prostration
before a picture, or praying before a relic. Yet, even at this period of the
greatest excitement, the emperor at times displayed great personal forbearance;
when, however, either policy or passion prompted him to order punishment to be
inflicted, it was done with fearful severity.
Two cases may be mentioned as affording a
correct elucidation of the personal conduct of Constantine. A hermit, named
Andreas the Kalybite, presented himself before the
emperor, and upbraided him for causing dissension in the church. “If you are a
Christian, why dost you persecute Christians?” shouted the monk to his prince,
with audacious orthodoxy. Constantine ordered him to be carried off to prison
for insulting the imperial authority. He was then called upon to submit to the
decisions of the general council; and when he refused to admit the validity of
its canons, and to obey the edicts of the emperor, he was tried and condemned
to death. After being scourged in the hippodrome, he was beheaded, and his
body, according to the practice of the age, was cast into the sea.
Stephen, the abbot of a monastery near
Nicomedia, was banished to the island of Proconnesus,
on account of his firm opposition to the emperor’s edicts; but his fame for
piety drew numerous votaries to his place of banishment, who flocked thither to
hear him preach. This assembly of seditious and pious persons roused the anger
of the civil authorities, and Stephen was brought to Constantinople to be more
strictly watched. His eloquence still drew crowds to the door of his prison;
and the reverence shown to him by his followers vexed the emperor so much, that
he gave vent to his mortification by exclaiming—“It seems, in truth, that this
monk is really emperor, and I am nothing in the empire”. This speech was heard
by some of the officers of the imperial guard. Like that of Henry II concerning
Thomas a Becket, it caused the death of Stephen. He was dragged from his prison
by some of the emperor's guard, and cruelly murdered. The soldiery and the
people joined in dragging his body through the streets, and his unburied
remains were left exposed in the place destined to receive those of the lowest
criminals. Both Stephen and Andreas were declared martyrs, and rewarded with a
place in the calendar of Greek saints.
Orthodox zeal and party ambition combined to
form a dangerous conspiracy against Constantine. Men of the highest rank
engaged in the plot, and even the Patriarch Constantinos,
though himself an Iconoclast, appears to have joined the conspirators. He was
removed from the patriarchate, and the dignity was conferred on a Slavonian
prelate, named Niketas. The deposed Patriarch was
brought to trial and condemned to death. Constantinos,
after his condemnation, and apparently with the hope of having his life spared,
signed a declaration that he believed the worship of images to be idolatry,
that the decrees of the council of Constantinople contained the true doctrines
of the orthodox church, and that the faith of the emperor was pure. This last
article was added because the patriarch was accused of having countenanced
reports charging the emperor with heterodox opinions concerning the Virgin. If Constantinos expected mercy by his pliancy, he was
mistaken. His sentence was carried into execution in the cruellest manner. The
head of the Greek Church was placed on an ass, with his face towards the tail,
and conducted through the streets of the capital, while the mob treated him
with every insult. On reaching the amphitheatre his head was struck off. It may
easily be supposed that, when the highest ecclesiastic in the empire was
treated in this manner in the capital, the severity of the imperial agents in
the distant provinces was often fearfully tyrannical.
The spirit of ecclesiastical bigotry which has
so often led popes, princes, and Protestants to burn those who differed from
them in matters of opinion, gave the image-worshippers as much fortitude to
resist as it gave their opponents cruelty to persecute. The religious and
political reforms of the Isaurian emperors were equally a subject of aversion
to the Pope and the Italians; and all the possessions of the emperors in
central Italy had been rendered virtually independent, even before Constantine
convoked the council of Constantinople. His struggle with the Saracens and
Bulgarians had prevented his making any effort in Italy. At Rome, however, the
Popes continued to acknowledge the civil and judicial supremacy of the emperor
of the East, even after the Lombards had conquered the exarchate of Ravenna.
But the impossibility of receiving any support from Constantine against the
encroachments of the Lombards, induced Pope Stephen to apply to Pepin of France
for assistance. Pope Paul afterwards carried his eagerness to create a quarrel
between Pepin and Constantine so far, that he accused the emperor of hostile
designs against Italy, which he was well aware Constantine had little time or
power to execute. Pepin, who was anxious to gain the aid of papal authority in
his projects of usurpation, made a donation of the exarchate of Ravenna to the papal
see in the year 755, though he had not the smallest right to dispose of it. The
donation, however, supplied the Pope with a pretext for laying claim to the
sovereignty over the country; and there can be no doubt that the papal
government was at this very popular among the Italians, for it secured them the
administration of justice according to the Roman law, guaranteed to them a
considerable degree of municipal independence, and permitted them to maintain
their commercial relations with the Byzantine Empire. The political dependence
of many of the cities in central Italy, which escaped the Lombard domination,
was not absolutely withdrawn from the empire of the East until a new emperor of
the West was created, on the assumption of the imperial crown by Charlemagne,
to whom the allegiance of the Italians, who threw off Constantine's authority,
was at last transferred.
Some remarkable physical phenomena occurred
during the reign of Constantine. An unnatural darkness obscured the sun from
the 10th to the 15th of August in the year 746. It terrified the inhabitants of
Constantinople at the time it occurred; and when the great pestilence broke out
in the following year, it was regarded as a prognostic of that calamity. In the
year 750, violent earthquakes destroyed whole towns in Syria. In the month of
October, 763, a winter of singular severity commenced long before severe cold
generally sets in at Constantinople. The Bosphorus was frozen over, and men
passed on foot between Europe and Asia in several places. The Black Sea was
covered with ice from the Palus Maeotic
to Mesembria. When the thaw began in the month of February, 764, immense
mountains of ice were driven through the Bosphorus, and dashed with such
violence against the walls of Constantinople as to threaten them with ruin.
These icebergs were seventy feet in thickness; and Theophanes mentions that,
when a boy, he mounted on one of them with thirty of his young companions.
One great calamity in the age of Constantine
appears to have travelled over the whole habitable world; this was the great
pestilence, which made its appearance in the Byzantine Empire as early as 745.
It had previously carried off a considerable portion of the population of
Syria, and the Caliph Yezid III perished of the
disease in 744. From Syria it visited Egypt and Africa, from whence it passed
into Sicily. After making great ravages in Sicily and Calabria, it spread to
Greece; and at last, in the year 749, broke out with terrible violence in
Constantinople, then probably the most populous city in the universe. It was
supposed to have been introduced, and dispersed through Christian countries, by
the Venetian and Greek ships employed in carrying on a contraband trade in
slaves with the Mohammedan nations, and it spread wherever commerce extended.
Monemvasia, one of the commercial cities at the time, received the contagion
with the return of its trading vessels, and disseminated the disease over all
Greece, and the islands of the Archipelago. On the continent, this plague
threatened to exterminate the Hellenic race.
Historians have left us a vivid picture of the
horrors of this fearful visitation, which show us that the terror it inspired
disturbed the fabric of society. Strange superstitions preoccupied men’s minds,
and annihilated every sense of duty. Some appeared to be urged by a demoniacal
impulse to commit heinous but useless crime, with the wildest recklessness.
Small crosses of unctuous matter were supposed to appear suddenly, traced by an
invisible hand on the clothes of persons as they were engaged in their ordinary
pursuits; examples were narrated of their having appeared suddenly visible to
the eyes of the assembled congregation on the vestments of the priest as he
officiated at the altar. The individual thus marked out was invariably assailed
by the disease on his return home, and soon died. Crosses were constantly found
traced on the doors and outer walls of buildings; houses, palaces, huts, and
monasteries were alike marked. This was considered as an intimation that some
of the inmates were ordered to prepare for immediate death. In the delirium of
fear and the first paroxysms of the plague, many declared that they beheld
hideous spectres wandering about; these apparitions were seen flitting through
the crowded streets of the city, at times questioning the passengers, at times
walking into houses before the inmates, and then driving the proprietors from
the door. At times it was said that these spectres had even attacked the
citizens with naked swords. That these things were not reported solely on the
delusion of the fancy of persons rendered insane by attacks of disease, is
asserted by a historian who was born about ten years later, and who certainly
passed his youth at Constantinople.
The testimony of Theophanes is confirmed by the
records of similar diseases in other populous cities. The uncertainty of life
offers additional chances of impunity to crime, and thus relaxes the power of
the law, and weakens the bonds of moral restraint. Danger is generally what man
fears little, when there are several chances of escape. The bold and wicked,
deriding the general panic, frequently made periods of pestilence times of
revelry and plunder; the very individuals charged as policemen to preserve
order in society, finding themselves free from control, have been known to
assume the disguise of demons, in order to plunder the terrified and
superstitious with impunity. The predominant passions of all find full scope
when the feeling of responsibility is removed; shame is thrown aside, the most unfeeling
avarice and the wildest debauchery are displayed. But, at the same time, it is
on such fearful occasions that we see examples of the noblest courage, the most
devoted self-sacrifice and the purest charity. Boccaccio and Defoe, in
describing the scenes which occurred at Florence in 1348, and at London in
1665, afford a correct picture of what happened at Constantinople in 747.
The number of dead was so great, that when the
ordinary means of transporting the bodies to interment were insufficient, boxes
were slung over the pack-saddles of mules, into which the dead were cast
without distinction of rank. When the mules became insufficient, low chariots
were constructed to receive piles of human bodies, and these frightful hearses
were drawn through the streets to receive their loads, by a crowd of men who
received a fixed sum of money with each body. Long trenches were prepared
without the walls to serve as graves for hundreds of bodies, and into these the
aged beggar and the youthful noble were precipitated side by side. When all the
cemeteries around the capital were filled, and the panic kept the mass of the
population shut up in their dwellings, bodies were interred in the fields and
vineyards nearest to the city gates, or they were cast into vacant houses and
empty cisterns. The disease prevailed for a year, and left whole houses
tenantless, having exterminated many families. We possess no record of the
number of deaths it caused, but if we suppose the population of Constantinople
at the time to have exceeded a million, we may form an estimate of the probable
loss it sustained, by observing that, during the great plague at Milan, in
1630, about eighty-six thousand persons perished in the course of a year, in a
population hardly exceeding one hundred and fifty thousand souls.
After the plague had completely disappeared, the
capital required an immense influx of new inhabitants. To fill up the void
caused by the scourge, Constantine induced many Greek families from the
continent and the islands to emigrate to Constantinople. These new citizens
immediately occupied a well-defined social position; for whether artisans,
tradesmen, merchants, or householders, they became members of established
corporations, and knew how to act in their new relations of life without
embarrassment. It was by the perfection of its corporate societies and police
regulations, that the Byzantine Empire effected the translocation of the
inhabitants of whole cities and provinces, without misfortune or discontent. By
modifying the fiscal severity of the Roman government, by
relieving the members of the municipality from the ruinous obligation of mutual
responsibility for the total amount of the land-tax, and by relaxing the laws
that fettered children to the profession or handicraft of their parents, the
Byzantine administration infused new energy into an enfeebled social system. It
still preserved, as an inheritance from Rome, an intimate knowledge of the
practical methods of regulating the relative supplies of labour, food, and population
in the manner least likely to inconvenience the government, though undoubtedly
with little reference to the measures best calculated to advance the happiness
of the people.
This memorable pestilence produced as great
changes in the provinces as in the capital. While the population of
Constantinople lost much of its Roman character and traditions by the infusion
of a large number of Greek emigrants, Greece itself lost also much of its
Hellenic character and ancient traditions, by the departure of a considerable
portion of its native middle classes for Constantinople, and the destruction of
a large part by the plague itself. The middle classes of the Hellenic cities
flocked to Constantinople, while an inferior class from the villages crowded to
supply their place, and thus a general translocation of the population was
effected; and though this emigration may have been confined principally to the
Greek race, it must have tended greatly to separate the future traditions of
the people from those of an earlier period. The Athenian or the Lacedemonian who settled at Constantinople, lost all local
characteristics; and the emigrants from the islands, who supplied their place
at Athens and Lacedemon, mingled their traditions and
dialect with the Attic and Doric prejudices of their new homes; ancient
traditions were thus consigned to oblivion. The depopulation on the continent
and in the Peloponnesus was also so great that the Slavonian population
extended their settlements over the greater part of the open country; the
Greeks crowded into the towns, or into the districts immediately under the
protection of their walls. The Slavonian colonies, which had been gradually
increasing ever since the reign of Heraclius, attained at this time their
greatest extension; and the depopulation caused by this pestilence is said by
the Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus, who wrote two centuries later, to have
been so great, that the Slavonians occupied the whole of the open country in
Greece and the Peloponnesus, and reduced it to a state of barbarism. The
emperor perhaps confounded in some degree the general translocation of the
Greek population itself with the occupation of extensive districts, then
abandoned to Slavonian cultivators and herdsmen. It is certain, however, that from
this time the oblivion of the ancient Hellenic names of villages, districts,
rivers, and mountains became general; and the final extinction of those
dialects, which marked a direct affiliation of the inhabitants of particular
spots with the ancient Hellenic population of the same districts, was
consummated. The new names which came into use, whether Slavonian or Greek,
equally mark the loss of ancient traditions.
In closing the history of the reign of
Constantine V it is necessary to observe that he deserves praise for the care
with which he educated his family. The most bigoted image-worshippers inform us
that he was so mild in his domestic circle that he permitted his third wife to
protect a nun named Anthusa, who was a most devoted
worshipper of images; and one of the emperor’s daughters received from this nun
both her name and education. The Princess Anthusa was
distinguished for her benevolence and piety; she is said to have founded one of
the first orphan asylums established in the Christian world; and her orthodox
devotion, to pictures obtained for her a place among the saints of the Greek
Church, an honour granted also to her godmother and teacher.
REIGNS
OF LEO IV THE KHAZAR, CONSTANTINE VI AND IRENE
A.D.
775-802
Leo IV succeeded his father at the age of
twenty-five. His mother, Irene, was the daughter of the emperor or chagan of the Khazars, then a powerful people, through
whose territories the greater part of the commercial intercourse between the
Christians and the rich countries in eastern Asia was carried on. Leo inherited
from his mother a mild and amiable disposition; nor does he appear to have been
destitute of some portion of his father’s talents, but the state of his health
prevented him from displaying the same activity. His reign lasted four years
and a half, and his administration was conducted in strict accordance with the
policy of his father and grandfather; but the weak state of his health kept the
public attention fixed on the question of the imperial succession. Constantine
V had selected an Athenian lady, of great beauty and accomplishments, named
Irene, to be his son’s wife, and Leo had a son named Constantine, who was born
in the year 771. The indefinite nature of the imperial succession, and the
infancy of Leo's child, gave the two half-brothers of the emperor, who had been
invested by their father with the rank of Caesar, some hope of ascending the
throne on their brother’s death. Leo conferred on his infant son the title of
Emperor, in order to secure his succession; and this was done in a more popular
manner than usual, at the express desire of the senate, in order to give the
ceremony all the character of a popular election. The young emperor’s five
uncles—the two Caesars, and the three who tore the title of Nobilissimi—were compelled to take the same oath of
allegiance as the other subjects. Yet, shortly after this, the Caesar
Nicephorus formed a conspiracy to render himself master of the government. Leo,
who felt that he was rapidly sinking into the grave, referred the decision of
his brother’s guilt to a Silention,
which condemned all the conspirators to death. Nicephorus was pardoned, but his
partisans were scourged and banished to Cherson. The death of Leo IV happened
on the 8th of September, 780.
Constantine was ten years old when his father
died, so that the whole direction of the empire devolved on his mother, Irene,
who had received the imperial crown from Constantine V; for that emperor seems
to have felt that the weak state of Leo’s health would require the assistance
of Irene’s talents. The virtues Irene had displayed in a private station
were insufficient to resist the corrupting influence of irresponsible power.
Ambition took possession of her own soul, and it was the ambition of reigning
alone, not of reigning well. The education of her son was neglected—perhaps as
a means of securing her power; favour was avowedly a surer road to preferment
than long service, so that the court became a scene of political intrigue, and
personal motives decided most public acts. As no organ of public opinion
possessed the power of awakening a sense of moral responsibility among the
officers of state, the intrigues of the court ended in conspiracies, murder,
and treason.
The parties struggling for power soon ranged
themselves under the banners of the ecclesiastical factions that had long
divided the empire. Little, probably, did many of the leaders care what party
they espoused in the religious question; but it was necessary to proclaim
themselves members of an ecclesiastical faction in order to secure a popular
following. The Empress Irene was known to favour image-worship; as a woman and
a Greek, this was natural; yet policy would have dictated to her to adopt that
party as the most certain manner of securing support powerful enough to
counterbalance the family influence of the Isaurian dynasty, which was now
wielded by the uncles of the young emperor. The conflict between the
image-worshippers and the Iconoclasts soon commenced. The Caesar Nicephorus,
who was as ambitious as his sister-in-law, was eager to drive her from the
regency. He organized a conspiracy, in which several ministers and members of
the senate took part. Irene obtained full proof of all its ramifications before
the conspirators were prepared to act, seized her five brothers-in-law, and
compelled them to enter the priesthood. In order to make it generally known
that they had assumed the sacerdotal character, they were obliged to officiate
during the Christmas ceremonies at the high altar of St Sophia's, while the young
emperor and his mother restored to the church the rich jewels of which it had
been deprived by the Iconoclast emperors. The intendant-general of posts, the
general of the Armeniac theme, the commander of the imperial guard, and the
admiral of the Archipelago, who had all taken part in the conspiracy, were
scourged, and immured as monks in distant monasteries. Helpidioss
the governor of Sicily, assumed the title of emperor as soon as he found that
his participation in the plot was known at court; but he was compelled to seek
shelter among the Saracens, in whose armies he afterwards served. Nicephorus Doukas, another conspirator, fled also to the Mohammedans.
Some years later, when Constantine VI had assumed the government into his own
hands, a new conspiracy was formed by the partisans of his uncles (A.D. 792).
The princes were then treated with great severity. The Caesar Nicephorus was
deprived of sight; and the tongues of the others were cut out, by the order of
their nephew, not long before he lost his own eyes by the order of his mother.
The influence of the clergy in the ordinary
administration of justice, and the great extent to which ecclesiastical
legislation regulated civil rights, rendered councils of the church an
important feature in those forms and usages that practically circumscribed the
despotic power of the emperor by a framework of customs, opinions, and
convictions which he could with difficulty alter, and rarely oppose without
danger. The political ambition of Irene, the national vanity of the Greeks, and
the religious feelings of the orthodox, required the sanction of a
constitutional public authority, before the laws against image-worship could be
openly repealed. The Byzantine Empire had at this time an ecclesiastical,
though not a political constitution. The will of the sovereign was alone
insufficient to change an organic law, forming part of the ecclesiastical
administration of the empire. It was necessary to convoke a general council to
legalize image-worship; and to render such a council a fit instrument for the
proposed revolution, much arrangement was necessary. No person was ever endued
with greater talents for removing opposition and conciliating personal support
than the empress. The Patriarch Paul, a decided Iconoclast, was induced to
resign, and declare that he repented of his hostility to image-worship, because
it had cut off the church of Constantinople from communion with the rest of the
Christian world. This declaration pointed out the necessity of holding a
general council, in order to establish that communion. The crisis required a
new Patriarch, of stainless character, great ability, and perfect acquaintance
with the party connections and individual characters of the leading bishops. No
person could be selected from among the dignitaries of the church, who had been
generally appointed by Iconoclast emperors. The choice of Irene fell on a
civilian. Tarasios, the chief secretary of the imperial cabinet—a man of noble
birth, considerable popularity, and a high reputation for learning and
probity—was suddenly elevated to be the head of the Greek church, and allowed
to be not unworthy of the high rank. The orthodox would probably have raised a
question concerning the legality of nominating a layman, had it not been
evident that the objection would favour the interests of their opponents. The
empress and her advisers were not bold enough to venture on an irretrievable
declaration in favour of image-worship, until they had obtained a public
assurance of popular support. An assembly of the inhabitants of the capital was
convoked in the palace of Magnaura, in order to
secure a majority pledged to the cause of Tarasios. The fact that such an
assembly was considered necessary is a strong proof that the strength of the
rival parties was very nearly balanced, and that this manifestation of public
opinion was required in order to relieve the empress from personal
responsibility. Irene proposed to the assembly that Tarasios should be elected,
Patriarch, and the proposal was received with general acclamation. Tarasios,
however, refused the dignity, declaring that he would not accept the
Patriarchate unless a general council should be convoked, for restoring unity
to the church. The convocation of a council was adopted, and the nomination of Tarasios
ratified. Though great care had been taken to fill this assembly with
image-worshippers, nevertheless several dissentient voices made themselves
heard, protesting against the proceedings as an attack on the existing
legislation of the empire.
The Iconoclasts were still strong in the
capital, and the opposition of the soldiery was excited by the determination of
Tarasios to re-establish image-worship. They openly declared that they would
not allow a council of the church to be held, nor permit the ecclesiastics of
their party to be unjustly treated by the court. More than one tumult warned
the empress that no council could be held at Constantinople. It was found
necessary to disperse the Iconoclastic soldiery in distant provinces, and form
new cohorts of guards devoted to the court, before any steps could be publicly
taken to change the laws of the church. The experience of Tarasios as a
minister of state was more useful to Irene during the first period of his
patriarchate than his theological learning. It required nearly three years to
smooth the way for the meeting of the council, which was at length held at
Nicaea, in September, 787. Three hundred and sixty-seven members attended, of
whom, however, not a few were abbots and monks, who assumed the title of
confessors from having been ejected from their monasteries by the decrees of
the Iconoclast sovereigns. Some of the persons present deserve to be
particularly mentioned, for they have individually conferred greater benefits
on mankind by their learned labours, than they rendered to Christianity by
their zealous advocacy of image-worship in this council. The secretary of the
two commissioners who represented the imperial authority was Nicephorus the
historian, subsequently Patriarch of Constantinople. His sketch of the history
of the empire, from the year 602 to 770, is a valuable work, and indicates that
he was a man of judgment, whenever his perceptions were not obscured by
theological and ecclesiastical prejudices. Two other eminent Byzantine writers
were also present. George, called Syncellus, from the office he held, under the
Patriarch Tarasios. He has left us a chronological work, which has preserved
the knowledge of many important facts recorded by no other ancient authority.
Theophanes, the friend and companion of the Syncellus, has continued this work;
and his chronography of Roman and Byzantine history, with all its faults, forms
the best picture of the condition of the empire that we possess for a long
period. Theophanes enjoyed the honour of becoming, at a later day, a confessor
in the cause of image-worship; he was exiled from a monastery which he had
founded, and died in the island of Samothrace, A.D. 817.
The second council of Nicaea had no better title
than the Iconoclast council of Constantinople to be regarded as a general
council of the church. The Pope Hadrian, indeed, sent deputies from the Latin
Church; but the churches of Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch, whose
patriarchs were groaning under the government of the caliphs, did not dare to
communicate with foreign authorities. An attempt was nevertheless made to
deceive the world into a belief that they were represented, by allowing two
monks from Palestine to present themselves as the syncelli of these patriarchs,
without scrutinizing the validity of their credentials. Pope Hadrian, though he
sent deputies, wrote at the same time to Tarasios, making several demands
tending to establish the ecclesiastical supremacy of the papal See, and
complaining in strong terms that the Patriarch of Constantinople had no right
to assume the title of ecumenic. The hope of recovering the estates of the
patrimony of St. Peter in the Byzantine provinces, which had been sequestrated
by Leo III, and of re-establishing the supremacy of the See of Rome made
Hadrian overlook much that was offensive to papal pride.
The second council of Nicaea authorized the
worship of images as an orthodox practice. Forged passages, pretending to be
extracts from the earlier fathers, and genuine from the more modern, were quoted
in favour of the practice. Simony was already a prevailing evil in the Greek
Church. Many of the bishops had purchased their sees, and most of these
naturally preferred doing violence to their opinions rather than lose their
revenues. From this cause, unanimity was easily obtained by court influence.
The council decided, that not only was the cross an object of reverence, but
also that the images of Christ, and the pictures of the Virgin Mary—of angels,
and holy men, whether painted in colours, or worked in embroidery in sacred
ornaments, or formed in mosaic in the walls of churches—were all lawful objects
of worship. At the same time, in order to guard against the accusation of
idolatry, it was declared that the worship of an image, which is merely a sign
of reverence, must not be confounded with the adoration due only to God. The
council of Constantinople held in 754 was declared heretical, and all who
maintained its doctrines, and condemned the use of images, were anathematized.
The patriarchs Anastasius, Constantinos, and Niketas were especially doomed to eternal condemnation.
The Pope adopted the decrees of this council,
but he refused to confirm them officially, because the empress delayed
restoring the estates of St. Peter’s patrimony. In the countries of Western
Europe which had formed parts of the Western Empire, the superstitions of the
image-worshippers were viewed with as much dissatisfaction as the fanaticism of
the Iconoclasts; and the council of Nicaea was as much condemned as that of
Constantinople by a large body of enlightened ecclesiastics. The public mind in
the West was almost as much divided as in the East; and if a general council of
the Latin Church had been assembled, its unbiassed decisions would probably
have been at variance with those supported by the Pope and the council of
Nicaea.
Charlemagne published a refutation of the
doctrines of this council on the subject of image-worship. His work, called the
Caroline Books, consists of four parts, and was certainly composed under his immediate
personal superintendence, though he was doubtless incapable of writing it
himself. At all events, it was published as his composition. This work condemns
the superstitious bigotry of the Greek image-worshippers in a decided manner,
while at the same time it only blames the misguided zeal of the Iconoclasts.
Altogether it is a very remarkable production, and gives a more correct idea of
the extent to which Roman civilization still survived, in Western society, and
counterbalanced ecclesiastical influence, than any other contemporary document.
In 794 Charlemagne assembled a council of three hundred bishops at Frankfort;
and, in the presence of the papal legates, this council maintained that
pictures ought to be placed in churches, but that they should not be
worshipped, but only regarded with respect, as recalling more vividly to the
mind the subjects represented. The similarity existing at this time in the
opinions of enlightened men throughout the whole Christian world must be noted
as a proof that general communications and commercial intercourse still
pervaded society with common sentiments. The dark night of medieval ignorance
and local prejudices had not yet settled on the West; nor had feudal anarchy
confined the ideas and wants of society to the narrow sphere of provincial
interests. The aspect of public opinion alarmed Pope Hadrian, whose interests
required that the relations of the West and East should not become friendly.
His position, however, rendered him more suspicious of Constantine and Irene,
in spite of their orthodoxy, than of Charlemagne, with all his heterodox ideas.
The Frank monarch, though he differed in ecclesiastical opinions, was sure to
be a political protector. The Pope consequently laboured to foment the jealousy
that reigned between the Frank and Byzantine governments concerning Italy,
where the commercial relations of the Greeks still counterbalanced the military
influence of the Franks. When writing to Charlemagne, he accused the Greeks and
their Italian partisans of every crime likely to arouse the hostility of the
Franks. They were reproached, and not unjustly, with carrying on an extensive
trade in slaves, who were purchased in Western Europe, and sold, to the
Saracens. The Pope knew well that this commerce was carried on in all the
trading cities of the West, both by Greeks and Latins; for slaves then
constituted the principal article of European export to Africa, Syria, and
Egypt, in payment of the produce of the East, which was brought from those
countries. The Pope seized and burned some Greek vessels at Centumcellae,
(Civita-Vecchia), because the crews were accused of
kidnapping the people of the neighbourhood. The violent expressions of Hadrian,
in speaking of the Greeks, could not fail to produce a great effect in Western
Europe, where the letters of the Popes formed the literary productions most
generally read and studied by all ranks. His calumnies must have sunk deep into
the public mind, and tended to impress on Western nations that aversion to the
Greeks, which was subsequently increased by mercantile jealousy and religious
strife.
The extinction of the last traces of the
supremacy of the Eastern Empire at Rome was the most gratifying result of their
machinations to the Popes. On Christmas-day, A.D. 800, Charlemagne revived the
existence of the Western Empire, and received the imperial crown from Pope Leo
III in the church of St. Peter’s. Hitherto the Frank monarch had acknowledged a
titular supremacy in the Eastern Empire, and had borne the title of Patrician
of the Roman Empire, as a mark of dignity conferred on him by the emperors of
Constantinople; but he now raised himself to an equality with the emperors of
the East, by assuming the title of Emperor of the West. The assumption of the
title of emperor of the Romans was not an act of idle vanity. Roman usages,
Roman prejudices, and Roman law still exercised a powerful influence over the
minds of the most numerous body of Charlemagne’s subjects; and by all the
clergy and lawyers throughout his dominions the rights and prerogatives of the
Roman emperors of the West were held to be legally vested in his person by the
fact of his election, such as it was, and his coronation by the Pope. The
political allegiance of the Pope to the emperor, which was then undisputed, became
thus transferred from the emperor of the East to the emperor of the West as a
matter of course; while the papal rights of administration over the former
exarchate of Ravenna, the Pentapolis, and the dukedom of Rome, acquired, under
the protection of the Franks, the character of a decided sovereignty. Many
towns of Italy at this time acquired a degree of municipal independence which
made them almost independent republics. The influence of Roman law in binding
society together, the military weakness of the papal power, and the rapid
decline of the central authority in the empire of the Franks, enabled these
towns to perpetuate their peculiar constitutions and independent jurisdictions
down to the French Revolution.
A female regency in an absolute government must
always render the conduct of public affairs liable to be directed by court
intrigues. When Irene wished to gain Charlemagne as an ally, in order to
deprive the Iconoclasts of any hope of foreign assistance, she had negotiated a
treaty of marriage between her son and Rotrud, the
eldest daughter of the Frank monarch, A.D. 781. But when the question of
image-worship was settled, she began to fear that this alliance might become
the means of excluding her from power, and she then broke off the treaty, and
compelled her son to marry a Paphlagonian lady of the
court named Maria, whom the young emperor soon regarded with aversion.
Constantine, however, submitted quietly to his mother's domination until his
twentieth year. He then began to display dissatisfaction at the state of
tutelage in which he was held, and at his complete seclusion from public
business. A plan was formed by many leading men in the administration to place
him at the head of affairs, but it was discovered before it was ripe for
execution. Irene on this occasion displayed unseemly violence, in her eagerness
to retain a power she ought immediately to have resigned. The conspirators were
seized, scourged, and banished. When her son was conducted into her presence,
she struck him, and overwhelmed him with reproaches and insults. The young
emperor was then confined so strictly in the palace that all communication with
his friends was cut off.
This unprincipled conduct of the regent-mother
became the object of general reprobation. The troops of the Armeniac theme
refused to obey her orders, and marched to the capital to deliver Constantine.
On the way they were joined by other legions, and Irene found herself compelled
to release her son, who immediately hastened to the advancing army. A total revolution
was effected at court. The ministers and creatures of Irene were removed from
office, and some who had displayed particular animosity against Constantine
were scourged and beheaded. Constantine ruled the empire for about six years,
(790-797). But his education had been neglected, in a disgraceful manner, and
his mind was perhaps naturally fickle. Though he displayed the courage of his
family at the head of his army, his incapacity for business, and his
inconstancy in his friendships, soon lost him the support of his most devoted
partisans. He lost his popularity by putting out the eyes of his uncle,
Nicephorus, and cutting out the tongues of his four uncles, who were accused of
having taken part in the plots of their brother. He alienated the attachment of
the Armenian troops by putting out the eyes of their general, Alexis Mouselen, who had been the means of delivering him from
confinement. The folly of this last act was even greater than the ingratitude,
for it was done to gratify the revengeful feelings of his mother. These acts of
folly, cruelty, and ingratitude destroyed his influence, and induced his
sincerest friends to make their peace with Irene, whom it was evident her son
would ultimately allow to rule the empire.
The unhappy marriage into which Constantine had
been forced by his mother, she at last converted into the cause of his ruin.
The emperor fell in love with Theodota, one of his
mother’s maids of honour, and determined to divorce Maria in order to marry
her. Irene, whose ambition induced her to stoop to the basest intrigues,
flattered him in this project, as it seemed likely to increase her influence
and ruin his reputation. The Empress Maria was induced to retire into a
monastery, and the emperor expected to be able to celebrate his marriage with Theodota without difficulty. But the usage of the Byzantine
Empire required that the Patriarch should pronounce the sentence of divorce,
and this Tarasios, who was a devoted partisan and active political agent of
Irene, long refused to do. The imprudence of Constantine, and the insidious
advice of Irene, soon involved the emperor in a dispute with the whole body of
monks, who had an overwhelming influence in society. The Patriarch at last
yielded to the influence of Irene, so far as to allow his catechist to give the
veil to the Empress Maria, whom he pronounced divorced, and then to permit the
celebration of the emperors marriage with Theodota by
Joseph, one of the principal clergy of the patriarchal chapter, and abbot of a
monastery in the capital.
In the Byzantine Empire, at this time, constant
religious discussions and pretensions to superior sanctity, had introduced a
profound religious spirit into the highest ranks of society. Numbers of the
wealthiest nobles founded monasteries, into which they retired. The manners,
the extensive charity, and the pure morality of these abbots, secured them the
love and admiration of the people, and tended to disseminate a higher standard
of morality than had previously prevailed in Constantinople. This fact must not
be overlooked in estimating the various causes which led to the regeneration of
the Eastern Empire under the Iconoclast emperors. Security of life and
property, and all the foundations of national prosperity, are more closely
connected with moral purity than the ruling classes are inclined to allow. It
may not be quite useless, as an illustration of the state of the Byzantine
empire, to remind the reader of the violence, injustice, and debauchery which
prevailed at the courts of the west of Europe, including that of Charlemagne.
While the Pope winked at the disorders in the palace of Charlemagne, the monks
of the East prepared the public mind for the dethronement of Constantine,
because he obtained an illegal divorce, and formed a second marriage. The
corruption of morals and the irregularities prevalent in the monasteries of the
West contrast strongly with the condition of the Eastern monks.
The habit of building monasteries as a place of
retreat, from motives of piety, was also adopted by some as a mode of securing
a portion of their wealth from confiscation, in case of their condemnation for
political crimes, peculiar privileges being reserved in the monasteries so
founded for members of the founder’s family. At this time Plato, abbot of the
monastery of Sakkoudion, on Mount Olympus in Bythinia, and his nephew Theodore, who was a relation of
the new empress Theodota, were the leaders of a
powerful party of monks possessing great influence in the church. Theodore (who
is known by the name Studita, from having been
afterwards appointed abbot of the celebrated monastery of Studion) had founded
a monastery on his own property, in which he assembled his father, two
brothers, and a young sister, and, emancipating all his household and
agricultural slaves, established them as lay brethren on the farms. Most of the
abbots round Constantinople were men of family and wealth, as well as learning
and piety; but they repaid the sincere respect with which they were regarded by
the people, by participating in popular prejudices, so that we cannot be
surprised to find them constantly acting the part of demagogues. Plato
separated himself from all spiritual communion with the Patriarch Tarasios,
whom he declared to have violated the principles of Christianity in permitting
the adulterous marriage of the emperor. His views were warmly supported by his
nephew Theodore, and many monks began openly to preach both against the
Patriarch and the emperor. Irene now saw that the movement was taking a turn
favourable to her ambition. She encouraged the monks, and prepared Tarasios for
quitting the party of his sovereign. Plato and Theodore were dangerous enemies,
from their great reputation and extensive political and ecclesiastical
connections, and into a personal contest with these men Constantine rashly
plunged.
Plato was arrested at his monastery, and placed
in confinement under the wardship of the abbot Joseph, who had celebrated the
imperial marriage. Theodore was banished to Thessalonica, whither he was
conveyed by a detachment of police soldiers. He has left us an account of his
journey, which proves that the orders of the emperor were not carried into
execution with undue severity. Theodore and his attendant monks were seized by
the imperial officers at a distance from the monastery, and compelled to
commence their journey on the first horses their escort could, procure, instead
of being permitted to send for their ambling mules. They were hurried forward
for three days, resting during the night at Kathara
in Liviana, Lefka, and Phyraion. At the last place they encountered a melancholy
array of monks, driven from the great monastery of Sakkoudion
after the arrest of Plato; but with these fellow-sufferers, though ranged along
the road, Theodore was not allowed to communicate, except by bestowing on them
his blessing as he rode past. He was then carried to Paula, from whence he
wrote to Plato that he had seen his sister, with the venerable Sabas, abbot of the monastery of Studion. They had visited
him secretly, but had been allowed by the guards to pass the evening in his
society. Next night they reached Loupadion, where the
exiles were kindly treated by their host. At Tilin
they were joined by two abbots, Zacharias and Pionios,
but they were not allowed to travel in company. The journey was continued by Alberiza, Anagegrammenos, Perperina, Parium, and Horkos, to Lampsacus. On the
road, the bishops expressed the greatest sympathy and eagerness to serve them;
but the bigoted Theodore declared that his conscience would not permit him to
hold any communication with those who were so unchristian as to continue in
communion with Tarasios and the emperor.
From Lampsacus the
journey was prosecuted by sea. A pious governor received them at Abydos with
great kindness, and they rested there eight days. At Eleaus
there was again a detention of seven days, and from thence they sailed to
Lemnos, where the bishop treated Theodore with so much attention that his
bigotry was laid asleep. The passage from Lemnos to Thessalonica was not
without danger from the piratical boats of the Slavonians who dwelt on the
coast of Thrace, and exercised the trades of robbers and pirates as well as
herdsmen and shepherds. A favourable wind carried the exiles without accident
to Kanastron, from whence they touched at Pallene
before entering the harbour of Thessalonica, which they reached on the 25th
March, 797. Here they were received by a guard, and conducted through the city
to the residence of the governor. The people assembled in crowds to view the
pious opponents of their emperor; while the governor received them with marks
of personal respect, which showed him more anxious to conciliate the powerful
monks than to uphold the dignity of the weak emperor. He conducted. Theodore to
the cathedral, that he might return thanks to God publicly for his safe
arrival; he then waited on him to the palace of the archbishop, where he was
treated to a bath, and entertained most hospitably. The exiles were, however,
according to the tenor of the imperial orders, placed in separate places of
confinement; and even Theodore and his brother were not permitted to dwell
together. The day of their triumph was not far distant, and their banishment
does not appear to have subjected them to much inconvenience. They were martyrs
at a small cost.
As soon as Irene thought that her son had
rendered himself unpopular throughout the empire, she formed her plot for
dethroning him. The support of the principal officers in the palace was secured
by liberal promises of wealth and advancement: a band of conspirators was then
appointed to seize Constantine, but a timely warning enabled him to escape to
Triton on the Propontis. He might easily have recovered possession of the
capital, had he not wasted two months in idleness and folly. Abandoned at last
by every friend, he was seized by his mother’s emissaries and dragged to
Constantinople. After being detained some time a prisoner in the porphyry
apartment in which he was born, his eyes were put out on the 19th August, 797.
Constantine had given his cruel mother public marks of that affection which he
appears really to have felt for her, and to which he had sacrificed his best
friends. He had erected a statue of bronze to her honour, which long adorned
the hippodrome of Constantinople.
Irene was now publicly proclaimed sovereign of
the empire. She had for some time been allowed by her careless son to direct
the whole administration, and it was his confidence in her maternal affection
which enabled her to work his ruin. She of course immediately released all the
ecclesiastical opponents of her son from confinement, and restored them to
their honours and offices. The Patriarch Tarasios was ordered to make his peace
with the monks by excommunicating his creature, the abbot Joseph; and the closest
alliance was formed between him and his former opponents, Plato and Theodore,
the latter of whom was shortly after rewarded for his sufferings by being
elevated to the dignity of abbot of the great monastery of Studion,
The Empress Irene reigned five years, during
which her peace was disturbed by the political intrigues of her ministers. Her
life offers a more interesting subject for biography than for history, for it
is more striking by its personal details, than important in its political
effects. But the records of private life in the age in which she lived, and of
the state of society at Athens, among which she was educated, are so few, that
it would require to be written by a novelist, who could combine the strange
vicissitudes of her fortunes with a true portraiture of human feelings,
collared with a train of thought, and enriched with facts gleaned from
contemporary lives and letters of Greek saints and monks. Born in a private in
a provincial, though a wealthy and populous city, it must have required a rare
combination of personal beauty, native grace, and mental superiority, to fill
the rank of empress of the Romans, to which she was suddenly raised, at the
court of a haughty sovereign like her father-in-law Constantine V, not only
without embarrassment, but even with universal praise. Again, when vested with
the regency, as widow of an iconoclast emperor, it required no trifling talent,
firmness of purpose, and conciliation of manner, to overthrow an ecclesiastical
party which had ruled the church for more than half a century. On the other
hand, the deliberate way in which she undermined the authority of her son,
whose character she had corrupted by a bad education, and the callousness with
which she gained his confidence in order to deprive him of his throne, and send
him to pass his life as a blind monk in a secluded cell, proves that the
beautiful empress, whose memory was cherished as an orthodox saint, was endowed
with the thoughts and feelings of a demon. Strange to say, when the object of Irene's
crimes was reached, she soon felt all the satiety of gratified ambition. She no
longer took the interest she had previously taken in conducting the public
business of the empire, and abandoned the exercise of her power to seven
eunuchs, whom she selected to perform the duties of ministers of state. She
forgot that her own elevation to the throne offered a tempting premium to
successful treason. Nicephorus, the grand treasurer, cajoled her favourite
eunuchs to join a plot, by which she was dethroned, and exiled to a monastery
she had founded in Prince’s Island; but she was soon after removed to Lesbos,
where she died in a few months, almost forgotten. Her fate after her death was
as singular as during her life. The unnatural mother was canonized by the
Greeks as an orthodox saint, and at her native Athens several churches are
still pointed out which she is said to have founded, though not on any certain
authority.
Under the government of Constantine VI and
Irene, the imperial policy, both in the civil administration and external
relations, followed the course traced out by Leo the Isaurian. To reduce all
the Slavonian colonists who had formed settlements within the bounds of the
empire to complete submission was the first object of Irene’s regency. The extension
of these settlements, after the great plague in 747, began to alarm the
government. Extensive districts in Thrace, Macedonia, and the Peloponnesus, had
assumed the form of independent communities, and hardly acknowledged allegiance
to the central administration at Constantinople. Irene naturally took more than
ordinary interest in the state of Greece. She kept up the closest
communications with her family at Athens, and shared the desire of every Greek
to repress the presumption of the Slavonians and restore the ascendancy of the
Greek population in the rural districts. In the year 783 she sent Stavrakios at the head of a well-appointed army to
Thessalonica, to reduce the Slavonian tribes in Macedonia to direct dependence,
and enforce the regular payment of tribute. From Thessalonica, Stavrakios marched through Macedonia and Greece to the
Peloponnesus, punishing the Slavonians for the disorders they had committed,
and carrying off a number of their able-bodied men to serve as soldiers or to
be sold as slaves. In the following year Irene led the young Emperor
Constantine to visit the Slavonian settlements in the vicinity of Thessalonica,
which had been reduced to absolute submission. Berrhoea,
like several Greek cities, had fallen into ruins; it was now rebuilt, and
received the name of Irenopolis. Strong garrisons
were placed in Philippopolis and Auchialos, to cut
off all communication between the Slavonians in the empire, and their
countrymen under the Bulgarian government. The Slavonians in Thrace and
Macedonia, though unable to maintain their provincial independence, still took
advantage of their position, when removed from the eye of the local
administration, to form bands of robbers and pirates, which rendered the
communications with Constantinople and Thessalonica at times insecure both by
land and sea.
After Irene had dethroned her son, the Slavonian
population gave proofs of dangerous activity. A conspiracy was formed to place
one of the sons of Constantine V on the throne. Irene had banished her
brothers-in-law to Athens, where they were sure of being carefully watched by
her relations, who were strongly interested in supporting her cause. The
project of the partisans of the exiled princes to seize Constantinople was
discovered, and it was found that the chief reliance of the Isaurian party in
Greece was placed in the assistance they expected to derive from the Slavonian
population. The chief of Velzetia was to have carried
off the sons of Constantine V from Athens, when the plan was discovered and
frustrated by the vigilance of Irene's friends. The four unfortunate
princes, who had already lost their tongues, were now deprived of their sight,
and exiled with their brother Nicephorus to Panormus,
where they were again made tools of a conspiracy in the reign of Michael I.
The war with the Saracens was carried on with
varied success during the reigns of Leo IV, Constantine VI, and Irene. The
military talents of Leo III and Constantine V had formed an army that resisted
the forces of the caliphs under the powerful government of Mansur; and even
after the veterans had been disbanded by Irene, the celebrated Haroun Al Rashid
was unable to make any permanent conquests, though the empire was engaged in
war with the Saracens, the Bulgarians, and the troops of Charlemagne at the
same time.
In the year 782, Haroun was sent by his father,
the Caliph Mahdy, to invade the empire, at the head
of one hundred thousand men, attended by Rabia and Jahja the Barmecid. The object of the Mohammedan prince was, however,
rather directed to pillaging the country and carrying off prisoners to supply
the slave-markets of his father's dominions, than to effect permanent
conquests. The absence of a considerable part of the Byzantine army, which was
engaged in Sicily suppressing the rebellion of Helpidios,
enabled Haroun to march through all Asia Minor to the shores of the Bosphorus,
and from the hill above Sutari to gaze on
Constantinople, which must then have presented a more imposing aspect than
Bagdad. Irene was compelled to purchase peace, or rather to conclude a truce
for three years, by paying an annual tribute of seventy thousand pieces of
gold, and stipulating to allow the Saracen army to retire unmolested with all
its plunder; for Haroun and his generals found that their advance had involved
them in many difficulties, of which an active enemy might have taken advantage.
Haroun Al Rashid is said to have commanded in person against the Byzantine
Empire in eight campaigns. Experience taught him to respect the valour and discipline
of the Christian armies, whenever able officers enjoyed the confidence of the
court of Constantinople; and when he ascended the throne, he deemed it
necessary to form a permanent army along the Mesopotamian frontier, to
strengthen the fortifications of the towns with additional works, and add to
their means of defence by planting in them new colonies of Mohammedan
inhabitants. During the time Constantine VI ruled the empire, he appeared
several times at the head of the Byzantine armies, and his fickle character did
not prevent his displaying firmness in the field. His popularity with the
soldiers was viewed with jealousy by his mother, who laboured to retard his
movements, and prevent him from obtaining any decided success. The Saracens
acknowledged that the Greeks were their superiors in naval affairs; but in the
year 792 they defeated the Byzantine fleet in the gulf of Attalia
with great loss. The admiral, Theophilos, was taken
prisoner, and solicited by the caliph to abjure Christianity and enter his
service. The admiral refused to forsake his religion or serve against his
country, and Haroun Al Rashid was mean enough to order him to be put to death.
When the Saracens heard that Constantine had
been dethroned, and the empire was again ruled by a woman whom they had already
compelled to pay tribute, they again plundered Asia Minor up to the walls of
Ephesus. Irene, whose ministers were occupied with court intrigues, took no
measures to resist the enemy, and was once more obliged to pay tribute to the caliph.
The annual incursions of the Saracens into the Christian territory were made in
great part for the purpose of carrying away slaves; and great numbers of
Christians were sold throughout the caliph’s dominions into hopeless slavery.
Haroun, therefore, took the field in his wars with the Byzantine Empire more as
a slave-merchant than a conqueror. But this very circumstance, which made war a
commercial speculation, introduced humanity into the hostile operations of the
Christians and Mohammedans: the lower classes were spared, as they were
immediately sold for the price they would bring in the first slave-market;
while prisoners of the better class were retained, in order to draw from them a
higher ransom than their value as slaves, or to exchange them for men of equal
rank who had fallen into the hands of the enemy. This circumstance had at last
brought about a regular exchange of prisoners as early as the reign of
Constantine V, A.D. 769. In the year 797, a new clause was inserted in a treaty
for the exchange of prisoners, binding the contracting parties to release all
supernumerary captives, on the payment of a fixed sum for each individual. This
arrangement enabled the Christians, who were generally the greatest sufferers,
to save their friends from death or perpetual slavery, but it added to the
inducements of the Saracens to invade the empire. The Byzantine, or, as they
were still called, the Roman armies, were placed at a disadvantage in this
species of warfare. Their discipline was adapted to defensive military
operations, or to meet the enemy on the field of battle, but not to act with
rapidity in plundering and carrying off slaves; while the state of society in
Christian countries rendered the demand for slaves less constant than in
countries where polygamy prevailed, and women were excluded from many of the
duties of domestic service.
The war on the Bulgarian frontier was carried on
simultaneously with that against the Mohammedans. In the year 788, a Bulgarian
army surprised the general of Thrace, who had encamped carelessly on the banks
of the Strymon, and destroyed him, with the greater part of the troops. In 791
Constantine VI took the field in person against Cardam,
king of the Bulgarians, but the campaign was without any result: in the
following year, however, the Emperor was defeated in a pitched battle, in which
several of the ablest generals of the Roman armies were slain. Yet, in 796,
Constantine again led his troops against the Bulgarians: though victorious, he
obtained no success sufficient to compensate his former defeat. The effects of
the military organization of the frontier by Constantine V are visible in the
superiority which the Byzantine armies assumed, even after the loss of a
battle, and the confidence with which they carried the war into the Bulgarian
territory.
The Byzantine Empire was at this period the
country in which there reigned a higher degree of order, and more justice, than
in any other. This is shown by the extensive emigration of Armenian Christians
which took place in the year 787. The Caliph Haroun Al Rashid, whose reputation
among the Mohammedans has arisen rather from his orthodoxy than his virtues,
persecuted his Christian subjects with great cruelty, and at last his
oppression induced twelve thousand Armenians to quit their native country, and
settle in the Byzantine Empire. Some years later, in the reign of Michael III
the drunkard, orthodoxy became the great feature in the Byzantine
administration; and, unfortunately, Christian orthodoxy strongly resembled
Mohammedanism in the spirit of persecution. The Paulicians were then persecuted
by the emperors, as the Armenians had previously been by the caliphs, and fled
for toleration to the Mohammedans.
CHAPTER II
THE REIGNS OF NICEPHORUS I,
MICHAEL I, AND LEO V THE ARMENIAN. A.D. 802-820
Sect.
I
THE
REIGN OF NICEPHORUS I
NICEPHORUS held the office of grand logathetes, or treasurer, when he dethroned Irene. He was
born at Seleucia, in Pisidia, of a family which claimed descent from the
Arabian kings. His ancestor Djaballah, the Christian
monarch of Ghassan in the time of Heraclius, abjured the allegiance of the
Roman Empire, and embraced the Mohammedan religion. He carried among the stern
and independent Moslems the monarchical pride and arrogance of a vassal court.
As he was performing the religious rites of the pilgrimage in the mosque at
Mecca, an Arab accidentally trod on his cloak; Djaballah,
enraged that a king should be treated with so little respect, struck the
careless Arab in the face, and knocked out some of his teeth. The justice of
the Caliph Omar knew no distinction of persons, and the king of Ghassan was
ordered to make satisfactory reparation to the injured Arab, or submit to the
law of retaliation. The monarch's pride was so deeply wounded by this sentence
that he fled to Constantinople, and renounced the Mohammedan religion. From
this king the Arabs, who paid the most minute attention to genealogy, allow
that Nicephorus was lineally descended.
The leading features of the reign of Nicephorus
were political order and fiscal oppression. His character was said to be veiled
in impenetrable hypocrisy; yet anecdotes are recounted which indicate that he
made no secret of his avarice, and the other vices attributed to him. His
orthodoxy was certainly suspicious, but, on the whole, he appears to have been
an able and humane prince. He has certainly obtained a worse reputation in
history than many emperors who have been guilty of greater crimes. Many
anecdotes are recounted concerning his rapacity.
As soon as he received the Imperial crown, he
bethought himself of the treasures Irene had concealed, and resolved to gain
possession of them. These treasures are conceived by the Byzantine historians
to be a part of the immense sums Leo III and Constantine V were supposed to
have accumulated. The abundance and low price of provisions which had
prevailed, particularly in the reign of Constantine V, was ascribed to the
rarity of specie caused by the hoards accumulated by these emperors. Irene was
said to know where all this wealth was concealed; and though her administration
had been marked by lavish expenditure and a diminution of the taxes, still she
was believed to possess immense sums. If we believe the story of the
chronicles, Nicephorus presented himself to Irene in a private garb, and
assured her that he had only assumed the imperial crown to serve her and save
her life. By flattery mingled with intimidation, he obtained possession of her
treasures, and then, in violation of his promises, banished her to Lesbos.
The dethroned Constantine had been left by his
mother in possession of great wealth. Nicephorus is accused of ingratiating
himself into the confidence of the blind prince, gaining possession of these
treasures, and then neglecting him. Loud complaints were made against the
extortion of the tax-gatherers in the reigns of Constantine VI and Irene, and
Nicephorus established a court of review to revise the accounts of every public
functionary. But his enemies accused him of converting this court into a means
of confiscating the property of the guilty, instead of enabling the sufferers
to recover their losses.
The accession of Nicephorus was an event
unexpected both by the people and the army; and the success of a man whose name
was previously almost unknown beyond the circle of the administration, held out
a hope to every man of influence that an emperor, who owed his elevation to a
conspiracy of eunuchs and a court intrigue, might easily be driven from the
throne. Bardanes, whom Nicephorus appointed general of the troops of five
Asiatic themes to march against the Saracens, instead of leading this army
against Haroun Al Rashid, proclaimed himself emperor. He was supported by
Thomas the Slavonian, as well as by Leo the Armenian and Michael the Armorian, who both subsequently mounted the throne. The
crisis was one of extreme difficulty, but Nicephorus soon convinced the world
that he was worthy of the throne. The rebel troops were discouraged by his
preparations, and rendered ashamed of their conduct by his reproaches. Leo and
Michael were gained over by a promise of promotion; and Bardanes, seeing his
army rapidly dispersing, negotiated for his own pardon. He was allowed to
retire to a monastery he had founded in the island of Prote,
but his estates were confiscated. Shortly after, while Bardanes was living in
seclusion as an humble monk, a band of Lycaonian brigands crossed over from the
Asiatic coast and put out his eyes. As the perpetrators of this atrocity were
evidently moved by personal vengeance, suspicion fell so strongly on the
emperor, that he deemed it necessary to take a solemn oath in public that he
had no knowledge of the crime, and never entertained a thought of violating the
safe-conduct he had given to Bardanes. This safe-conduct, it must be observed,
had received the ratification of the Patriarch and the senate. Bardanes himself
did not appear to suspect the emperor; he showed the greatest resignation and
piety; gave up the use of wheaten bread, wine, oil, and fish, living entirely on
barley cakes, which he baked in the embers. In summer he wore a single leather
garment, and in winter a mantle of hair-cloth. In this way he lived
contentedly, and died during the reign of Leo the Armenian.
The civil transactions of the reign of Nicephorus
present some interesting facts. Though a brave soldier, he was essentially a
statesman, and his conviction that the finance department was the peculiar
business of the sovereign, and the key of public affairs, can be traced in many
significant events. He eagerly pursued the centralising policy of his
Iconoclast predecessors, and strove to render the civil power supreme over the
clergy and the Church. He forbade the Patriarch to hold any communications with
the Pope, whom he considered as the Patriarch of Charlemagne; and this prudent
measure has caused much of the virulence with which his memory has been
attacked by ecclesiastical and orthodox historians. The Patriarch Tarasios had
shown himself no enemy to the supremacy of the emperor, and he was highly esteemed
by Nicephorus as one of the heads of the party, both in the church and state,
which the emperor was anxious to conciliate. When Tarasios died, A.D. 806,
Nicephorus made a solemn display of his grief. The body, and in the patriarchal
robes, crowned with the mitre, and seated on the episcopal throne, according to
the usage of the East, was transported to a monastery founded by the deceased
Patriarch on the shores of the Bosphorus, where the funeral was performed with
great pomp, the emperor assisting, embracing the body, and covering it with his
purple robe.
Nicephorus succeeded in finding an able and
popular prelate, disposed to support his secular views, worthy to succeed
Tarasios. This was the historian Nicephorus. He had already retired from public
life, and was residing in a monastery he had founded, though he had not yet
taken monastic vows. On his election, he entered the clergy, and took the
monastic habit. This last step was rendered necessary by the usage of the Greek
Church, which now only admitted monks to the episcopal dignity. To give the
ceremony additional splendour, Stavrakios, the son of
the Emperor Nicephorus, who had received the imperial crown from his father,
was deputed to be present at the tonsure.
The Patriarch Nicephoros
was no sooner installed than the emperor began to execute his measures for
establishing the supremacy of the civil power. Tarasios, after sanctioning
the divorce of Constantine VI, and allowing the celebration of his second
marriage, had yielded to the influence of Irene and the monks, and declared
both acts illegal. The Emperor Nicephorus considered this a dangerous
precedent, and resolved to obtain an affirmation of the validity of the second
marriage. The new Patriarch assembled a synod, in which the marriage was
declared valid, and the abbot Joseph, who had celebrated it, was absolved from
all ecclesiastical censure. The monastic party, enraged at the emperor seeking
emancipation from their authority, broke out into a furious opposition.
Theodore Studita, their leader, calls this synod an
assembly of adulterers and heretics, and reproached the Patriarch with
sacrificing the interests of religion. But Nicephorus having succeeded in
bringing about this explosion of monastic ire on a question in which he had no
personal interest, the people, who now regarded the unfortunate Constantine VI
as hardly used on the subject of his marriage with Theodota,
could not be persuaded to take any part in the dispute. Theodore's violence was
also supposed to arise from his disappointment at not being elected Patriarch.
Public opinion became so favourable to the
emperor's ecclesiastical views, that a synod assembled in 809 declared the
Patriarch and bishops to possess the power of granting dispensations from rules
of ecclesiastical law, and that the emperor was not bound by legislative
provisions enacted for subjects. Nicephorus considered the time had now come
for compelling the monks to obey his authority. He ordered Theodore Studita and Plato to take part in the ecclesiastical ceremonies
with the Patriarch; and when these refractory abbots refused, he banished them
to Prince’s Island, and then deposed them. Had the monks now opposed the
emperor on the reasonable ground that he was violating the principles on which
the security of society depended, by setting up his individual will against the
systematic rules of justice, the maxims of Roman law, the established usages of
the empire, and the eternal rules of equity, they would have found a response
in the hearts of the people. Such doctrines might have led to some political
reform in the government, and to the establishment of some constitutional check
on the exercise of arbitrary power; and the exclamation of Theodore, in one of
his letters to the Pope “Where now is the gospel for kings?” might
then have revived the spirit of liberty among the Greeks.
At this time there existed a party which openly
advocated the right of every man to the free exercise of his own religious
opinions in private, and urged the policy of the government abstaining from
every attempt to enforce unity. Some of this party probably indulged in as
liberal speculations concerning the political rights of men, but such opinions
were generally considered incompatible with social order. The emperor, however,
favoured the tolerant party, and gave its members a predominant influence in
his cabinet. Greatly to the dissatisfaction of the Greek party, he refused to
persecute the Paulicians, who had formed a considerable community in the
eastern provinces of Asia Minor; and he tolerated the Athingans
in Pisidia and Lycaonia, allowing them to exercise their religion in peace, as
long as they violated none of the laws of the empire.
The financial administration of Nicephorus is
justly accused of severity, and even of rapacity. He affords a good
personification of the fiscal genius of the Roman Empire, as described by the
Emperor Justin II, upwards of three centuries earlier. His thoughts were
chiefly of tributes and taxes; and, unfortunately for his subjects, his
intimate acquaintance with financial affairs enabled him to extort a great
increase of revenue, without appearing to impose new taxes. But though he is
justly accused of oppression, he does not merit the reproach of avarice often
urged against him. When he considered expenditure necessary, he was liberal of
the public money. He spared no expense to keep up numerous armies, and it was
not from ill-judged economy, but from want of military talents, that his
campaigns were unsuccessful.
Nicephorus restored the duties levied at the
entrance of the Hellespont and the Bosphorus, which had been remitted by Irene
to purchase popularity after her cruelty to her son. He ordered all the
provinces to furnish a stated number of able bodied recruits for the army,
drawn from among the poor, and obliged each district to pay the sum of eighteen
nomismata ahead for their equipment - enforcing the
old Roman principle of mutual responsibility for the payment of any taxes, in
case the recruits should possess property liable to taxation. One-twelfth was
likewise added to the duty on public documents. An additional tax of two nomismata was imposed on all domestic slaves purchased
beyond the Hellespont. The inhabitants of Asia Minor who engaged in commerce
were compelled to purchase a certain quantity of landed property belonging to
the fisc at a fixed valuation: and, what tended to
blacken the emperor's reputation more than anything else, he extended the
hearth-tax to the property of the church, to monasteries, and charitable
institutions, which had hitherto been exempted from the burden; and he enforced
the payment of arrears from the commencement of his reign. The innumerable
private monasteries, which it was the fashion to multiply, withdrew so much
property from taxation that this measure was absolutely necessary to prevent
frauds on the fisc; but though necessary, it was
unpopular. Nicephorus, moreover, permitted the sale of gold and silver plate
dedicated as holy offerings by private superstition; and, like many modern
princes, he quartered troops in monasteries. It is also made an accusation
against his government, that he famished the merchants at Constantinople
engaged in foreign trade with the sum of twelve pounds’ weight of gold, for
which they were compelled to pay twenty per cent interest. It is difficult,
from the statements of the Byzantine writers concerning the legislative acts,
to form a precise idea of the emperor's object in some cases, or the effects of
the law in others. His enemies do not hesitate to enumerate among his crimes the
exertions he made to establish military colonies in the waste districts on the
Bulgarian frontier, secured by the line of fortresses constructed by
Constantine V. His object was to cut off effectually all communication between
the unruly Slavonians in Thrace and the population to the north. There can be
no doubt of his enforcing every claim of the government with rigor. He ordered
a strict census of all agriculturists who were not natives to be made
throughout the provinces, and the land they cultivated was declared to belong
to the imperial domain. He then converted these cultivators into slaves of the fisc, by the application of an old law, which declared that
all who had cultivated the same land for the space of thirty years
consecutively, were restricted to the condition of coloni, or serfs attached to the
soil.
The conspiracies which were formed against
Nicephorus cannot be admitted as evidence of his unpopularity, for the best of
the Byzantine monarchs were as often victims of secret plots as the worst. The
elective title to the empire rendered the prize to successful ambition one
which overpowered the respect due to their country's laws in the breasts of the
courtiers of Constantinople. It is only from popular insurrections that we can
judge of the sovereign’s unpopularity. The principles of humanity that rendered
Nicephorus averse to religious persecution caused him to treat conspirators
with much less cruelty than most Byzantine emperors. Perhaps the historians
hostile to his government have deceived posterity, giving considerable
importance to insignificant plots, as we see modern diplomatists continually
deceiving their courts by magnifying trifling expressions of dissatisfaction
into dangerous presages of widespread discontent. In the year 808, however, a
conspiracy was really formed to place Arsaber, a
patrician, who held the office of questor, or minister of legislation, on the
throne. Though Arsaber was of an Armenian family,
many persons of rank were leagued with him; yet Nicephorus only confiscated his
estates, and compelled him to embrace the monastic life. An attempt was made to
assassinate the emperor by a man who rushed into the palace, and seized the
sword of one of the guards of the imperial chamber, severely wounding many
persons before he was secured. The criminal was a monk, who was put to the
torture, according to the cruel practice of the time; but Nicephorus, on
learning that he was a maniac, ordered him to be placed in a lunatic asylum.
Indeed, though historians accuse Nicephorus of inhumanity, the punishment of
death, in cases of treason, was never carried into effect during his reign.
The relations of Nicephorus with Charlemagne
were for a short time amicable. A treaty was concluded at Aix-la-Chapelle,
in 803, regulating the frontiers of the two empires. In this treaty, the
supremacy of the Eastern Empire over Venice, Istria, the maritime parts of
Dalmatia, and the south of Italy, was acknowledged; while the authority of the
Western Empire in Rome, the exarchate of Ravenna, and the Pentapolis, was
recognised by Nicephorus. The commerce of Venice with the East was already so
important, and the Byzantine administration afforded so many guarantees for the
security of property, that the Venetians, in spite of the menaces of
Charlemagne, remained firm in their allegiance to Nicephorus. Istria, on the
other hand, placed itself subsequently under the protection of the Frank
emperor, and paid him a tribute of 354 marks. Pepin, king of Italy, was also
charged by his father to render the Venetians, and the allies of the Byzantine
Empire in the north of Italy, tributary to the Franks; but Nicephorus sent a
fleet into the Adriatic, and effectually protected his friends. A body of
people, called Orobiats, who maintained themselves as
an independent community in the Apennines, pretending to preserve their
allegiance to the emperor of Constantinople, plundered Populonium
in Tuscany. They afford us proof how much easier Charlemagne found it to extend
his conquests than to preserve order. Venice, it is true, found itself in the
end compelled to purchase peace with the Frank Empire, by the payment of an
annual tribute of thirty-six pounds of gold, in order to secure its commercial
relations from interruption; and it was not released from this tribute until
the time of Otho the Great. It was during the reign of Nicephorus that the site
of the present city of Venice became the seat of the Venetian government, Rivalto (Rialto) becoming the residence of the duke and the
principal inhabitants, who retired from the continent to escape the attacks of
Pepin. Heraclea had previously been the capital of the Venetian municipality.
In 810, peace was again concluded between Nicephorus and Charlemagne, without
making any change in frontier of the two empires.
The power of the caliphate was never more
actively employed than under Haroun Al Rashid, but the reputation of that
prince was by no means so great among his contemporaries as it became in after
times. Nicephorus was no sooner seated on the throne, than he refused to pay
the caliph the tribute imposed on Irene. The Arabian historians pretend that
his refusal was communicated to Haroun in an insolent letter. To resist the
attacks of the Saracens, which he well knew would follow his refusal, he
collected a powerful army in Asia Minor; but this army broke out into
rebellion, and, as has been already mentioned, proclaimed Bardanes emperor. The
caliph, availing himself of the defenceless state of the empire, laid waste
Asia Minor; and when the rebellion of Bardanes was extinguished, Nicephorus,
afraid to trust any of the veteran generals with the command of a large army,
placed himself at the head of the troops in Asia, and was defeated in a great
battle at Krasos in Phrygia. After this victory the
Saracens laid waste the country in every direction, until a rebellion in Chorasan compelled Haroun to withdraw his troops from the
Byzantine frontier, and gave Nicephorus time to reassemble a new army. As soon
as the affairs in the East were tranquillised, the caliph again invaded the
Byzantine Empire. Haroun himself fixed his headquarters at Tyana,
where he built a mosque, to mark that he annexed that city to the Mohammedan
empire. One division of his army, sixty thousand strong, took and destroyed
Ancyra. Heraclea on Mount Taurus was also captured, and sixteen thousand
prisoners were carried off in a single campaign, A.D. 806. Nicephorus, unable
to arrest these ravages, endeavoured to obtain peace; and in spite of the
religious bigotry which is supposed to have envenomed the hostilities of
Haroun, the imperial embassy consisted of the bishop of Synnada,
the abbot of Gulaias, and the economos
of Amastris. As winter was approaching, and the
Saracens were averse to remain longer beyond Mount Taurus, the three
ecclesiastical ambassadors succeeded in arranging a treaty; but Nicephorus was
compelled to submit to severe and degrading conditions. He engaged not to
rebuild the frontier fortifications which had been destroyed by the caliph’s
armies, and he consented to pay a tribute of thirty thousand pieces of gold
annually, adding three additional pieces for himself, and three for his son and
colleague Stavrakios, which we must suppose to have been medallions of superior size, since
they were offered as a direct proof that the emperor of the Romans paid a
personal tribute to the caliph.
Nicephorus seems to have been sadly deficient in
feelings of honour, for, the moment he conceived he could evade the
stipulations of the treaty without danger, he commenced repairing the ruined
fortifications. His subjects suffered for his conduct. The caliph again sent
troops to invade the empire; Cyprus and Rhodes were ravaged; the bishop of
Cyprus was compelled to pay one thousand dinars as his ransom; and many
Christians were carried away from Asia Minor, and settled in Syria.
The death of Haroun, in 809, delivered the
Christians from a barbarous enemy, who ruined their country like a brigand,
without endeavouring to subdue it like a conqueror. Haroun’s personal valour,
his charity, his liberality to men of letters, and his religious zeal, have
secured him interested panegyrics, which have drowned the voice of justice. The
hero of the Arabian Tales and the ally of Charlemagne is vaunted as one of the
greatest princes who ever occupied a throne. The disgraceful murder of the Barmecids, and many other acts of injustice and cruelty,
give him a very different character in history. His plundering incursions into
the Byzantine Empire might have been glorious proofs of courage in some petty
Syrian chieftain, but they degrade the ruler of the richest and most extensive
empire on the earth into a mere slave-dealer.
The Saracens continued their incursions, and in
the year 811, Leo the Armenian, then lieutenant-governor of the Armeniac theme,
left a sum of thirteen hundred pounds’ weight of silver, which had
been collected as taxes, at Euchaites, without a
sufficient guard. A band of Saracens carried off this money; and for his
negligence Leo was ordered to Constantinople, where the future emperor was
scourged, and deprived of his command.
The Slavonian colonies in Greece were now so
powerful that they formed the project of rendering themselves masters of the
Peloponnesus, and expelling the Greek population. The Byzantine
expedition, in the early part of the regency of Irene, had only subjected these
intruders to tribute, without diminishing their numbers or breaking their
power. The troubled aspect of public affairs, after Nicephorus seized the
throne, induced them to consider the moment favourable for gaining their
independence. They assembled a numerous force under arms, and selected Patras
as their first object of attack. The possession of a commercial port was
necessary to their success, in order to enable them to supply their wants from
abroad, and obtain a public revenue by the duties on the produce they exported.
Patras was then the most flourishing harbour on the west coast of Greece, and
its possession would have enabled the Slavonians to establish direct
communications with, and draw assistance from, the kindred race established on
the shores of the Adriatic, and from the Saracen pirates, among whose followers
the Saclavi, or Slavonian captives and renegades,
made a considerable figure. The property of the Greeks beyond the protection of
the wailed towns was plundered, to supply the army destined to besiege Patras
with provisions, and a communication was opened with a Saracen squadron of
African pirates who blockaded the gulf. Patras was kept closely Invested, until
want began to threaten the inhabitants with death, and compelled them to think
of surrender.
The Byzantine government had no regular troops
nearer than Corinth, which is three days’ march from Patras. But the governor
of the province who resided there was unable immediately to detach a force
sufficient to attack the besieging army. In the meantime, as the inhabitants
were anxiously waiting for relief, one of their scouts, stationed to announce
the approach of succours from Corinth, accidentally gave the signal agreed
upon. The enthusiasm of the Greeks was excited to the highest pitch by the
hopes of speedy deliverance, and, eager for revenge on their enemies, they
threw open the city gates and made a vigorous attack on the besiegers, whom
they drove from their position with considerable loss.
The Byzantine general arrived three days after
this victory. His jealousy of the military success of the armed citizens
induced him to give currency to the popular accounts, which he found the
superstition of the people had already circulated, that St. Andrew, the patron
of Patras, had shown himself on the field of battle. The devastations committed
by the Slavonians, the victory of the Greeks, and the miraculous appearance of
the apostle at the head of the besieged, were all announced to the Emperor
Nicephorus, whose political views rendered him more willing to reward the
church for St. Andrew's assistance, than to allow his subjects to perceive that
their own valour was sufficient to defend their property : he feared they might
discover that a well-constituted municipal government would always be able to
protect them, while a distant central authority was often incapable, and
generally indifferent. Nicephorus was too experienced a statesman, with the
examples of Venice and Cherson before his eyes, not to fear that such a
discovery among the Greek population in the Peloponnesus would tend to
circumscribe the fiscal energy of the Constantinopolitan treasury. The church,
and not the people, profited by the success of the Greeks: the imperial share
of the spoil taken from the Slavonians, both property and slaves, was bestowed
on the church of St. Andrew; and the bishops of Methone,
Lacedemon, and Corone, were
declared suffragans of the metropolitan of Patras. This charter of Nicephorus
was ratified by Leo VI, the Wise, in a new and extended act.
The Bulgarians were always troublesome
neighbours, as a rude people generally proves to a wealthy
population. Their king, Crumn, was an able and
warlike prince. For some time after his accession, he was occupied by
hostilities with the Avars, but as soon as that war was terminated, he seized
an opportunity of plundering a Byzantine military chest, containing eleven
hundred pounds of gold, destined for the payment of the troops stationed on the
banks of the Strymon. After surprising the camp, dispersing the troops,
murdering the officers, and capturing the treasure, he extended his ravages as
far as Sardica, where he slew six thousand Roman soldiers.
Nicephorus immediately assembled a considerable
army, and marched to re-establish the security of his northern frontier. The
death of Haroun left so large a force at his disposal that he contemplated the
destruction of the Bulgarian kingdom; but the Byzantine troops in Europe were
in a disaffected state, and their indiscipline rendered the campaign abortive.
The resolution of Nicephorus remained, nevertheless, unshaken, though his life
was in danger from the seditious conduct of the soldiery; and he was in the end
compelled to escape from his own camp, and seek safety in Constantinople.
In 811, a new army, consisting chiefly of
conscripts and raw recruits, was hastily assembled, and hurried into the field.
In preparing for the campaign, Nicephorus displayed extreme financial severity,
and ridiculed the timidity of those who counselled delay with a degree of
cynicism which paints well the singular character of this bold financier.
Having resolved to tax monasteries, and levy an augmentation of the land-tax
from the nobility for the eight preceding years, his ministers endeavoured to
persuade him of the impolicy of his proceedings; but he only exclaimed, “What
can you expect! God has hardened my heart, and my subjects can expect nothing
else from me”. The historian Theophanes says that these words were repeated to
him by Theodosios, the minister to whom they were
addressed. The energy of Nicephorus was equal to his rapacity, but it was not
supported by a corresponding degree of military skill. He led his army so
rapidly to Markelles, a fortress built by Constantine
VI, within the line of the Bulgarian frontier, that Crumn,
alarmed at his vigour, sent an embassy to solicit peace. This proposal was rejected,
and the emperor pushed forward and captured a residence of the Bulgarian
monarch's near the frontiers, in which a considerable amount of treasure was
found. Crumn, dispirited at this loss, offered to
accept any terms of peace compatible with the existence of his independence,
but Nicephorus would agree to no terms but absolute submission.
The only contemporary account of the following
events is in the chronicle of Theophanes, and it leaves us in doubt whether the
rashness of Nicephorus or the treason of his generals was the real cause of his
disastrous defeat. Even if we give Crumn credit for
great military skill, the success of the stratagem, by which he destroyed a
Byzantine army greatly superior to his own, could not have been achieved
without some treasonable co-operation in the enemy’s camp. It is certain that
an officer of the emperor’s household had deserted at Markelles,
carrying away the emperor's wardrobe and one hundred pounds' weight of gold,
and that one of the ablest engineers in the Byzantine service had previously
fled to Bulgaria. It seems not improbable, that by means of these officers
treasonable communications were maintained with the disaffected in the
Byzantine army.
When Nicephorus entered the Bulgarian territory,
Crumn had a much larger force in his immediate
vicinity than the emperor supposed. The Bulgarian troops, though defeated in
the advance, were consequently allowed to watch the movements of the invaders,
and entrench at no great distance without any attempt to dislodge them. It is
even said that Crumn was allowed to work for two
days, forming a strong palisade to circumscribe the operations of the imperial
army, while Nicephorus was wasting his time collecting the booty found in the
Bulgarian palace; and that, when the emperor saw the work finished, he
exclaimed, “We have no chance of safety except by being transformed into
birds!”. Yet even in this desperate position the emperor is said to have
neglected the usual precautions to secure his camp against a night attack. Much
of this seems incredible,
Crumn made a grand nocturnal attack on the camp of
Nicephorus, just six days after the emperor had invaded the Bulgarian kingdom.
The Byzantine army was taken by surprise, and their camp entered on every side;
the whole baggage and military chest were taken; the Emperor Nicephorus and six
patricians, with many officers of the highest rank, were slain; and the
Bulgarian king made a drinking-cup of the skull of the emperor of the Romans,
in which the Sclavonian princes of the Bulgarian
court pledged him in the richest wines of Greece when he celebrated his
triumphal festivals. The Bulgarians must have abandoned their strong palisade
when they attacked the camp, for a considerable portion of the defeated army,
with the Emperor Stavrakios, who was severely
wounded, Stephen the general of the guard, and Theoctistos
the master of the palace, reached Adrianople in safety. Stavrakios
was immediately proclaimed his father’s successor, and the army was able and
willing to maintain him on the throne, had he possessed health and ability
equal to the crisis. But the fiscal severity of his father had created a host
of enemies to the existing system of government, and in the Byzantine Empire a
change of administration implied a change of the emperor. The numerous
statesmen who expected to profit by a revolution declared in favour of Michael Rhangabé, an insignificant noble, who had married Procopia
the daughter of Nicephorus. Stavrakios was compelled
by his brother-in-law to retire into a monastery, where he soon died of his
wounds. He had occupied the throne two months.
Sect.
II.
MICHAEL
I RHANGABÉ
A.D.
812-813
Michael I was crowned by the Patriarch Nicephoros, after signing a written declaration that he
would defend the church, protect the ministers of religion, and never put the
orthodox to death. This election of a tool of the bigoted party in the
Byzantine church was a reaction against the tolerant policy of Nicephorus. The
new emperor began his reign by remitting all the additional taxes imposed by
his predecessor which had awakened clerical opposition. He was a weak,
well-meaning man; but his wife Procopia was a lady of superior qualifications,
who united to a virtuous and charitable disposition something of her father’s
vigour of mind. Michael’s reign proved the necessity of always having a firm
hand to guide that complicated administrative machine which the Byzantine
sovereigns inherited from the empire of Rome.
Michael purchased popularity in the capital by
the lavish manner in which he distributed the wealth left by Nicephorus in the
imperial treasury. He bestowed large sums on monasteries, hospitals, poor-houses,
and other charitable institutions, and he divided liberal gratuities among the
leading members of the clergy, the chief dignitaries of the state, and the
highest officers of the army. His piety, as well as his party connections,
induced him to admit several monks to a place in his council; and he made it an
object of political importance to reconcile the Patriarch Nicephoros
with Theodore Studita. But by abandoning the policy
of his predecessor, after it had received the Patriarch’s sanction and become
the law of the church, Michael lost more in public opinion than he gained by
the alliance of a troop of bigoted monks, who laboured to subject the power of
the emperor and the policy of the state to their own narrow ideas. The abbot
Joseph, who had celebrated the marriage of the Emperor Constantine VI, was
again excommunicated, as the peace-offering which allowed the bigots to renew
their communion with the Patriarch.
The counsels of Theodore Studita
soon involved the government in fresh embarrassment. To signalise his zeal for
orthodoxy, he persuaded the emperor to persecute the Iconoclasts, who during
the preceding reign had been allowed to profess their opinions without
molestation. It was also proposed, in an assembly of the senate, to put the leaders
of the Paulicians and Athigans to death, in order to
intimidate their followers and persuade them to become orthodox Christians.
This method of converting men to the Greek church excited strong opposition on
the part of the tolerant members of the senate; but the Patriarch and clergy
having deserted the cause of humanity, the permanent interests of Christianity
were sacrificed to the cause of orthodoxy.
While the emperor persecuted a large body of his
subjects on the northern and eastern frontiers of his empire, he neglected to
defend the provinces against the incursions of the Bulgarians, who ravaged
great part of Thrace and Macedonia, and took several large and wealthy
towns. The weight of taxation which fell on the mass of the population was
not lightened when the emperor relieved the clergy and the nobility from the
additional burdens imposed on them by Nicephorus. Discontent spread rapidly. A
lunatic girl, placed in a prominent position, as the emperor passed through the
streets of Constantinople, cried aloud “Descend from thy seat! descend,
and make room for another!” The continual disasters which were announced from
the Bulgarian frontier made the people and the army remember with regret the
prosperous days of Constantine V, when the slave-markets of the capital were
filled with their enemies. Encouraged by the general dissatisfaction, the
Iconoclasts formed a conspiracy to convey the sons of Constantine V, who were
living, blind and mute, in their exile at Panormus,
to the army. The plot was discovered, and Michael ordered the helpless princes
to be conveyed to Aphinsa, a small island in the
Propontis, where they could be closely guarded. One of the conspirators had his
tongue cut out.
The wars of Mohammed Alemen
and Almamun, the sons of Haroun al Rashid, relieved
the empire from all serious danger on the side of the Saracens. But the
Bulgarian war, to which Michael owed his throne, soon proved the cause of his
ruin. The army and the people despised him, because he owed his elevation, not
to his talents, but to the accident of his marriage, his popularity with the
monks, and the weakness of his character, which made him an instrument in the
hands of a party. Public opinion soon decided that he was unfit to rule the
empire. The year after the death of Nicephorus, Crumn
invaded the empire with a numerous army and took the town of Develtos. Michael left the capital accompanied by the
Empress Procopia, in order to place himself at the head of the troops in
Thrace; but the soldiers showed so much dissatisfaction at the presence of a
female court, that the emperor turned back to Constantinople from Tzourlou. The Bulgarian king took advantage of the disorder
which ensued to capture Anchialos, Berrhoea, Nicaea, and Probaton in
Thrace; and that province fell into such a state of anarchy, that many of the
colonists established by Nicephorus in Philippopolis and on the banks of the
Strymon abandoned their settlements and returned to Asia.
Crumn nevertheless offered peace to Michael, on the
basis of a treaty concluded between the Emperor Theodosius III and Cornesius, prior to the victories of the Iconoclast
princes. These terms, fixing the frontier at Meleona,
and regulating the duties to be paid on merchandise in the Bulgarian kingdom,
would have been accepted by Michael, but Crumn
availed himself of his success to demand that all deserters and refugees should
be given up. As the Bulgarians were in the habit of ransoming the greater part
of their captives at the end of each campaign, and of killing the remainder, or
selling them as slaves, this clause was introduced into the treaty to enable Crumn to gratify his vengeance against a number of refugees
whom his tyranny had caused to quit Bulgaria, and who had generally embraced
Christianity. The emperor remitted the examination of these conditions to the
imperial council, and in the discussion which ensued, he, the Patriarch Nicephoros, and several bishops, declared themselves in
favour of the treaty, on the ground that it was necessary to sacrifice the
refugees for the safety of the natives of the empire who were in slavery in
Bulgaria, and to preserve the population from further suffering. But Theoctistos the master of the palace, the energetic
Theodore Studita, and a majority of the senators,
declared that such conduct would be an indelible stain to the Roman Empire, and
would only invite the Bulgarians to recommence hostilities by the fear shown in
the concession. The civilians declared it would be an act of infamy to consign
to death, or to a slavery worse than death, men who had been received as
subjects; and Theodore pronounced that it was an act of impiety to think of
delivering Christians into the hands of pagans, quoting St. John, “All that the
Father giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will in no wise
cast out”. The emperor, from motives of piety, yielded to the advice of
Theodore. Could he have adopted something of the firm character of the abbot,
he would either have obtained peace on his own terms, or secured victory to his
army.
While the emperor was debating at
Constantinople, Crumn pushed forward the siege of
Mesembria, which fell into his hands in November, 812. He acquired great booty,
as the place was a commercial town of considerable importance; and he made
himself master of twenty-six of the brazen tubes used for propelling Greek
fire, with a quantity of the combustible material prepared for use in this
artillery. Yet, even after this alarming news had reached Constantinople, the
weak emperor continued to devote his attention to ecclesiastical affairs
instead of military. He seems to have felt that he was utterly unfit to conduct
the war in person; yet the Byzantine or Roman army demanded to be led by the
emperor.
In the spring of 813, Michael had an army in the
field prepared to resist the Bulgarians; and Crumn,
finding that his troops were suffering from a severe epidemic, retreated. The
Emperor, proud of his success, returned to his capital. The epidemic which had
interrupted the operations of the enemy was ascribed to the intervention of
Tarasios, who had been canonised for his services to orthodoxy; and the
emperor, in order to mark his gratitude for his unexpected acquisition of
military renown, covered the tomb of St. Tarasios with plates of silver
weighing ninety-five lb., an act of piety which added to the contempt the army
already felt for their sovereign's courage and capacity.
In the month of May, Michael again resumed the
command of the army, but instead of listening to the advice of the experienced
generals who commanded the troops, he allowed himself to be guided by civilians
and priests, or he listened to the suggestions of his own timidity. There
were at the time three able officers in the army Leo the Armenian, the general
of the Anatolic theme; Michael the Amorian, who commanded one wing of the army;
and John Aplakes, the general of the Macedonian
troops. Leo and Aplakes urged the emperor to attack
the Bulgarians; but the Amorian, who was intriguing against Theoctistos
the master of the palace, seems to have been disinclined to serve the emperor
with sincerity. The Bulgarians were encamped at Bersinikia,
about thirty miles from the Byzantine army; and Michael, after changing his
plans more than once, resolved at last to risk a battle. Aplakes,
who commanded the Macedonian and Thracian troops, consisting chiefly of hardy
Slavonian recruits, defeated the Bulgarian division opposed to him; but a panic
seized a party of the Byzantine troops; and Leo, with the Asiatic troops, was
accused of allowing Aplakes to be surrounded and slain,
when he might have saved him. Leo certainly saved his own division, and made it
the rallying-point for the fugitives; yet he does not appear to have been
considered guilty of any neglect by the soldiers themselves. The emperor fled
to Constantinople, while the defeated army retreated to Adrianople.
Michael assembled his ministers in the capital,
and talked of resigning his crown; for he deemed his defeat a judgment for
mounting the throne of his brother-in-law. Procopia and his courtiers easily
persuaded him to abandon his half-formed resolution. The army in the meantime
decided the fate of the Empire. Leo the Armenian appeared alone worthy of the
crown. The defeated troops saluted him Emperor, and marched to Constantinople,
where nobody felt inclined to support the weak Michael; so that Leo was
acknowledged without opposition, and crowned in St. Sophia's on the 11th July,
813.
The dethroned emperor was compelled to embrace
the monastic life, and lived unmolested in the island of Prote,
where he died in 845. His eldest son, Theophylactus,
who had been crowned as his colleague, was emasculated, as well as his brother
Ignatius, and forced into a monastery. Ignatius became Patriarch of
Constantinople in the reign of Michael III.
LEO
V THE ARMENIAN
A.D.
813-820
When Leo entered the capital, the Patriarch Nicephoros endeavoured to convert the precedent which
Michael I had given, of signing a written declaration of orthodoxy, into an
established usage of the empire; but the new emperor excused himself from
signing any document before his coronation, and afterwards he denied the right
to require to favour the Iconoclasts, but he was no bigot. The Asiatic party in
the army and in the administration, which supported him, were both enemies to image-worship.
To strengthen the influence of his friends was naturally the first step of his
reign. Michael the Amorian, who had warmly supported his election, was made a
patrician. Thomas, another general, who is said to have been descended from the
Slavonian colonists settled in Asia Minor, was appointed general of the
federates. Manuel, an Armenian of the noble race of the Mamiconians,
received the command of the Armenian troops, and subsequently of the Anatolic
theme. At Christmas the title of Emperor was conferred on Sembat,
the eldest son of Leo, who then changed his name to Constantine.
Leo was allowed little time to attend to civil
business, for six days after his coronation, Crumn
appeared before the walls of Constantinople. The Bulgarian king encamped in the
suburb of St. Mamas, and extended his lines from the Blachernian
to the Golden Gate; but he soon perceived that his army could not long maintain
its position, and he allowed his troops to plunder and destroy the property of
the citizens in every direction, in order to hasten the conclusion of a treaty
of peace. Leo was anxious to save the possessions of his subjects from ruin, Crumn was eager to retreat without losing any of the
plunder his army had collected. A treaty might have been concluded, had not Leo
attempted to get rid of his enemy by an act of the basest treachery. A conference
was appointed, to which the emperor and the king were to repair, attended only
by a fixed number of guards. Leo laid a plot for assassinating Crumn at this meeting, and the Bulgarian monarch escaped
with the greatest difficulty, leaving his chancellor dead, and most of his
attendant’s captives. This infamous act was so generally approved by the
perverted religious feelings of the Greek ecclesiastics, that the historian
Theophanes, an abbot and holy confessor, in concluding his chronological record
of the transactions of the Roman emperors, remarks that the empire was not
permitted to witness the death of Crumn by this
ambuscade, in consequence of the multitude of the people’s sins.
The Bulgarians avenged the emperor’s treachery
on the helpless inhabitants of the empire in a terrible manner. They began by
destroying the suburb of St. Mamas; palaces, churches, public and private
buildings were burnt to the ground; the lead was torn from the domes, which
were fireproof; the vessels taken at the head of the port were added to the
conflagration; numerous beautiful works of art were destroyed, and many carried
off, among which particular mention is made of a celebrated bronze lion, a
bear, and a hydra. The Bulgarians then quitted their lines before Constantinople,
and marched to Selymbria, destroying on their way the
immense stone bridge over the river Athyras, (Karason,) celebrated for the beauty of its construction. Selymbria, Rhedestos, and Apres were sacked; the country round Ganas
was ravaged, but Heraclea and Panion resisted the
assaults of the invaders. Men were everywhere put to the sword, while the young
women, children, and cattle were driven away to Bulgaria. Part of the army
penetrated into the Thracian Chersonese, and laid waste the country, Adrianople
was compelled to surrender by famine, and after it had been plundered, the
barbarians retired unmolested with an incredible booty, and an innumerable
train of slaves.
The success of this campaign induced a body of
30,000 Bulgarians to invade the empire during the winter. They captured Arcadiopolis; and though they were detained for a
fortnight, during their retreat, by the swelling of the river Rheginas, (Bithyas,) Leo could
not venture to attack them. They regained the Bulgarian frontier, carrying away
fifty thousand captives and immense booty, and leaving behind them a terrible
scene of desolation.
Emboldened by the apparent weakness of the
empire Crumn made preparations for besieging
Constantinople by collecting all the machines of war then in use. Leo thought
it necessary to construct a new wall beyond that in existence at the Blachernian gate, and to add a deep ditch, for in this
quarter the fortifications of the capital appeared weak. Crumn
died before the opening of the campaign; and Leo, having by the greatest
exertion at last collected an army capable of taking the field, marched to
Mesembria. There he succeeded in surprising the Bulgarians by a night attack on
their camp. The defeat was most sanguinary. The Bulgarian army was annihilated,
and the place where the dead were buried was long called the Mountain of Leo,
and avoided by the Bulgarians as a spot of evil augury. After this victory the
emperor invaded Bulgaria, which he ravaged with as much cruelty as Crumn had ever shown in plundering the empire. At last a
truce for thirty years was concluded with Montagon,
the new king. The power of these dangerous neighbours was so weakened by the
recent exertions they had made, and by the wealth they had acquired, that for
many years they were disposed to remain at peace.
The influence of the Byzantine emperors in the
West, though much diminished by the conquests of Charlemagne, the independence
of the Popes, and the formation of two Saracen kingdoms in Africa and Spain,
continued, nevertheless, to be very great, in consequence of the extensive
mercantile connections of the Greeks, who then possessed the most lucrative
part of the commerce of the Mediterranean.
At this
time the Aglabits of Africa and the Ommiads of Spain ruled a rebellious and ill-organised
society of Mohammedan chiefs of various races, which even arbitrary power could
not bend to the habits of a settled administration. Both these states sent out
piratical expeditions by sea, when their incursions by land were restrained by
the warlike power of their neighbours. Michael I had been compelled to send an
army to Sicily, to protect it from the incursions of pirates both from Africa
and Spain. Lampedosa had been occupied by Saracen
corsairs, and many Greek ships captured, before the joint forces of the Dukes
of Sicily and Naples, with the vessels from Amalfi and Venice, defeated the
plunderers and cleared the sea for a while. The quarrels of the Aglabits and Ommiads induced the
former to conclude a truce for ten years with Leo, and to join the naval forces
of the Greeks and Venetians in attacking the Spanish Saracens.
The disturbances which prevailed in the East
during the caliphate of Almamun insured tranquillity
to the Asiatic frontier of the empire, and allowed Leo to devote his whole
attention to the internal state of his dominions. The church was the only
public institution immediately connected with the feelings of the whole
population. By its conduct the people were directly interested in the
proceedings of the imperial government. Ecclesiastical affairs, offering the
only field for the expression of public opinion, became naturally the centre of
all political ideas and party struggles. Even in an administrative point of
view, the regular organization of the clergy under parish priests, bishops, and
provincial councils, gave the church a degree of power in the state which
compelled the emperor to watch it attentively. The principles of ecclesiastical
independence inculcated by Theodore Studita, and
adopted by the monks, and that portion of the clergy which favoured image
worship, alarmed the emperor. This party inculcated a belief in contemporary
miracles, and in the daily intervention of God in human affairs. All prudence,
all exertion on the part of individuals, was as nothing compared to the favour
of some image accidentally endowed with divine grace. That such images could at
any time reveal the existence of a hidden treasure, or raise the possessor to
high official rank, was the common conviction of the superstitious and
enthusiastic, both among the laity and the clergy; and such doctrines were
especially favoured by the monks, so that the people, under the guidance of
these teachers, became negligent of moral duties and regular industry. The
Iconoclasts themselves appealed to the decision of Heaven as favouring their
cause, by pointing to the misfortunes of Constantine VI, Irene, Nicephorus, and
Michael I, who had supported image-worship, and contrasting their reigns with
the victories and peaceful end of Leo the Isaurian, Constantine V, and Leo IV,
who were the steady opponents of idolatry.
Leo V, though averse to image-worship, possessed
so much prudence and moderation, that he was inclined to rest satisfied with a
direct acknowledgment that the civil power possessed the right of tolerating religious
difference. But the army demanded the abolition of image-worship, and the monks
the persecution of Iconoclasts. Leo’s difficulties, in meddling with
ecclesiastical affairs, gave his policy a dubious character, and obtained for
him, among the Greeks, the name of the Chameleon. Several learned members of
the clergy were opposed to image-worship; and of these the most eminent were
the abbot John Hylilas, of the illustrious family of
the Morochorzanians, and Anthony, bishop of Syllaeum. John, called, from his superior learning, the
Grammarian, was accused by the ignorant of studying magic; and the nickname of Lekanomantis was given him, because he was said to read the
secrets of futurity in a brazen basin. The Iconoclasts were also supported by
Theodotos Kassiteras, son of the patrician Michael
Melissenos, whose sister had been the third wife of Constantine V. These three
endeavoured to persuade Leo to declare openly against image-worship. On the
other hand, the majority of the Greek nation was firmly attached to
image-worship; and the cause was supported by the Patriarch, by Theodore Studita, and a host of monks. The emperor flattered himself
that he should be able to bring about an amicable arrangement to insure general
toleration, and commanded John Hylilas to draw up a
report of the opinions expressed by the earliest fathers of the church on the
subject of image-worship.
As soon
as he was in possession of this report, he asked the Patriarch to make some
concessions on the subject of pictures, in order to satisfy the army and
preserve peace in the church. He wished that the pictures should be placed so
high as to prevent the people making the gross display of superstitious worship
constantly witnessed in the churches. But the Patriarch coldly pronounced
himself in favour of images and pictures, whose worship, he declared, was
authorised by immemorial tradition, and the foundation of the orthodox faith
was formed according to the opinion of the church on tradition as well as on
Holy Scripture. He added that the opinions of the church were inspired by the
Holy Spirit as well as the Scriptures. The emperor then proposed a conference
between the two parties, and the clergy was thrown into a state of the greatest
excitement at this proposition, which implied a doubt of their divine
inspiration. The Patriarch summoned his partisans to pass the night in prayers
for the safety of the church, in the cathedral of St. Sophia. The emperor had
some reason to regard this as seditious, and he was alarmed at the disorders
which must evidently arise from both parties appealing to popular support. He
summoned the Patriarch to the palace, where the night was spent in controversy.
Theodore Studita was one of those who attended the
Patriarch on this occasion, and his steady assertion of ecclesiastical
supremacy rendered him worthy, from his bold and uncompromising views, to have
occupied the chair of St Peter. He declared plainly to the emperor that he had
no authority to interfere with the doctrines of the church, since his rule only
extended over the civil and military government of the empire. The church had
full authority to govern itself. Leo was enraged at this boldness, and
dissatisfied with the conduct of the Patriarch, who anathematised Anthony, the
bishop of Syllaeum, who was viewed as the leader of
the Iconoclasts; but for the present the clergy were only required to abstain
from holding public assemblies.
The Iconoclasts, however, now began to remove
images and pictures from the churches in possession of the clergy of their
party, and the troops on several occasions insulted the image over the entrance
of the imperial palace, which had been once removed by Leo the Isaurian, and
replaced by Irene. The emperor now ordered it to be again removed, on the
ground that this was necessary to avoid public disturbance. These acts induced
Theodore Studita to call on the monks to subscribe a
declaration that they adhered firmly to the doctrines of the church, with
respect to image-worship, as then established. The emperor, alarmed at the
danger of causing a new schism in the church, but feeling himself called upon
to resist the attacks now made on his authority, determined to relieve the
civil power from the necessity of engaging in a contest with the
ecclesiastical, by assembling a general council of the church, and leaving the
two parties in the priesthood to settle their own differences. As he was in
doubt how to proceed, it happened that both the Patriarch and the abbot, John Hylilas, were officiating together in the Christmas ceremonies
while Leo was present, and that John, in the performance of his duty, had to
repeat the words of Isaiah, “To whom then will ye liken God? or what will ye
compare unto him? The workman melteth a graven image,
and the goldsmith spreadeth it over with gold, and casteth silver chains”. In pronouncing these words, he
turned to the emperor, and uttered them in the most emphatic manner. A few days
after this scene, a band of mutinous soldiers broke into the patriarchal palace
and destroyed the pictures of the saints with which the building was adorned,
and committing other disorders, until they were driven out by the regular
guard. At length, in the month of April, 815, Leo ordered a provincial synod to
assemble at Constantinople, and before this assembly the Patriarch Nicephoros was brought by force, for he denied its
competency to take cognisance of his conduct. He was deposed, and confined in a
monastery which he had founded, where he survived twelve years a time which he
passed more usefully for the world, in compiling the historical works we
possess, than he could have passed them amidst the contests of the patriarchal
dignity.
The bigotry of both parties rendered the
moderate policy of the emperor of no effect; and public attention became so
exclusively absorbed by the state of the church, that it was impossible for him
to remain any longer neuter. His first decided step was to nominate a new
Patriarch hostile to image-worship; and he selected Theodotos Melissenos, a
layman already mentioned, who held a high post in the imperial court. The
example of the election of Tarasios prevented the votaries of image-worship
disputing the legality of the election of a layman; but they refused to
acknowledge Theodotos, on the ground that the deposition of Nicephoros
was illegal, and that he was consequently still their lawful Patriarch.
Theodotos was nevertheless ordained and consecrated, A.D. 815. He was a man of
learning and ability, but his habits as a military man and a courtier were said
to be visible in his manners, and he was accused of living with too great
splendour, keeping a luxurious table, and indulging habitually in society of
too worldly a character.
A general council of
the church was now held at Constantinople, in which the new Patriarch, and
Constantine the son of Leo, presided; for the emperor declined taking a
personal part in the dispute, in order to allow the church to decide on
questions of doctrine without any direct interference of the civil power. This
council re-established the acts of that held in 754 by Constantine V,
abolishing image-worship, and it anathematised the Patriarchs Tarasios and Nicephoros, and all image-worshippers. The clergy,
therefore, who adhered to the principles of the image-worshippers were, in
consequence, deprived of their ecclesiastical dignities, and sent into
banishment; but the party revolutions that had frequently occurred in the Greek
church had introduced a dishonourable system of compliance with the reigning
faction, and most of the clergy were readier to yield up their opinions than
their benefices. This habitual practice of falsehood received the mild name of
arrangement, or economy, to soften the public aversion to such conduct.
The Iconoclast party, on this occasion, used its
victory with unusual mildness. They naturally drove their opponents from their
ecclesiastical offices; and when some bold monks persisted in preaching against
the acts of the council, they banished these non-conformists to distant
monasteries; but it does not appear that the civil power was called upon to
enforce conformity with the customary rigor. The council had decided that
images and pictures were to be removed from the churches, and if the people
resisted their removal, or the clergy or monks replaced them, severe
punishments were inflicted for this violation of the law. Cruelty was a feature
in the Byzantine civil administration, without any impulse of religious
fanaticism.
Theodore Studita, who
feared neither patriarch nor emperor, and acknowledged no authority in
ecclesiastical affairs but the church, while he recognised nothing as the
church but what accorded with his own standard of orthodoxy, set the decrees of
this council at defiance. He proceeded openly through the streets of the
capital, followed by his monks in solemn procession, bearing aloft the pictures
which had been removed from the churches, to give them a safe asylum within the
walls of the monastery of Studion. For this display of contempt for the law he
was banished by the emperor to Asia Minor; and his conduct in exile affords us
a remarkable proof of the practical liberty the monks had acquired by their
honest and steady resistance to the civil power. All eyes were fixed on
Theodore as the leader of the monastic party; and so great was the power he
exerted over public opinion that the emperor did not venture to employ any
illegal severity against the bold monk he had imprisoned. Indeed, the
administration of justice in the Byzantine Empire seems never to have been more
regular and equitable than during the reign of Leo the Armenian.
Theodore from his prison corresponded not only
with the most eminent bishops and monks of his party, and with ladies of piety
and wealth, but also with the Pope, to whom, though now a foreign potentate,
the bold abbot sent deputies, as if he were himself an independent Patriarch in
the Eastern Church. His great object was to oppose the Iconoclasts in every
way, and prevent all those over whose minds he exercised any influence from
holding communion with those who conformed to their authority. One thing seems
to have distressed and alarmed him, and he exerted all his eloquence to expose
its fallacy. The Iconoclasts declared that no one could be a martyr for
Christ's sake, who was only punished by the usual power for image-worship,
since the question at issue had no connection with the truth of Christianity.
Theodore argued that the night of heresy was darker than that of ignorance, and
the merit of labouring to illuminate it was at least as great. The Emperor Leo
was, however, too prudent to give any of Theodore’s party the slightest
hope of claiming the crown of martyrdom. He persisted in his policy of
enforcing the decrees of the council with so much mildness, and balancing his
own expressions of personal opinion with such a degree of impartiality that he
excited the dissatisfaction of the violent of both parties.
Even in a corrupted and factious society, most
men appreciate the equitable administration of justice. Interest and ambition
may indeed so far pervert the feelings of an administrative or aristocratic
class, as to make the members of such privileged societies regard the equal
distribution of justice to the mass of people as an infringement of their
rights; and the passions engendered by religious zeal may blind those under its
influence to any injustice committed against men of different opinions. Hence
it is that a government, to secure the administration of justice, must be
established on a broader basis than administrative wisdom, aristocratic
pre-eminence or religious orthodoxy. In the Byzantine Empire, public opinion
found no home among the mass of the population, whose minds and actions were
regulated and enslaved by administrative influence, by the power of the
wealthy, and by the authority of the clergy and the monks. One result of this
state of society is visible in the violence of party passion displayed
concerning insignificant matters in the capital; and hence it arose at last
that the political interests of the empire were frequently disconnected with
the subjects that exercised the greatest influence on the fate of the
government. The moderation of Leo, which, had public opinion possessed any
vitality, ought to have rendered his administration popular with the majority
of his subjects in the provinces, certainly rendered it unpopular in
Constantinople. Crowds, seeking excitement, express the temporary feelings of
the people before deliberation has fixed the public opinion. Leo was hated by
the Greeks as an Armenian and an Iconoclast; and he was disliked by many of the
highest officers in the state and the army for the severity of his judicial
administration, and the strictness with which he maintained moral as well as
military discipline, so that no inconsiderable number of the class who directed
state affairs were disposed to welcome a revolution. Irene had governed the
empire by eunuchs, who had put up everything for sale; Nicephorus had thought
of those reforms only that tended to fill the treasury; Michael I had been the
tool of a bigoted faction. All these sovereigns had accumulated opposition to
good government.
Leo undertook the task of purifying the
administration, and he commenced his reforms by enforcing a stricter
dispensation of justice. His enemies acknowledged that he put a stop to
corruption with wonderful promptitude and ability. He restored the discipline
of the army, he repressed bribery in the courts of justice, by strictly
reviewing all judicial decisions, and he re-established an equitable system of
collecting the revenue. He repaired the fortresses destroyed by the Bulgarians,
and placed all the frontiers of the empire in a respectable state of defence.
All this, it was universally acknowledged, was due to his personal activity in
watching over the proceedings of his ministers. Even the Patriarch Nicephoros, whom he had deposed, gave testimony to his
merits as an emperor. When he heard of Leo’s assassination he exclaimed, “The
church is delivered from a dangerous enemy, but the empire has lost a useful
sovereign”.
The officers of the court, who expected to profit
by a change of measures, formed a conspiracy to overthrow Leo’s government,
which was joined by Michael the Amorian, who had long been the emperor’s most
intimate friend. The ambition of this turbulent and unprincipled soldier led
him to think that he had as good a right to the throne as Leo; and when he
perceived that a general opposition was felt in Constantinople to the emperor’s
conduct, his ambition got the better of his gratitude, and he plotted to mount
the throne. It was generally reported that Leo had refused to accept the
Imperial crown, when proclaimed emperor by the army at Adrianople, from his
knowledge of the difficulties with which he would have to contend, and that
Michael forced him to yield his assent, by declaring that he must either accept
the crown, or be put to death to make way for a new candidate. The turbulent
character of Michael gave currency to this anecdote.
Michael’s conduct had long been seditious, when
at length his share in a conspiracy against the government was discovered, and
he was tried, found guilty, and condemned to death. It is said by the
chronicles that the court of justice left it to the emperor to order his
execution in any way he might think proper, and that Leo condemned him to be
immediately cast into the furnace used for heating the baths of the palace, and
prepared to attend the execution in person. It is needless to say that, though
cruelty was the vice of the Byzantine court, we must
rank this story as a tale fitter for the legends of the saints than for the
history of the empire. The event took place on Christmas-eve, when the empress,
hearing what was about to happen, and moved with compassion for one who had
long been her husband’s intimate friend, hastened to Leo, and implored him to
defer the execution until after Christmas-day. She urged the sin of
participating in the Holy Communion with the cries of the dying companion of
his youth echoing in his ear. Leo who, though severe, was not personally cruel
yielded to his wife's entreaties, and consented with great reluctance to
postpone the punishment, for his knowledge of the extent of the conspiracy gave
him a presentiment of danger. After giving orders for staying the execution, he
turned to the empress and said, “I grant your request: you think only of my
eternal welfare; but you expose my life to the greatest peril, and your
scruples may bring misfortune on you and on our children”.
Michael was conducted back to his dungeon, and
the key of his fetters was brought to Leo. It was afterwards told in Constantinople
that during the night the emperor was unable to sleep. A sense of impending
danger, disturbing his imagination, impelled him to rise from his bed, envelop
himself in a mantle, and secretly visit the cell in which Michael was confined.
There he found the door unlocked and Michael stretched on the bed of his
jailor, buried in profound sleep, while the jailor himself was lying on the
criminal’s bed on the floor. The emperor’s alarm was increased at this
spectacle. He withdrew to consider what measures he should take to watch both
the prisoner and the jailor. But Michael had already many partisans within the
walls of the palace, and one of these had, having observed the emperor's
nocturnal visit to the criminal’s cell, immediately awakened Michael. There was
not a moment to lose. As a friendly confessor had been introduced into the
palace to afford the condemned criminal the consolations of religion, this
priest was sent to Theoctistos to announce that,
unless a blow was instantly struck, Michael would at daylight purchase his own
pardon by revealing the names of the principal conspirators. This message
caused the conspirators to resolve on the immediate assassination of the
emperor.
The imperial palace was a fortress separated
from the city like the present serai of the sultan. It was the practice of Leo
to attend matins in his chapel, and as it was Christmas day, a number of the
best singers in Constantinople were that morning admitted at a postern-gate
before daybreak, in order to join in the celebration of the service, whose
solemn chant was then the admiration of the Christian world. Leo, who was of a
religious turn of mind, delighted in displaying his deep sonorous voice in the
choir. He delayed his measures for securing Michael and the jailor to hasten to
the chapel, and the conspirators availed themselves of his presence during the
celebration of divine service to execute their plans. Disguised as choristers,
with daggers concealed in their clothes, they obtained admittance at the
postern, and ranged themselves among the singers in the imperial chapel.
The morning was dark and cold, and both the
emperor and the officiating chaplain were enveloped in furred mantles, which,
with the thick bonnets they wore as a protection against the damp, effectually
concealed their faces. But as soon as the powerful voice of Leo was heard in
the solemn hymns, the assassins pressed forward to stab him. Some, however,
mistaking the chaplain for the emperor, wounded the priest, whose cries
revealed the mistake, and then all turned on Leo, who defended himself for some
time with the crucifix which he snatched up. His hand was soon cut off, and he
fell before the communion-table, where his body was hewed in pieces.
The assassins then hurried to the cell of
Michael, whom they proclaimed emperor, and thus consummated the revolution for
which he was under sentence of death. Few sovereigns of the Byzantine Empire
seem to have exerted themselves more sincerely than Leo V to perform the duties
of their station, yet few have received less praise for their good qualities;
nor did his assassination create any reaction of public opinion in his favour.
Though he died with the crucifix in his hand, he was condemned as if he had
been a bigoted iconoclast. His wife and children were compelled to adopt a
monastic life.
CHAPTER III
THE AMORIAN DYNASTY
A.D. 820-867
Sect.
I
MICHAEL
II THE STAMMERER
A.D.
820-829
MICHAEL II was proclaimed emperor with the
fetters on his limbs; and the first spectacle of his reign was the jailor
delivering him from a felon’s bonds. When relieved from his irons, he
proceeded to the church of St. Sophia, where he was crowned by the Patriarch.
Michael II was born in the lowest rank of
society. He had entered the army as a private soldier in early youth, but his
attention to his duties, and his military talents, quickly raised him to the
rank of general. His influence over the troops aided in placing Leo V on the
imperial throne. Amorium was his birthplace, an
important and wealthy city, inhabited by a mixed population of various races
and languages, collected together by trading interests. The Phrygians, who
formed the majority, still retained many native usages, and some religious
ideas adverse to Greek prejudices. Many Jews had also been established in the
city for ages, and a sect called the Athingans, who
held that the touch of many things was a contamination, had numerous votaries.
The low origin of Michael, and the
half-suppressed contempt he disclosed for Greek learning, Roman pride, and ecclesiastical
tradition, awakened some animosity in the breasts of the pedants, the nobles,
and the orthodox of Constantinople. It is not surprising, therefore, that the
historians who wrote under the patronage of the enemies of the Amorian dynasty
should represent its founder as a horse-Jockey, a heretic, and a stammerer. As
he showed no particular favour to the Greek party in the Byzantine church, his
orthodoxy was questioned by the great body of the clergy; and as he very
probably expressed himself with hesitation in the Greek language, as spoken at
court, any calumny would find credit with the Hellenic populace, who have
always been jealous of strangers, and eager to avenge, by words, the compliance
they have been compelled to yield by deeds to foreign masters.
Michael, however, had sagacity to observe the
difficulties which the various parties in the church and court had the power of
raising up against his administration. To gain time, he began by conciliating
every party. The orthodox, headed by Theodore Studita
and the exiled Patriarch Nicephoros, were the most
powerful. He flattered these two ecclesiastics, by allowing them to return to
the capital, and even permitted Theodore to resume his functions as abbot of
Studion; but, on the other hand, he refused to adopt their suggestions for a
reaction in favour of image-worship. He seems to have been naturally inclined
to religious toleration, and he was anxious to repress all disputes within the
pale of the church, as the best means of maintaining the public tranquillity.
In order to give a public guarantee for the spirit of the civil power, which he
desired should characterize his reign, he held a silention to announce toleration
of private opinion in ecclesiastical questions; but it was declared that the existing
laws against the exhibition of images and pictures in churches were to be
strictly enforced. The indifference of Michael to the ecclesiastical disputes
which agitated a church, to many of whose doctrines he was at heart adverse,
did not create so violent an opposition as the sincerer conduct of his
predecessors, who banished images on religious grounds.
The elevation of a new emperor, who possessed
few claims to distinction, awakened, as usual, the hopes of every ambitious
general. A formidable rival appeared in the person of Thomas, the only
officer of eminence who had remained faithful to the rebel Bardanes, when Leo
and Michael deserted his standard. Thomas, as has been already mentioned, was
appointed general of the federates by Leo V, but, owing to some circumstances
which are not recorded, he had retired into the dominions of the caliph, and
remained for some time on the borders of Armenia. His origin, whether Slavonian
or Armenian, by separating him in an unusual degree from the ruling classes in
the empire for he was, like Michael, of a very low rank in society caused him
to be regarded as a friend of the people; and all the subject races in the
empire espoused his cause, which in many provinces took the form of an attack
on the Roman administration, rather than of a revolution to place a new emperor
on the throne. This rebellion is remarkable for assuming more of the character
of a social revolution than of an ordinary insurrection. Thomas overran all
Asia Minor without meeting with any serious opposition even on the part of the
towns; so that, with the exception of the Armeniac theme and Opsikion, his
authority was universally acknowledged, and the administration was conducted by
his officers. He concluded an alliance with the Saracens to enable him to visit
Antioch, and receive the imperial crown from the hands of the Patriarch Job.
This alliance with the infidels tended to injure his popularity; and when he
returned accompanied by large bodies of mercenary troops, collected from the
Mohammedan tribes on the frontier, the public enthusiasm for his cause became
sensibly diminished. Thomas, too, feeling more confidence in the power of his
army, began to show himself careless of the good-will of the people.
The only
manner of putting an end to the war was by taking Constantinople, and this
Thomas prepared to attempt. An immense fleet was assembled at Lesbos. Gregorios Pterotes, a relation of
Leo V, who had been banished to Skyros by Michael, was sent into Thrace at the
head of ten thousand men to prepare for the arrival of Thomas, who soon
followed with the bulk of his army, and formed the siege of Constantinople.
Michael had taken every precaution for sustaining a long siege, and Thomas
seems to have committed a serious error in attacking so strong a city, while
the troops of the Armeniac theme and of Opsikion were in sufficient strength to
attack his communications with the centre of Asia Minor, and maintain a
constant communication with the garrison of Constantinople from the coast of
Bithynia. The army of Thomas, though very numerous, was in part composed of an
undisciplined rabble, whose plundering propensities increased the difficulty of
obtaining supplies. On the other hand, Constantinople, though closely invested,
was well supplied with all kinds of provisions and stores, and the inhabitants
displayed great firmness in opposing an enemy whom they saw bent on plunder,
while Michael and his son Theophilus performed the duties of able generals. Two
attempts were made to storm the fortifications, one during the winter, in 821,
and the other in the spring of 822; and both were equally unsuccessful and
entailed considerable loss on the besiegers. In the meantime the partisans of
Michael collected a fleet of 350 ships in the islands of the Archipelago and
Greece; and this force, having gained a complete victory over the fleet of
Thomas, cut off the besiegers from communication with Asia.
The Bulgarians, in order to profit by the civil
war, invaded the empire, and plundered the country from which the rebels were
compelled to draw their supplies. Thomas marched to oppose them with a part of
his army, but was defeated, and lost the greater part of his baggage. He was so
much weakened by this defeat that Michael sallied out from Constantinople,
again routed him, and compelled the rebel army to retire to Arcadiopolis,
where Thomas was soon closely besieged. For five months the place was
obstinately defended, but at last Thomas was delivered up by his own followers;
and his adopted son, who had been invested with the title of Emperor, was
captured shortly after in Byza. Both were hanged,
after their limbs had been cut off. This junction of a son with the reigning
emperor as his successor had become a rule of the Byzantine constitution, which
was rarely neglected by any sovereign. Two chiefs attached to the party of
Thomas continued for some time to defend the towns of Kabala and Saniana in Asia Minor, until the latter place was betrayed
by one who bargained to be appointed archbishop of Neocesarea,
a fact recorded in a satirical verse preserved by one of the Byzantine
historians.
This remarkable civil war lasted nearly three
years, and is distinguished by some features of unusual occurrence from most of
the great rebellions in the Byzantine Empire. The large fleets collected on
both sides prove that the population and wealth of the coasts and islands of
the Archipelago had not declined under the administration of the Iconoclasts,
though this part of the empire was likely to be least favoured by the central
power, as having attempted to dethrone Leo III, and having always firmly
supported the party of the image worshippers. The most numerous partisans of
Thomas, and those who gave the strong revolutionary impulse to the rebellion at
its commencement, were that body of the Asiatic population which national
distinctions or religious opinions excluded from participation in public and
local affairs, and to whom even the ecclesiastical courts were shut, on account
of their heretical opinions; and to the ecclesiastical courts alone recourse
could be had for the equitable administration of justice in some cases. The
discontent of these classes, joined to the poverty created by excessive
taxation, supplied the army of Thomas with those numerous bands of marauders,
eager to seek revenge, who spread desolation far and wide, alarmed all men
possessing property, and ultimately rained his enterprise. The indiscipline of
his troops, and his incapacity to apply any remedy to the financial oppression
and religious intolerance against which the population of the Asiatic provinces
had taken up arms, alienated the minds of all who expected to find in him an
instrument for reforming the empire. But had Thomas really been a man of a
powerful mind, he might have laid the foundation of a new state of society in
the Eastern Empire, by lightening the burden of taxation, carrying out
toleration for religious opinions, securing an impartial administration of
justice even to heretics, and giving every class of subjects, without
distinction of nationality or race, equal security for their lives and
property. The spirit of the age was, however, averse to toleration, and the
sense of justice was so defective that these equitable principles could only
have been upheld by the power of a well-disciplined mercenary army.
The necessity of adopting a general measure for
improving the condition of the people was not felt by Michael II, even when
this rebellion was suppressed; and though he saw that some reduction of
taxation to the lower classes was required, he restricted the boon to the
Armeniac theme and Opsikion, because these provinces had not joined Thomas in
the civil war; and even in them he only reduced the hearth-tax to one half of
the amount imposed by Nicephorus I. The rest of the empire was oppressed more
than usual, as a punishment. It is certain that this unfortunate rebellion
caused an immense destruction of property in Asia Minor, and was no
inconsiderable cause of the accumulation of property in immense estates, which
began to depopulate the country, and prepare it for the reception of a new race
of inhabitants.
The state of society under every known
government was at this period troubled by civil wars. The seeds of these
convulsions may, therefore, be sought in some general cause affecting the relations
of the various classes of men in the development of social progress, and so far
it lay beyond the immediate influence of the political laws of the respective
governments, whether Mohammedan or Christian. The frame of society in the
Saracen and Frank empires betrayed as many signs of decay as in the Byzantine.
One of the remarkable features of the age is the appearance of bands of men, so
powerful as to set the existing governments everywhere at defiance. These bands
consisted in great part of men of what may be called the middle and higher
classes of society, driven by dissatisfaction with their prospects in life to
seek their fortunes as brigands and pirates; and the extent to which slavery
and the slave-trade prevailed, afforded them a ready means of recruiting their
forces with daring and desperate men. The feeling which in our days impels
nations to colonise new countries, and improve uncultivated lands, in the ninth
century led the Saracens and Normans to ravage every country they could enter, destroy
capital, and consequently diminish cultivation and population.
Crete and Sicily, two of the most valuable
provinces of the Byzantine empire, inhabited almost exclusively by Greeks, and
both in a high state of civilisation and prosperity, were conquered by the
Saracens without offering the resistance that might have been expected from the
wealth and numbers of the inhabitants. Indeed, we are compelled to infer
that the change from the orthodox sway of the emperors of Constantinople to the
domination of the Mohammedans, was not considered by the majority of the Greeks
of Crete and Sicily so severe a calamity as we generally believe. In almost
every case in which the Saracens conquered Christian nations, history
unfortunately reveals that they owed their success chiefly to the favour with
which their progress was regarded by the mass of the people. To the disgrace of
most Christian governments, it will be found that their administration was more
oppressive than that of the Arabian conquerors. Oppression commenced when the
rude tribes of the desert adopted the corruptions of a ruling class. The
inhabitants of Syria welcomed the first followers of Mahomet; the Copts of
Egypt contributed to place their country under the domination of the Arabs; the
Christian Berbers aided in the conquest of Africa. All these nations were
induced, by hatred of the government at Constantinople, to place themselves
under the sway of the Mohammedans. The treachery of the nobles, and the
indifference of the people, made Spain and the south of France an easy prey to
the Saracens. The conquest of Crete and Sicily must be traced to the same
causes, for if the mass of the people had not been indifferent to the change,
the Byzantine government could easily have retained possession of these
valuable islands. The same disgraceful characteristic of Christian monarchies
is also apparent at a much later period. The conquest of the Greeks, Servians, and Vallachians by the Othoman Turks was effected rather by the voluntary
submission of the mass of the Christians than by the power of the Mohammedans.
This fact is rendered apparent by the effective resistance offered by the
Albanians under Scanderbeg. Church and state must divide between them this blot
on Christian society, for it is difficult to apportion the share due to the
fiscal oppression of Roman centralisation, and to the unrelenting persecution
of ecclesiastical orthodoxy.
Crete fell a prey to a band of pirates. The
reign of Al Hakem, the Ommiade
caliph of Spain, was disturbed by continual troubles; and some theological
disputes having created a violent insurrection in the suburbs of Cordova, about
15,000 Spanish Arabs were compelled to emigrate in the year 815. The greater
part of these desperadoes established themselves at Alexandria, where they soon
took an active part in the civil wars of Egypt. The rebellion of Thomas, and
the absence of the naval forces of the Byzantine Empire from the Archipelago,
left the island of Crete unprotected. The Andalusian Arabs in Alexandria
availed themselves of this circumstance to invade the island, and establish a
settlement on it, in the year 823. Michael was unable to take any measures for
expelling these invaders, and an event soon happened in Egypt which added
greatly to the strength of this Saracen colony. The victories of the
lieutenants of the Caliph Almamun compelled the
remainder of the Andalusian Arabs to quit Alexandria; so that Abou Hafs, called by Greeks Apochaps,
joined his countrymen in Crete with forty ships, determined to make the new
settlement their permanent home. It is said by the Byzantine writers that they
commenced their conquest of the island by destroying their fleet, and
constructing a strong fortified camp, surrounded by an immense ditch, from
which it received the name of Chandak, now corrupted
by the Western nations into Candia. The construction of the new city, as the
capital of their conquests, was part of the Saracen system of establishing
their domination. The foundation of Cairo, Cairowan,
Fez, Cufa, and Bagdad, was the result of this policy.
A new state of society, and new institutions, were introduced with greater
facility in a new residence.
The Saracen pirates derived some facilities
towards rendering their conquests permanent, from the circumstance that their
bands generally consisted of young men, destitute of domestic ties, who were
seeking family establishments as well as wealth. It was thus that they became
real colonists, to a much greater extent than is usually the case with
conquerors in civilised countries. The ease, moreover, with which the Saracens,
even of the highest rank, formed marriages with the lower orders, and the
equality which reigned among the followers of the Prophet, presented fewer
barriers to the increase of their number than prevailed in the various orders
and classes of Byzantine society. The native population of Crete was in a
stationary, if not a declining condition, at the time of the arrival of the
Saracens, while these new colonists were introduced into the country under
circumstances extremely favourable to a rapid increase of their numbers.
History, however, rarely enables us to mark, from age to age, the increase and
decrease of the different classes, tribes, and nations concerning whose affairs
it treats, though no fact is more important to enable us to form a correct
estimate of the virtues and vices of society, to trace the progress of
civilisation, and understand the foundations of political power.
The Emperor Michael II was at length, by the
defeat of Thomas, enabled to make some attempts to drive the invaders out of
Crete. The first expedition was intrusted to the command of Photinos, general
of the Anatolic theme, a man of high rank and family; it was also strengthened
by a reinforcement under Damianos, count of the imperial stables and protospatharios; but this expedition was completely
defeated. Damianos was slain, and Photinos escaped with a single galley to Dia.
The second attack on the Saracens was commanded by Krateros, the general of the
Kibyrraiot theme, who was accompanied by a fleet of seventy ships of war. The
Byzantine historians pretend that their army was victorious in a battle on
shore, but that the Saracens, rallying during the night, surprised the
Christian camp, and captured the whole fleet. Krateros escaped in a merchant
vessel, but was pursued and taken near Cos, where he was immediately crucified
by the Saracens.
The Saracens, having established their
sovereignty over the twenty-eight districts into which Crete was then divided,
sent out piratical expeditions to plunder the islands of the Archipelago and
the coasts of Greece. Michael, alarmed lest more of his subjects should prefer
the Saracen to the Byzantine government, fitted out a well-appointed fleet to
cruise in the Aegean Sea, and named Oryphas to command
it. A choice of the best soldiers in the empire was secured, by paying a bounty
of forty byzants a man; and in this, a most effective squadron, with a body of
experienced warriors on board, the Byzantine admiral scoured the Archipelago.
The Saracen pirates from Syria, Egypt, Africa, and Spain, who had been
stimulated by the successes of their countrymen to plunder the Greeks, were
pursued and destroyed; but Oryphas was unable to
effect anything, when he attacked the Cretan colony on shore. This fleet was subsequently
neglected; and, in the first year of the reign of Theophilus, an imperial
squadron was totally destroyed by the Saracens, in a naval engagement near
Thasos, leaving the corsairs masters of the sea. The islands of the Archipelago
were then plundered, and immense booty in property and slaves was carried off.
The Saracens retained possession of Crete for one hundred and thirty-five
years.
The conquest of Sicily was facilitated by the
treachery of Euphemios, a native Greek of high rank, who is said to have
carried off a nun, and whom the emperor ordered to be punished by the loss of
his nose; for though Michael himself espoused Euphrosyne, the daughter of
Constantine VI, after she had taken the veil, he did not intend that any of his
subjects should be allowed a similar license. Euphemios was informed of
the emperor’s order in time to save his nose, by exciting a sedition in
Syracuse, his native city. In this tumult, Gregoras
the Byzantine governor was slain. Michael then deputed Photinos, whose unsuccessful
expedition to Crete has been already mentioned, to supply the place of Gregoras, and carry on the war against the Saracens of
Africa, whom Euphemios had already invited into Sicily, to distract the
attention of the Byzantine military. Ziadet Allah,
the Aglabite sovereign of Cairowan,
had paid particular attention to his fleet, so that he was well prepared to
carry on the war, and delighted to gain an entrance for his troops into Sicily.
In June, 827, his admiral effected a junction with the ships of Euphemios, who
had been driven out of Syracuse, and the Saracens landed at Mazara. Photinos
was defeated in a battle near Platana, and retreated
to Enna. The Saracens occupied Girgenti, but they
were not strong enough to commence offensive operations until the Byzantine
fleet was driven off the coast by the arrival of a squadron of ships from
Spain, which joined the Aglabites, and enabled fresh
reinforcements to arrive from Africa. The war was then carried on with
activity: Messina was taken in 831; Palermo capitulated in the following year;
and Enna was besieged, for the first time in 836. The war continued with
various success, as the invaders received assistance from Africa, and the
Christians from Constantinople. The Byzantine forces recovered possession of
Messina, which was not permanently occupied by the Saracens until 843. The
Emperor Theophilus was too much engaged by his military operations in Asia
Minor to send effectual aid to the Sicilians; while his father Michael II had
been too fond of his ease on the throne to devote the requisite attention to
the business of the distant provinces. Michael III thought of nothing but his
pleasures. At lengths in the year 859, Enna was taken by the Saracens.
Syracuse, in order to preserve its commerce from ruin, had purchased peace by
paying a tribute of 50,000 byzants; and it was not until the reign of Basil I,
in the year 878, that it was compelled to surrender, and the conquest of Sicily
was completed by the Arabs. Some districts, however continued, either by treaty
or by force of arms, to preserve their municipal independence, and the
exclusive exercise of the Christian religion, within their territory, to a
later period.
The loss of Crete and Sicily seems to have been
viewed with strange apathy by the court at Constantinople. The reason of this
is probably to be attributed to the circumstance that the surplus revenue was
comparatively small, and the defence of these distant possessions was found
often to require a military force, which it was deemed might be more
advantageously employed in the capital. These feelings of the statesmen at
Constantinople were doubtless strengthened by the circumstance that a portion
of the population, both in Crete and Sicily, had acquired a degree of municipal
independence extremely adverse to the principles which guided the imperial
cabinet.
The bold and indefatigable abbot, Theodore Studita, still struggled to establish the supremacy of the
church over the emperor in religious and ecclesiastical affairs. He
appears to deserve the credit of having discovered the necessity of creating a
systematic restraint on the arbitrary authority of the sovereign; but his
scheme for making the ecclesiastical legislation superior to the executive
power was defective, inasmuch as it sought to confer on the church a more
irresponsible and dangerous authority than that of which the emperor would have
been deprived. Experience had not yet taught mankind that no irresponsible
power, whether it be intrusted to king or priest, in a monarchy or a republic,
can be exercised without abuse. Until the law is superior to the executive
government there is no true liberty; but in the Byzantine Empire the emperor
was above the law, and the imperial officials and the clergy had a law of their
own, and so the people were doubly oppressed.
The conduct of Michael in conducting
ecclesiastical business indicates that he was not destitute of statesmanlike
qualities, though he generally thought rather of enjoying his ease on the
throne than of fulfilling the duties of his high station. During the civil war
he was anxious to secure the good-will of the monks and of the Greek party in
the church. He recalled Theodore from banishment, and declared himself in
favour of perfect toleration. This was far from satisfying the enthusiastic
abbot, and the bigoted ecclesiastics of his party; and after the establishment
of tranquillity they incited the image-worshippers to an open violation of the
laws against presenting pictures to the adoration of the people. Theodore also
engaged with fresh zeal in an extensive correspondence with all persons of
influence whom he knew to be favourable to his party. The emperor ordered him
to discontinue this correspondence, as of a seditious tendency; but the bold
abbot ventured to argue the case with Michael himself in a long letter, which
is preserved in his works.
The policy of forming friendly relations with
the western nations of Europe was every day becoming more apparent to the
rulers of the Byzantine Empire, as the political influence of the Popes
extended itself, and the power of the western nations increased. Michael II, in
order to prevent the discontented image-worshippers from receiving support from
the Franks, opened negotiations with the Emperor Louis le Debonnaire,
in the hope of obtaining a condemnation of image-worship similar to that of
Charlemagne. In the year 824, an embassy, bearing a vainglorious and bombastical letter, announcing the defeat of Thomas,
reached the court of Louis. In this epistle Michael recapitulates the religious
principles which ought to guide the emperors of the Romans in their
ecclesiastical affairs. He alludes to the condemnation of image-worship by the
council of Frankfort, and declares that he has not destroyed holy images and
pictures, but only removed them to such an elevation as was necessary to
prevent the abuses caused by popular superstition. He considers the councils
held for the condemnation of image worship merely as local synods, and fully
recognises the existence of a higher authority in general councils of the
church, giving, at the same time, his own confession of faith, in terms which
he knew would secure the assent of Louis and the Frank clergy. He then solicits
the Frank emperor to induce the Pope to withdraw his protection from the
rebellious image worshippers who had fled from the Byzantine Empire to Rome. A
synod was convoked at Paris in consequence of this communication, which
condemned the worship of images in the same terms as the Caroline Books, and
blamed the second council of Nicaea for the superstitious reverence it had
shown for images, but, at the same time, approved of the rebuke given to the
Eastern emperors, for their rashness in removing and destroying images, by Pope
Hadrian, A.D. 825. The Emperor Louis was also requested by the synod to forward
a letter to Pope Eugenius, inviting him to write to the Emperor Michael, in
order to re-establish peace and unity in the Christian church. But the Pope,
the two emperors, and Theodore Studita, were all
afraid of plunging into ecclesiastical discussions at this period; for public
opinion had been so exercised in these polemics, that it was impossible to
foresee the result of the contest. Matters were therefore allowed to go on
during the reign of Michael without any open rupture. The imprisonment of Methodios, afterwards Patriarch of Constantinople, and the
condemnation to death of Euthymios, bishop of Sardis,
were the only acts of extreme severity with which the image-worshippers could
reproach Michael; and these seem to have originated from political and party
motives rather than from religious opinions, though the zeal of these
ecclesiastics rendered them eager to be considered as martyrs.
The marriage of Michael with Euphrosyne, the
daughter of Constantine VI, who had already taken the veil, was also made a
ground for exciting public reprobation against the emperor. It is probable,
however, that more importance is given to this marriage, as a violation of
religion, by later writers, than it received among contemporaries. The
Patriarch absolved Euphrosyne from her vows, and the senate repeatedly
solicited the emperor to unite himself with the last scion of Leo the Isaurian,
the second founder of the Eastern Empire. Michael affected to be averse to
second marriages, and to yield only to the public wish. That the marriage of
the emperor with a nun excited the animosity of the monks, who regarded
marriage as an evil, and second marriages as a delict, is very natural; and it
would, of course, supply a fertile source of calumnious gossip to the enemies
of the Amorian dynasty.
Michael II died in October, 829, and was buried
in a sarcophagus of green Thessalian marble, in the sepulchral chapel erected
by Justinian in the Church of the Holy Apostles.
THEOPHILUS
A.D.
829-842
No emperor ever ascended the throne of
Constantinople with greater personal and political advantages than Theophilus.
His education had been the best the age could supply, and he possessed
considerable talent and industry. The general direction of his education had
been intrusted to John the Grammarian, one of the most accomplished as well as
the most learned men of the time. In arts and arms, in law and theology, the
emperor was equally well instructed: his taste made him a lover of poetry,
music, and architecture; his courage rendered him a brave soldier, his sense of
justice a sound legislator, but his theology made him a stern bigot; and a
discontented temperament of mind prevented his accomplishments and virtues from
producing a harmonious union. All acknowledged his merit, none seemed
affectionately attached to his person; and in the midst of his power he was
called the Unfortunate. During his father’s lifetime he had been intrusted with
an active share in the government, and had devoted particular attention to the
ecclesiastical department. He embraced the party of the Iconoclasts with
fervour; and though his father endeavoured to moderate his zeal, his influence
seems to have produced the isolated acts of persecution during the reign of
Michael, which were at variance with that emperor’s general policy.
Theophilus observed that the population of the
empire was everywhere suffering from the defects of the central government, and
he was anxious to remedy the evil. He erroneously attributed the greatest part
of the sufferings of the people to the corruption of the administration,
instead of ascribing it to the fact that the central authorities assumed duties
which they were unable to execute, and prevented local bodies, who could easily
have performed these duties in an efficient manner, from attempting to
undertake them. Theophilus, however, justly believed that a great reform might
be effected by improving the administration of justice, and he set about the
task with vigour; still many of his measures for enforcing equitable conduct on
the part of the judges were so strongly marked with personality, that his
severity, even when necessary, was stigmatised as cruel. He was in the habit of
riding through the streets of Constantinople on a weekly visit to the church of
St Mary at Blachern, in order to afford his subjects
a public opportunity of presenting such petitions as might otherwise never
reach his hands. The practice is perpetuated in the Othoman
Empire to this day. The sultan pays a public visit to one of the principal
mosques of his capital weekly for the same purpose. In both cases it may be
received as a proof of the want of a better and more systematic control over
the judicial administration of a mighty empire. There was no emperor, in the reign
of Theophilus, to parade the streets of provincial towns, where control was
most wanted; and there is no substitute for the sultan’s procession to the
mosque in the provincial cities of Turkey.
The first proof Theophilus gave of his love of
justice was so strangely chosen, that it was represented as originating in the
wish to get rid of some dangerous courtiers, rather than in a sense of
equity. He assembled the senate, and, exhibiting to its astonished members
the candelabrum of which one of the branches had been struck off at the
assassination of Leo V, he demanded whether the laws of the empire and divine
justice did not both call for the punishment of the men who had committed the
double sacrilege of murdering their emperor, and shedding his blood before the
altar. Some senators, prepared for the scene, suggested that, in order to avert
the vengeance of Heaven, it was necessary to put the traitors to death.
Theophilus immediately ordered the prefect of Constantinople to arrest every
person concerned in Leo’s assassination and bring them to trial, whether they
belonged to the party of the image-worshippers or of the Greek ecclesiastics.
They were all convicted, and executed in the Hippodrome, vainly protesting
against the injustice of their sentence, since their deed had been ratified and
pardoned by the Emperor Michael II, and the reigning emperor confirmed that
ratification by enjoying the profit of their act.
Other examples of the emperor’s severity were
less liable to suspicion. A poor widow accused Petronas, the emperor’s
brother-in-law, an officer of talents and courage, of having, in violation of
law, raised his house so high as to render hers almost uninhabitable from want
of air and light. The laws concerning the disposition of private buildings in
Constantinople were always regarded as an important object of imperial
legislation. Theophilus ordered the grievance to be redressed; but the
complaint was subsequently reiterated, and the emperor discovered that his
brother-in-law had disobeyed his decision. He now gave orders that the newly
built house should be levelled with the ground, and condemned Petronas to be
scourged in the public highway. Sometime after this, Petronas was appointed to
the high post of governor of Cherson, and during the reign of his nephew,
Michael III, he defeated the Saracens in an important battle in Asia Minor, as
will be hereafter related. This anecdote illustrates the state of society at
the Byzantine court, by the contrast it presents between the servile feelings
of the Romans and Greeks of Constantinople, and the independent spirit of the
Franks and Germans of Western Europe. In the Eastern Empire the shame of blows
was nothing, and a bastinado inflicted on an emperor’s brother-in-law, who
retained his official rank, was not likely to be a very painful operation. The
degradation of the punishment was effaced by the arbitrary nature of the power
that inflicted it. The sense of justice inherent in mankind is always wounded
by the infliction of arbitrary punishment; cruelty or caprice are supposed to
dictate the sentence; the public attention is averted from the crime, and pity
is often created when the sufferer really deserves to be branded with infamy.
On another occasion, as Theophilus rode through
the streets, a man stepped forward, and, laying his hand on the horse the
emperor was riding, exclaimed, “This horse is mine, O emperor!”. On
investigating the circumstances, it appeared that the horse had really been
taken by force from its proprietor by an officer of rank, who wished to present
it to the emperor on account of its beauty. This act of violence was
also punished, and the proprietor received two pounds’ weight of gold as an
indemnity for the loss he had sustained. The horse was worth about one
hundred byzants.
Theophilus was also indefatigable in examining
the police details of the capital, and looking into the state of the markets.
It is true that the abundance of provisions, and their price at Constantinople,
was a matter of great importance to the Byzantine government, which, like the
Roman, too often sacrificed the prosperity of the provinces to the tranquillity
of the capital; yet still the minute attention which Theophilus gave to
performing the duties of a prefect, indicate that he was deficient in the grasp
of intellect required for the clear perception of the duties of an emperor.
The reign of Theophilus was an age of anecdotes
and tales. It had many poetic aspirations, smothered in chronicles and legends
of saints. Volumes of tales were then current which would have given us a
better insight into Byzantine manners than the folios of the historians, who
have preserved an outline of a few of these stories. Theophilus seems to have
been a kind of Byzantine Haroun Al Rashid. Unfortunately the Iconoclasts appear
to have embodied more of this species of literature in their habits than the
orthodox, who delighted in silly legends concerning saints rather than in
imaginative pictures of the deeds of men; and thus the mirror of truth has
perished, while the fables that have been preserved are neglected from their
unnatural stupidity.
Theophilus was unmarried when he ascended the
throne, and he found difficulty in choosing a wife. At last he arranged with
his stepmother, Euphrosyne, a project for enabling him to make a suitable
selection, or at least to make his choice from a goodly collection. The
empress-mother invited all the most beautiful and accomplished virgins at
Constantinople to a fête in her private apartments. When the gaiety of the
assembled beauties had removed their first shyness, Theophilus entered the
rooms, and walked forward with a golden apple in his hand. Struck by the grace
and beauty of Eikasia, with whose features he must
have been already acquainted, and of whose accomplishments he had often heard,
he stopped to address her. The proud beauty felt herself already an empress;
but Theophilus commenced his conversation with the ungallant remark, “Woman is
the source of evil”, to which the young lady too promptly replied, “But woman
is also the cause of much good”. The answer or the tone jarred on the captious
mind of the emperor, and he walked on. His eye then fell on the modest features
of the young Theodora, whose eyes were fixed on the ground. To her he gave the
apple without risking a word. Eikasia, who for a
moment had felt the throb of gratified ambition, could not recover from the
shock. She retired into a monastery which she founded, and passed her life
dividing her time between the practice of devotion and the cultivation of her
mind. She composed some hymns, which continued long in use in the Greek Church.
A short time after this, the Empress Euphrosyne retired into the monastery of Gastria, an agreeable retreat, selected also by Theodista, the mother of Theodora, as her residence.
Theodora herself is the heroine of another tale,
illustrating the corruption of the officials about the court, and the
inflexible love of justice of the emperor. The courtiers in the service of
the imperial family had been in the habit of drawing large profits from evading
the custom-duties to which other traders were liable, by engaging the
emperor-colleague or the empress in commercial adventures. The revenue of the
state and the commerce of the honest merchant both suffered by this
aristocratic mode of trading. Theophilus, who knew of the abuse, learned that
the young empress had been persuaded to lend her name to one of these trading
speculations, and that a ship, laden with a valuable cargo in her name, was
about to arrive at Constantinople. In order to put an end to these frauds by a
striking example, he took care to be informed as this ship entered the port.
When this vessel arrived, it displayed the imperial standard, and stood proudly
towards the public warehouses with a fair wind. Theophilus, who had led the court
to a spot overlooking the port, pretending to be struck by the gallant
appearance of the vessel, demanded with what military stores she was laden, and
whence she came. The truth was soon elicited, and when he obtained a full
confession of the nature of the cargo, he ordered it to be landed and publicly
burned; for he said, it was never heard that a Roman emperor or empress turned
trader.
The principles of toleration which had guided
the imperial administration during the preceding reigns were not entirely laid
aside by Theophilus, and though his religious bigotry was strong, he preferred
punishing the image worshippers for disobedience to the civil laws to
persecuting them for their ecclesiastical opinions. The emperor’s own
prejudices in favour of the divine right of kings were as intolerant as his
aversion to image-worship, so that he may really have acted as much on
political as religious grounds. His father had not removed pictures from the
walls of churches when they were placed in elevated situations; and had
Theophilus followed his example, Iconoclasts and image worshippers might at
last have accepted the compromise, and dwelt peaceably together in the Eastern
Church. The monks, too, had been wisely allowed considerable latitude within
the walls of their monasteries, though they were forbidden to preach publicly
to the people in favour of image-worship. Theophilus was inclined to imitate
the policy of Leo the Isaurian, but he could not venture to dissolve the
refractory monasteries and imprison the monks. The government of the earlier
Iconoclasts reposed on an army organised by themselves, and ready to enforce
all their orders; but in the time of Theophilus, the army neither possessed the
same power over society, nor was it equally devoted to the emperor.
In the year 832, an edict was issued prohibiting
every display of picture-worship, and commanding that the word holy, usually placed in letters of gold
before the name of a saint, should be erased. This edict was at times carried
into execution in an arbitrary and oppressive manner, and caused discontent and
opposition. A celebrated painter of ecclesiastical subjects, named Lazaros, who acquired great fame during the reign of
Michael III, was imprisoned and scourged, but subsequently released from confinement
at the intercession of Theodora. Two monks, Theophanes the Singer and Theodore Graptos, were much more cruelly treated, for, in addition
to other tortures, some verses were branded on the forehead of Theodore, who
from that circumstance received his surname of Graptos.
Sometime after the publication of this edict
against image worship, John the Grammarian was elected Patriarch. Though a
decided opponent of image-worship, he was a man of a larger intellect and more
tolerant disposition than his imperial pupil, over whose mind, however, he
fortunately retained considerable influence. Still, when the emperor found his
edict unavailing, he compelled the Patriarch to assemble a synod, which was
induced to excommunicate all image-worshippers. As the Patriarch was averse to
these violent proceedings, it can hardly be supposed that they produced much
effect within the pale of the church; but they certainly tended to inflame the
zeal of those marked out for persecution, and strengthened the minds of the
orthodox to perform what they considered to be their duty, arming them with
faith to resist the civil power. The spirit of religious strife was awakened,
and the emperor was so imprudent as to engage personally in controversies with
monks and priests. These discussions ruffled his temper and increased his
severity, by exposing the lofty pretensions he entertained of his dignity and
talents to be wounded by men who gloried in displaying their contempt for all
earthly power. Theophilus sought revenge for his injured vanity. The monks who
persisted in publicly displaying images and pictures were driven from their
monasteries; and many members of the clergy, distinguished for learning and
beloved for virtue, were imprisoned and scourged. Yet, even during the height of
his resentment, the emperor winked at the superstition of those who kept their
opinions private, tolerated the prejudices of the Empress Theodora, and at her
request released Methodios, the future Patriarch of
Constantinople, from prison.
The wealth of the Byzantine Empire was at this
period very great, and its industry in the most flourishing condition,
Theophilus, though engaged in expensive and disastrous wars, found the imperial
revenue so much increased by the augmented commerce of his subjects, that he
was able to indulge an inordinate passion for pomp and display. His love
of art was gratified by the fantastic employment of rich materials in luxurious
ornament, rather than by durable works of useful grandeur. His architectural
taste alone took a direction at times advantageous to the public. The walls of
Constantinople towards the sea were strengthened, and their height increased.
He founded an hospital, which remained one of the most useful institutions of
the city to the latest days of Byzantine history; but, at the same time, he
gratified his love of display in architecture, by constructing palaces, at an
enormous expense, in no very durable manner. One of these, built in imitation
of the great palace of the caliphs at Bagdad, was erected at Bryas, on the Asiatic shore. The varied form, the peculiar
arches, the coloured decorations, the mathematical tracery, and the rich
gilding, had induced John the Grammarian, when he visited the Caliph Motassem as ambassador from Theophilus, to bring back
drawings and plans of this building, which was totally different from the
Byzantine style then in use. Other buildings constructed by Theophilus are
described by historians in a way that indicates they must have been far
superior in magnificence to the works of preceding or following emperors.
Theophilus was also an enthusiastic admirer of
music, and as church-music was in his time one of the principal amusements of
persons of taste, musical science was devoted to add to the grandeur and
solemnity of ecclesiastical ceremonies. In works of art, the emperor's taste
appears not to have been very pure. A puerile vanity induced him to lavish
enormous sums in fabricating gorgeous toys of jewellery. In these ornaments,
singular mechanical contrivances were combined with rich figures to astonish
the spectator. A golden plane-tree, covered with innumerable artificial birds
that warbled and fluttered their wings on its branches, vultures that screamed,
and lions that roared, stood at the entrance of the hall of state. Invisible
organs, that filled the ceilings of the apartments with soft melody, were among
the strange things that Theophilus placed in the great palace of
Constantinople. They doubtless formed the theme of many Byzantine tales, of
which we still see a reflected image in the Arabian Nights.
Two laws of Theophilus deserve especial notice:
one exhibits him in the character of a capricious tyrant; the other reveals the
extent to which elements adverse to Roman and Greek nationality pervaded
Byzantine society. The first of these edicts ordered all the Romans that is,
all the subjects of the empire, to wear their hair cropped short, under the
pain of the bastinado. Theophilus pretended that he wished to restore old Roman
fashions, but the world believed that the flowing locks of others rendered him
ashamed of his own bald head. The other law declared that the marriage of
Persians and Romans did in no way derogate from the rights of those who were
citizens of the empire; and it shows that a very great emigration of Persian Christians
from the dominions of the caliphs must have taken place, or such a law would
not have become necessary. Theophobus, one of the
most distinguished leaders of the Persians, who claimed descent from the Sassanides, married Helena, the emperor’s sister.
The wide extended frontiers of the empire
required Theophilus to maintain relations with the sovereigns of a large
portion of Asia and Europe. To secure allies against his great enemy, the
Caliph of Bagdad, he renewed the ancient alliance of the emperors of
Constantinople with the sovereign of the Khazars; but this people was now too
much occupied in defending its own territories against a new race of intruders,
called Patzinaks, to renew their invasions of the northern provinces of the
Mohammedan empire. The progress of the Patzinaks alarmed Theophilus for the
security of the Byzantine commerce with the northern nations, from which the
imperial treasury drew immense duties; and he sent his brother-in-law Petronas
(whom, as we have mentioned, he had condemned to be scourged) to Cherson, which
was then a free city like Venice, with orders to construct a fortress on the
banks of the Don. This commercial colony, called Sarkel,
was used as the trading depot with the north. A friendly intercourse was kept
up with Louis le Debonnaire and his son Lothaire. The Venetians were invited to assist in the naval
war for the defence of Sicily and southern Italy against the Saracens of
Africa. An embassy was sent to Abderrahman II, the
caliph of Spain, to secure the commerce of the Greeks in the West from any
interruption, and to excite the Ommiad caliph to hostilities against the Abassides of Bagdad.
When Theophilus ascended the throne, the
Byzantine and Saracen empires enjoyed peace; but they were soon involved in a
fierce contest, which bears some resemblance to the mortal combat between the
Roman and Persian empires in the time of Heraclius. Almamun,
who ruled the caliphate from 813 to 833, was a magnificent and liberal
sovereign, distinguished for his love of science and literature, and eager to
surpass the Greeks in knowledge and the Romans in arms. Though not himself a
soldier, his armies were commanded by several celebrated generals. The want of
a moral check on the highest officials of arbitrary governments usually prevents
the existence of a sense of duty in political relations, and hence rebellions
and civil wars become prevalent. In the reign of Almamun,
the disturbances in Persia reduced the population, whether fire-worshippers or
Christians, to despair; and a great number, unable to live in their native
country, escaped into the Byzantine Empire, and established themselves at
Sinope. This immigration seems to have consisted chiefly of Christians, who
feared equally the government of Almamun and the
rebel Babek, who, though preaching the equality of all mankind, was accused of
allowing every license to his own followers. The Persian troops at Sinope were
placed under the command of Theophobos, and their number was increased by an
addition of seven thousand men, when Afshin, the general of the Caliph Motassem, defeated Babek, and extinguished the civil war in
Persia.
The protection granted by Theophilus to refugees
from the caliph’s dominions, induced Almamun to
invade the empire in the year 831; and the Saracen general, Abu Chazar, completely defeated the Byzantine army, commanded
by Theophilus in person. The emperor repaired this disgrace in the following
year by gaining a victory over the Saracens in Charsiana,
which he celebrated with great pomp and vainglory in the hippodrome of
Constantinople. Almamun revenged the defeat of his
generals by putting himself at the head of his army, ravaging Cappadocia, and
capturing Heracleia.
The armies of the Byzantine Empire at this
period consisted in great part of foreign mercenaries. Some secondary causes,
connected with the development of society, which have escaped the notice of
historians, operated to render the recruitment of armies more than usually
difficult among the civilised portions of mankind, and caused all the powerful
sovereigns of the age to exclude their native subjects as much as possible from
the use of arms. In the Saracen Empire this feeling led to the transference of
all military power into the hands of Turkish mercenaries; and in the Frank
Empire it led to the exposure of the country, without defence, to the
incursions of the Normans. It is true that jealousy of the Arab aristocracy in
one case, and fear of the hostile disposition of the Romanised population in
the other, had considerable influence on the conduct of the caliphs and the
Western emperors. The Byzantine Empire, though under the influence of similar
tendencies, was saved from a similar fate by a higher degree of political
civilization. The distrust of Theophilus for his generals was shown by the severity
with which he treated them. Manuel, one of the best officers of the empire,
disgusted at his suspicions, fled to the Saracens, and served with distinction
in their armies against the rebels of Chorasan.
Alexis Mousel, an Armenian, who received the favourite
daughter of Theophilus in marriage, with the rank of Caesar, was degraded and
scourged in consequence of his father-in-law’s suspicions.
Immediately after the death of Almamun, the emperor sent John the Grammarian on an embassy
to Motassem, who had succeeded his brother as caliph.
The object of this embassy was to conclude a lasting peace, and at all events
to persuade Manuel, whose fame in the war of Chorasan
had reached the ears of Theophilus, to return home. With the caliph the
negotiations appear not to have been as successful as the emperor expected, but
with Manuel they succeeded perfectly. The magnificence of John on this occasion
gave rise to many wonderful tales, and the Greeks were long amused by the
accounts of the marvellous wealth displayed by the priestly ambassador.
Not very long after this embassy, Theophilus,
availing himself of the troubles occasioned in the caliph's dominions by the
civil wars arising out of the heretical opinions concerning the human
composition of the Koran, which had been favoured by Almamun,
invaded the caliph's dominions. The Byzantine troops ravaged the country
to the south of Melitene, anciently called Commagene,
defeated the Saracens with great loss, captured Zapetra,
and penetrated as far as Samosata, which Theophilus also took and destroyed. Zapetra, or Sosopetra, lay about
two days’ journey to the west of the road from Melitene to Samosata. The Greeks
pretended that it was the birthplace of Motassem, and
that the caliph sent an embassy to the emperor entreating him to spare the
town, which he offered to ransom at any price; but Theophilus dismissed the
ambassadors and razed Zapetra to the ground. This
campaign seems to have been remarkable for the cruelty with which the
Mohammedans were treated, and the wanton ravages committed by the Persian
emigrants in the Byzantine service. The Saracens repeated one of the tales in
connection with this expedition which was current among their countrymen, and
applied, as occasion served, from the banks of the Guadalquivir to those of the
Indus. In Spain it was told of Al Hakem, in Asia of Motassem. A female prisoner, when insulted by a Christian
soldier, was reported to have exclaimed in her agony, “Oh, shame on Motassem”. The circumstance was repeated to the caliph, who
learned at the same time that the unfortunate woman was of the tribe of Hashem,
and consequently, according to the clannish feelings of the Arabs, a member of
his own family. Motassem swore by the Prophet he
would do everything in his power to revenge her.
In the meantime Theophilus, proud of his easy
victories, returned to Constantinople, and instead of strengthening his
frontier, and placing strong garrisons near the mountain passes, brought his
best troops to Constantinople to attend on his own person. As he entered
the hippodrome in a chariot drawn by four white horses, wearing the colours of
the blue faction, his happy return was hailed by the people with loud shouts.
His welcome was more like that of a successful charioteer than of a victorious
general.
The Persian mercenaries, whose number had now
increased to thirty thousand, were placed in winter-quarters at Sinope and Amastris, where they began to display a seditious spirit;
for Theophilus could neither trust his generals nor acquire the confidence of
his soldiers. These mercenaries at last broke out into rebellion, and resolved
to form a Persian kingdom in Pontus., They proclaimed their general Theophobus king; but that officer had no ambition to insure
the ruin of his brother-in-law’s empire by grasping a doubtful sceptre; and he
sent assurances to Theophilus that he would remain faithful to his allegiance,
and do everything in his power to put an end to the rebellion. Without much
difficulty, therefore, this army of Persians was gradually dispersed through
the different themes, but tranquillity was obtained by sacrificing the
efficiency of one of the best armies in the empire.
Motassem, having also re-established tranquillity in the
interior of his dominions, turned his whole attention to the war with the
Byzantine Empire. A well-appointed army of veterans, composed of the
troops who had suppressed the rebellion of Babek, was assembled on the
frontiers of Cilicia, and the caliph placed himself at the head of the army, on
the banks of the Cydnus, in the year 838. A second
army of thirty thousand men, under Afshin, advanced into the empire at a
considerable distance to the north-east of the grand army, under the immediate
orders of the caliph. Afshin had suppressed the rebellion of Babek after it had
lasted twenty years, and was considered the ablest general of the Saracens. On
hearing that the army of Afshin had invaded Lykandos,
Theophilus intrusted the defences of the Cilician passes, by which the caliph
proposed to advance, to Aetios, the general of the
Anatolic theme, and hastened to stop the progress of Afshin, whose army,
strengthened by a strong body of Armenians under Sembat
the native governor of the country, and by ten thousand Turkish mercenaries,
who were then considered the best troops in Asia, was
overrunning Cappadocia. Theophilus, apprehensive that this army might turn
his flank, and alarmed lest the Armenians and Persians, of which it was part
composed, might seduce those of the same nations in his service, was anxious to
hasten an engagement. The battle was fought at Dasymon,
where the Byzantine army, commanded by Theophobus and
Manuel, under the immediate orders of Theophilus, attacked the Saracens. The
field was fiercely contested, and for some time it seemed as if victory would
favour the Christians; but the admirable discipline of the Turkish archers
decided the fate of the day. In vain the emperor exposed his person with the
greatest valour to recover the advantage he had lost; Manuel was compelled to
make the most desperate efforts to save him, and induce him to retreat. The
greater part of the Byzantine troops fled from the field, and the Persian
mercenaries alone remained to guard the emperor's person. During the night,
however, Theophilus was informed that the foreigners were negotiating with the
Saracens to deliver him up a prisoner, and he was compelled to mount his horse,
and ride almost unattended to Chiliokomon, where a
portion of the native troops of the empire had rallied. From thence he retired
to Donylaeum, where he endeavoured to assemble an
army to defend Amorium, Manuel died of the wounds he
received in saving the emperor.
While Theophilus was marching to his defeat, the
advanced guard of the Caliph’s army, under Ashnas and
Wassif, threaded the Cilician passes in the direction
of Tyana; and Aetios,
unable to resist their advance, allowed the main body of the Saracens to
penetrate into the central plains of Asia Minor without opposition. Abandoning
the whole of the Anatolic theme to the invaders, he concentrated his forces under
the walls of Amorium. After ravaging Lycaonia and
Pisidia, Motassem marched to besiege Amorium. The capture of this city, as the birthplace of the
Amorian dynasty, had been announced by the caliph to be the object of the
campaign; and it was said that 130,000 men had marched out of Tarsus with
AMORIUM painted on their shields. Motassem expected
to carry the place by assault, and the defeat of Theophilus by his lieutenants
inspired him with the hope of carrying his arms to the shores of the Bosphorus,
and plundering the Asiatic suburb of Constantinople. But all his attempts to
storm Amorium, though repeated with fresh troops on
three successive days, were defeated by Aetios, who
had thrown himself into the city with the best soldiers in his army, and the caliph
found himself obliged to commence a regular siege. Theophilus now sued for
peace. The bishop of Amorium and the leading citizens
offered to capitulate, for the numerous army within the walls soon exhausted
the provisions. But Motassem declared that he would
neither conclude a peace nor grant terms of capitulation; vengeance was what he
sought, not victory, Amorium was valiantly defended
for fifty-five days, but treachery at length enabled the caliph to gratify his
passion, just as he was preparing to try the fortune of a fourth general
assault. The traitor who sold his post and admitted the Saracens into the city
was named Voiditzes. In this case both the Christian
and Mohammedan accounts agree in ascribing the success of the besiegers to
treason in the Christian ranks, and the defence appears to have been conducted
by Aetios both with skill and valour. The cruelty of Motassem far exceeded that of Theophilus. Thirty thousand
persons were massacred, and the inhabitants who were spared were sold as slaves.
The city of Amorium was burned to the ground, and the
walls destroyed. The ambassadors sent by Theophilus to beg for peace had been
detained by the caliph, to witness his conquest. They were now sent back with
this answer, “Tell your master that I have at last discharged the debt
contracted at Zapetra”.
Motassem, however, perceived that a considerable change
had taken place in the empire since the days in which the Saracens had besieged
Constantinople. He did not even consider it prudent to attempt advancing to the
shores of the Bosphorus, but returned to his own dominions, carrying with him Aetios and forty officers of rank captured in Amorium. For seven years these men were vainly urged to
embrace the Mohammedan faith; at last they were put to death by Vathek, the son of Motassem, and
they are regarded as martyrs by the Orthodox Church. Theophilus is said to have
offered the Caliph Motassem the sum of 2400 Ib. of
gold to purchase peace, and the deliverance of all the Christians who had been
taken prisoner during the war; but the caliph demanded in addition that a
Persian refugee named Naser, and Manuel, of whose death he appears not to have
been assured, should also be given up. Theophilus refused to disgrace himself
by delivering up Naser, and the treaty was broken off. Naser was shortly after
killed in an engagement on the frontier.
The war was prosecuted for some years in a
languid manner, and success rather inclined to the Byzantine arms. The port of
Antioch, on the Orontes, was taken and plundered by a Greek fleet; the province
of Melitene was ravaged as far as Marash; Abou Said,
who had defeated and slain Naser, was in turn himself defeated and taken
prisoner. At last a truce seems to have been concluded, but no exchange of
prisoners took place.
Theophilus never recovered from the wound his
pride received at Amorium. The frequent defeats
he sustained in those battles where he was personally engaged, contrasted with
the success of his generals, rankled in his melancholy disposition. His
sensitive temperament and the fatigues of his campaigns undermined his health.
To divert his mind, he indulged his passion for building; and so great were the
resources of the Byzantine treasury, that even at this period of misfortune he
could lavish enormous sums in idle ornament it would have been well, both for
him and for the Christian world, had he employed some of this wealth at an
earlier period in fortifying the frontier and diminishing the burden of the
land-tax. He now erected a new chapel called Triconchos,
a circus for public races, a staircase called Sigma, a whispering gallery
called the Mystery, and a magnificent fountain called Phiala.
But the emperor’s health continued to decline, and he perceived that his end
was not very distant.
Theophilus prepared for death with prudence and
courage, but with that suspicion which disgraced his character. A council of
regency was named to assist Theodora. His habitual distrust induced him to
exclude Theophobos from this council. He feared lest Theophobos might seize the
throne by means of the army, or establish an independent kingdom in the
Armeniac theme by means of the Persian mercenaries. The conspiracy on the night
after the defeat at Dasymon had augmented the
jealousy with which the emperor regarded his brother-in-law ever after the
rebellion of the Persian troops at Sinope and Amastris.
He now resolved to secure his son's throne at the expense of his own
conscience, and ordered Theophobos to be beheaded. Recollecting the fortune of
his father, and the fate of Leo the Armenian, he commanded the head of his
brother-in-law to be brought to his bedside. The agitation of the emperor's
mind, after issuing this order, greatly increased his malady; and when the
lifeless head of his former friend was placed before him, he gazed long and
steadily at its features, his mind doubtless wandering over the memory of many
a battle-field in which they had fought together. At last he “slowly exclaimed,
Thou art no longer Theophobos, and I am no more Theophilus”, then, turning away
his head, he sank on his pillow, and never again opened his lips.
Sect.
III
MICHAEL
III THE DRUNKARD
A.D.
842-867
Michael the son of Theophilus was between three
and four years old when his father died. His mother Theodora, having been
crowned empress, was regent in her own right. The will of her husband had
joined with her, as a council of administration, Theoktistos, the ablest
statesman in the empire; Manuel, the uncle of the empress; and Bardas, her
brother. Thekla, an elder sister of Michael, had also
received the title of Empress before her father’s death.
The great struggle between the Iconoclasts and
the image worshippers was terminated during the regency of Theodora, and she is
consequently regarded by the orthodox as a pattern of excellence, though she
countenanced the vices of her son, by being present at his most disgraceful
scenes of debauchery. The most remarkable circumstance, at the termination of
this long religious contest, is the immorality which invaded all ranks of
society. The moral and religious sincerity and strictness which, during the
government of the early Iconoclasts, had raised the empire from the verge of
social dissolution to dignity and strength, had subsequently been supplanted by
a degree of cant and hypocrisy that became at last intolerable. The sincerity
of both the ecclesiastical parties, in their early contests, obtained for them
the respect of the people; but when the political question concerning the
subjection of the ecclesiastical to the civil power became the principal object
of dispute, official tyranny and priestly ambition only used a hypocritical
veil of religious phrases for the purpose of concealing their interested ends
from popular scrutiny. As usual, the people saw much farther than their rulers supposed,
and the consequence was that, both parties being suspected of hypocrisy, the
influence of true religion was weakened, and the most sacred ties of society
rent asunder. The Byzantine clergy showed themselves ready on all occasions to
flatter the vices of the civil government: the monks were eager for popular
distinction, and acted the part of demagogues; while servile prelates and
seditious monks were both equally indifferent to alleviating the people’s
burdens.
Every rank of society at last proclaimed that it
was weary of religious discussion and domestic strife. Indifference to the
ecclesiastical questions so long predominant, produced indifference to religion
itself, and the power of conscience became dormant; enjoyment was soon
considered the object of life; and vice, under the name of pleasure, became the
fashion of the day. In this state of society, of which the germs were visible
in the reign of Theophilus, superstition was sure to be more powerful than
religion. It was easier to pay adoration to a picture, to reverence a relic, or
to observe a ceremony, than to regulate one's conduct in life by the principles
of morality and the doctrines of religion. Pictures, images, relics, and
ceremonies became consequently the great objects of veneration. The Greek
population of the empire had identified its national feelings with traditional
usages rather than with Christian doctrines, and its opposition to the Asiatic
puritanism of the Isaurian, Armenian, and Amorian emperors, ingrafted the
reverence for relics, the adoration of pictures and the worship of saints, into
the religious fabric of the Eastern Church, as essentials of Christian worship.
Whatever the church has gained in this way, in the amount of popular devotion,
seems to have been lost to popular morality.
The senate at this time possessed considerable
influence in administrative business. It was called upon to ratify the
will of Theophilus, and a majority of its members were gained over to the party
of the empress, who was known to favour image-worship. The people of
Constantinople had always been of this party; and the Iconoclasts of the higher
ranks, tired of the persecutions which had been the result of the
ecclesiastical quarrel, desired peace and toleration more than victory. The
Patriarch, John the Grammarian, and some of the highest dignitaries in the
church, were, nevertheless, conscientiously opposed to a species of devotion
which they thought too closely resembled idolatry, and from them no public
compliance could be expected. Manuel, however, the only member of the regency
who had been a fervent Inconoclast, suddenly
abandoned the defence of his opinions; and his change was so unexpected that it
was reported he had been converted by a miracle. A sudden illness brought him
to the point of death, when the prayers and the images of the monks of Studion
as suddenly restored him to health. Such was the belief of the people of
Constantinople, and it must have been a belief extremely profitable to the
monks.
It was necessary to hold a general council in
order to effect the restoration of image worship; but to do this as long as
John the Grammarian remained Patriarch was evidently impossible. The regency,
however, ordered him to convoke a synod, and invite to it all the bishops and
abbots sequestered as image worshippers, or else to resign the patriarchate.
John refused both commands, and a disturbance occurred, in which he was wounded
by the imperial guards. The court party spread a report that he had wounded
himself in an attempt to commit suicide, the greatest crime a Christian could
commit. The great mechanical knowledge of John, and his studies in natural
philosophy, were already considered by the ignorant as criminal in an
ecclesiastic; so that the calumnious accusation, like that already circulated
of his magical powers, found ready credence among the orthodox Greeks. The
court seized the opportunity of deposing him. He was first exiled to a
monastery, and subsequently, on an accusation that he had picked out the eyes
in a picture of a saint, he was scourged, and his own eyes were put out. His
mental superiority was perhaps as much the cause of his persecution as his
religious opinions.
Methodios, who had been released from imprisonment by
Theophilus at the intercession of Theodora, was named Patriarch, and a council
of the church was held at Constantinople in 842, to which all the exiled
bishops, abbots, and monks who had distinguished themselves as confessors in
the cause of image worship were admitted. Those bishops who remained firm to
their Iconoclastic opinions were expelled from their Sees, and replaced by the
most eminent confessors. The practices and doctrines of the Iconoclasts were
formally anathematised, and banished for ever from the Orthodox Church. A crowd
of monks descended from the secluded monasteries of Olympus, Ida, and Athos, to
revive the enthusiasm of the people in favour of images, pictures, and relics;
and the last remains of traditional idolatry were carefully interwoven with the
established religion in the form of the legendary history of the saints.
A singular scene was enacted in this synod by
the Empress Theodora. She presented herself to the assembled clergy, and
asked for an act declaring that the church pardoned all the sins of her
deceased husband, with a certificate that divine grace had effaced the record
of his persecutions. When she saw dissatisfaction visible in the looks of a
majority of the members, she threatened, with frank simplicity, that if they
would not do her that favour, she would not employ her influence as empress and
regent to give them the victory over the Iconoclasts, but would leave the
affairs of the church in their actual situation. The Patriarch Methodios answered, that the church was bound to employ its
influence in relieving the souls of orthodox princes from the pains of hell,
but, unfortunately, the prayers of the church had no power to obtain
forgiveness from God for those who died without the pale of orthodoxy. The
church was only intrusted with the keys of heaven to open and shut the gates of
salvation to the living, the dead were beyond its help. Theodora, however,
determined to secure the services of the church for her deceased husband. She
declared that in his last agony Theophilus had received and kissed an image she
laid on his breast. Although it was more than probable that the agony had
really passed before the occurrence happened, her statement satisfied Methodios and the synod, who consented to absolve its dead
emperor from excommunication as an Iconoclast, and admit him into the bosom of
the orthodox church, declaring that, things having happened as the Empress
Theodora certified in a written attestation, Theophilus had found pardon from
God.
The victory of the image worshippers was
celebrated by the installation of the long-banished pictures in the church of
St. Sophia, on the 19th February, 842, just thirty days after the death of
Theophilus. This festival continues to be observed in the Greek Church as the
feast of orthodoxy on the first Sunday in Lent.
The first military expedition of the regency was
to repress a rebellion of the Slavonians in the Peloponnesus, which had
commenced during the reign of Theophilus. On this occasion the mass of the
Slavonian colonists was reduced to complete submission, and subjected to the
regular system of taxation; but two tribes settled on Mount Taygetus,
the Ezerits and Melings,
succeeded in retaining a certain degree of independence, governing themselves
according to their own usages, and paying only a fixed annual tribute. For the Ezerits this tribute amounted to three hundred pieces of
gold, and for the Melings to the trifling sum of
sixty. The general who commanded the Byzantine troops on this occasion was
Theoktistos Briennios, who held the office of protospatharios.
In the meantime Theoktistos the regent, anxious
to obtain that degree of power and influence which, in the Byzantine as in the
Roman Empire, was inseparable from military renown, took the command of a great
expedition into Cholcis, to conquer the Abasges. His fleet was destroyed by a tempest, and his
troops were defeated by the enemy. In order to regain the reputation he had
lost, he made an attempt in the following year to reconquer the island of Crete
from the Saracens. But while he was engaged in the siege of Chandax,
(Candia,) the report of a revolution at Constantinople induced him to quit his
army, in order to look after his personal interests and political intrigues.
The troops suffered severely after they were abandoned by their general, whom
they were compelled at last to follow.
The war with the caliph of Bagdad still
continued, and the destruction of a Saracen fleet, consisting of four hundred
galleys, by a tempest off Cape Chelidonia, in the
Kibyrraiot theme, consoled the Byzantine government for its other losses. The
caliph had expected, by means of this great naval force, to secure the command
of the Archipelago, and assist the operations of his armies in Asia Minor. The
hostilities on the Cilician frontier were prosecuted without any decided
advantage to either party, until the unlucky Theoktistos placed himself at the
head of the Byzantine troops. His incapacity brought on a general engagement,
in which the imperial army was completely defeated, at a place called Mauropotamos, near the range of Mount Taurus. After this
battle, an officer of reputation, (Theophanes, from Ferganah)
disgusted with the severity and blunders of Theoktistos, deserted to the
Saracens, and embraced Islamism. At a subsequent period, however, he again
returned to the Byzantine service and the Christian religion.
In the year 845, an exchange of prisoners was
effected on the banks of the river Lamus, a day’s
journey to the west of Tarsus. This was the first that had taken place since
the taking of Amorium. The frequent exchange of
prisoners between the Christians and the Mussulmans always tended to soften the
miseries of war; and the cruelty which inflicted martyrdom on the forty-two
prisoners of rank taken at Amorium in the beginning
of this year, seems to have been connected with the interruption of the
negotiations which had previously so often facilitated these exchanges.
A female regency was supposed by the barbarians
to be of necessity a period of weakness. The Bulgarians, under this impression,
threatened to commence hostilities unless the Byzantine government consented to
pay them an annual subsidy. A firm answer on the part of Theodora, accompanied
by the display of a considerable military force on the frontier, however,
restrained the predatory disposition of King Bogoris
and his subjects. Peace was re-established after some trifling hostilities, an
exchange of prisoners took place, the commercial relations between the two
states became closer; and many Bulgarians, who had lived so long in the
Byzantine empire as to have acquired the arts of civilised life and a knowledge
of Christianity, returning to their homes, prepared their countrymen for
receiving a higher degree of social culture, and with it the Christian
religion.
The disturbed state of the Saracen Empire, under
the Caliphs Vathek and Motawukel,
would have enabled the regency to enjoy tranquillity, had religious zeal not
impelled the orthodox to persecute the inhabitants of the empire in the
south-eastern provinces of Asia Minor. The regency unfortunately followed the
counsels of the bigoted party, which regarded the extinction of heresy as the
most important duty of the rulers of the state. A numerous body of Christians
were persecuted with so much cruelty that they were driven to rebellion, and
compelled to solicit protection for their lives and property from the Saracens,
who seized the opportunity of transporting hostilities within the Byzantine
frontiers.
The Paulicians were the heretics who at
this time irritated the orthodoxy of Constantinople. They were enemies of
image worship, and showed little respect to the authority of a church
establishment, for their priests devoted themselves to the service of their
fellow-creatures without forming themselves into a separate order of society,
or attempting to establish a hierarchical organization. Their social and
political opinions were viewed with as much hatred and alarm by the
ecclesiastical counsellors of Theodora, as the philanthropic principles of the
early Christians had been by the pagan emperors of Rome. The same calumnies
were circulated among the orthodox against the Paulicians, which had been
propagated amongst the heathen against the Christians. The populace of
Constantinople was taught to exult in the tortures of those accused of manicheanism, as the populace of Rome had been persuaded to
delight in the cruelties committed on the early Christians as enemies of the
human race.
From the time of Constantine V the Paulicians
had generally enjoyed some degree of toleration; but the regency of Theodora
resolved to consummate the triumph of orthodoxy, by a cruel persecution of all
who refused to conform to the ceremonies of the established church. Imperial
commissioners were sent into the Paulician districts to enforce ecclesiastical
union, and every individual who resisted the invitations of the clergy was
either condemned to death or his property was confiscated. It is the boast of
orthodox historians that ten thousand Paulicians perished in this manner. Far
greater numbers, however, escaped into the province of Melitene, where the
Saracen emir granted them protection, and assisted them to plan schemes of
revenge.
The cruelty of the Byzantine administration at
last goaded the oppressed to resistance within the empire and the injustice
displayed by the officers of the government induced many, who were themselves
indifferent on the religious question, to take up arms against oppression. Karbeas, one of the principal officers on the staff of
Theodotos Melissenos, the general of the Anatolic theme, hearing that his
father had been crucified for his adherence to the doctrines of the Paulicians,
fled to the emir of Melitene, and collected a body of five thousand men, with
which he invaded the empire. The Paulician refugees were established, by the
caliph's order, in two cities called Argaous, and
Amara; but their number soon increased so much, by the arrival of fresh
emigrants, that they formed a third establishment at a place called Tephrike, (Divreky), in the district of Sebaste,
(Sivas,) in a secluded country of difficult access, where they constructed a
strong fortress, and dwelt in a state of independence. Omar, the emir of
Melitene, at the head of a Saracen army, and Karbeas
with a strong body of Paulicians, ravaged the frontiers of the empire. They
were opposed by Petronas, the brother of Theodora, then general of the
Thrakesian theme. The Byzantine army confined its operations to defence; while
Alim, the governor of Tarsus, having been defeated, and civil war breaking out
in the Saracen dominions in consequence of the cruelties of the Caliph Motawukel, the incursions of the Paulicians were confined
to mere plundering forays. In the meantime a considerable body of Paulicians
continued to dwell in several provinces of the empire, escaping persecution by
outward conformity to the Greek Church, and by paying exactly all the dues
levied on them by the Byzantine clergy. The whole force of the empire was not
directed against the Paulicians until some years later, during the reign of
Basil I.
In the year 852, the regency revenged the losses
inflicted by the Saracen pirates on the maritime districts of the empire, by
invading Egypt. A Byzantine fleet landed a body of troops at Damietta, which
was plundered and burned: the country round was ravaged, and six hundred female
slaves were carried away.
Theodora, like her female predecessor Irene,
displayed considerable talents for government. She preserved the tranquillity
of the empire, and increased its prosperity in spite of her persecuting policy;
but, like Irene, she neglected her duty to her son in the most shameful manner.
In the series of Byzantine sovereigns from Leo III (the Isaurian) to Michael
III, only two proved utterly unfit for the duties of their station, and both
appear to have been corrupted by the education they received from their
mothers. The unfeeling ambition of Irene and the heartless vanity of
Theodora were the original causes of the folly of Constantine VI and the vices
of Michael III. The system of education generally adopted at the time seems to
have been singularly well adapted to form men of ability, as we see in the
instances of Constantine V, Leo IV, and Theophilus, who were all educated as
princes and heirs to the empire. Even if we take the most extended view of
Byzantine society, we shall find that the constant supply of great talents
displayed in the public service must have been the result of careful
cultivation and judicious systematic study. No monarchical government can
produce such a long succession of able ministers and statesmen as conducted the
Byzantine administration during the eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries. The
remarkable deficiency of original genius during this period only adds an
additional proof that the mind was disciplined by a rigid system of education.
Theodora abandoned the care of her child’s
education to her brother Bardas, of whose taste and talents she may have been a
very incompetent judge, but of whose debauched manners she must have seen and
heard too much. With the assistance of Theoktistos she arrogated to herself the
sole direction of the public administration; and viewed with indifference the
course of idleness and profligacy by which Bardas corrupted the principles of
her son in his endeavour to secure a mastery over his mind. Both mother and
uncle appear to have expected to profit by the young emperor’s vices. Bardas
soon became a prime favourite, as he not only afforded the young emperor every
facility for gratifying his passions, but supported him in the disputes with
the regency that originated on account of his lavish expenditure. Michael at
last came to an open quarrel with his mother. He had fallen in love with
Eudocia, the daughter of Inger, of the great family of the Martinakes,
a connection which both Theodora and Theoktistos viewed with alarm, as likely
to create a powerful opposition to their political influence. To prevent a
marriage, Theodora succeeded in compelling Michael, who was then in his
sixteenth year, to marry another lady named Eudocia, the daughter of Dekapolitas. The young debauchee, however, made Eudocia Ingerina
his mistress, and, towards the end of his reign, bestowed her in marriage on
Basil the Macedonian as a mark of his favour. She became the mother of the
Emperor Leo VI, the Wise.
This forced marriage enabled Bardas to excite
the animosity of Michael against the regency to such a degree that he was
persuaded to sanction the murder of Theoktistos, whose able financial
administration was so generally acknowledged that Bardas feared to contend
openly with so honest a minister. Theoktistos was arrested by order of the
young emperor, and murdered in prison. The majority of Michael III was not
immediately proclaimed, but Bardas was advanced to the office of Master of the
Horse, and assumed the direction of the administration. He was consequently
regarded as the real author of the murder of Theoktistos.
Theodora, though her real power had ceased,
continued to occupy her place as empress-regent; but in order to prepare for
her approaching resignation, and at the same time prove the wisdom of her
financial administration, and the value of the services of Theoktistos, by
whose counsels she had been guided, she presented to the senate a statement of
the condition of the imperial treasury. By this account it appeared that
there was then an immense accumulation of specie in the coffers of the state.
The sum is stated to have consisted of 109,000 Ib. of gold, and 300,000 lb. of
silver, besides immense stores of merchandise, jewels, and plate. The Empress
Theodora was evidently anxious to guard against all responsibility, and prevent
those calumnious accusations which she knew to be common at the Byzantine
court. The immense treasure thus accumulated would probably have given immortal
strength to Byzantine society, had it been left in the possession of the
people, by a wise reduction in the amount of taxation, accompanied by a
judicious expenditure for the defence of the frontiers, and for facilitating
the conveyance of agricultural produce to distant markets.
The Empress Theodora continued to live in the
imperial palace, after the murder of Theoktistos, until her regency expired, on
her son attaining the age of eighteen. Her residence there was, however,
rendered a torture to her mind by the unseemly exhibitions of the debauched
associates of her son. The eagerness of Michael to be delivered from her
presence at length caused him to send both his mother and his sisters to reside
in the Carian Palace, and even to attempt persuading the Patriarch Ignatius to
give them the veil. After her banishment from the imperial palace, Theodora
still hoped to recover her influence with her son, if she could separate him
from Bardas; and she engaged in intrigues with her brother's enemies, whose
secret object was his assassination. This conspiracy was discovered, and only
tended to increase the power of Bardas. He was now raised to the dignity of curopalat. Theodora and the sisters of Michael were removed
to the monastery of Gastria, the usual residence of
the ladies of the imperial family who were secluded from the world. After the
death of Bardas, however, Theodora recovered some influence over her son; she
was allowed to occupy apartments in the palace of St. Mamas, and it was at a
party in her rural residence at the Anthemian Palace
that Michael was assassinated. Theodora died in the first year of the reign of
Basil I; and Thekla, the sister of Michael, who had
received the imperial title, and was as debauched in her manners as her
brother, continued her scandalous life during great part of Basil’s reign; yet
Theodora is eulogised as a saint by the ecclesiastical writers of the Western
as well as the Eastern church, and is honoured with a place in the Greek
calendar.
Encouraged by the counsels and example of
Bardas, Michael plunged into every vice. His orgies obtained for him the name
of the Drunkard; but, in spite of his vicious conduct, his devotion to
chariot-races and his love of festivals gave him considerable popularity among
the people of Constantinople. The people were amused by his follies, and the
citizens profited by his lavish expenditure. Many anecdotes concerning his
vices have been preserved, but they are deserving of detailed notice only as
proofs of the great demoralization then existing at Constantinople, for, as
facts concerning Michael, it is probable they have received their colouring
from the flatterers of the dynasty of his assassin. Michael’s unworthy conduct,
however, ultimately rendered him contemptible to all classes. Had the emperor
confined himself to appearing as a charioteer in the Hippodrome, it would have
been easily pardoned; but he carried his extravagance so far as to caricature
the ceremonies of the orthodox church, and publicly to burlesque the religious
processions of the clergy. The indifference of the people to this ribaldry
seems doubly strange, when we reflect on the state of superstition into which
the Constantinopolitans had fallen, and on the important place occupied by the
Eastern Church in Byzantine society. Perhaps, however, the endeavours which had
been made, both by the church and the emperors, to render church ceremonies an
attractive species of public amusement, had tended to prepare the public mind
for this irreverent caricature. It is always imprudent to trifle with a serious
subject, and more especially with religion and religious feelings. At this
time, music, singing, eloquence, magnificence of costume, and scenic effect,
had all been carefully blended with architectural decoration of the richest
kind in the splendid church of St. Sophia, to excite the admiration and engage
the attention. The consequence was, that religion was the thing least thought
of by the people, when they assembled together at ecclesiastical festivals.
Their object was to enjoy the music, view the pageantry, and criticise the
performers. Michael gratified the supercilious critics by his caricatures, and
gave variety to the public entertainments by the introduction of comedy and
farce. The necessity of this was felt in the Roman Catholic Church, which
authorised similar saturnalia, to prevent the ground being occupied by
opponents. The Emperor Michael exhibited a clever but very irreverent
caricature of the ecclesiastical processions of the Patriarch and clergy of
Constantinople. The masquerade consisted of an excellent buffoon arrayed in the
patriarchal robes, attended by eleven mimic metropolitan bishops in full
costume, embroidered with gold, and followed by a crowd disguised as choristers
and priests. This cortège accompanied
by the emperor in person, as if in a solemn procession, walked through the
streets of the capital singing ridiculous songs to psalm tunes, and burlesque
hymns in praise of debauchery, mingling the richest melodies of Oriental
church-music with the most discordant nasal screams of Greek popular ballads.
This disgraceful exhibition was frequently repeated, and on one occasion
encountered the real Patriarch, whom the buffoon saluted with ribald courtesy,
without exciting a burst of indignation from the pious Greeks.
The depravity of society in all ranks had
reached the most scandalous pitch. Bardas, when placed at the head of the
public administration, took no care to conceal his vices; he was accused of an
incestuous intercourse with his son’s wife, while the young man held the high
office of generalissimo of the European troops. Ignatius the Patriarch was a
man of the highest character, eager to obtain for the church in the East that
moral supremacy which the papal power now arrogated to itself in the
West. Disgusted with the vices of Bardas, he refused to administer the
sacrament to him on Advent Sunday, when it was usual for all the great
dignitaries of the empire to receive the Holy Communion from the hands of the
Patriarch, AD 857. Bardas, to revenge himself for this public mark of infamy,
recalled to the memory of the young emperor the resistance Ignatius had made to
Theodora’s receiving the veil, and accused him of holding private communication
with a monk who had given himself out to be a son of Theodora, born before her
marriage with Theophilus. As this monk was known to be mad, and as many
senators and bishops were attached to Ignatius, it would have been extremely
difficult to convict the Patriarch of treason on such an accusation; and there
appeared no possibility of framing any charge of heresy against him. Michael
was, however, persuaded to arrest him on various charges of having committed
acts of sedition, and to banish him to the island of Tenebinthos.
It was now necessary to look out for a new
Patriarch, and the circumstances required that the successor of Ignatius should
be a man of high character as well as talent, for the deposed Patriarch had
occupied no ordinary position. His father and his maternal grandfather (Michael
I and Nicephorus I) had both filled the throne of Constantinople; he was
celebrated for his piety and his devotion to the cause of the church. But his
party zeal had already raised up a strong opposition to his measures in the
bosom of the church; and Bardas took advantage of these ecclesiastical
dissensions to make the contest concerning the patriarchate a clerical
struggle, without bringing the state into direct collision with the church,
whose factious spirit did the work of its own degradation. Gregory, a son of
the Emperor Leo V, the Armenian, was Bishop of Syracuse. He had been suspended
by the Patriarch Methodios for consecrating a priest
out of his diocese. During the patriarchate of Ignatius, the hereditary
hostility of the sons of two rival emperors had perpetuated the quarrel, and
Ignatius had probably availed himself with pleasure of the opportunity offered
him of excommunicating Gregory as some revenge for the loss of the imperial
throne. It was pretended that Gregory had a hereditary aversion to
image-worship, and the suspicions of Methodios were
magnified by the animosity of Ignatius into absolute heresy. This dispute had
been referred to Pope Benedict III, and his decision in favour of Ignatius had
Induced Gregory and his partisans, who were numerous and powerful, to call in
question the legality of the election of Ignatius. Bardas, availing himself of
this ecclesiastical contest, employed threats, and strained the influence of
the emperor to the utmost, to induce Ignatius to resign the patriarchate; but
in vain. It was, therefore, decided that Photius should be elected Patriarch
without obtaining a formal resignation of the office from Ignatius, whose
election was declared null.
Photius, the chief secretary of state, who was
thus suddenly raised to the head of the Eastern Church, was a man of high rank,
noble descent, profound learning, and great personal influence. If we
believe his own declaration, publicly and frequently repeated, he was elected
against his will; and there seems no doubt that he could not have opposed the
selection of the emperor without forfeiting all rank at court, and perhaps incurring
personal danger. His popularity, his intimate acquaintance with civil and canon
law, and his family alliance with the imperial house, gave him many advantages
in his new rank. Like his celebrated predecessors, Tarasios and Nicephorus, he
was a layman when his election took place. On the 2oth December 857, he was
consecrated a monk by Gregory, archbishop of Syracuse; on the following day he
became an anagnostes; the day after, a sub-deacon;
next day he was appointed deacon; and on the 24th he received priest’s orders.
He was then formally elected Patriarch in a synod, and on Christmas-day
solemnly consecrated in the church of St. Sophia.
The election of Photius, which was evidently
illegal, only increased the dissensions already existing in the church; but
they drew off the attention of the people in some degree from political abuses,
and enabled Bardas to constitute the civil power judge in ecclesiastical
matters. Ignatius and the leading men of his party were imprisoned and
ill-treated; but even the clergy of the party of Photius could not escape being
insulted and carried before the ordinary tribunals, if they refused to comply
with the iniquitous demands of the courtiers, or ventured to oppose the
injustice of the government officials. Photius soon bitterly repented having
rendered himself the agent of such men as Bardas and Michael; and as he knew
their conduct and characters before his election, we may believe the assertion
he makes in his letters to Bardas himself, and which he repeats to the Pope, that
he was compelled to accept the patriarchate against his wish.
In the meantime, Ignatius was allowed so much
liberty by the crafty Bardas, who found Photius a less docile instrument than
he had expected, that his partisans assembled a synod in the church of Irene
for forty days. In this assembly Photius and his adherents were excommunicated.
Bardas, however, declared in favour of Photius, and allowed him to hold a
counter-synod in the Church of the Holy Apostles, in which the election of
Ignatius was declared uncanonical, as having been made by the Empress Theodora
in opposition to the protest of several bishops. The persecution of Ignatius
was renewed; he was exiled to Mitylene, and his
property was sequestrated, in the hope that by these measures he would be
induced to resign the patriarchal dignity. Photius, however, had the sense to
see that this persecution only increased his rival's popularity, and
strengthened his party; he therefore persuaded the emperor to recall him, and
reinstate him in the possession of his private fortune. Photius must have felt
that his own former intimacy with his debauched relation Bardas, and his
toleration of the vices of Michael, had fixed a deep stain on his character in
the eyes of all sincere Christians.
It was now necessary to legalize the election of
Photius, and obtain the ratification of the deposition of Ignatius by a general
council of the church; but no general council could be convoked without the
sanction of the Pope. The Emperor Michael consequently despatched
ambassadors to Rome, to invite Pope Nicholas I to send legates to
Constantinople, for the purpose of holding a general council, to put an end to
the dissensions in the Eastern Church. Nicholas appointed two legates,
Zacharias and Rodoald, who were instructed to examine
into the disputes concerning the patriarchate, and also to demand the
restitution of the estates belonging to the patrimony of St. Peter in Calabria
and Sicily, of which the papal See had been deprived in the time of Leo III.
The Pope, moreover, required the emperor to
re-establish the papal jurisdiction over the Illyrian provinces, and recognise
its right to appoint the archbishop of Syracuse, and confirm the election of
all the bishops in the European provinces of the empire. The Popes were how
beginning to arrogate to themselves that temporal power over the whole church
which had grown out of their new position as sovereign princes; but they based
their temporal ambition on that spiritual power which they claimed as the rock
of St. Peter, not on the donation of Charlemagne. The truth is, that the first
Christian emperors had laid a firm foundation for the papal power, by
constituting the Bishop of Rome a kind of secretary of state for Christian
affairs. He was employed as a central authority for communicating with the
bishops of the provinces; and out of this circumstance it very naturally arose
that he acted for a considerable period as a minister of religion and public
instruction in the imperial administration, which conferred immense power in a
government so strictly centralised as that of the Roman Empire. The Christian
emperors of the West, being placed in more direct collision with paganism than
those of the East, vested more extensive powers, both of administration and
police, in the Bishop of Rome, and the provincial bishops of the Western
Church, than the clergy attained in the East. This authority of the bishops
increased as the civil and military power of the Western Empire declined; and
when the imperial city became a provincial city of the Eastern Empire, the
popes became the political chiefs of Roman society, and inherited no small
portion of the influence formerly exercised by the imperial administration over
the provincial ecclesiastics. It is true, the Bishops of Rome could not
exercise this power without control, but, in the opinion of a majority of the
subjects of the barbarian conquerors in the West, the Pope was the legal
representative of the civilisation of imperial Rome as well as the legitimate
successor of St Peter, and the guardian of the rock on which Christianity was
founded. Unless the authority of the popes be traced back to their original
position as archbishops of Rome and patriarchs of the Western Empire, and the
institutions of the papal church be viewed as they originally existed in
connection with the imperial administration, the real value of the papal claims
to universal domination, founded on traditional feelings, cannot be justly
estimated. The popes only imitated the Roman emperors in their most exorbitant
pretensions; and the vicious principles of Constantine, while he was still a
pagan, continue to exert their corrupt influence over the ecclesiastical
institutions of the greater part of Europe to the present day.
The popes early assumed that Constantine had
conferred on the Bishop of Rome a supreme ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the
three European divisions of his dominions, when he divided the empire into four
prefectures. There were, indeed, many facts which tended to support this
claim. Africa, in so far as it belonged to the jurisdiction of the European
prefectures, acknowledged the authority of the Bishop of Rome; and even after
the final division of the empire, Dacia, Macedonia, Thessaly, Epirus, and
Greece, though they were separated from the prefecture of Illyricum, and formed
a new province of the Eastern Empire, continued to be dependent on the
ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Pope. The Patriarch of Antioch was
considered the head of the church in the East. Egypt formed a peculiar district
in the ecclesiastical, as it did in the civil administration of the Roman
Empire, and had its own head, the Patriarch of Alexandria. The Patriarchs of
Jerusalem and Constantinople were modern creations. The bishop of Jerusalem,
who had been dependent on the Patriarch of Antioch, received the honorary title
of Patriarch at the council of Nicaea, and the Emperor Theodosius II conferred
on him an independent jurisdiction over the three Palestines,
the two Phoenicias, and Arabia; but it was not until
after the council of Chalcedon that his authority was acknowledged by the body
of the church, and it was then restricted to the three Palestines,
A.D. 451.
The bishop of Byzantium had been dependent on
the metropolitan or exarch of Heraclea before the translation of the imperial
residence to his See, and the foundation of Constantinople. In the council held
at Constantinople in 381, he was first ranked as Patriarch, because he was the
bishop of the capital of the Eastern Empire, and placed immediately after the
Bishop of Rome in the ecclesiastical hierarchy. St. Chrysostom and his
successors exercised the patriarchal jurisdiction, both in Europe and Asia,
over the Eastern Empire, just as the popes of Rome exercised it in the Western,
yielding merely a precedence in ecclesiastical honour to the representative of
St. Peter. In spite of the opposition of the bishops of old Rome, the bishops
of new Rome thus attained an equality of power which made the popes tremble for
their supremacy, and they regarded the Patriarchs of Constantinople rather as
rivals than as joint rulers of the church. Their ambitious jealousy, joined to
the aspiring arrogance of their rivals, caused all the evils they feared. The
disputes between Ignatius and Photius now gave the Pope hopes of re-establishing
the supremacy of Rome over the whole church, and of rendering the Patriarchs of
the East merely vicegerents of the Roman See.
The Papal legates sent by Nicholas were present
at a general council held at Constantinople in the year 861, which was attended
by three hundred and eighteen bishops. Bardas and Photius had succeeded in
securing the goodwill of the majority of the Eastern clergy. They also
succeeded in gaining the support of the representatives of the Pope, if they
did not purchase it. Ignatius, who was residing in his mother’s palace of Posis, was required to present himself before the council.
He was deposed, though he appealed to the Pope’s legates, and persisted in
protesting that the council did not possess a legal right to depose him. It is
said that a pen was placed forcibly between his fingers, and a cross drawn with
it, as his signature to the act of deposition. He was then ordered to read his
abdication, on the day of Pentecost, in the Church of the Holy Apostles; but,
to avoid this disgrace, he escaped in the disguise of a slave to the Prince's
Islands, and concealed himself among the innumerable monks who had taken up
their abode in these delicious retreats. Bardas sent Oryphas
with six galleys to examine every one of the insular monasteries in succession,
in order to arrest the fugitive; but the search was vain. After the termination
of the council, Ignatius returned privately to his maternal palace, where he
was allowed to remain unmolested. The discussions of this council are said by its
enemies to have been conducted in a very tumultuous manner; but as the majority
was favoured by the Patriarch, the papal legates, and the imperial
administration, it is not likely that any confusion was allowed within the
walls of the council, even though the party of Ignatius was supported by the
Empresses Theodora and Eudocia, and by the great body of the monks. The Emperor
Michael, with great impartiality, refused to throw the whole weight of his
authority in either scale. The truth is, that, being somewhat of a freethinker
as well as a debauchee, he laughed at both parties, saying that Ignatius was
the patriarch of the people, Photius the patriarch of Bardas, and Gryllos (the imperial buffoon) his own patriarch.
Nevertheless, Ignatius was deposed, and the acts of the council were ratified
by the papal legates.
The legates of the Pope certainly yielded to
improper influence, for, besides approving the measures of the Byzantine
government with reference to the patriarchate, they neglected to demand the recognition
of the spiritual authority of the papal see in the terms prescribed by their
instructions. They were consequently disavowed on their return to Rome. The
party of Ignatius appealed to the Pope, who, seeing that no concessions could
be gained from Michael, Bardas, or Photius, embraced the cause of the deposed
Patriarch with warmth. A synod was convoked at Rome; Photius was
excommunicated, in case he should dare to retain possession of the patriarchal
chair, after receiving the papal decision in favour of Ignatius, A.D. 863.
Gregory, the archbishop of Syracuse, who had ordained Photius, was
anathematised, and declared a schismatic, as well as all those who held
communion with him, if he continued to perform the sacerdotal functions. When
the acts of this synod were communicated to Michael by papal letters, the
indignation of the emperor was awakened by what he considered the insolent
interference of a foreign priest in the affairs of the empire, and he replied
in a violent and unbecoming letter. He told his Holiness that he had invited
him to send legates to the general council at Constantinople, from a wish to
maintain unity in the church, not because the participation of the Bishop of
Rome was necessary to the validity of the acts of the Eastern Church. This was
all very reasonable; but he went on to treat the Pope and the Latin clergy as
barbarians, because they were Ignorant of Greek. For this insult, however, the
emperor received a sharp and well-merited rebuke from Pope Nicholas, who asked
him why he styled himself Emperor of the Romans, if he thought the language of
the Roman Empire and of the Roman church a barbarous one. It was a greater
disgrace, in the opinion of the Pope, for the Roman emperor to be ignorant of
the Roman language, than for the head of the Roman church to be ignorant of
Greek.
Nicholas had nothing to fear from the power of
Michael, so that he acted without the restraint imposed on Gregory II In his
contest with Leo the Isaurian. Indeed, the recent success of the Pope, in his dispute
with Lothaire, king of Austrasia, gave him hopes of
coming off victorious, even in a quarrel with the Eastern emperor. He did not
sufficiently understand the effect of more advanced civilisation and extended
education on Byzantine society. Nicholas, therefore, boldly called on Michael
to cancel his insolent letter, declaring that it would otherwise be publicly
burned by the Latin clergy; and he summoned the rival Patriarchs of
Constantinople to appear in person before the papal court, that he might hear
and decide their differences.
This pretension of the Pope to make himself
absolute master of the Christian church, awakened the spirit of resistance at
Constantinople, and caused Photius to respond by advancing new claims for his
See. He insisted that the Patriarchs of Constantinople were equal in rank and
authority to the Popes of Rome. The disputes of the clergy being the only
subject on which the government of the Eastern Empire allowed any expression of
public opinion, the whole attention of society was soon directed to this
ecclesiastical quarrel. Michael assembled a council of the church in 866, at
which pretended representatives of the patriarchs of Antioch, Alexandria, and
Jerusalem were present: and in this assembly Pope Nicholas was declared unworthy
of his See, and excommunicated. There was no means of rendering this sentence
of excommunication of any effect, unless Louis II, the emperor of the West,
could be induced, by the hatred he bore to Nicholas, to put it in execution.
Ambassadors were sent to urge him to depose the Pope, but the death of Michael
suddenly put an end to the contest with Rome, for Basil I embraced the party of
Ignatius.
The contest between Rome and Constantinople was
not merely a quarrel between Pope Nicholas and the Patriarch Photius. There
were other causes of difference between the two Sees, in which Ignatius was as
much opposed to papal pretensions as Photius. Not to mention the old claim of
Rome to recover her jurisdiction over those provinces of the Byzantine Empire which
had been dissevered from her authority, a new conflict had arisen for supremacy
over the church in Bulgaria. When the Bulgarian king Crumn
invaded the empire, after the defeat of Michael I, he carried away so many
prisoners that the Bulgarians, who had already made considerable advances in
civilisation, were prepared, by their intercourse with these slavs, to receive Christianity. A Greek monk, Theodore
Koupharas, who remained long a prisoner in Bulgaria,
converted many by his preaching. During the invasion of Bulgaria by Leo V, a
sister of King Bogoris was carried to Constantinople
as a prisoner, and educated with care. The Empress Theodore exchanged this
princess for Theodore Koupharas, and on her return
she introduced the Christian religion into her brother’s palace.
War subsequently broke out between the Bulgarian
monarch and the empire, and Michael and Bardas made an expedition against the
Bulgarians in the year 861. The circumstances of the war are not detailed; but
in the end the Bulgarian king embraced Christianity, receiving the name of
Michael from the emperor, who became his sponsor. To purchase this peace,
however, the Byzantine emperor ceded to the Bulgarians all the country along
the range of Mount Haemus, called by the Greeks Sideras,
and by the Bulgarians Zagora, of which Debeltos is
the chief town. Michael pretended that the cession was made as a baptismal
donation to the king. The change in the religion of the Bulgarian monarch
caused some discontent among his subjects, but their opposition was soon
vanquished with the assistance of Michael, and the most refractory were
transported to Constantinople, where the wealth and civilisation of Byzantine
society produced such an impression on their minds that they readily embraced
Christianity.
The Bulgarian monarch, fearing lest the
influence of the Byzantine clergy on his Christian subjects might render him in
some degree dependent on the emperor, opened communications with Pope Nicholas
for the purpose of balancing the power of the Greek clergy by placing the
ecclesiastical affairs of his kingdom under the control of the Latins. He
expected also to derive some political support for this alliance, when he saw
the eagerness of the Pope to drive the Eastern clergy out of Bulgaria, Pope
Nicholas appears to have thought that Photius would have made great concessions
to the papal See, in order to receive the pallium from Rome; but when that
Patriarch treated the question concerning the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of
the Eastern church in Bulgaria as a political affair, and referred its decision
to the imperial cabinet, the Pope sent legates into Bulgaria, and the churches
of Rome and Constantinople were involved in a direct conflict for the
ecclesiastical patronage of that extensive kingdom. At a later period, when
Ignatius was re-established as Patriarch, and the general council of 869 was
held to condemn the acts of Photius, Pope Hadrian found Ignatius as little
inclined to make any concessions to the papal See in Bulgaria as his deposed
rival, and this subject remained a permanent cause of quarrel between the two
churches.
Michael, though a drunkard, was not naturally
deficient in ability, activity, or ambition. Though he left the ordinary
administration of public business in the bands of Bardas, on whom he conferred
the title of Caesar, which was then almost equivalent to a recognition of his
title as heir-apparent to the empire, still he never allowed him to obtain the
complete control over the whole administration, nor permitted him entirely to
crush his opponents in the public service. Hence many officers of rank
continued to regard the emperor, with all his vices, as their protector in
office. Like all the emperors of Constantinople, Michael felt himself
constrained to appear frequently at the head of his armies. The tie between the
emperor and the soldiers was perhaps strengthened by these visits, but it can
hardly be supposed that the personal presence of Michael added much to the
efficiency of military operations.
The war on the frontiers of the Byzantine and
Saracen empires was carried on by Omar, the emir of Melitene, without
interruption, in a series of plundering incursions on a gigantic
scale. These were at times revenged by daring exploits on the part of the
Byzantine generals. In the year 856, Leo, the imperial commander-in-chief,
invaded the dominions of the caliph. After taking Anazarba,
he crossed the Euphrates at Samosata, and advanced with his army into
Mesopotamia, ravaging the country as far as Amida. The
Saracens revenged themselves by several plundering incursions into the
different parts of the empire. To stop these attacks, Michael put himself at
the head of the army, and laid siege to Samosata without effect. Bardas
accompanied the emperor rather to watch over his own influence at court, than
to assist his sovereign in obtaining military glory. The following year Michael
was engaged in the campaign against the Bulgarians, of which the result has
been already mentioned. In 860, he led an army of 40,000 European troops
against Omar of Melitene, who had carried his plundering incursions up to the
walls of Sinope. A battle took place in the territory of Dasymon,
near the spot which had witnessed the defeat of Theophilus, and the overthrow
of Michael was as complete as that of his father. The same difficulties in the
ground which had favoured the retreat of Theophilus enabled Manuel, one of the
generals of Michael, to save the army.
The war was still prosecuted with vigour on both
sides. In 863, Omar entered the Armeniac theme with a large force, and took Amisus. Petronas, the emperor’s uncle, who had now acquired
considerable military experience and reputation as general of the Thrakesian
theme, was placed at the head of the Byzantine army. He collected his forces at
Aghionoros, near Ephesus, and when his army was
reinforced by a strong body of Macedonian and Thracian troops, marched towards
the frontier in several divisions, which he concentrated in such a manner as to
cut off the retreat of Omar, and enclose him with an overwhelming force. The
troops under Nasar, the general of the Boukelkrian
theme, strengthened by the Armeniac and Paphlagonian
legions, and the troops of the theme Koloneia,
enclosed the Saracens on the north. Petronas himself, with the Thrakesian,
Macedonian, and Thracian legions, secured the passes and advanced from the
west; while the troops of the Anatolic, Opsikian, and
Cappadocian themes, with the divisions of the Kleisourarchs
of Seleucia and Charsiana, having secured the passes
to the south, cut off the direct line of Omar's retreat. An impassable range of
rocky mountains, broken into precipices, rendered escape to the eastward
impracticable. The headquarters of Petronas were established at Poson, a place situated on the frontiers of the Paphlagonian and Armeniac themes, near the river Lalakon, which flows from the north to south. Omar had
encamped in a plain without suspecting the danger lurking in its rugged
boundary to the east. He suddenly found himself enclosed by the simultaneous
advance of the various divisions of the Byzantine army, and closely blockaded.
He attempted to escape by attacking each division of the enemy in succession,
but the strength of the positions selected by the imperial officers rendered
all his attacks vain. Omar at last fell in the desperate struggle; and
Petronas, leading fresh troops into the plain to attack the weary Saracens,
completed the destruction of their army. The son of Omar contrived to escape
from the field of battle, but he was pursued and taken prisoner by the Kleisourarch of Charsiana, after
he had crossed the Halys. When Petronas returned to
Constantinople, he was allowed to celebrate his victory with great pomp and
public rejoicings. The Byzantine writers estimated the army that was destroyed
at 40,000, while the Arabian historians reduced their loss to only 2000 men.
Public opinion in the empire of the caliph, however, considered the defeat as a
great calamity; and its real importance may be ascertained from the fact, that
alarming seditions broke out against the government when the news reached
Bagdad. After this victory, too, the eastern frontier enjoyed tranquillity for
some time
In the year 865, a nation hitherto unknown made
its first appearance in the history of the world, where it was destined to act
no unimportant part. Its entrance into the political system of the European
nations was marked by an attempt to take Constantinople, a project which it has
often revived, and which the progress of Christian civilisation seems to
indicate must now be realised at no very distant date, unless the revival of
the Bulgarian kingdom to the south of the Danube create a new Slavonian power
in the east of Europe capable of arresting its progress. In the year 862,
Rurik, a Scandinavian or Varangian chief, arrived at Novgorod, and laid the
first foundation of the state which has grown into the Russian empire. The
Russian people, under Varangian domination, rapidly increased in power, and
reduced many of their neighbours to submission. Oskold
and Dir, the princes of Kiof, rendered themselves
masters of the whole course of the Dnieper, and it would seem that either
commercial jealousy or the rapacity of ambition produced some collision with
the Byzantine settlements on the northern shores of the Black Sea; but from
what particular circumstances the Russians were led to make their daring attack
on Constantinople is not known. The Emperor Michael had taken the command of an
army to act against the Saracens, and Oryphas,
admiral of the fleet, acted as governor of the capital during his absence.
Before the Emperor had commenced his military operations, a fleet of two
hundred Russian vessels of small size, taking advantage of a favourable wind,
suddenly passed through the Bosphorus, and anchored at the mouth of the Black
River in the Propontis, about eighteen miles from Constantinople. This Russian
expedition had already plundered the shores of the Black Sea, and from its
station within the Bosphorus it ravaged the country about Constantinople, and
plundered the Prince’s Islands, pillaging the monasteries, and slaying the
monks as well as the other inhabitants. The emperor, informed by Oryphas of the attack on his capital, hastened to its
defence. Though a daring and cruel enemy, the Russians were by no means formidable
to the strength and discipline of the Byzantine forces. It required no great
exertions on the part of the imperial officers to equip a force sufficient to
attack and put to flight these invaders; but the barbarous cruelty of the
soldiers and sailors, and the wild daring of their Varangian leaders, made a
profound impression on the people of Constantinople, suddenly rendered
spectators of the miseries of war, in their most hideous form, in a moment of
perfect security. We need not, therefore, be surprised to find that the sudden
destruction of these dreaded enemies by the drunken emperor, of whom the
citizens of the capital entertained probably even more contempt than he merited
as a soldier, was ascribed to the miraculous interposition of the Virgin of the
Blachern, rather than to the superior military
tactics and overwhelming numbers of the imperial forces. How far this
expedition of the Russians must be connected with the enterprising spirit of
that vigorous band of warriors and pirates from Scandinavia, who, under the
name of Danes, Normans, and Varangians, became the sovereigns of Normandy,
Naples, Sicily, England, and Russia, is still a subject of learned discussion.
About the same time a fleet, manned by the
Saracens of Crete, plundered the Cyclades, and ravaged the coast of Asia Minor,
carrying off great booty and a number of slaves. It would seem that the absence
of the Emperor Michael from Constantinople at the time of the Russian attack
was connected with this movement of the Saracens.
Our conceptions of the manner in which the
Byzantine Empire was governed during Michael’s reign, will become more precise
if we enter into some details concerning the court intrigues and personal
conduct of the rulers of the state. The crimes and assassinations, which figure
as the prominent events of the age in the chronicles of the time, were not, it
is true, the events which decided the fate of the people; and they probably
excited less interest among contemporaries who lived beyond the circle of court
favour, than history would lead us to suppose. Each rank of society had its own
robberies and murders to occupy its attention. The state of society at the
court of Constantinople was not amenable to public opinion, for few knew much
of what passed within the walls of the great palace; but yet the immense
machinery of the imperial administration gave the emperors’ power a solid
basis, always opposed to the temporary vices of the courtiers. The order which
rendered property secure, and enabled the industrious classes to prosper,
through the equitable administration of the Roman law, nourished the vitality
of the empire, when the madness of a Nero and the drunkenness of a Michael
appeared to threaten political order with ruin. The people, carefully secluded
from public business, and almost without any knowledge of the proceedings of
their government, were in all probability little better acquainted with the
intrigues and crimes of their day than we at present. They acted, therefore,
when some real suffering or imaginary grievance brought oppression directly
home to their interests or their feelings. Court murders were to them no more
than a tragedy or a scene in the amphitheatre, at which they were not present.
Bardas had assassinated Theoktistos to obtain
power, yet, with all his crimes, he had great natural talents and some literary
taste. He had the reputation of being a good lawyer and a just judge; and after
he obtained power, he devoted his attention to watch over the judicial
department as the surest basis of popularity. Nevertheless, we find the
government of Michael accused of persecuting the wealthy, merely for the
purpose of filling the public treasury by the confiscation of their property.
This was an old Roman fiscal resource, which had existed ever since the days of
the republic and whose exercise under the earlier emperors calls forth the
bitterness of Tacitus in some of his most vigorous pages. After Bardas was
elevated to the dignity of Caesar, his mature age gave him a deeper interest in
projects of ambition than in the wild debauchery of his nephew. He devoted more
time to public business and grave society, and less to the wine-cup and the
imperial feasts. New boon-companions assembled round Michael, and, to advance
their own fortunes, strove to awaken some jealousy of the Caesar in the breast
of the emperor. They solicited the office of spies to watch the conduct of one
who, they said, was aspiring to the crown. Michael, seeing Bardas devoted to
improving the administration of justice, reforming abuses in the army,
regulating the affairs of the church, and protecting learning, felt how much he
himself neglected his duties, and naturally began to suspect his uncle. The
reformation of the Caesar was an act of sedition against the worthless
emperor.
The favourite parasite of Michael at this time
was a man named Basil, who from a simple groom had risen to the rank of lord
chamberlain. Basil had attracted the attention of the emperor while still
a stable-boy in the service of an officer of the court. The young groom had the
good fortune to overcome a celebrated Bulgarian wrestler at a public wrestling
match. The impression produced by this victory over the foreigner, who had been
long considered invincible, was increased by a wonderful display of his power
in taming the wildest horses, for he possessed the singular natural gift of
subduing horses by a whisper. The emperor took him into his service as a groom;
but Basil’s skill as a sportsman soon made him a favourite and a companion of
one who showed little discrimination in the choice of his associates. At the
imperial orgies, Basil's perseverance as a boon-companion, and his devotion to
all the whims of the emperor, raised him quickly to the highest offices of the
court, and he was placed in constant attendance on his sovereign. These favours
awakened the jealousy of Bardas, who suspected the Macedonian groom of the
power of whispering to Michael as well as to horses. At the same time it
secured Basil the support of all the Caesar’s enemies, who considered a drunken
groom, even though he had risen to great power at court, as a person not likely
to be their rival in ministerial offices.
Basil, however, soon received a very high mark
of Michael's personal favour. He was ordered to divorce his wife and marry
Eudocia Ingerina, who had long been the emperor's mistress; and it was said
that the intercourse continued after she became the wife of the chamberlain.
Every ambitious and debauched officer about the court now looked to the fall of
Bardas as the readiest means of promotion. Symbatios
an Armenian, a patrician and postmaster of the empire, who was the son-in-law
of Bardas, dissatisfied with his father-in-law for refusing to gratify his
inordinate ambition, joined Basil in accusing the Caesar of plotting to mount
the throne. The emperor, without much hesitation, authorised the two intriguers
to assassinate his uncle.
An expedition for reconquering Crete from the
Saracens was about to sail. The emperor, the Caesar, and Basil all partook of
the holy sacrament together before embarking in the fleet, which then proceeded
along the coast of Asia Minor to Kepos in the Thrakesian
theme. Here the army remained encamped, under the pretext that a sufficient
number of transports had not been assembled. Bardas expressed great
dissatisfaction at this delay; and one day, while he was urging Michael to give
orders for the immediate embarkation of the troops, he was suddenly attacked by
Symbatios and Basil, and murdered at the emperor’s
feet. Basil, who, as chamberlain, had conducted him to the imperial tent,
stabbed him in the back.
The accomplished but unprincipled Bardas being
removed, the project of invading Crete was abandoned, and Michael returned to
the capital. On entering Constantinople, however, it was evident that the
assassination of his uncle had given universal dissatisfaction. Bardas, with
all his faults, was the best of Michael's ministers, and the failure of the
expedition against Crete was attributed to his death. As Michael passed through
the streets, a monk greeted him with this bitter salutation: “All hail,
emperor! all hail from your glorious campaign! You return covered with blood,
and it is your own!”. The imperial guards attempted in vain to arrest the
fanatic; the people protected him, declaring he was mad.
The assassination of Bardas took place in spring
866; and on the 26th of May, Michael rewarded Basil by proclaiming him his
colleague, with the title of Emperor. Symbatios
expected that his participation in his father-in law’s murder would have
secured him the title of Caesar; but he soon perceived he had injured his own
fortunes by his crime. He now sought to obtain by open force what he had failed
to gain by private murder. He succeeded in drawing Peganes,
who commanded the troops in the Opsikian theme, into
his conspiracy. The two rebels took up arms, and proclaimed that their object
was not to dethrone Michael, but to depose Basil. Though they drew together a
considerable body of troops, rendered themselves masters of a great extent of
country, and captured many merchant-ships on their passage to Constantinople,
they did not venture to attack the capital. Their plan was ill concerted, for
before the end of the summer they had allowed themselves to be completely
surrounded by the imperial troops. Peganes was taken
prisoner at Kotaeion, and conducted to
Constantinople, where his eyes were put out. He was then placed in the Milion, with a platter in his hand, to ask charity from the
passers-by. Symbatios was subsequently captured at Keltizene. When he reached Constantinople, he was conducted
before Michael. Peganes was brought out to meet him,
with a censer of earthenware filled with burning sulphur instead of incense. Symbatios was then deprived of one of his eyes, and his
right hand was cut off. In this condition he was placed before the palace of Lausus, with a dish on his knees, as a common beggar. After
exhibiting his rebellious officers in this position for three days, Michael
allowed them to be imprisoned in their own houses. When Basil mounted the
throne, they were pardoned as men no longer dangerous.
The degrading punishment, to which two men of
the highest rank in the empire were subjected, made a deep impression on the
people of Constantinople. The figure of Peganes, a
soldier of high reputation, standing in the Milion,
asking for an obolos, with a platter in his hand like
a blind beggar, haunted their imagination, and, finding its way into the
romances of the age, was borrowed to illustrate the greatest vicissitudes of
court favour, and give colouring to the strongest pictures of the ingratitude
of emperors. The fate of Peganes and Symbatios, woven into a tale called the Life of Belisarius,
in which the interest of tragic sentiment was heightened by much historical and
local truth, has gained immortality in European literature, and confounded the
critical sagacity of eminent modern writers.
One of the few acts which are recorded of the
joint reign of Michael and Basil was the desecration of the tomb of Constantine
V (Copronymus). This base act was perpetrated to
flatter a powerful party in the church, of which the leading members were
hostile to Bardas, on account of his persecution of Ignatius. The precarious
position of Photius after the murder of his patron, and the inherent
subserviency of the Greek ecclesiastical dignitaries, made him ready to
countenance any display of orthodoxy, however bigoted, that pleased the
populace. The memory of Constantine V was still cherished by no inconsiderable
number of Iconoclasts. Common report still boasted of the wealth and power to
which the empire had attained under the just administration of the Iconoclast
emperors, and their conduct served as a constant subject of reproach to
Michael. The people, however, were easily persuaded that the great exploits of
Constantine V, and the apparent prosperity of his reign, had been the work of
the devil. The sarcophagus in which the body of this great emperor reposed was
of green marble, and of the richest workmanship. By the order of the drunken
Michael and the Slavonian groom Basil, it was broken open, and the body, after
having lain for upwards of ninety years in peace, was dragged into the circus,
where the body of John the Grammarian, torn also from the tomb, was placed
beside it. The remains of these great men were beaten with rods to amuse the
vilest populace, and then burned in the Amastrianon,
the filthiest quarter of the capital, and the place often used for the
execution of malefactors. The splendid sarcophagus of Constantine was cut in
pieces by order of Michael, to form a balustrade in a new chapel he was
constructing at Pharos.
The drunkenness of Michael brought on delirium
tremens, and rendered him liable to fits of madness. He observed that Basil’s
desire to maintain the high position he had reached produced the same
reformation in his conduct which had been visible in that of Bardas. The
Emperor Basil became a very different man from Basil the groom. The change was
observed by Michael, and it rendered him dissatisfied with his colleague. In
one of his fits of madness he invested another of the companions of his orgies,
named Basiliskian, with the imperial title.
In such a court there could be little doubt that
the three emperors, Michael, Basil, and Basiliskian,
could not long hold joint sway. It was probably soon a race who should be the
first murdered, and in such cases the ablest man is generally the most
successful criminal. Basil, having reason to fear for his own safety, planned
the assassination of his benefactor with the greatest deliberation. The murder
was carried into execution after a supper-party given by Theodora to her son in
the palace of Anthimos, where he had resolved to spend a day hunting on the
Asiatic coast. Basil and his wife, Eudocia Ingerina, were invited by the
empress-mother to meet her son, for all decency was banished from this most
orthodox court. Michael, according to his usual habit, was carried from the
supper-table in a state of intoxication, and Basil accompanied his colleague to
his chamber, of which he had previously rendered the lock useless. Basiliskian, the third of this infamous trio, was sleeping,
in a state of intoxication, on the bed placed in the imperial apartment for the
chamberlain on duty. The chamberlain, on following his master, found the lock
of the door useless and the bolts broken, but did not think of calling for
assistance to secure the entrance in the palace of the empress-mother.
Basil
soon returned, attended by John of Chaldia, a Persian
officer named Apelates, a Bulgarian named Peter,
Constantine Toxaras, his own father Bardas, his
brother Marines, and his cousin Ayleon. The
chamberlain immediately guessed their purpose, and opposed their entry into the
chamber. Michael, disturbed by the noise, rose from his drunken sleep, and was
attacked by John of Chaldia, who cut off both his
hands with a blow of his sabre. The emperor fell on the ground. Basiliskian was slain in the meantime by Apelates. Constantine Toxaras,
with the relatives of Basil, guarded the door and the corridor leading to the
apartment, lest the officers of the emperor or the servants of Theodora should
be alarmed by the noise. The shouts of the chamberlain and the cries of Michael
alarmed Basil and those in the chamber, and they rushed into the corridor to
secure their retreat. But the tumult of debauchery had been often as loud, and
the cries of murder produced no extraordinary sensation where Michael was known
to be present. All remaining silent without, some of the conspirators expressed
alarm lest Michael should not be mortally wounded. John of Chaldia,
the boldest of the assassins, returned to make his work sure. Finding the
emperor sitting on the floor uttering bitter lamentations, he plunged his sword
into his heart, and then returned to assure Basil that all was finished.
The conspirators crossed over to Constantinople,
and having secured their entrance into the imperial palace by means of two Persians,
Eulogios and Artabasd, who
were on guard, Basil was immediately proclaimed sole emperor, and the death of
Michael III was publicly announced. In the morning the body of Michael was
interred in a monastery at Chrysopolis, near the
palace of Anthimos. Theodora was allowed to direct the funeral ceremonies of
the son whom her own neglect had conducted to an early and bloody death.
The people of Constantinople appear to have
taken very little interest in this infamous assassination, by which a small
band of mercenary adventurers transferred the empire of the Romans from the
Amorian dynasty to a Macedonian groom, whose family reigned at Constantinople
for two centuries, with greater power and glory than the Eastern Empire had
attained since the days of Justinian.
CHAPTER IV
STATE OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE
DURING THE ICONOCLAST PERIOD
Sect.
I
PUBLIC
ADMINISTRATION DIPLOMATIC AND COMMERCIAL RELATIONS
IN ancient times, when the civilization of the
Greek people had attained its highest degree of moral culture, the Hellenic
race was assailed almost simultaneously by the Persians, Carthaginians, and
Tyrrhenians. The victories obtained over these enemies are still regarded as
the triumphs on which the political civilization of Europe, and of the great
dwelling-place of liberty beyond the Atlantic, is based. The age of Leo the
Isaurian found the government of the Byzantine Empire in a position not very
dissimilar from that of the Greek race in the time of Miltiades. The Athenian
people fought for the political progress of human civilization on the plain of
Marathon. Leo battled for the empire of law and administration behind the walls
of Constantinople; the victory of Miltiades secured only one hundred and fifty
years of liberty to the Greeks, that of the Iconoclast gave nearly five
centuries of despotic power to a system hostile to the development of the human
intellect. The voice of fame has conferred immortal glory on the doubtful
virtues of the Athenian general, and treated with neglect the profound
statesmanship of the stern Isaurian sovereign; and it has done so not unjustly,
for the gratitude of all succeeding ages is due to those who extend the political
ideas of mankind, whereas those who only preserve property must be satisfied
with the applause of the proprietors. Nevertheless the Iconoclast period
of Byzantine history presents a valuable study to the historian, both in what
it did and what it left undone in the greatness of the Imperial administration,
and the littleness of the people who were its subjects.
The Byzantine Empire passed through a more
dangerous ordeal than classic Greece, inasmuch as patriotism is a surer
national bulwark than mechanical administration. The struggle for the
preservation of Constantinople from the Saracens awakens no general feelings
and noble aspirations; it only teaches those who examine history as political
philosophers, what social and administrative tendencies a free people ought
carefully to avoid. On this subject the scanty annals of the Greek people,
as slaves of the Byzantine emperors, though far from an attractive chapter in
history, are filled with much premonitory instruction for nations in an
advanced social condition.
Neither
the emperors of Constantinople, though they styled themselves Emperors of the
Romans, nor their subjects, though calling themselves Roman citizens, sought at
this period to identify themselves with the reminiscences of the earlier Roman
Empire. The Romans of Italy and the Greeks of Hellas had both now fallen
very low in public opinion. Constantinople, as a Christian capital, claimed to
be the mistress of a new world, and the emperors of the East considered
themselves masters of all the territories of pagan Rome, because the dominion
over all Christians was a right inherent in the emperor of the orthodox. But
Constantinople was founded as an antagonist to old Rome, and this antagonism
has always been a portion of its existence. As a Christian city, its church and
its ecclesiastical language always stood in opposition to the church and
ecclesiastical language of Rome. The thoughts of the one were never transferred
in their pure conception to the mind of the other. For several centuries Latin
was the language of the court, of the civil government, and of the higher ranks
of society at Constantinople. In the time of Leo III, and during the Byzantine
Empire, Greek was the language of the administration and the people, as well as
of the church, but we are not to suppose, from that circumstance, that the
inhabitants of the city considered themselves as Greeks by descent. Even by the
populace the term would have been looked upon as one of reproach, applicable as
a national appellation only to the lower orders of society in the Hellenic
themes. The people of Constantinople, and of the Byzantine Empire at
large, in their civil capacity, were Romans, and in their religious, orthodox
Christians; in no social relation, whether of race or nationality, did they
consider themselves Greeks.
At the time of the succession of Leo III, the
Hellenic race occupied a very subordinate position in the empire. The
predominant influence in the political administration was in the hands of Asiatics, and particularly of Armenians, who filled the
highest military commands. The family of Leo the Isaurian was said to be of
Armenian descent; Nicephorus I was descended from an Arabian family; Leo V was
an Armenian; Michael II, the founder of the Amorian dynasty, was of a Phrygian
stock. So that for a century and a half, the Empress Irene appears to be the
only sovereign of pure Greek blood who occupied the imperial throne, though it
is possible that Michael Rhangabé was an Asiatic
Greek. Of the numerous rebels who assumed the title of Emperor, the greater
part were Armenians. Indeed, Kosmas, who was elected by the Greeks when they
attacked Constantinople in the year 727, was the only rebel of the Greek nation
who attempted to occupy the throne for a century and a half. Artabasdos, who rebelled against his brother-in-law,
Constantine V, was an Armenian. Alexis Mousel,
strangled by order of Constantine VI in the year 790; Bardan,
called the Turk, who rebelled against Nicephorus I; Arsaber,
the father-in-law of Leo V, convicted of treason in 808; and Thomas, who
revolted against Michael II, were all Asiatics, and
most of them Armenians. Another Alexis Mousel, who
married Maria, the favourite daughter of Theophilus; Theophobos, the
brother-in-law of the same emperor; and Manuel, who became a member of the
council of regency at his death, were likewise of foreign Asiatic descent. Many
of the Armenians in the Byzantine Empire at this time belonged to the oldest
and most illustrious families of the Christian world, and their connection with
the remains of Roman society at Constantinople, in which the pride of birth was
cherished, is a proof that Asiatic influence had eclipsed Roman and Greek in
the government of the empire. Before this happened the Roman aristocracy
transplanted to Constantinople must have become nearly extinct. The names which
appear as belonging to the aristocracy of Constantinople, when it became
thoroughly Greek, make their first appearance under the Iconoclasts; and the
earliest are those of Doukas, Skleros, and
Melissenos. The order introduced into society by the political and
ecclesiastical reforms of Leo III, gave a permanence to high birth and great
wealth, which constituted henceforth a claim to high office. A degree of
certainty attended the transmission of all social advantages which never before
existed in the Roman Empire. This change would alone establish the fact that
the reforms of Leo III had rendered life and property more secure, and
consequently circumscribed the arbitrary power of preceding emperors by stricter
forms of administrative and legal procedure. An amusing instance of the
influence of aristocratic and Asiatic prejudices at Constantinople, will appear
in the eagerness displayed by Basil I, a Slavonian groom from Macedonia, to
claim descent from the Armenian royal family. The defence of this absurd
pretension is given by his grandson, Constantine VII (Porphyrogenitus.)
It is difficult to draw an exact picture of the
Byzantine government at this period, for facts can easily be collected, which,
if viewed in perfect isolation, would, according to our modern ideas, warrant
the conclusion, either that it was a tyrannical despotism, or a mild legal
monarchy. The personal exercise of power by the emperor, in punishing his
officers with death and stripes, without trial, and his constant interference
with the administration of justice, contrast strongly with the boldness
displayed by the monks and clergy in opposing his power. In order to form a
correct estimate of the real position occupied by the Byzantine empire in the
progressive improvement of the human race, it is necessary to compare it, on
one hand, with the degraded Roman empire which it replaced; and on the other
with the arbitrary government of the Mohammedans, and the barbarous
administration of the northern nations, which it resisted. The regularity of
its civil, financial, and judicial administration, the defensive power of its
military and naval establishments, are remarkable in an age of temporary
measures and universal aggression. The state of education and the moral
position of the clergy certainly offer favourable points of comparison, even
with the brilliant empires of Haroun Al Rashid and Charlemagne. On the other
hand, fiscal rapacity was the incurable canker of the Byzantine, as it had been
of the Roman government. From it arose all those precautionary measures which
reduced society to a stationary condition. No class of men was invested with a
constitutional or legal authority to act as defenders of the people’s rights
against the fiscality of the imperial administration. Insurrection, rebellion,
and revolution were the only means of obtaining either reform or justice, when
the interests of the treasury were concerned.
Yet even in this branch of its administration no other absolute
government ever displayed equal prudence and honesty. Respect for the law was
regarded by the emperors as self-respect; and the power possessed by the
clergy, who in some degree participated in popular feelings, contributed to
temper and restrain the exercise of arbitrary rule.
Yet the
Byzantine Empire, however superior it might be to contemporary governments,
presents points of resemblance, which prove that the social condition of its
population was in no inconsiderable degree affected by some general causes
operating on the general progress of human civilization in the East and the
West. The seventh century was a period of disorganization in the Eastern
Empire, and of anarchy in all the kingdoms formed out of the provinces of the
Western. Even throughout the dominions of the Saracens, in spite of the power
and energy of the central administration of the caliphs, the nations under its
rule were in a declining state.
The first step towards the constitution of
modern society, which renders all equal in the eye of the law, was made at
Constantinople about the commencement of the eighth century. The reign of Leo
III opens a new social era for mankind, as well as for the Eastern Empire; for
when he reorganised the frame of Roman society, he gave it the seeds of the
peculiar features of modern times. Much of this amelioration is, without doubt,
to be attributed to the abilities of the Iconoclast emperors; but something may
be traced to the infusion of new vigour into society from popular feelings, of
which it is difficult to trace the causes or the development. The Byzantine
Empire, though it regained something of the old Roman vigour at the centre of
its power, was unable to prevent the loss of several provinces; and Basil I
succeeded to an empire of smaller extent than Leo III, although to one that was
far richer and more powerful. The exarchate of Ravenna, Rome, Crete, and Sicily
had passed under the dominion of hostile states. Venice had become completely
independent. On the other hand it must be remembered, that In 717 the Saracens
occupied the greater part of Asia Minor and Cyprus, from both which they had
been almost entirely expelled before 867. The only conquest of which the
emperors of Constantinople could boast was the complete subjugation of the
allied city of Cherson to the central administration. Cherson had hitherto
enjoyed a certain degree of political independence which had for centuries
secured its commercial prosperity. Its local freedom was destroyed in the time
of Theophilus, who sent his brother-in-law Petronas to occupy it with an army,
and govern it as an Imperial province. The power of the emperor was,
however, only momentarily increased by the destruction of the liberties of
Cherson; the city fell rapidly from the degree of wealth and energy which had
enabled it to afford military aid to Constantine the Great, and to resist the
tyranny of Justinian II, and lost much of its commercial importance.
Historians generally speak of the Byzantine
Empire at this period as if it had been destitute of military power. Events as
far removed from one another, in point of time, as our own misfortunes in India
at the Black Hole of Calcutta, and the massacre of Kabul, are cited to prove
that the Byzantine government was incapable, and the Byzantine army feeble and
unwarlike. The truth is this, the Byzantine Empire was a highly civilised
society, and consequently its tendencies were essentially defensive when those
of the rest of the world were aggressive. The Saracens, Franks, and Bulgarians
were nations devoted to war, and yet the Byzantine Empire effectually resisted
and long outlived these empires of warriors. No contemporary government
possessed a permanent military establishment so perfectly organised as the
emperor of Constantinople, nor could any bring into the field, on a sudden
exigency, a better appointed army. The caliphs had the power of deluging the
frontier provinces with larger bodies of light troops than could be prevented
from plundering the country, for the imperial armies were compelled to act on
the defensive in order to secure the fortified towns, and defensive warfare can
rarely protect all the assailable points of an extensive frontier. Whole
provinces were therefore often laid waste and depopulated; yet, under the
Iconoclast emperors, the Byzantine territories increased in prosperity. The
united attacks of the Saracens, Bulgarians, and Franks inflicted trifling evils
on the Byzantine Empire, compared with what the predatory incursions of small
bands of Normans inflicted on the empire of the successors of Charlemagne, or
the incessant rebellions and civil wars on the dominions of the caliphs.
The Saracens devoted all the immense wealth of
their empire to their military establishment, and they were certainly more
formidable enemies to the Byzantine emperors than the Parthians had been to the
Romans; yet the emperors of Constantinople resisted these powerful enemies most
successfully. The Saracen troops were no way inferior to the Byzantine in arms,
discipline, artillery, and military science; their cavalry was mailed from head
to foot, each horseman bearing a lance, a scimitar, and a bow slung over his
shoulder. Their discipline was of the strictest land, and their armies moved
not only with catapultas and military engines for
field service, but also with all the materials and machines requisite for
besieging cities. Under Kassim a band of six thousand
men ventured to invade India; yet the caliphs never thought of encountering the
Byzantine army unless with immense numbers of their chosen warriors; and they
sustained more signal defeats from the emperors of Constantinople than from all
the other enemies they encountered together. The bloody contests and
hard-fought battles with the armies of the caliphs in Asia Minor, entitle the
Byzantine army to rank for several centuries as one of the best the world has
ever seen.
The Bulgarians were likewise dangerous
enemies. Their continual wars gave them no mean knowledge of military
science; and the individual soldiers, from their habits of life, possessed the
greatest activity and powers of endurance. In the wars at the end of the eighth
and the beginning of the ninth centuries they fought completely armed in steel,
and possessed military engines of every kind then known. We have the testimony
of a Byzantine writer, that the armies of Crumn were
supplied with every warlike machine discovered by the engineering knowledge of
the Romans.
In all the scientific departments of war, in the
application of mechanical and chemical skill to the art of destruction, and in
the construction of engines for the attack and defence of fortresses, there can
be no doubt that the Byzantine engineers were no way inferior to the Roman; for
in the arsenals of Constantinople, the workmen and the troops had been
uninterruptedly employed from generation to generation in executing and
improving the same works. Only one important invention seems to have been made,
which changed, in some degree, the art of defence on shore, and of attack at
sea: this was the discovery of Greek fire, and the method of launching it to a
certain distance from brazen tubes.
The aristocracy of the Byzantine Empire, though
not exclusively devoted to war, like the nobility of other contemporary
nations, was still deeply imbued with the military spirit. No people can boast
of a greater number of warlike sovereigns than the Byzantine Empire, from the
accession of Leo III to the death of Michael III. During this period of a
century and a half, not one of the emperors failed to appear at the head of the
army; and Leo III, Constantine V, Leo V, Michael II, and Theophilus, were
experienced generals; the careless Constantine VI and the debauched Michael III
appeared to greater advantage in the camp than in the capital; and it was only
the weak, religious persecutor, Michael Rhangabé, who
was absolutely contemptible as a soldier.
Amidst this military energy, nothing seems more
remarkable than the indifference with which the loss of central Italy, and the
islands of Crete and Sicily, was viewed by the Byzantine government. It would
seem that the value of these distant provinces was estimated at Constantinople
solely by the amount of revenue they produced to the imperial treasury, and
that when the expenses of a province absorbed all its revenues, or its
reconquest was found to entail a degree of outlay that was never likely to be
repaid, the emperors were often indifferent at the loss.
The foundation of the Frank Empire by Charles
Martel very nearly corresponds with the organization of the Byzantine by Leo
III. The invasion of Italy by Pepin, A.D. 754, and the temporal authority
conceded to the popes, compelled the Byzantine emperors to enter into
negotiations with Charlemagne on a footing of equality. The importance of
maintaining friendly relations with Constantinople is said by Eginhard to have influenced Charlemagne in affecting to
receive the imperial crown from the Pope by surprise; he wished to be able to
plead that his election as emperor of the West was unsought on his part.
Interest silenced pride on both sides, and diplomatic relations were
established between the two emperors of the East and the West; embassies and
presents were sent from Constantinople to Charlemagne and his successors,
treaties were concluded and the Byzantine government became in some degree
connected with the international system of medieval Europe. The
superiority still held by the court of Constantinople in public opinion, is
manifest in the Greek salutations with which the Pope flattered Charlemagne at
the commencement of his letters; yet Greek official salutations had only lately
supplanted Latin at Constantinople itself.
The political alliances and diplomatic relations
of the Byzantine court were very extensive; but the most important were those
with the Khan of the Khazars, who ruled all the northern shores of the Caspian
Sea, and with the Ommiad caliphs of Spain. Scandinavian ambassadors who had
passed through Russia visited the splendid court of Theophilus; but their
mission related rather to mercantile questions, or to the manner of furnishing
recruits to the mercenary legions at Constantinople, than to political
alliance.
The remarkable embassy of John the Grammarian,
who was sent by Theophilus as ambassador to the Caliph Motassem,
deserves particular notice, as illustrating the external character of Byzantine
diplomacy. The avowed object of the mission was to conclude a treaty of peace,
but the ambassador had secret instructions to employ every art of persuasion to
induce Manuel, one of the ablest generals of the empire, who had distinguished
himself greatly in the civil wars of the Saracens, to return to his allegiance.
The personal qualities of John rendered him peculiarly well suited to this
embassy. To great literary attainments he joined a degree of scientific
knowledge, which gained him the reputation of a magician, and he was perfectly
acquainted with the Arabic language. All these circumstances insured him a good
reception at the court of Bagdad, which had been so lately and so long governed
by the Caliph Almamun, one of the greatest
encouragers of science and literature who ever occupied a throne. The
Byzantine ambassador was equally celebrated for his knowledge of medicine,
architecture, mechanics, mathematics, chemistry, astronomy, and astrology; and
probably even the Caliph Motassem, though a free-thinker,
and a disbeliever in the divine origin of the Koran, shared so much of the
popular belief as to credit the tale that the learned Christian priest could
read the secrets of futurity in a brazen basin, and felt great curiosity to
converse with a man who possessed this rare gift of brazen magnetism.
On quitting Constantinople, John was furnished
with the richest furniture, splendid carpets, damasked silk hangings, and plate
chased and inlaid with the most beautiful ornaments, taken from the imperial palaces,
to which was added 400 Ib. of gold for the current expenses of the embassy.
According to the usage of the East, the
ambassador was lodged at Bagdad in a palace furnished by the caliph. The
magnificent style in which the diplomatic priest installed himself in the
apartments he reserved for his own use made a sensation at the court of Motassem, though many then living had witnessed the
splendour of Haroun Al Rashid. This lavish display of wealth was better adapted
to gratify the vanity of Theophilus than to advance the conclusion of a lasting
peace. If we could place implicit confidence in the stories recorded by the
Byzantine writers, of various tricks to which the ambassador resorted in order
to augment the wonder of the Saracen nobles at the enormous wealth of the
Christians, we should be inclined to question the judgment of John himself. His
conduct could only have originated in personal pride; and the course attributed
to him would have been more likely to excite the Mohammedans to active warfare,
where they had prospect of plundering so rich an enemy, than of persuading them
to conclude a treaty of peace.
One anecdote, dwelt on with peculiar
satisfaction, deserves to be recorded. John possessed a splendid golden basin
and ewer, richly chased and ornamented with jewels, and of this he made a great
display. Throughout the East, and in many parts of European Turkey at the
present day, where knives and forks are not yet in use, it is the practice to
wash the hands immediately before commencing a meal, and on rising from the
table. A servant pours water from a ewer over the hands of the guest, while
another holds a basin to receive it as it falls. This, being done by each guest
in turn, would leave ample time for observing the magnificent golden utensils
of John at the entertainments he was in the habit of giving to the leading men
in Bagdad. At a grand entertainment given by the Byzantine ambassador to the
principal nobility of the caliph’s court, the slaves rushed into the hall where
the guests were assembled, and informed John, in a state of great alarm, that
his magnificent golden basin was not to be found. The Saracens eagerly
suggested measures for its recovery; but John treated the affair with
indifference, and calmly ordered his steward to give the slaves another. Soon
two slaves appeared, one bearing in his hand a golden ewer, and the other a
basin, larger and more valuable, if not more elegant, than that which it was
supposed had been stolen. These had been hitherto kept concealed, on purpose
to attract public attention by this pitiful trick.
John, however, gained the respect of the
Saracens by his disinterested conduct, for he declined to receive any present
of value for himself, even from the caliph. Motassem,
therefore, presented him with a hundred Christian captives; but even then he
sent immediately to Theophilus, to beg him to return a like number of Saracen
prisoners to the caliph. No general exchange of prisoners, however, appears to
have been effected at the time of this embassy, which, with other
circumstances, affords a proof that the avowed object of the embassy totally
failed. When John returned to Constantinople, he persuaded the Emperor
Theophilus to construct the palace of Bryas in the
varied style of Saracenic architecture, of which those who have seen the
interior of the palaces at Damascus, or the work of Owen Jones on the Alhambra,
can alone form an adequate idea.
The great wealth of the Byzantine government at
this period derived from the commercial pre-eminence it then enjoyed among
the nations of the earth. The commerce of Europe centred at Constantinople in
the eighth and ninth centuries more completely than it has ever since done in
any one city. The principles of the government, which reprobated monopoly, and
the moderation of its duties, which repudiated privileges, were favourable to
the extension of trade. While Charlemagne rained the internal trade of his
dominions by fixing a maximum of prices, and destroyed foreign commerce under
the persuasion that, by discouraging luxury, he could enable his subjects to
accumulate treasures which he might afterwards extort or filch into his own
treasury, Theophilus prohibited the persons about his court from engaging in
mercantile speculations, lest by so doing they should injure the regular
channels of commercial intercourse, by diminishing the profits of the
individual dealer. Theophilus proclaimed that commerce was the principal source
of the wealth of his people, and that as many derived their means of
subsistence from trade, and drew from it alone the funds for payment of the
public burdens, any interference with the liberty of commerce was a public as
well as a private injury. The political importance of the commercial classes
induced Irene, when she usurped the empire, to purchase their favour by
diminishing the duties levied at the passages of the Bosphorus and the
Hellespont.
During this period the western nations of Europe
drew their supplies of Indian commodities from Constantinople, and the
Byzantine Empire supplied them with all the gold coin in circulation for
several centuries.
The Greek navy, both mercantile and warlike, was
the most numerous then in existence. Against the merchantships
of the Greeks, the piratical enterprises of the Egyptian, African, and Spanish
Arabs were principally directed. Unfortunately we possess no authentic details
of the commercial state of the Byzantine Empire, nor of the Greek population
during the Iconoclast period, yet we may safely transfer to this time the
records that exist proving the extent of the Greek commerce under the Basilian
dynasty. Indeed, we may remember that, as the ignorance and poverty of
Western Europe was much greater in the eleventh and twelfth centuries than in
the eighth and ninth, we may conclude that Byzantine commerce was also greater.
The influence of the trade of the Arabians with
the East Indies on the supply of the markets of Western Europe has been
overrated, and that of the Greeks generally lost sight of. This is, in some
degree, to be attributed to the circumstance that the most westerly nations, in
the times preceding the Crusades, were better acquainted with the commerce and
the literature of the Arabs of Spain than with that of the Byzantine Greeks,
and also to the preservation of an interesting account of the extensive voyages
of the Arabs in the Indian seas during this very period, when we are deprived
of all records of Byzantine commerce. The Byzantine markets drew their supplies
of Indian and Chinese productions from Central Asia, passing to the north of the
caliph’s dominions through the territory of the Khazars to the Black Sea. This
route was long frequented by the Christians, to avoid the countries in the
possession of the Mohammedans, and was the highway of European commerce for
several centuries. Though it appears at present a far more difficult and
expensive route than that by the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, it was really
safer, more rapid, and more economical, in the eighth, ninth, and tenth
centuries. This requires no proof to those who are acquainted with caravan life
in the East, and who reflect on the imperfections of ancient navigation, and
the dangers which sailing vessels of any burden are exposed to in the Red Sea.
When the Venetians and Genoese began to surpass the Greeks in commercial enterprise,
they endeavoured to occupy this route; and we have some account of the line it
followed, and the manner in which it was carried on, after the East had been
thrown into confusion by the conquests of the Crusaders and Tartars, in the
travels of Marco Polo. For several centuries the numerous cities of the
Byzantine Empire supplied the majority of the European consumers with Indian
wares, and it was in them alone that the necessary security of property existed
to preserve large stores of merchandise. Constantinople was as much superior to
every city in the civilized world, in wealth and commerce, as London now is to
the other European capitals. And it must also be borne in mind, that the
countries of Central Asia were not then in the rude and barbarous condition
into which they have now sunk, since nomad nations have subdued them. On many
parts of the road traversed by the caravans, the merchants found a numerous and
wealthy population ready to traffic in many articles sought after both in the
East and West; and the single commodity of furs supplied the traders with the
means of adding greatly to their profits.
Several circumstances contributed to turn the
great highway of trade from the dominions of the caliphs to Constantinople. The
Mohammedan law, which prohibited all loans at interest, and the arbitrary
nature of the administration of justice, rendered all property, and
particularly commercial property, insecure. Again, the commercial route of the
Eastern trade, by the way of Egypt and the Red Sea, was suddenly rendered both
difficult and expensive, about the year 767, by the Caliph Al Mansur, who
closed the canal connecting the Nile with the Red Sea. The harvests of Egypt,
which had previously filled the coast of Arabia with plenty, could no longer be
transported in quantity to the ports of the Red Sea; living became expensive;
the population of Arabia declined; and the carrying trade was ruined by the
additional expenditure required. The caliph certainly by this measure
impoverished and depopulated the rebellious cities of Medina and Mecca to such
a degree as to render their military and political power less dangerous to the
central authority at Bagdad, but at the same time he ruined the commerce of
Egypt with India and the eastern coast of Southern Africa. Since that period,
this most important line of communication has never been restored, and the
coarser articles of food, of which Egypt can produce inexhaustible stores, are
deprived of their natural market in the arid regions of Arabia. The hostile
relations between the caliphs of Bagdad and Spain likewise induced a
considerable portion of the Mohammedan population on the shores of the
Mediterranean to maintain close commercial relations with Constantinople.
A remarkable proof of the great wealth of society
at this period is to be found in the immense amount of specie in circulation.
We have already noticed that the Byzantine empire furnished all the western
nations of Europe with gold coin for several centuries; and when the hoards of the Mohammedan conquerors of India fell a prey to
European invaders, it was found that the gold coins of the Byzantine emperors
formed no small part of their treasures. The sums accumulated by Al Mansur and
Theophilus were so great, that no extortion could have collected them unless
the people had been wealthy, and great activity had existed in the commercial
transactions of the age. It is true that the Caliph Al Mansur was remarkable
for his extreme parsimony during twelve years of his reign. During this
period he is said to have accumulated a treasure amounting to six hundred
millions of dirhems in silver, and fourteen millions of dinars of gold, or
at the rate of 1,680,000 lb. a-year. The Emperor Theophilus, whose lavish
expenditure in various ways has been recorded, left a large sum in the imperial
treasury at his death, which, when increased by the prudent economy of the
regency of Theodora, amounted to one thousand and ninety-nine centenaries of
gold, three thousand centenaries of silver, besides plate and gold embroidery, that,
on being melted down, yielded two hundred centenaries of gold. The gold may be
estimated as equal to about four millions and a half of sovereigns, and the
weight of silver as equal to 930,000 lb., and the remainder of the treasure as
equal to 800,000 sovereigns, making the whole equal to a metallic coinage of
5,230,000 sovereigns, and of course far exceeding that sum in its exchangeable
value, from the comparative scarcity of the precious metals, and the more
circumscribed circulation of money. There does not appear to be any
exaggeration in this account of the sums left in the Byzantine treasury at the
termination of the regency of Theodora, for the historians who have transmitted
it wrote under the government of the Basilian dynasty, and under circumstances
which afforded access to official sources of information. The Emperor
Constantine Porphyrogenitus, their patron, who lived in the third generation
after Theodora, would not have authorized any misrepresentation on such a
subject.
Some further confirmation of the general wealth
of the countries on the shores of the Mediterranean, in which commerce was
allowed some degree of liberty, is found in the wealth of Abderrahman
III, in Spain, who is said to have possessed an annual revenue of 5,480,000
dinars, though some historians have calculated the whole income of his treasury
at 12,945,000, which would be equal to 5,500,000 lb. sterling. The poverty of
Europe at a later period, when the isolation caused by the feudal system had
annihilated commerce and prevented the circulation of the precious metals,
cannot be used as an argument against the probability of this wealth having
existed at the earlier period of which we are treating.
In contrasting the state of commercial society
in the Byzantine and Saracen empires, we must not overlook the existence of one
social feature favourable to the Mohammedans. The higher classes of the
Byzantine empire, imbued with the old Roman prejudices, looked on
trade of every kind as a debasing pursuit, unsuitable to those who were called
by birth or position to serve the state, while the Saracens still paid an
outward respect to the antique maxims of Arabian wisdom, which inculcated
industry as a source of independence even to men of the highest rank. In
deference to this injunction, the Abassid caliphs
were in the habit of learning some trade, and selling the product of their
manual labour, to be employed in purchasing the food they consumed.
Perhaps we may also hazard the conjecture that a
considerable addition had, shortly before the reign of Theophilus, been made to
the quantity of precious metals in existence by the discovery of new mines. We
know, indeed, that the Saracens in Spain worked mines of gold and silver to a
considerable extent, and we may therefore infer that they did the same in many
other portions of their vast dominions. At the same time, whatever was done
with profit by the Saracens was sure to be attempted by the Christians under the
Byzantine government. The abundance of Byzantine gold coins still in existence
leads to the conclusion that gold was obtained in considerable quantities from
mines within the circuit of the Eastern Empire.
Sect.
II
STATE
OF SOCIETY AMONG THE PEOPLE OF THE BYZANTINE
EMPIRE IN THE EIGHTH AND NINTH
CENTURIES
The wealth of nations depends in a great degree
on their commerce, but the health and strength of a people is derived from its
agricultural industry. The population which is pressed into large cities
by commercial pursuits, or crowded into little space by manufacturing industry,
even the wanderers with the caravan and the navigators of ships, rarely
perpetuate their own numbers. All these hunters after riches require to be
constantly recruited from the agricultural population of their respective
countries. This constant change, which is going on in the population of cities,
operates powerfully in altering the condition of society in each successive
generation. Hence we find the nature of society in Constantinople strongly
opposed to the principles of the Byzantine government. The imperial government,
as has been already mentioned, inherited the conservative principles of Roman
society, and, had it been possible, would have fettered the population to its
actual condition, and reduced the people to castes. The laws of Providence
opposed the laws of Rome, and society dwindled away. The ruling classes in the
Western Empire had expired before their place was occupied by the conquering
nations of the north. In the Eastern Empire, the change went on more gradually;
the towns and cities were far more numerous, but many of them embraced within
their own walls an agricultural population, which not only recruited the
population engaged in trade, but also sent off continual colonies to maintain
the great cities of the of the empire and especially Constantinople. This great
capital, recruited from distant towns, and from nations dissimilar in manners
and language, was consequently always undergoing great changes, yet always
preserving its peculiar type of a city destitute of any decided nationality,
and of homogeneity in its society. It became in turn a Roman, an Asiatic,
and a Greek city, as the Roman, the Asiatic, or the Greek aristocracy acquired
the predominant influence in the administration. Under the Iconoclasts, it was
decidedly more an Asiatic city than either a Greek or a Roman. Whether the Asiatics, the Greeks, or the Slavonians formed the greater
number of the inhabitants, cannot be ascertained. The aristocracy was certainly
Asiatic, the middle classes and artisans were chiefly Greeks, but the lowest
rabble, the day labourers, the porters, and the domestic servants, when not
slaves, appear to have consisted principally of the Slavonians of Thrace and
Macedonia, who, like the Emperor Basil the Macedonian, entered the city with a
wallet on their shoulder to seek their fortune. A similar condition of society
exists today, and thousands of labourers may be seen weekly arriving at
Constantinople in the steamers from the Asiatic coast of the Black Sea, and
from the coasts between Smyrna, Thessalonica, and the capital.
The causes of decline in society throughout the
Roman world have been already noticed, and the nature of the improvement which
took place In the Eastern Empire during the reigns of Leo III and his
successors has been pointed out. It is now necessary to examine why
the improvement of society so soon assumed a stationary aspect, and arrested
the revival of civilization. We must not forget that the empire was still Roman
in its name, traditions, and prejudices. The trammels, binding the actions and
even the thoughts of the various classes, were very slightly relaxed, and the
permanent relaxation had been made in the interest of the government, not of
the people. Men of every rank were confined within a restricted circle, and
compelled to act in their individual spheres in one unvarying manner. Within
the imperial palace the incessant ceremonial was regarded as the highest branch
of human knowledge. It was multiplied into a code, and treated as a science. In
the church, tradition, not gospel, was the guide, and the innumerable forms and
ceremonies and liturgies were hostile to the exercise of thought and the use of
reason. Among the people at large, though the curial system of castes had been
broken down, still the trader was fettered to his corporation, and often ta his
quarter or his street, where he exercised his calling amidst men of the same
profession. The education of the child, and the tendencies of society, both
prevented the individual from acquiring more than the confined knowledge
requisite for his position in the empire. No learning, no talent, and no virtue
could conduct either to distinction or wealth, unless exercised according to
the fixed formulas that governed the state and the church. Hence even the
merchant, who travelled over all Asia, and who supported the system by the
immense duties he furnished to government, supplied no new ideas to society,
and perhaps passed through life without acquiring many.
This peculiar constitution of society affords us
the explanation of the causes which have created some of the vices in the
character of the Greeks of later times, which are erroneously supposed to be an
inheritance of the days of liberty. The envy and jealousy produced by party
contests, in small cities acting as independent governments, was certainly very
great, and, we may add, quite natural, where men were violent from their
sincerity, and political institutions rendered law imperfect. The envy and
jealousy of modern times were baser feelings, and had their origin in meaner
interests. Roman society crowded men of the same professions together, and in
some measure excluded them from much intercourse with others. The
consequence was, that a most violent struggle for wealth, and often for the
means of existence, was created amongst those living in permanent personal
contact. Every man was deeply interested in rendering himself superior to his
nearest neighbour; and as the fixed condition of everything in the empire
rendered individual progress unattainable, the only method of obtaining any
superiority was by the depreciation of the moral or professional character of a
rival, who was always a near neighbour. Envy and calumny were the feelings of
the mind which Roman society under the emperors tended to develop with efficacy
in every rank. The same cause produces the same effect in the Greek bazaar of
every Turkish town of the present day, where tradesmen of the same profession
are crowded into the same street. When it is impossible to depreciate the
merit of the material and the workmanship, it is easy to calumniate the moral
character of the workman.
The influence of the Greek Church on the
political fabric of the empire had been long in operation, yet it had failed to
infuse a sound moral spirit into either the administration or the people. Still
it may be possible to trace some of the secondary causes which prepared the way
for the reforms of Leo III to the sense of Justice, moral respect, and real
religious faith, infused into the mass of the population by a comparison of the
doctrines of Christianity with those of Mohammedanism. But the blindness
of the age has concealed from our view many of the causes which impelled
society to co-operate with the Iconoclast emperors in their career of
improvement and reorganization. That the moral condition of the people of the
Byzantine empire under the Iconoclast emperors was superior to that of any
equal number of the human race in any preceding period, can hardly be doubted.
The bulk of society occupied a higher social position in the time of
Constantine Copronymus than of Pericles; the masses
had gained more by the decrease of slavery and the extension of free labour
than the privileged citizens had lost. Public opinion, though occupied on
meaner objects, had a more extended basis, and embraced a larger class.
Perhaps, too, the war of opinions concerning ecclesiastical forms or subtleties
tended to develop pure morality as much as the ambitious party-struggles of the
Pnyx. When the merits and defects of each age
are fairly weighed, both will be found to offer lessons of experience which the
student of political history ought not to neglect.
There may be some difference of opinion
concerning the respective merits of Hellenic Roman, and Byzantine society, but
there can be none concerning the superiority of Byzantine over that which
existed in the contemporary empires of the Saracens and the Franks. There we
find all moral restraints weakened, and privileged classes or conquering
nations ruling an immense subject population, with very little reference to
law, morality, or religion. Violence and injustice claimed at Bagdad an
unbounded license, until the Turkish mercenaries extinguished the caliphate,
and it was the Norman invaders who reformed the social condition of the Franks.
Mohammedanism legalised polygamy with all its evils in the East. In the West,
licentiousness was unbounded, in defiance of the precepts of Christianity.
Charles Martel, Pepin, and Charlemagne are said all to have had two wives at a
time, and a numerous household of concubines. But on turning to the Byzantine
Empire, we find that the Emperor Constantine VI prepared the way for his own
ruin by divorcing his first wife and marrying a second, in what was considered
an illegal manner. The laws of the Franks attest the frequency of female
drunkenness; and the whole legislation of Western Europe, during the seventh
and eighth centuries, indicates great Immorality, and a degree of social anarchy,
which explains more clearly than the political events recorded in history, the
real cause of the fall of one government after another. The superior moral
tone of society in the Byzantine Empire was one of the great causes of its long
duration; it was its true conservative principle.
The authority exercised by the senate, the
powers possessed by synods and general councils of the church, and the
importance often attached by the emperors to the ratification of their laws by silentia and
popular assemblies, mark a change in the Byzantine empire In strong contrast
with the earlier military empire of the Romans. The highest power in the state
had been transferred from the army to the laws of the empire no inconsiderable
step in the progress of political civilization. The influence of those feelings
of humanity which resulted from this change, are visible in the mild treatment
of many unsuccessful usurpers and dethroned emperors. During the reign of
Nicephorus I, the sons of Constantine V, Bardanes, and Arsaber,
were all living in monasteries, though they had all attempted to occupy the
throne. Constantine VI, and Michael I lived unmolested by their
successors.
The marked feature of ancient society was the
division of mankind into two great classes: freemen and slaves. The proportion
between these classes was liable to continual variation, and every considerable
variation produced a corresponding alteration in the laws of society, which we
are generally unable to follow. The progress of the mass of the population was,
however, constantly retarded until the extinction of slavery. But towards that
boon to mankind, great progress was made in the Byzantine Empire during the
eighth and ninth centuries. The causes that directly tended to render free
labour more profitable than it had been hitherto, when applied to the
cultivation of the soil, and which consequently operated more immediately in
extinguishing predial slavery, and repressing the most extensive branch of the
slave-trade, by supplying the cities with free emigrants, cannot be indicated
with precision. It has been very generally asserted that we ought to attribute
the change to the influence of the Christian religion. If this be really true,
cavillers might observe that so powerful a cause never in any other case
produced its effects so tardily. Unfortunately, however, though ecclesiastical
influence has exercised immense authority over the internal policy of European
society, religious influence has always been comparatively small; and though
Christianity has laboured to abolish slavery, it was often for the interest of
the church to perpetuate the institution. Slavery had, in fact, ceased to exist
in most European countries, while many Christians still upheld its legality and
maintained that its existence was not at variance with the doctrines of their
religion.
The precise condition of slaves in the Byzantine
Empire at this period must be learned from a careful study of the imperial
legislation of Rome, compared with later documents. As a proof of the improved
philanthropy of enlightened men during the Iconoclast period, the testament of
Theodore Studita deserves to be quoted. That bold and
independent abbot says: “A monk ought not to possess a slave, neither for his
own service, nor for the service of his monastery, nor for the culture of its
lands; for a slave is a man made after the image of God”; but he derogates in
some degree from his own merits, though he gives a correct picture of the
feelings of his time, by adding, “and this, like marriage, is only allowable in
those living a secular life”.
The foundation of numerous hospitals, and other
charitable institutions, both by emperors and private individuals, is also a
proof that feelings of philanthropy as well as religion had penetrated deeply
into men’s minds.
The theological spirit which pervaded Byzantine
society is to be attributed as much to material causes as to the intellectual
condition of the Greek nation. Indeed, the Greeks had at times only a secondary
share in the ecclesiastical controversies in the Eastern Church; though the
circumstance of those controversies having been carried on in the Greek
language has made the nations of western Europe attribute them to a
philosophic, speculative, and polemic spirit inherent in the Hellenic
mind. A very slight examination of history is sufficient to prove, that
several of the heresies which disturbed the Eastern church had their origin in
the more profound religious Ideas of the Oriental nations, and that many of the
opinions called heretical were, in a great measure, expressions of the mental
nationality of the Syrians, Armenians, Egyptians, and Persians, and had no
connection whatever with the Greek mind.
Even the contest with the Iconoclasts was a
dispute in which the ancient Oriental opinions concerning the operations of
mind and matter were as much concerned, as the Greek contest between the
necessity of artificial symbols of faith on the one hand, and the duty of
developing the intellectual faculties by cultivating truth through the reason,
not the Imagination, on the other. The ablest writer on the Greek side of the
question, John Damascenus, was a Syrian, and not a
Greek. The political struggle to establish the centralization of
ecclesiastical and political power was likewise quite as important an element
in the contest as the religious question; and as soon as it appeared firmly
established, the emperors became much more inclined to yield to popular
prejudices. The victory of the image worshippers tended to exalt a party in the
Eastern Church devoted to ecclesiastical tradition, but little inclined to
cultivate Hellenic literature or cherish Hellenic ideas, which it considered
hostile to the legendary lore contained in the lives of the saints. From the
victory of this party, accordingly, we find a more circumscribed circle of
intellectual culture began to prevail in the Byzantine Empire. John the
Grammarian, Leo the Mathematician, and Photius, who acquired his vast literary
attainments as a layman, were the last profound and enlightened Byzantine scholars;
they left no successors, nor has any Greek of the same intellectual calibre
since appeared in the world.
A greater similarity of thought and action may
be traced throughout the Christian world in the eighth century than in
subsequent ages. The same predominance of religious feeling and
ecclesiastical ceremonials; the same passion for founding monasteries and
raising discussions; the same disposition to make life subservient to religion,
to make all amusements ecclesiastical, and to embody the enjoyment of music,
painting, and poetry in the ceremonies of the church; the same abase of the
right of asylum to criminals by the ecclesiastical authorities, and the same
antagonism between the church and the state, is visible in the East and the
West.
The Orthodox Church was originally Greek; the
seven general councils whose canons had fixed its doctrines were Greek; and the
popes, when they rose into importance, could only adopt a scheme of theology
already framed. The religious or theological portion of Popery, as a
section of the Christian church, is really Greek; and it is only the
ecclesiastical, political, and theocratic peculiarities of the fabric which can
be considered as the work of the Latin Church. The general unity of
Christians was, however, prominent in good as well as evil, for if the
missionary labours of Boniface among the Germans, at the commencement of the
eighth century, reflect glory on the Latin Church, the conversion of the
Bulgarians in the middle of the ninth, by the ministry of Methodius and Cyrillos, is honourable to the Byzantine. These two monks,
natives of Thessalonica, where they lived surrounded by a fierce tribe of
Slavonians, devoted themselves to study the language of these troublesome
neighbours. Under the regency of the Empress Theodora, they rendered their
knowledge of the Slavonian dialect the means of propagating Christianity and
advancing the cause of civilization, by visiting Bulgaria in the character of
missionaries. They are universally allowed to have conducted their mission
in a Christian spirit, and to have merited the great success that attended
their labours.
The great improvement which took place in the
administration of justice, and the legal reforms effected by Leo III and
Constantine V, have been already noticed. Leo V and Theophilus also gained the
greatest praise, even from their adversaries, for the strict control they
established over the forms of proceeding and the decisions of the courts of
law. The legal monuments of this period, however, by no means correspond with
the extent of the administrative improvement which took place. The era of
legislative greatness in the Byzantine empire was under the Basilian dynasty,
but it was under the Iconoclast emperors that new vigour was infused into the
system, and the improvements were made which laid the foundation of the
stability, wealth, and power of the Byzantine empire.
The scientific attainments of the educated class
in the Byzantine Empire were unquestionably very considerable. Many were
invited to the court of the Caliph Almamun, and
contributed far more than his own subjects to the reputation that sovereign has
deservedly gained in the history of science. The accurate measurement of
the earth’s orbit in his time seems to show that astronomical and mathematical
knowledge had at no previous period attained a greater height; and if the
Byzantine authorities are to be credited, one of their learned men, Leo the
Mathematician, who was afterwards archbishop of Thessalonica, was invited to
the court of the caliph, because he was universally recognised to be superior
to all the scientific men at Bagdad in mathematical and mechanical knowledge. A
proof that learning was still cultivated in the distant provinces of the
Byzantine empire, and that schools of some eminence existed in Greece, is to be
found in the fact that Leo, when a layman, retired to a college in the island
of Andros to pursue his studies, and there laid the foundation of the
scientific knowledge by which he acquired his reputation. After he was
compelled, on account of his opposition to image-worship, to resign the
archbishopric of Thessalonica, the general respect felt for his learning
obtained for him from Bardas Caesar the appointment of president of the new
university, founded at Constantinople in the reign of Michael III, in which
chairs of geometry and astronomy had been established, as well as the usual
instruction in Greek literature.
It was under the direction of Leo that several
of those remarkable works of jewellery, combined with wonderful mechanical contrivances,
were executed for the Emperor Theophilus, which have been already mentioned.
The perfection of the telegraph by fire-signals, from the frontiers of the
empire to the shores of the Bosphorus, and the machinery by which the signals
were communicated to a dial placed in the imperial council-chamber, were also
the work of Leo. The fame which still attended distinguished artists and
mechanicians at Constantinople shows us that the love of knowledge and art was
not entirely extinct; and the relics of Byzantine jewellery, often found buried
in the most distant regions of Europe, prove that a considerable trade was
carried on in these works.
Even the art of statuary was not entirely
neglected, for it has been noticed already that Constantine VI erected a statue
of bronze in honour of his mother Irene. Painting, however, was more
universally admired, and mosaics were easily adapted to private dwellings.
There were many distinguished painters in the Byzantine Empire at this time, and
there is reason to think that some of their productions were wonderful displays
of artistic skill, without giving credit to the miraculous powers of the works
of Lazaros. The missionary Methodios
is recorded to have awakened the terror of the King of the Bulgarians by a
vivid representation of the tortures of the damned, in a painting combining the
natural portraiture of frightful realities mixed with horrors supplied from a
fertile imagination. The sombre character of Byzantine art was well adapted to
the subject, and the fame Methodios acquired among
his contemporaries, as well as from those in after times who saw his paintings,
may be accepted as a proof that they possessed some touches of nature and
truth. It would be unfair to decide peremptorily on the effect of larger works
of art from the illuminated Byzantine manuscripts which still exist. Art
is subject to strange vicissitudes in very short periods, as may be seen by
anyone who compares a guinea of the reign of George III with a coin of Cromwell
or even Queen Anne, or who looks at Whitehall and the National Gallery.
The literature of the ancient world was never
entirely neglected at Constantinople, so that the intellectual culture of each
successive period must always be viewed in connection with the ages immediately
preceding. The literary history of Constantinople consequently opens
immediately a field of inquiry too wide to be entered on in the limited space
assigned to this political history. The works of the classic writers of Hellas,
of the legists of Rome, and of the fathers of Christian theology, all exercised
a direct influence on Byzantine literature at every period of its existence,
until Constantinople was conquered by the Turks. It has been too much the
practice of the literary historians of Europe to underrate the positive
knowledge of ancient literature possessed by the learned in the East during the
eighth and ninth centuries. What has been often called the dawn of
civilization, even in the West, was nothing more than an acquaintance with the
bad models transmitted from the last ages of ancient literature. It is as
great an error as to suppose that the English of the present day are Ignorant
of sculpture, because they are occupied in adorning the new Houses of
Parliament with deformed statues; and of architecture, because they have built
a gallery for their pictures ill-suited to the desired object.
The most eminent Byzantine writers of this
period were George Syncellus, Theophanes, the Patriarch Nicephorus, and perhaps
John Malalas, in history; John Damascenus
(who perhaps may be considered as a Syrian) and Theodore Studita
in theology; and Photius, in general literature. During the middle ages the
Greek scientific writers became generally known in western Europe by means of
translations from Arabic versions, and this circumstance has induced many to
draw the conclusion that these works were better known and more popular among
the Arabs at Cordova, Cairo, and Bagdad, than among the Greeks at
Constantinople. The Almagest of Ptolemy affords an example of this double
translation and erroneous inference.
BOOK TWO
BASILIAN DYNASTY
PERIOD OF THE POWER AND GLORY
OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE
A.D. 867-1057
CHAPTER I
CONSOLIDATION OF BYZANTINE
LEGISLATION AND DESPOTISM.
A.D. 867-963
Sect.
I
REIGN
OF BASIL I THE MACEDONIAN
A.D. 867-886
THE history of Basil I has been transmitted to
us by writers who compiled their works under the eye of his grandson, the
Emperor Constantine VII, and by that grandson with his own pen. Under such
auspices, history is more likely to conceal than to divulge the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth. One instance of falsification may be mentioned. The
imperial compilations would fain persuade us that the Slavonian groom was a man
of noble descent, and that he could trace that descent either through a line of
paternal or maternal ancestors to Constantine, to the Arsacids,
and to Alexander the Great, yet they allow that his father laboured as a poor
peasant in the neighbourhoods of Adrianople, until Basil himself, despising the
cultivation of the paternal farm, sought to improve his fortune by wandering to
the capital. We are told by other authorities that Basil was a Slavonian, and
we know that the whole of Thrace and Macedonia was at this period cultivated by
Slavonian colonists. His father’s family had been carried away captive into
Bulgaria when Basil was almost an infant, at the time Crumn
took Adrianople, A.D. 813. During the reign of Theophilus, some of the
Byzantine captives succeeded in taking up arms and marching off into the
empire. Basil, who was among the number, after serving the governor of
Macedonia for a time, revolved to seek his fortune in Constantinople. He
departed, carrying all his worldly wealth in a wallet on his shoulders, and
reached the capital on a summer’s evening without knowing where to seek a
night’s rest. Fatigued with his journey, he sat down in the portico of the
church of St. Diomed, near the Adrianople gate, and
slept there all night. In a short time he found employment as a groom in the
service of a courtier named Theophilitzes, where his talent of taming unruly
horses, his large head, tall figure, and great strength, rendered him remarkable;
while his activity, zeal, and intelligence secured him particular notice from
his master, and rapid promotion in his household.
Theophilitzes was sent into the Peloponnesus on
public business by the Empress Theodora, while she was regent; and Basil, who
accompanied his master, fell sick at Patras with the fever, still so prevalent
in the Morea. Here he was fortunate enough to acquire the protection of an old
lady of immense wealth, whose extraordinary liberality to the unknown youth
induces us to suppose that she was herself of Slavonian race. She made Basil a
member of her family, by uniting him with her own son John, in those spiritual
ties of fraternity which the Greek Church sanctions by peculiar rites; and she
bestowed on him considerable wealth when he was able to return to his master.
It would appear that Basil had already acquired a position of some rank, for
the widow Danielis furnished him with a train of
thirty slaves. The riches Basil acquired by the generosity of his benefactress
were employed in purchasing an estate in Macedonia, and in making liberal
donations to his own relations. He still continued in the service of
Theophilitzes, but his skill in wrestling and taming horses at last introduced
him to the Emperor Michael, who immediately became his patron. His progress as
boon-companion, friend, colleague, and murderer of this benefactor, has been
already recounted.
The elevation of a man like Basil to the throne
of Constantinople was a strange accident; but the fact that he reigned for
nineteen years seems still more singular, when we recollect that he could
neither boast of military service nor administrative knowledge. Nothing can
prove more completely the perfection of the governmental machine at the time of
his accession, than the circumstance that a man without education could so
easily be moulded into a tolerable emperor. Personally, he could have possessed
no partisans either in the army or the administration; nor is it likely that he
had many among the people. We are tempted to conjecture that he was allowed to
establish himself on the throne, because less was known about him than about
most of the other men of influence at court, and consequently less evil was
laid to his charge, and less personal opposition was created by his election.
He succeeded in maintaining his position by displaying unexpected talents for
administration. Able and unprincipled, he seems to have pursued a line of
conduct which prevented the factions of the court, the parties in the church,
the feelings of the army, and the prejudices of the people, from ever uniting
in opposition to his personal authority. His knowledge of the sentiments of the
people rendered him aware that financial oppression was the most dangerous
grievance both to the emperor and the empire; he therefore carefully avoided
increasing the public burdens, and devoted his attention to the establishment
of order in every branch of the public service.
The depravity and impiety of Michael III had
disgusted the people. Basil, in order to proclaim that his conduct was to be
guided by different sentiments, seized the opportunity of his coronation in the
Church of St. Sophia to make a public display of his piety. After the ceremony
was concluded, he knelt down at the high altar and cried with a loud voice,
“Lord, thou hast given me the crown; I deposit it at thy feet, and dedicate
myself to thy service”. The crimes and intrigues of courts are often kept so
long secret in despotic governments, that it is possible few of those present
who heard this declaration were aware that a few hours only had elapsed since
the hypocritical devotee had buried his sword in the bosom of his sovereign and
benefactor.
For two years Basil made no changes in the
government of the church. Photius, the actual Patriarch, was unpopular from his
connection with the family of the late emperor, and the toleration he had shown
for the vices of the court, while Ignatius, his deposed predecessor, possessed
a powerful body of partisans among the people and the monks. Basil attached this
numerous and active party to his interest by reinstating Ignatius in the
patriarchate; but at the same time he contrived to avoid exciting any violent
opposition on the part of Photius, by keeping up constant personal
communications with that accomplished and able ecclesiastic. Photius was at the
head of a party possessed of no inconsiderable weight in the church and the
public administration. The aristocratic classes, and the Asiatics
generally, favoured his cause; while the people of Constantinople and the
Greeks of Europe were warm supporters of Ignatius.
The arbitrary authority of the emperor over the
church is as strongly displayed in the treatment of Photius by Basil, as in the
persecution of Ignatius by Bardas and Michael. Photius had occupied the
patriarchal chair for ten years, and though his election may have been
irregular, his ecclesiastical authority was completely established; and there
appeared no chance that anything would occur to disturb it, when Basil, to gain
a body of active political partisans, suddenly reinstated Ignatius. It is said
that Photius reproached the emperor with the murder of his benefactor; but as
that Patriarch was allowed to remain in office for about two years, his
deposition must be ascribed entirely to political motives. The fact is that
Basil was anxious to secure the support of the monks in the East, and of the
Pope of Rome in the West, yet he feared to quarrel with the party of Photius.
The negotiations with the Pope had occupied some
time, but when they were brought to a conclusion, a general council was held at
Constantinople, which is called by the Latins the eighth general council of the church. Only one hundred and two bishops
could be assembled on this occasion, for the greater part of the dignified
clergy had been consecrated by Photius, and many adhered to his party. Photius
himself was compelled to attend, but his calm and dignified attitude deprived
his enemies of the triumph they had expected. The acts of the council of 861,
by which Ignatius had been deposed, were declared to be forgeries, and the
consecration of Photius as a priest was annulled.
The accusation of forgery was generally regarded
as false, since it rested only on some slight changes which had been made in
the translation of the Pope’s letter to the emperor, and these changes had been
sanctioned by the papal legates who were present in the council. The Latins,
who expect the Greeks to tolerate them in lengthening the Creed, have made a
violent outcry against the Greeks, on this occasion, for modifying a papal
letter in a Greek translation. The compliancy of Basil, the reintegration of
Ignatius, and the subservient disposition of the council of 869, induced the
Pope to suppose that the time had arrived when it would be possible to regain
possession of the estates belonging to the patrimony of St. Peter in the
provinces of the Eastern Empire, which had been confiscated by Leo III, and
that the supremacy of the See of Rome over the kingdom of Bulgaria might now be
firmly established. He even hoped to gain the power of controlling the ecclesiastical
affairs of the Eastern Church. Such pretensions, however, only required to be
plainly revealed to insure unanimous opposition on the part of the emperor, the
clergy, and the people throughout the Byzantine Empire. Ignatius and Basil
showed themselves as firm in resisting papal usurpation as Photius and Michael.
In the meantime, Photius was banished to the
monastery of Skepés; and we possess several of his
letters, written during the period of his disgrace, which give a more
favourable view of his character than would be formed from his public life
alone. They afford convincing proof of the falsity of some of the charges
brought against him by his opponents. The real fault of Photius was, that the
statesman, and not the Christian, was dominant in his conduct as Patriarch; but
this has been a fault so general at Rome, at Constantinople, and at Canterbury,
that he would have incurred little censure in the West had he not shown himself
a devoted partisan of his national church, and a successful enemy of papal
ambition. The majority of the Eastern bishops, in spite of his exile, remained
attached to his cause, and it was soon evident to Basil that his restoration
was the only means of restoring unity to the Greek church. Accordingly, when
Ignatius died in the year 878, Photius was reinstated as Patriarch, and another
general council was assembled at Constantinople. This council, which is called
the eighth general council of the church by the
Eastern Christians, was attended by three hundred and eighty-three bishops. The
Emperor Basil, the Pope, and Photius, all resolved to temporize, and each
played his own game of diplomacy and tergiversation, in the hope of ultimately
succeeding. The Pope proved the greatest loser, for his legates were bribed—or
at least the Latins say so—to yield up everything that Basil and Photius
desired. They are even accused of having allowed a covert attack on the
orthodoxy of Rome, in lengthening the Creed, by the addition of the words ‘and
the Son’, to pass unchallenged. The passion displayed by the clergy of the
Greek and Latin churches, during the quarrels between Ignatius and Photius,
makes it difficult to ascertain the truth. It appears, however, that Pope John
VIII would have restored the Nicene Creed to its original form, by expunging
the clause which had been added, if he could have secured the concessions he
required from the Fasters church and the Byzantine emperor to his political
pretensions. Certainly this is to be implied from the letter addressed to
Photius; but papal writers have since defended the consistency and
infallibility of the popes, by asserting that the copy of the letter annexed to
the acts of the council is a forgery. If either of the churches committed a
tithe of the iniquities with which they charge one another, we must allow that
Christianity exercised very little influence on the priestly character during
the ninth century.
When the Emperor Leo VI succeeded his father
Basil, Photius was again banished, in order to make way for the emperor’s
brother Stephen to occupy the patriarchal throne. Photius was exiled to a
monastery in Armenia, AD 886, and he died in this retirement in the year 891,
leaving behind him the reputation of having been the most accomplished and
learned man of his time, and one of the last enlightened scholars in the East.
Even Leo treated him with respect; and in his letter to the Pope announcing his
exile, he spoke of it as a voluntary resignation, which may, perhaps, be
accounted a proof that it was the result of a political negotiation. As this
distinguished man was one of the most dangerous opponents of papal ambition
prior to the time of Luther, his conduct has been made the object of
innumerable misrepresentations; and the writers of the Romish church even now
can rarely discuss his conduct in moderate language, and with equitable
feelings.
The most interesting point of dispute to the
heads of the Eastern and Western churches in their quarrels, for some time, was
the supremacy over the church of the Bulgarians. This was a momentous political
question to the Byzantine emperors, independent of its ecclesiastical
importance to the patriarchs of Constantinople, for papal influence was sure to
be employed in a manner hostile to the Eastern Empire. Besides this, as the
claim of Rome to supremacy over Bulgaria rested on the ancient subjection of
the Danubian provinces to the archbishopric of
Thessalonica, in the times when that archbishopric was immediately dependent on
the papal See, the establishment of papal authority in Bulgaria would have
afforded good ground for commencing a struggle for withdrawing Thessalonica
itself from the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Constantinople, and placing it
under the control of the Pope of Rome. The conduct of the emperors of
Constantinople in these ecclesiastical negotiations was therefore the result of
sound policy, and it was marked with moderation and crowned with success.
The financial administration of Basil was, on
the whole, honourable to his government. At his accession, he gave out that he
found only 300 lb. of gold, and a small quantity of silver coin in the imperial
treasury. This served as a pretext for a partial resumption of some of the
lavish grants of Michael to worthless favourites, and in this way Basil
collected 30,000 lb. of gold without increasing the public burdens. With this
supply in hand for immediate wants, he was enabled to take measures for
effecting the economy necessary to make the ordinary revenues meet the demands
of the public service. His personal experience of the real sufferings of the
lower orders, and the prudence imposed by his doubtful position, prevented him,
during the whole course of his reign, from augmenting the taxes; and the
adoption of this policy insured to his government the power and popularity
which constituted him the founder of the longest dynasty that ever occupied the
throne of Constantinople. Though his successors were, on the whole, far
inferior to his predecessors of the Iconoclast period in ability, still their
moderation, in conforming to the financial system traced out by Basil, gave the
Byzantine empire a degree of power it had not previously possessed.
The government of the Eastern Empire was always
systematic and cautious. Reforms were slowly effected; but when the necessity
was admitted, great changes were gradually completed. Generations, however,
passed away without men noticing how far they had quitted the customs of their
fathers, and entered on new paths leading to very different habits, thoughts,
and institutions. The reign of no one emperor, if we except that of Leo the
Isaurian, embraces a revolution in the institutions of the state, completed in
a single generation; hence it is that Byzantine history loses the interest to
be derived from individual biography. It steps over centuries marking rather
the movement of generations of mankind than the acts of individual emperors and
statesmen, and it becomes a didactic essay on political progress instead of a
living picture of man’s actions. In the days of the liberty of Athens, the life
of each leader embraces the history of many revolutions, and the mind of a
single individual seems often to guide or modify their course; but in the years
of Constantinopolitan servitude, emperors and people are borne slowly onward by
a current of which we are not always certain that we can trace the origin or
follow the direction. These observations receive their best development by a
review of the legislative acts of the Basilian dynasty. It was reserved to
Basil I and his son Leo VI to complete the reorganization of the empire
commenced by Leo III; for the promulgation of a revised code of the laws of the
empire, in the Greek language, was the accomplishment of an idea impressed on
the Byzantine administration by the great Iconoclast reformer, and of which his
own Ecloga or manual was the first imperfect
expression.
The legal reforms of the early Iconoclast
emperors were sufficient to supply the exigencies of the moment, in the state
of anarchy, ignorance, and disorder to which the provinces of the empire were
then reduced by the ravages of the Slavonians, Bulgarians, and Saracens. But
when the vigorous administration of the Isaurian dynasty had driven back these
invaders, and re-established order and security of property, the rapid progress
of society called for additional improvements, and for a systematic reform in
the legislation of the empire. Enlarged views concerning the changes which it
was necessary to make in the compilations of Justinian were gradually adopted.
Nicephorus I and Leo V (the Armenian) seem to have confined their attention to
practical reforms in the dispensation of justice, by improving the forms of
procedure in the existing tribunals, but when Bardas was charged with the
judicial department, during the reign of Michael III, the necessity of a
thorough revision of the laws of the empire began to be deeply felt. Bardas was
probably ambitious of the glory of effecting this reform as the surest step to
the imperial throne. The legal school at Constantinople, which he encouraged,
certainly prepared the materials for the great legislative work that forms the
marked feature in consolidating the power of the Basilian dynasty.
The legislative views of Basil I were modelled
in conformity to the policy impressed on the Byzantine empire by Leo III. They
were directed to vest all legislative power in the hands of the emperor, and to
constitute the person of the sovereign the centre of law as much as of
financial authority and military power. The senate had continued to act as a
legislative council from time to time during the Iconoclast period, and the
emperors had often invited it to discuss important laws, in order to give
extraordinary solemnity to their sanction. Such a practice suggested the
question whether the senate and the people did not still possess a right to
share in the legislation of the empire, which opportunity might constitute into
a permanent control over the imperial authority in this branch of government.
The absolute centralization of the legislative authority in the person of the
emperor was the only point which prevented the government of the Byzantine
empire from being theoretically an absolute despotism, when Basil I ascended
the throne, and he completed that centralization. Though the senate consisted
of persons selected by the sovereign, and though it acted generally as a
subservient agent of the executive power, still, as some of the most powerful
men in the empire were usually found among its members, its position as a
legislative council invested it with a degree of political influence that might
have checked the absolute power of the emperor. Basil deprived it of all
participation in legislative functions, and restricted its duties solely to
those of an administrative council. At the same time, the privileges formerly
possessed by the provincial proprietors, the remains of the Roman curia, or of
the more recently formed municipalities that had grown up to replace them, were
swept away as offensive to despotic power. Cherson had been robbed of its free
institutions as early as the reign of Theophilus, but the total abolition of
municipal institutions by imperial edict was certainly rather theoretical than
practical. The long series of progressive alterations in society, which had
destroyed the efficacy of the older municipalities, had replaced them by new
societies and corporations having confined and local objects, too far beneath
the sphere of action of the central administration to excite any jealousy on
the part of those deputed to exercise the imperial power. The bishops now lost
their position of defenders of the people, for as they were chosen by the
sovereign, the dignitaries of the Byzantine church were remarkable for their
servility to the civil power.
The promulgation of the Basilika may be considered as
marking the complete union of all legislative, executive, judicial, financial,
and administrative power in the person of the emperor. The church had already
been reduced to complete submission to the imperial authority. Basil, therefore,
may claim to be the emperor who established arbitrary despotism as the
constitution of the Roman Empire. The divine right of the sovereign to rule as
God might be pleased to enlighten his understanding and soften his heart, was
henceforth the recognized organic law of the Byzantine Empire. The compilation
of the laws of Justinian is one of the strangest examples of the manner in
which sovereigns vitiate the most extensive and liberal reforms, by their
conservative prejudices in practical details. Justinian reconstructed the
legislation of the Roman Empire, in order to adapt it to the wants of the
people who spoke Greek; yet he restricted the benefit of his new code, by
promulgating it in Latin, though that language had ceased to be in use among three
quarters of his civilized subjects. The conservative principles of the imperial
government, and the pride of the higher classes of Constantinople in their
Roman origin, induced the emperor to cling to the use of the Latin language as
marking their connection with past ages, and drawing a line of separation
between the government and the mass of the people. Justinian himself pronounced
the condemnation of his own conduct by publishing his latest laws in Greek, and
thus leaving his legislation dispersed in sources promulgated in two different
languages.
A Greek school of legists, founded long before
the time of Justinian, but which flourished during his reign, did much to
remedy this defect, by translating the Latin body of the law. Greek
translations of the Institutions, the Pandects, the
Code, and the Edicts, as well as Greek commentaries on these works, soon
replaced the original Latin texts, and became the authorities that guided the
courts of law throughout the Eastern Empire. The decline of knowledge, and the
anarchy that prevailed during the century in which the empire was ruled by the Heraclian dynasty, caused the translations of the larger
works to be neglected, and the writings of commentators, who had published
popular abridgments, to be generally consulted. The evil of this state of
things was felt so strongly when Leo III had restored some degree of order
throughout the empire, that, as we have already mentioned, he promulgated an
official handbook of the law, called the Ecloga. From
that time the subject of legislative reform occupied the attention of the
imperial government, as well as of those professionally engaged in the
administration of justice; and it appears certain that Bardas had made
considerable progress towards the execution of those legislative reforms which
were promulgated by Basil I, and completed by Leo VI. Indeed, it appears
probable that the project was conceived as early as the time of Theophilus,
whose personal knowledge of the law was greater than was possessed by his successors,
who have gained a high place in history as law reformers.
The precise share which the predecessors of
Basil are entitled to claim in the legislative labours of the Basilian dynasty
cannot be determined with exactitude, but that it is not inconsiderable, is
evident from the internal evidence afforded by the works themselves. Certainly
divine right to rule the state as emperor could never have rendered the
Slavonian groom, who had qualified for the throne as the boon-companion of
Michael the Drunkard, a fit person to direct the progress of legislation. All
that could be expected from him was, that he should learn to appreciate the
importance of the subject, and adopt the labours of the jurisconsults who had
assisted Bardas. It seems, therefore, probable that he envied the popularity
the Caesar had gained by his attention to legal business, and understood fully
that there was no surer mode of acquiring the goodwill of all classes than by
becoming himself a law reformer. Basil, however, though eager to obtain the
glory of publishing a new code, remained utterly ignorant of legislation, and
personally incapable of guiding the work. A consequence of his eagerness to
obtain the desired end, and of his ignorance of what was necessary to the
proper performance of the task, is apparent in the first legal work published
by his authority, called the Procheiron, or manual of
law. The primary object of this publication was to supplant the Ecloga of Leo III in order to efface the memory of the
reforms of the Iconoclasts. The Procheiron appears to
have been promulgated as early as the year 870, and it bears marks of having
been hurried into premature publicity. The first half of the work is executed
in a completely different manner from the latter part. In the earlier titles,
the texts borrowed from the Institutions, Pandects,
Code, and Novels of Justinian, are arranged in regular order, and are followed
by the modern laws; this well-arranged plan is abandoned in the latter ties,
apparently in consequence of a sudden determination having been adopted to
hurry forward the publication. The much-abused Ecloga
of Leo III was then adopted as the most available guide-book, and, in
conjunction with the Institutes and Novels, became the principal source
consulted. The Pandects and the Code were neglected,
because they required too much time and study for their arrangement.
This fact suggests the conclusion that a
commission of jurisconsults had been named as revisers of the law, who had been
sitting from the time of Bardas; and these lawyers had systematically proceeded
to compile a manual of the law in forty titles, and a new civil code or
revision of the old law in sixty books, in which they had made considerable
progress, when Basil suddenly hurried forward the premature publication of the
manual in the form it now bears. It is impossible that the same spirit can have
directed the latter portion of the work which dictated the compilation of the
earlier. The science of Bardas is visible in the one, the ignorance of Basil in
the other. For many years Basil remained satisfied with his performance as a
legislator, for he was unable to appreciate the legal wants of the empire; but
the subject was again forced on his attention by the confusion that prevailed
in the sources of the law, to which the tribunals were still compelled to
refer.
At length, in the year 884, a new code,
embracing the whole legislation of the empire in one work, was published under
the title of the Revision of the Old Law. The respect paid to the laws of Rome
was so deeply implanted in the minds of the people, that new laws, however
superior they might have been, could not have insured the same solid basis for
their support, which was claimed by a legislation aspiring to be regarded
merely as the legitimate representative of the Roman jurisprudence, clothed in
a Greek dress. The code of Basil was nothing but a compilation formed from the
Greek translations of Justinian’s laws, and the commentaries on them which had
received the sanction of the Byzantine tribunals and legal schools. But this
revision of the old law was hurried forward to publicity on account of some
special reason, suggested either by imperial vanity or accidental policy. In
the Procheiron, Basil had announced that the revised
code about to be promulgated consisted of sixty books, yet, when he published
it, the work was divided into forty. This premature edition was, however, again
revised by Leo VI; and it is the new and more complete code published by that
emperor in sixty books, as originally announced, which we now possess under the
title of Basilika, or imperial laws; but no perfect manuscript has been preserved.
The object proposed in the Basilian legislation
was too simple not to have been long in agitation before the precise plan on
which it was ultimately executed was adopted. The Basilika
is merely a reunion, in one work, of all the sources of Roman law in vigour at
the time, without any attempt to condense them into clearer and more precise
rules. Every preceding law or maxim of jurisprudence actually in force, is
arranged under its own head in a series of books and titles, distributed so as
to facilitate their use in the courts of law and chambers of counsel. Some
modern commentaries have been added to the work as we possess it, which appear
not to have formed part of the original text.
After the promulgation of the first edition of
the Basilika, Basil published a second legal manual,
to serve as an introduction to its study. It is called the Epanagoge,
but it appears never to have attained the popularity of the Ecloga
and the Procheiron.
The Basilika remained
the law of the Byzantine Empire until its conquest by the Franks, and it
continued in use as the national law of the Greeks at Nicaea, Constantinople,
and Trebizond, and in the Morea, until they were conquered by the Ottomans. The
want of a system of law growing up out of the social exigencies of the people,
and interwoven in its creation with the national institutions, is a serious
defect in Greek civilization. Since the time of the Achaean league, the Greeks
have not possessed a national government, and they have never possessed a
national system of laws; hence their communal institutions and municipal rights
have received only such protection as the church could afford them; and even the
church was generally the subservient instrument of the Roman, Byzantine, and
Turkish governments. The evil still exists—the spirit of Bavarian law and
French centralization have prevented an admirable basis for municipal
liberties, which existed in the communal institutions, from receiving
legislative development in the spirit of the nation. The pedantry of Phanariots, who cling to Byzantine prejudices, induced the
rulers of liberated Greece to declare the Basilika,
of which no perfect copy exists, to be the law of the new Greek kingdom.
Basil found the army in a much better state than
the financial administration; for, even amidst the disorders of Michael’s
reign, measures had been taken to maintain the discipline of the troops. Basil
had, consequently, only to maintain the army on the footing on which he found
it, without augmenting the power of the generals he entrusted with the command
of large armies. Being personally without either military experience or
scientific knowledge, Basil can only be considered responsible for the general
direction of the military affairs of his reign; and in this he does not appear
to have displayed much talent. He allowed the Saracens to take Syracuse, while
he kept the marines of the imperial navy employed in digging the foundations of
a new church, and the ships in transporting marbles and building materials for
its construction. Basil, indeed, like all his predecessors, appeared more than
once at the head of his armies in the East; for this was a duty which no
emperor of Constantinople since Leo III had ventured to neglect. It is
probable, however, that his presence was calculated rather to restrain than to
excite the activity of his generals, who were sure to be rendered responsible
for any want of success, and to be deprived of every merit in case of victory;
while any brilliant personal exploit, which eclipsed the glory of the emperor,
might have the effect of making them objects of jealousy.
The principal military operation of Basil’s
reign was the war he carried on with the Paulicians. This sect first made its
appearance in Armenia about the middle of the seventh century, in the reign of
Constans II, and it was persecuted by that emperor. Constantine IV, (Pogonatus,) Justinian II, and Leo III, all endeavoured to
extirpate the heresy as one which threatened the unity of the church; for unity
in religious opinions was then regarded as the basis of the prosperity of the
empire, and a portion of its political constitution. Constantine V, after
taking Melitene, transported numbers of Asiatic colonists into Thrace, many of
whom were converts to the Paulician doctrines. Under this emperor and his
immediate successors they enjoyed toleration, and made many converts in Pontus,
Cappadocia, Phrygia, and Pisidia. Nicephorus allowed them all the rights of
citizens, and they continued to be loyal subjects, until Michael I commenced
persecuting them in the most barbarous mariner. This circumstance, though it
affords the orthodox historian Theophanes great delight, ultimately prepared the
way for the depopulation of Asia Minor. These cruelties continued under Leo V,
until some of the Paulicians, rising in rebellion, slew the bishop of Neocesarea, and the imperial commissioners engaged in
torturing them, and withdrew into the province of Melitene, under the
protection of the caliph. From this period they are often found forming the
vanguard of the Saracen invasions into the south-eastern provinces of the
Byzantine Empire. Under Michael II and Theophilus some degree of religious
toleration was restored, and the Paulicians within the bounds of the empire
were allowed to hold their religious opinions in tranquillity. But their
persecution recommenced during the regency of Theodora; and the cruelty with
which they were treated drove such numbers into rebellion, that they were
enabled to found an independent republic, as has been already mentioned. If we
believe the friends of the Paulicians, they were strict Christians, who
reverenced the teaching of St. Paul, and proposed him as their sole guide and
legislator; but if we credit their enemies, they were Manicheans, who merged
Christianity in their heretical opinions.
The little republic founded by the Paulicians at
Tephrike, against which the armies of the Emperor Michael III had contended
without any decided success, though it owed its foundation to religious
opinion, soon became a place of refuge for all fugitives from the Byzantine
empire; and its existence as a state, on the frontier of a bigoted and
oppressive government, became a serious danger to the rulers of Constantinople.
Chrysochir, the son of Karbeas, succeeded his father
in the command of the armed bands of Tephrike, and supported his army by
plundering the Byzantine provinces, as the Danes or Normans about the same time
maintained themselves by their expeditions in France and England. The number of
prisoners taken by the Paulicians was so great that Basil found himself
compelled to send an embassy to Tephrike, for the purpose of ransoming his
subjects. Petrus Siculus, the ambassador, remained at Tephrike about nine
months, but was unable to effect any peaceable arrangement with Chrysochir. He
has, however, left us a valuable account of the Paulician community. During his
residence at Tephrike, he discovered that the Paulicians had sent ambassadors
into Bulgaria, to induce the king of that newly converted country to form an
alliance with them, and missionaries to persuade the people to receive their
doctrines, which were prevalent in some districts of Thrace. The ravages
committed by the Paulician troops, the bad success of the embassy of Peter
Siculus, and the danger of an increase of the power of Chryoschir
by new alliances, determined Basil at length to make a powerful effort for the
destruction of this alarming enemy. It was evident nothing short of
extermination could put an end to their plundering expeditions.
In 871, Basil made his first attack on the
Paulicians; but, after destroying some of their villages, he suffered a severe
check, and lost a considerable portion of his army, he himself only escaping in
consequence of the valour of Theophylactus, the
father of the future emperor, Romanus I, who by this exploit brought himself
forward in the army. Fortunately for Basil, the repeated seditions of the
Turkish mercenaries at Bagdad had weakened the power of the caliphate; a
succession of revolutions had caused the deposition and murder of several
caliphs within the space of a few years, and some of the distant provinces of
the immense empire of the Abassides had already
established independent governments. The Paulicians, therefore, at this period
could obtain no very important aid from the Saracens, who, as we are informed
by Basil’s son, the Emperor Leo VI, in his work on military tactics, were
regarded as the best soldiers in the world, and far superior both to the
Bulgarians and Franks. Basil had found little difficulty in driving all the
plundering bands of the Paulicians back into their own territory; but it was
dangerous to attempt the siege of Tephrike as long as the enemy could assemble
an army to attack the rear of the besiegers in the frontier towns of the
caliph’s dominions. The empires of Constantinople and Bagdad were at war,
though hostilities had for some time been languidly carried on. Basil now
resolved to capture or destroy the fortified towns which had afforded aid to
the Paulicians. After ravaging the territory of Melitene, he sent his general,
Christophoros, with a division of the army to capture Sozopetra
and Samosata; while he himself crossed the Euphrates, and laid waste the
country as far as the Asanias. On his return, the
emperor fought a battle with the Emir of Melitene, who had succeeded in
collecting an army to dispute his progress. The success of this battle was not
so decided as to induce Basil to besiege either Melitene or Tephrike, and he
returned to Constantinople leaving his general to prosecute the war. In the
meantime, Chrysochir, unable to maintain his troops without plunder, invaded
Cappadocia, but was overtaken by Christophoros at Agranes,
where his movements were circumscribed by the superior military skill of the
Byzantine general Chrysochir found himself compelled to retreat, with an active
enemy watching his march. Christophoros soon surprised the Paulician camp, and
Chrysochir was slain in the battle. His head was sent to Constantinople, that
the Emperor Basil might fulfil a vow he had made that he would pierce it with
three arrows. Tephrike was taken not long after, and destroyed. The town of Catabatala, to which the Paulicians retired after the loss
of Tephrike, was captured in the succeeding campaign, and the Paulician troops,
unable to continue their plundering expeditions, either retreated into Armenia
or dispersed. Many found means of entering the Byzantine service, and were
employed in southern Italy against the African Saracens.
The war with the Saracens continued, though it
was not prosecuted with vigour by either party. In the year 876, the Byzantine
troops gained possession of the fortress of Lulu, the bulwark of Tarsus, which
alarmed the Caliph Almutamid for the safety of his
possessions in Cilicia to such a degree, that he entrusted their defence to his
powerful vassal, Touloun, the viceroy of Egypt. In
the following year, the Emperor hoping to extend his conquests, again appeared
at the head of the army of Asia, and established his headquarters at Caesarea.
His object was to drive the Saracens out of Cilicia, but he only succeeded in
ravaging the country beyond the passes of Mount Taurus up to the suburbs of
Germanicia, Adana, and Tarsus, without being able to gain possession of any of
these cities. After the emperor’s return to Constantinople, the
commander-in-chief of the army, Andrew the Slavonian, continued to ravage the
Saracen territory, and destroyed an army sent to oppose him on the banks of the
river Podandos. This defeat was, however, soon
avenged by the Mohammedans, who routed Stypiotes, the
successor of Andrew, with great loss, as he was preparing to besiege Tarsus. In
the thirteenth year of his reign, (780,) Basil again invaded the caliphate, but
failed in an attempt to take Germanicia. The war was subsequently allowed to
languish, though the Saracens made several plundering expeditions against the
Christians, both by land and sea; but the fortress of Lulu, and some other castles
commanding the passes of Mount Taurus, remained in the possession of the
Byzantine troops.
The Saracens of Africa had for some time past
devastated the shores of every Christian country bordering on the
Mediterranean, and plundered the islands of the Ionian Sea and the Archipelago
as regularly as the Paulicians had ravaged Asia Minor. Basil was hardly seated
on the throne before an embassy from the Slavonians of Dalmatia arrived at
Constantinople, to solicit his aid against these corsairs. A Saracen fleet of
thirty-six ships had attacked Dalmatia, in which a few Roman cities still
existed, maintaining a partial independence among the Slavonian tribes, who had
occupied all the country. Several towns were taken by the Saracens, and Ragusa,
a place of considerable commercial importance, was closely besieged. Basil lost
no time in sending assistance to the inhabitants. A fleet of a hundred vessels,
under the admiral Niketas Oryphas,
was prepared for sea with all possible expedition: and the Saracens, hearing of
his approach, hastily abandoned the siege of Ragusa, after they had invested it
for fifteen months. The expedition of Oryphas
re-established the imperial influence in the maritime districts of Dalmatia,
and obtained from the Slavonians a direct recognition of the emperor’s
sovereignty. They retained their own government, and elected their magistrates;
and their submission to the Byzantine empire was purchased by their being
permitted to receive a regular tribute from several Roman cities, which, in consideration
of this payment, were allowed to occupy districts on the mainland without the
neighbouring Slavonians exercising any jurisdiction over such property. The
Roman inhabitants in the islands on the Dalmatian coast had preserved their
allegiance to the Eastern emperors, and maintained themselves independent of
the Slavonians, who had conquered and colonized the mainland, receiving their
governors and judges from the central authority at Constantinople.
As early as the year 842, two rival princes, of
Lombard race, who disputed the possession of the duchy of Beneventum, solicited
assistance from the Saracens; and the Infidels, indifferent to the claims of
either, but eager for plunder, readily took part in the quarrel. A body of
Saracens from Sicily, who had arrived for the purpose of assisting one of the
Christian claimants, resolved to secure a firm establishment in Italy on their
own account. To effect this they stormed the city of Bari, though it belonged
to their own ally. At Bari they formed a camp for the purpose of ravaging
Italy, and made it their station for plundering the possessions of the Frank
and Byzantine empires on the coast of the Adriatic. In 846, other bands of
Sicilian Saracens landed at the mouth of the Tiber, and plundered the churches
of St. Peter and St. Paul, both then without the walls of Rome. Indeed, the
‘mistress of the world’ was only saved from falling into the hands of the
Mohammedans by the troops of the Emperor Louis II (85o). Shortly after, Pope
Leo IV fortified the suburb of the Vatican, and thus placed the church of St.
Peter in security in the new quarter of the town called the Leonine city. From
this period the ravages of the Saracens in Italy were incessant, and the
proprietors who dwelt in the country were compelled to build fortified towers,
strong enough to resist any sudden attacks, and so high as to be beyond the
reach of fire kindled at their base. The manners formed by this state of social
insecurity coloured the history of Italy with dark stains for several centuries.
In the year 867, the Emperor Louis II exerted himself to restrain the ravages
of the Saracens. He laid siege to Bari, and sent ambassadors to Constantinople
to solicit the cooperation of a Byzantine fleet. The fleet of Oryphac, strengthened by the naval forces of the Dalmatian
cities, was ordered to assist the operations of the Western emperor; but the
pride of the court of Constantinople (more sensitive than usual), prevented the
conclusion of a treaty with a sovereign who claimed to be treated as emperor of
the West. In February, 871, Louis carried the city of Bari by assault, and put
the garrison to the sword. The Franks and Greeks disputed the honour of the
conquest, and each attempted to turn it to their own profit, so that the war
was continued in a desultory manner, without leading to any decided results;
and the cultivators of the soil were in turn plundered by the Lombard princes,
the Saracen corsairs, and the German and Byzantine emperors. The Saracens again
attacked Rome, and compelled Pope John VIII to purchase their retreat by
engaging to pay an annual tribute of 25,000 marks of silver. The south of Italy
was a scene of political confusion. The Dukes of Naples, Amalfi, and Salerno
joined the Saracens in plundering the Roman territory; but Pope John VIII,
placing himself at the head of the Roman troops, fought both with Christians
and Mohammedans, won battles, and cut off the heads of his prisoners, without
the slightest reference to the canons of the church. The bishop of Naples, as
bold a warrior as the Pope, dethroned his own brother, and put out his eyes, on
the pretext that he had allied himself with the Infidels; yet, when the bishop
had possessed himself of his brother’s dukedom, he also kept up communications
with the Saracens, and aided them in plundering the territory of Rome. This
lawless state of affairs induced the Italians to turn for security to the
Byzantine Empire. The troops of Basil rendered themselves masters of Bari
without difficulty, and the extent of the Byzantine province in southern Italy
was greatly extended by a series of campaigns, in which Nicephorus Phokas,
grandfather of the emperor of the same name, distinguished himself by his prudent
conduct and able tactics. The Saracens were at last expelled from all their possessions
in Calabria. The Byzantine government formed its possessions into a province
called the Theme of Longobardia, but this province
was constantly liable to vary in its extent; and though Gaeta, Naples,
Sorrento, and Amalfi acknowledged allegiance to the Emperor of Constantinople,
his authority was often very little respected in these cities.
While Basil was successful in extending his
power in Italy, the Saracens revenged themselves in Sicily by the conquest of
Syracuse, which fell into their hands in 878, and placed them in possession of
the whole island. The city, though besieged on the land side by the Saracens
established in Sicily, and blockaded by a fleet from Africa, made a gallant
defence, and might have been relieved had the emperor shown more activity, or
entrusted the force prepared for its relief to a competent officer. The
expedition he sent, though it was delayed until nothing could be effected
without rapid movements, wasted two months in the port of Monemvasia, where it
received the news of the fall of Syracuse. The loss of the last Greek city in
Sicily was deeply felt by the people of the Byzantine empire, on account of its
commercial importance; and it was reported that the news of so great a calamity
to the Christian world was first made known to the inhabitants of Greece by an
assembly of demons, who met in the forest of Helos,
on the banks of the Eurotas, to rejoice in the event,
where their revels were witnessed by a Laconian shepherds Basil, however, seems
to have treated the ruin of a Greek city as a matter of less importance than
did Satan. The daring with which the Saracens carried on their naval
expeditions over the Mediterranean at this period is a remarkable feature in
the state of society. The attacks of the Danes and Normans on the coasts of
England and France were not more constant nor more terrible.
Some of these expeditions deserve to be noticed,
in order to point out the great destruction of capital, and the disorganization
of society they caused. For some years they threatened the maritime districts
of the Eastern Empire with as great a degree of insecurity as that from which
society had been delivered by Leo III. In the year 881, the emir of Tarsus,
with a fleet of thirty large ships, laid siege to Chalcis, on the Euripus; but Oiniates, the general of the theme of Hellas, having
assembled the troops in his province, the emir was killed in an attempt to
storm the place, and the Saracen expedition was completely defeated. Shortly
after this, the Saracens of Crete ravaged the islands of the Archipelago with a
fleet of twenty-seven large ships and a number of smaller vessels. Entering the
Hellespont, they plundered the island of Proconnesus;
but they were at last overtaken and defeated by the imperial fleet under Oryphas. Undismayed by their losses, they soon fitted out a
new fleet, and recommenced their ravages, hoping to avoid the Byzantine admiral
by doubling Cape Taenarus, and plundering the western shores of Greece. Niketas Oryphas, on visiting the
port of Kenchrees, found that the corsairs were
already cruising off the entrance of the Adriatic. He promptly ordered all his
galleys to be transported over the Isthmus of Corinth by the ancient tram-road,
which had been often used for the same purpose in earlier times, and which was
still kept in such a state of repair that all his vessels were conveyed from
sea to sea in a single night. The Saracens, surprised by this sudden arrival of
a fleet from a quarter where they supposed there was no naval force, fought
with less courage than usual, and lost their whole fleet. The cruelty with
which the captives, especially the renegades, were treated, was to the last
degree inhuman, and affords sad proof of the widespread misery and deep
exasperation their previous atrocities had produced, as well as of the
barbarity of the age. No torture was spared by the Byzantine authorities.
Shortly after this an African fleet of sixty vessels, of extraordinary size,
laid waste Zante and Cephallenia. Nasar, the
Byzantine admiral, who succeeded Niketas Oryphas, while in pursuit of this fleet, touched at Methone to revictual; but at that port all his rowers
deserted, and his ships were detained until the general of the Peloponnesian
theme replaced them by a levy of Mardaites and other
inhabitants of the peninsula. The Byzantine naval force, even after this
contrariety, was again victorious over the Saracens; and the war of pillage was
transferred into Sicily, where the Greeks laid waste the neighbourhoods of
Palermo, and captured a number of valuable merchant-ships, with such an
abundant supply of oil that it was sold at Constantinople for an obolos the litra.
During these wars, Basil recovered possession of
the island of Cyprus, but was only able to retain possession of it for seven
years, when the Saracens again reconquered it.
Much of Basil’s reputation as a wise sovereign
is due to his judicious adoption of administrative reforms, called for by the
disorders introduced into the government by the neglect of Michael III. His
endeavours to lighten the burden of taxation without decreasing the public
revenues was then a rare merit. But the eulogies which his grandson and other
flatterers have heaped on his private virtues deserve but little credit. The
court certainly maintained more outward decency than in the time of his
predecessor, but there are many proofs that the reformation was merely
external. Thekla, the sister of the Emperor Michael
III, who had received the imperial crown from her father Theophilus, had been
the concubine of Basil, with the consent of her brother. After Basil
assassinated the brother, he neglected and probably feared the sister, but she
consoled herself with other lovers. It happened that on some occasion a person
employed in the household of Thekla waited on the
emperor, who, with the rude facetiousness he inherited from the stable-yard,
asked the domestic, “Who lives with your mistress at present?”. The individual
(Neatokomites) was immediately named, for shame was
out of the question in such society. But the jealousy of Basil was roused by
this open installation of a successor in the favours of one who had once
occupied a place on the throne he had usurped, and he ordered Neatokomites to be seized, scourged, and immured for life
in a monastery. It is said that he was base enough to order Thekla
to be ill-treated, and to confiscate great part of her private fortune. The
Empress Eudocia Ingerina avenged Thekla, by
conducting herself on the throne in a manner more pardonable in the mistress of
Michael the Drunkard than in the wife of Basil. When her amours were
discovered, the emperor prudently avoided scandal, by compelling her lover to
retire privately into a monastery.
The most interesting episode in the private
history of Basil is the friendship of Danielis, the
Greek lady of Patras. As she had laid the foundation of his wealth while he was
only a servant of Theophilitzes, we may believe that she was eager to see him
when she heard that he was seated on the imperial throne. But though she might
boast of having been the first to perceive the merits of Basil, she must have
doubted whether she would be regarded as a welcome visitor at court. Basil,
however, was not ungrateful to those who had assisted him in his poverty, and
he sent for the son of his benefactor, and raised him to the rank of protospatharios. The widow also received an invitation to
visit Constantinople, and see her adopted son seated on the throne—which, it
was said, she had long believed he was destined by heaven to fill; for it had
been reported that, when Basil first entered the cathedral of St. Andrew at
Patras, a monk was seized with a prophetic vision, and proclaimed that he was
destined to become emperor. This prophecy Danielis
had heard and believed. The invitation must have afforded her the highest gratification,
as a proof of her own discernment in selecting one who possessed affection and
gratitude, as well as great talents and divine favour. The old lady was the
possessor of a princely fortune, and her wealth indicates that the state of
society in the Peloponnesus was not very dissimilar in the ninth century from
what it had been in the first centuries of our era, under the Roman government,
when Caius Antonius and Eurykles were proprietors of
whole provinces, and Herodes Atticus possessed riches
that an emperor might have envied.
The lady Danielis set
off from Patras in a litter or covered couch, carried on the shoulders of ten
slaves; and the train which followed her, destined to relieve these
litter-bearers, amounted to three hundred persons. When she reached
Constantinople, she was lodged in the apartments of the palace of Magnaura appropriated for the reception of princely guests.
The rich presents she had prepared for the emperor astonished the inhabitants
of the capital, for no foreign monarch had ever offered gifts of equal value to
a Byzantine sovereign. The slaves that bore the gifts were themselves a part of
the present, and were all distinguished for their youth, beauty, and
accomplishments. Four hundred young men, one hundred eunuchs, and one hundred
maidens, formed the living portion of this magnificent offering. A hundred
pieces of the richest coloured drapery, one hundred pieces of soft woollen
cloth, two hundred pieces of linen, and one hundred of cambric, so fine that
each piece could be enclosed in the joint of a reed. To all this a service of
cups, dishes, and plates of gold and silver was added. When Danielis
reached Constantinople, she found that the emperor had constructed a
magnificent church as an expiation for the murder of his benefactor, Michael
III. She sent orders to the Peloponnesus to manufacture carpets of unusual
size, in order to cover the whole floor, that they might protect the rich
mosaic pavement, in which a peacock with outspread tail astonished everyone who
beheld it by the extreme brilliancy of its colouring. Before the widow quitted
Constantinople, she settled a considerable portion of her estates in Greece on
her son, the protospatharios, and on her adopted
child the emperor, in joint property.
After Basil’s death, she again visited
Constantinople; her own son was also dead, so she constituted the Emperor Leo
VI her sole heir. On quitting the capital for the last time, she desired that
the protospathar Zenobios
might be despatched to the Peloponnesus, for the purpose of preparing a
register of her extensive estates and immense property. She died shortly after
her return; and even the imperial officers were amazed at the amount of her
wealth : the quantity of gold coin, gold and silver plate, works of art in
bronze, furniture, rich stuffs in linen, cotton, wool, and silk, cattle and
slaves, palaces and farms, formed an inheritance that enriched even an emperor
of Constantinople. The slaves, of which the Emperor Leo became the proprietor,
were so numerous that he ordered three thousand to be enfranchised and sent to
the theme of Longobardia, as Apulia was then called,
where they were put in possession of land, which they cultivated as serfs.
After the payment of many legacies, and the division of a part of the landed
property, according to the dispositions of the testament, the emperor remained
possessor of eighty farms or villages. This narration furnishes a curious
glimpse into the condition of society in Greece during the latter part of the
ninth century, which is the period when the Greek race began to recover a
numerical superiority, and prepare for the consolidation of its political
ascendancy over the Slavonian colonists in the Peloponnesus. Unfortunately,
history supplies us with no contemporary facts that point out the precise
causes of the diminution of the relative numbers of the Slavonians, and the
rapid increase in the absolute numbers of the Greek agricultural population. We
are left to seek for explanations of these facts in the general laws which
regulate the progress of population and the decline of society.
The steps by which Basil mounted the throne were
never forgotten by the political and military adventurers, who considered the
empire a fit reward for a successful conspirator. John Kurkuas, a patrician of
great wealth, who commanded the Ikanates, expected to
seize the crown as a lawful prize, and engaged sixty-six of the leading men in
the public administration to participate in his design. The plot was revealed
to Basil by some of the conspirators, who perceived they could gain more by a
second treachery than by persisting in their first treason. Kurkuas was seized,
and his eyes were put out: the other conspirators were scourged in the
hippodrome; their heads were shaved, their beards burned off, and after being
paraded through the capital they were exiled, and their estates confiscated.
The clemency of Basil in inflicting these paternal punishments, instead of
exacting the penalties imposed by the law of treason, is lauded by his
interested historians. The fate of Kurkuas, however, only claims our notice,
because he was the father of John Kurkuas, a general whom the Byzantine writers
consider as a hero worthy to be compared with Trajan and Belisarius. Kurkuas
was also the great-grandfather of the Emperor John Zimiskes, one of the ablest
soldiers who ever occupied the throne of Constantinople.
Though Basil founded the longest dynasty that
ruled the Byzantine Empire, the race proceeded from a corrupt source.
Constantine, the son of Basil’s first wife, Maria, was regarded with much
affection by his father, and received the imperial crown in the year 868, but
died about the year 879. The loss was severely felt by the emperor, who
expressed an eager desire to be assured that his favourite child enjoyed eternal
felicity. The abbot Theodoros Santabaren took
advantage of this paternal solicitude to impose on the emperor’s superstition
and credulity. A phantom, which bore the likeness of Constantine, met the
emperor while he was hunting, and galloped towards him, until it approached so
near that Basil could perceive the happy expression of his son’s face. It then
faded from his sight; but the radiant aspect of the vision satisfied the father
that his deceased son was received to grace.
Leo, the eldest child of Eudocia, was generally
believed to be the son of Michael the Drunkard; and though Basil had conferred
on him the imperial crown in his infancy, (AD 870,) he seems never to have
regarded him with feelings of affection. It would seem he entertained the
common opinion concerning the parentage of Leo. The latter years of Basil were
clouded with suspicion of his heir, who he feared might avenge the murder of
Michael, even at the risk of becoming a parricide. Whether truly or not, young
Leo was accused of plotting against Basil’s life before he was sixteen years of
age. The accusation was founded on the discovery of a dagger concealed in the
boot of the young prince, while he was in attendance on his father at a
hunting-party, when Byzantine etiquette demanded that he should be unarmed. The
historians who wrote under the eye of Leo’s son, Constantine Porphyrogenitus,
pretend that the abbot Theodoros Santabaren persuaded
Leo to conceal the weapon for his own defence, and then informed Basil that his
son was armed to attempt his assassination. The charge underwent a full
examination, during which the young emperor was deprived of the insignia of the
imperial rank; but the result of the investigation must have proved his
innocence, for, in spite of the suspicions rooted in Basil’s mind, he was
restored to his rank as heir-apparent.
The cruelty displayed by Basil in his latter
days loosens the tongues of his servile historians, and indicates that he never
entirely laid aside the vices of his earlier years. While engaged in hunting,
to which he was passionately devoted, a stag that had been brought to bay
rushed at him, and, striking its antlers into his girdle, dragged him from his
horse. One of the attendants drew his hunting-knife, and, cutting the girdle,
saved the emperor’s life; but the suspicious despot, fearing an attempt at
assassination, ordered his faithful servant to be immediately decapitated. The
shock he received from the stag brought on a fever, which terminated his
eventful life, and he ended his reign, as he had commenced it, by the murder of
a benefactor. Though he was a judicious and able sovereign, he has been unduly
praised, because he was one of the most orthodox emperors of Constantinople in
the opinion of the Latin as well as of the Greek Church.
Sect.
II
LEO
VI THE PHILOSOPHER
A.D. 886-912
Leo the Philosopher gave countenance to the
rumour that he was the son of Michael III by one of the first acts of his
reign. He ordered the body of the murdered emperor to be transported from Chrysopolis, where it had been interred by Theodora, and
entombed it with great ceremony in the Church of the Holy Apostles.
In every characteristic of a sovereign Leo
differed from Basil, and almost every point of difference was to the
disadvantage of the philosopher. The Pace with which the throne was retained by
a man such as Basil had appeared before he became sole emperor, is explained,
when we see a trifling pedant like Leo ruling the empire without difficulty.
The energy which had re-established the Eastern Empire under the Iconoclasts
was now dormant, and society had degenerated as much as the court. When the
foundations of the Byzantine government were laid by Leo III, the mass of
society was as eager to reform its own vices as the emperor was to improve the
administration; but when Basil mounted the throne, the people were as eager to
enjoy their wealth as the emperor to gratify his ambition. The emperors of
Constantinople, as the throne was to a certain degree elective, are generally
types of their age; and though Leo the Philosopher succeeded as the son and successor
of Basil, no sovereign ever represented the character of his age better. He
typifies the idle spirit of conservatism as correctly as Constantine V does the
aggressive energy of progress.
Leo VI was a man of learning and a lover of
luxurious ease, a conceited pedant and an arbitrary but mild despot. Naturally
of a confined intellect, he owes his title of ‘the Philosopher’, or ‘the
Learned’, rather to the ignorance of the people, who attributed to him an
acquaintance with the secrets of astrological science, than either to his own
attainments, or to any remarkable patronage he bestowed on learned men. His
personal character, however, exercised even greater influence on the public
administration of the empire than that of his predecessors, for the government
was now so completely despotic that the court, rather than the cabinet,
directed the business of the state. Hence it was that the empire met with
disgraceful disasters at a period when its force was sufficient to have
protected all its subjects. The last traces of the Roman constitution were now
suppressed, and the trammels of an inviolable court ceremonial, and the
invariable routine of administrators and lawyers, were all that was preserved
of the institutions of an earlier and grander period. The extinction of the
Roman Empire, and complete consolidation of Byzantine despotism, is recorded in
the edicts of Leo, suppressing the old municipal system, and abolishing senatus-consulta. The language of legislation became as
despotic as the acts of the emperor were arbitrary. Two Patriarchs, Photius and
Nikolaos, were removed from the government of the church by the emperor’s
order. Leo lived in open adultery on a throne from which Constantine VI had
been driven for venturing on a second marriage while his divorced wife was
living. Yet Zoe, the fourth wife of Leo VI, gave birth to the future emperor,
Constantine Porphyrogenitus, in the purple chamber of the imperial palace,
before the marriage ceremony had been performed. A Saracen renegade, named Samonas, was for years the prime favourite of the
infatuated Leo, who raised him to the rank of patrician, and allowed him to
stand godfather to his son Constantine, though great doubts were entertained
of the orthodoxy, or perhaps of the Christianity, of this disreputable
favourite. The expenditure of the imperial household was greatly increased; the
revenue previously destined to the service of the empire was diverted to the
gratification of the court, and corruption was introduced into every branch of
the administration by the example of the emperor, who raised money by selling
places. The Emperor Basil, like his predecessors, had been contented to make
use of a galley, with a single bank of oars, in his visits to the country round
Constantinople; but Leo never condescended to move unless in a dromon of two banks of oars, rowed by two hundred men—and
two of these vessels were constantly maintained as imperial yachts. Constantine
Porphyrogenitus recounts an anecdote concerning the corruption of his father’s
court, which deserves particular notice, as proving, on the best evidence, that
the emperor encouraged the system by sharing in its profits. Ktenas, a rich man in holy orders, and the best public
singer of the time, was extremely anxious to possess acknowledged rank at the
imperial court. He secured the support of Samonas,
the Saracen grand-chamberlain, and hoped to obtain the rank of protospatharios, by offering to make the emperor a present
of forty pound’ weight of gold, the pay of the office amounting only to a pound
of gold annually. The Emperor Leo refused, declaring, as his son tells us, that
it was a transaction unworthy of the imperial dignity, and that it was a thing
unheard of to appoint a clerk protospatharios. The
old man, however, by the means of Samonas, increased
his offers, adding to his first proposal a pair of earrings, worth ten pounds
of gold, and a richly-chased table of silver gilt, also worth ten pounds of
gold. This addition produced so great an effect on Leo’s mind, that, according
to his own declaration, he disgraced the imperial dignity, for he made a member
of the clergy a protospatharios. Constantine then
chuckles at his father’s good fortune; for after receiving sixty pounds’ weight
of gold, the new protospatharios only lived to draw
two years’ pay.
The strongest contrast between the
administration of Leo and Basil was visible in the financial affairs of the
empire. Though the direct taxes were not increased, the careless conduct of
Leo, and his neglect to maintain the strict control over the tax-gatherers
exercised by his father, allowed every species of abuse to creep into this
branch of government, and the people were subject to the severest oppression.
Monopolies were also created in favour of the creatures of the court, which
were the cause of great complaints, and one of these ultimately involved the
empire in a most disastrous war, with the Bulgarians.
The state of the church in the Byzantine Empire
was always important, as ecclesiastical affairs afforded the only opportunity
for the expression of public opinion. A considerable body of the clergy was
more closely connected with the people, by feelings and interests, than with
the court. At this time, however, all classes enjoyed a degree of sensual
abundance that rendered society torpid, and few were inclined to take part in
violent contests. The majority of the subjects of the Byzantine empire,
perhaps, never felt greater aversion to the conduct of the government, both in
civil and ecclesiastical matters; and we may attribute the parade Leo made of
his divine right to govern both the state and the church, to the fact that he
was fully aware of the popular feeling; but no class of men saw any probability
of bettering their condition, either by revolution or change, so that a bad government
began to be looked upon as one of the unavoidable evils of an advanced state of
civilization, and as one of the inevitable calamities which Heaven itself had
interwoven in man’s existence.
The Emperor Leo VI deposed the Patriarch Photius
without pretending any religious motive for the change. The object was to
confer the dignity on his brother Stephen, who was then only eighteen years of
age. Photius retired into a monastery, where, as has been already mentioned, he
was treated with respect by Leo, who pretended that his resignation was a
voluntary act. Photius survived his deposition about five years, more
universally respected, and probably happier, than when he sat on the
patriarchal throne, though he had been excommunicated by nine popes of Rome. Leo
displayed a mean spirit in his eagerness to punish the abbot Theodoros Santabaren, whom he regarded as the author of his
degradation and imprisonment during his father’s reign. Failing to procure
evidence to convict the abbot of any crime, he ordered him to be scourged and
exiled to Athens. His eyes were subsequently put out by the emperor’s
order. But Leo, though a tyrant, was not implacable, and some
years later Theodoros was recalled to Constantinople, and received a
pension.
The predominance of ceremonial feelings in
religion is shown in a remarkable manner by the legislative acts of the
Byzantine government, relating to the observance of the Sabbath. As early as
the reign of Constantine the Great, AD 321, there is a law commanding the
suspension of all civil business on Sunday; and this enactment is enforced by a
law of Theodosius I, in 386. During the contests concerning image-worship,
society was strict in all religious observances, and great attention was paid
to Sunday. In the year affecting the practice of piety, even while he made a
parade of ecclesiastical observances, revoked all the exemptions which the law
had hitherto made in favour of the performance of useful labour on Sunday, and
forbade even necessary agricultural work, as dishonouring the Lord’s day.
Arguing with the bigotry of the predestinarian, that the arbitrary will of God,
and not the fixed laws which he has revealed to man, gives abundant harvests to
the earth, the emperor regards the diligence of the agriculturist as of no avail.
Fate became the refuge of the human mind when the government of Rome had
rendered the improvement of pagan society hopeless; superstition assumed its
place among the Christians, and the stagnation in the Byzantine Empire
persuaded men that no prudence in the conduct of their affairs could better
man’s condition.
Ecclesiastical affairs gave Leo very little
trouble during his reign, but towards its end he was involved in a dispute with
the Patriarch Nikolaos the mystic. After the death of Leo’s third wife, without
male issue, the emperor, not wishing to violate openly the laws of the Eastern
Church, enforced by his own legislation, which forbade fourth marriages,
installed the beautiful Zoe Carbonopsina, a
grandniece of the historian Theophanes, as his concubine in the palace. Zoe
gave birth to a son in the purple chamber, who was the celebrated emperor and
author, Constantine VII (Porphyrogenitus). The young prince was baptized in the
Church of St. Sophia by the Patriarch Nikolaos, but that severe ecclesiastic
only consented to officiate at the ceremony on receiving the emperor’s promise
that he would not live any longer with his concubine. Three days after the
baptism of Constantine, the Emperor Leo celebrated his marriage with Zoe, and
conferred on her the imperial title, thus keeping his promise to the Patriarch
in one sense. But Nikolaos, indignant at having been paltered with in a double
sense, degraded the priest who performed the nuptial ceremony, and interdicted
the entry of the church to Leo. The emperor only thought it necessary to pay so
much respect to the interdict as to attend the church ceremonies by a private
door; and the people, caring little about the quarrel, laughed when they saw
the imperial philosopher showing so much wit. Leo, however, took measures to
gain the Pope’s goodwill, and when assured of papal support, he deposed
Nikolaos and appointed Euthymios the syncellus his
successor. The new Patriarch, though he had been a monk on Mount Olympus,
recognized the validity of the emperor's fourth marriage, on the pretext that
the public good required the ecclesiastical laws to yield to the exigencies of
the state. The populace, to excuse their Patriarch, believed a report that the
emperor had threatened, in case the Patriarch refused to recognize the validity
of his marriage with Zoe, to publish a law allowing every man to marry four
wives at the same time. This rumour, notwithstanding its absurdity, affords
strong proof of the power of the emperor, and of the credulity with which the
Greeks received every rumour unfavourable to their rulers.
The legislative labours of Leo’s reign are more
deserving of attention than his ecclesiastical skirmishes, though he only
followed in the traces of his father, and made use of materials already
prepared to his hand. We have already noticed that he published a revised
edition of the Basilika, to which he added a
considerable amount of supplementary legislation. Byzantine law, however, even
after it had received all the improvements of Basil and Leo, was ill suited to
serve as a practical guide to the population of the empire. The Basilika is an inspiration of imperial pride, not a work
whose details follow the suggestions of public utility. Whole titles are filled
with translations of imperial edicts, useless in the altered circumstances of
the empire; and one of the consequences of the ill-devised measure of adopting
an old code was, that no perfect copy of the Basilika
has been preserved. Many books fell into neglect, and have been entirely lost.
The sovereigns of the Byzantine Empire, except while it was ruled by the
Iconoclasts, felt that their power rested on the fabric of the Roman
administration, not on their own strength.
The collection of the edicts or ‘novels’ of Leo,
inserted in the editions of the Corpus Juris Civilis, has rendered the
legislation of Leo more generally known than his revised edition of the
Byzantine code. These edicts were published for the purpose of modifying
portions of the law, as promulgated in the Basilika.
The greater number are addressed to Stylianos, who is supposed to have been the
father of Zoe, Leo’s second wife, and it is thought they were published between
the years 887 and 893, while Stylianos was master of the offices and
logothetes.
The military events of Leo’s reign were marked
by several disgraceful defeats; but the strength of the empire was not
seriously affected by the losses sustained, though the people often suffered
the severest misery. The Asiatic frontier was generally defended with success.
Nicephorus Phokas, who had distinguished himself in Italy during the reign of
Basil, acquired additional glory by his activity as general of the Thrakesian
theme. The Saracens, nevertheless, continued to make destructive inroads into
the empire, as it was found impossible to watch every point where they could
assemble an army. In the year 887, the town of Hysela
in Charsiana was taken, and its inhabitants carried
away into slavery. In 888, Samos was plundered, and the governor, with many of
the inhabitants, made prisoner. In 893, the fortress of Koron
in Cappadocia was taken. In 901, reciprocal incursions were made by the
Christians and Mohammedans, but the Byzantine troops were more successful than
the Saracen, for they penetrated as far as the district of Aleppo, and carried
off fifteen thousand prisoners. This advantage was compensated by the victories
of the Saracen fleet, which took and plundered the island of Lemnos. The
Saracen fleet also, in the year 902, took and destroyed the city of Demetrias in Thessaly, where all the inhabitants who could
not be carried away, and sold with profit as slaves, were murdered. During
these calamities, Leo, in imitation of his father, employed the resources of
the state, which ought to have been devoted to putting the naval forces of the
empire in an efficient condition, in building a new church, and in constructing
a monastery for eunuchs. Before the end of Leo's reign, the isolated and
independent position assumed by several of the Saracen emirs on the frontier,
enabled the Byzantine generals to make some permanent conquests. Melias, an Armenian who had distinguished himself in the
Bulgarian war, gained possession of the country between Mount Amanus and the Euphrates, and this district was formed into
a new theme called Lykandos. The Saracens were also
driven from the city of Theodosiopolis by Leo Katakalon, and the Araxes was constituted the boundary of
the empire towards the Iberians.
The ruinous effects of the piratical system of
warfare pursued by the Saracen fleets, and the miseries it inflicted on
thousands of Christian families in the Byzantine empire, deserves a record in
the page of history. Fortunately we do not require in describing what really
happened, to indulge the imagination by painting what probably occurred, for
time has spared the narrative of one of the sufferers, in which the author
describes his own fate, and the calamities he witnessed, with the minute
exactitude of truth and pedantry. Many severe blows were inflicted on the
Byzantine Empire by the daring enterprises of the Mohammedans, who took
advantage of the neglected state of the imperial navy to plunder the richest
cities of Greece. But the most terrible catastrophe the Christians suffered was
the sack of Thessalonica, the second city of the empire in population and
wealth. Of this event Johannes Cameniates, an
ecclesiastic of the order of Readers, and a native of the place, has left us a
full account. He shared all the dangers of the assault, and after the capture
of his native city he was carried prisoner to Tarsus, in order to be exchanged
at one of the exchanges of prisoners which took place between the Christians
and Saracens from time to time in that city.
Thessalonica is situated at the head of an inner
basin terminating the long gulf stretching up to the northward, between the
snowy peaks and rugged mountains of Olympus and Ossa to the west, and the rich
shores of the Chalcidice and the peninsula of Cassandra to the east. The bay,
on which the city looks down, affords a safe anchorage; and in the tenth century
an ancient mole enclosed an inner port within its arms, where the largest
vessels could land or receive their cargoes as in a modem dock. This port
bounded the city on the south, and was separated from it by a wall about a mile
in length running along the shore. Within, the houses rose gradually, until the
upper part of the city was crowned with an acropolis, separated from the hills
behind by a rugged precipice. This citadel is now called the Seven Towers. Two
ravines, running to the sea from the rocky base of the acropolis, serve as
ditches to the western and eastern walls of the city, which to this day follow
the same line, and present nearly the same aspect as in the reign of Leo the
Philosopher. Their angles at the sea, where they join the wall along the port,
are strengthened by towers of extraordinary size. The Egnatian
Way, which for many centuries served as the highroad for the communications
between Rome and Constantinople, formed a great street passing in a straight
line through the centre of the city from its western to its eastern wall. This
relic of Roman greatness, with its triumphal arches, still forms a marked
feature of the Turkish city; but the moles of the ancient port have fallen to
ruin, and the space between the sea-wall and the water is disfigured by a
collection of filthy huts. Yet the admirable situation of Thessalonica, and the
fertility of the surrounding country, watered by several noble rivers, still
enables it to nourish a population of upwards of sixty thousand souls. Nature
has made it the capital and seaport of a rich and extensive district, and under
a good government it could not fail to become one of the largest and most
flourishing cities on the shores of the Mediterranean.
Leo of Tripolis was
the most active, daring, and skilful of the Saracen admirals. He was born of
Christian parents, at Attalia in Pamphylia, but
became a renegade, and settled at Tripolis in Syria
after he embraced the Mohammedan faith. In the year 904, Leo sailed from Tarsus
with a fleet of fifty-four ships, each carrying two hundred men, besides their
officers and a few chosen troops. The ablest corsairs in the East were
assembled for this expedition, and a rumour of the unusual care that was shown
in fitting out the fleet reached the court of the idle philosopher at
Constantinople. He foresaw that some daring attack on his dominions would be
made, and would fain have placed the imperial navy in a condition to defend the
islands and shores of the Aegean; but though the commerce of Greece could have
supplied sailors to man the largest force, the negligence and incapacity of the
admiralty had been so great, that several years of misfortune were required to
raise the Byzantine fleet to the condition from which it had fallen. The naval
force that was now sent to defend the empire did not venture to encounter the
Saracen fleet, but retired before it, seeking shelter within the Hellespont,
and leaving the whole Archipelago unprotected. In the meantime fugitives reached
Constantinople, who reported that the enemy proposed to attack Thessalonica.
The walls of Thessalonica had been originally of
great strength, but the fortifications were in a neglected state, and the city
was almost without a garrison of regular troops. The sea-wall was in want of
repair, and parts were so low that it was not difficult to mount the
battlements from the yards of the ships in the port. On the land side the
floors of the towers that flanked the walls had in some places fallen into such
a state of decay, that the communications of the defenders on the curtains were
interrupted. The emperor, when informed of the defenceless state of the place,
increased the confusion by his injudicious meddling. He sent a succession of
officers from the capital with different instructions, fresh counsels, and new
powers; and, as usually happens in similar cases, each of his deputies availed
himself of his authority to alter the plan of defence adopted by his
predecessor. As might be expected under such circumstances, the Saracens
arrived before the fortifications were repaired, and before the arrangements
for defence were completed.
The most alarming defect in the fortifications
was the condition of the wall that ran along the border of the port. It was
too low, without the necessary towers to afford a flanking defence, and in
several places the depth of the water admitted ships to approach close to the
quay that ran under its battlements. Petronas, the first officer sent by the
emperor, thinking that there was not sufficient time to raise the wall or
construct new towers, adopted measures for preventing the approach of the
enemy’s ships. To effect this, he transported to the port the sculptured
sarcophagi, and immense blocks of marble that then adorned the Hellenic tombs
on both sides of the Egnatian Way, without the
western and eastern gates of the city, and commenced laying them in the sea at
some distance from the quay. His object was to form a mole reaching within a
few feet of the surface of the water, against which the enemy might run their
ships, and leave them exposed, for some time, to the missiles and Greek fire of
the defenders of the city. But the inhabitants of Thessalonica showed
themselves insensible of danger before it approached, and incapable of
defending themselves when it arrived. Their whole confidence was placed in St.
Demetrius, who had never deceived them—not in their emperor, whose armies and
fleets were every day defeated. They knew that Thessalonica had often repulsed
the attacks of the Slavonians in the seventh and eighth centuries—they boasted
that it had never been taken by pagan or unbelievers; and they believed that,
whenever it had been besieged, St. Demetrius had shown himself active in its
defence : it was therefore the universal opinion, that as patron saint he would
now defend a place in which he had a strong personal interest; for in no other
spot on earth was he worshipped by so numerous, so wealthy, and so devoted a
community? The fate of Thessalonica proves the wisdom of Leo III in
endeavouring to exterminate the worship of images and saints.
Petronas had not made much progress with his
work when he was superseded by an officer named Leo, who was appointed general
of the theme of Thessalonica. Leo, finding that the wall towards the port was
not higher than the immense stem-galleries of the ships then in use, ordered
the undertaking of Petronas to be suspended, and every nerve to be strained to
mice the wall. Reports became every day more alarming. At one time it was
announced that the Saracen fleet had pursued the Byzantine admiral, Eustathios Argyros, up the
Hellespont as far as Parium. Afterwards it became
certain that it had quitted the Hellespont and reached Thasos. The people of
the city would not, however, shake off their apathy, and their confidence in
St. Demetrius. They showed little aptitude for building or for military
discipline; the wall advanced slowly, and the militia did not seem likely to
defend it with alacrity, even should it be completed. At this conjuncture a
third officer arrived from Constantinople, named Niketas.
His arrival was of itself sufficient to produce some disorder; but,
unfortunately, an accident that happened shortly after threw everything into
confusion. Leo and Niketas met on horseback to inspect
the defences of the city; the horse of Leo reared, threw his rider, and injured
his right thigh and side in such a manner that his life was in danger, and for
several days he was unable to move. This accident invested Niketas
with the chief command.
Niketas seems to have had more military experience than
his predecessor, and he felt that the citizens of Thessalonica, though they
formed a numerous militia, were not to be depended on for defending the place.
He therefore endeavoured to assemble a body of troops accustomed to war, by
calling on the general of the theme of Strymon to send some of the federate
Slavonians from his government; but the envy or negligence of the general, and
the avarice and ill-will of the Slavonian leaders, prevented the arrival of any
assistance from that quarter. Though Niketas
threatened to report the misconduct of the general of Strymon to the emperor,
he could obtain no addition to the garrison, except a few ill-equipped
Slavonian archers from the villages in the plains near the city. The generals
seemed all to place too much confidence in human prudence; the people preferred
relying on St. Demetrius and heaven. To secure the divine aid, a solemn
procession of all the clergy and citizens, accompanied by every stranger residing
in Thessalonica, headed by the archbishop and the civil and military
authorities, visited the church of St. Demetrius. Public prayers were offered
up day and night with great fervor; but long after,
when Joannes Cameniates
recorded that the intervention of St. Demetrius had proved unavailing, he
acknowledged that God permitted the destruction of Thessalonica to show mankind
that nothing renders the divine ear accessible to the intercession of the
saints but pious life and good deeds.
The Saracens stopped a short time at Thasos to
prepare engines for hurling stones, and other machines used in sieges. At last,
as the inhabitants of Thessalonica were leaving their houses at daybreak, to
attend morning prayer, on Sunday the 29th of July 904, a rumour arose that the
enemy was already in the gulf, and only concealed from view by Cape Ekvolos. The unwarlike city was filled with lamentations,
tumult, and alarm; but the citizens enrolled in the militia armed themselves,
amidst the tears of their wives and children, and hastened to the battlements.
The anxious crowd had not long to wait before fifty-four ships were seen
rounding the cape in succession with all sail, set. The sea-breeze bore them
rapidly forward, and before noon they were at anchor close to the city. The
entrance of the port between the moles was shut by a chain; and to prevent this
chain from being broken by hostile ships impelled by the strong sea-breezes of
the summer months, several vessels had been sunk across the mouth, Leo of Tripolis immediately reconnoitred the fortifications, and
examined the unfinished work of Petronas, in order to ascertain if it were
still practicable to approach the wall beyond its junction with the mole. After
this examination was completed a desultory attack was made on the place to
occupy the attention of the garrison, and induced the besieged to show all
their force and means of defence.
Next day the Saracens landed and attacked the
gate Roma, which was situated in the eastern wall, and not far from the sea.
Seven of the engines constructed at Thasos were placed in battery, and an
attempt was made to plant sealing-ladders against the fortifications, under
cover of a shower of stones, darts, and arrows; but a vigorous sally of the
Byzantine troops repulsed the assault and captured the ladders. In the
afternoon the plan of attack was changed. It was resolved to force an entrance
by burning down two of the four gates in the eastern wall. The gate Roma and
the gate Cassandra, on the Egnatian Way, were
selected. Wagons filled with dry wood, pitch, and sulphur, were covered over by
fishing-boats turned upside down, to prevent those on the wall from setting
fire to the combustibles at a distance. Sheltered by these boats, the Saracen
sailors pushed the wagons close to the gates, and when they had lighted their
fires, they escaped to their companions with their shields over their heads,
while the rising flames, the stones from the ballist,
and the arrows of the archers, distracted the attention of the defenders of the
wall. The iron plates on the doors were soon heated red-hot, and, the
door-posts being consumed, the gates fell; but when the fire burned low, an
inner gateway was seen closed with masonry, and well protected by flanking
towers, so that the Saracens gained nothing by the success of this project. But
the real object of the besiegers in all these preliminary operations had only
been to draw off the attention of the Greeks from the point where most danger
was to be apprehended. The second night of the siege was a sleepless one for
both parties. The inhabitants, seriously alarmed at the daring courage and
contempt of death displayed by the assailants, deemed it necessary to keep up a
strict watch along the whole circuit of the fortifications, lest some unguarded
spot should be found by the besiegers during the darkness. On board the fleet
an incessant noise of hammers, and of Arabs and Ethiopians shouting, with a
constant moving of lights, proclaimed that active preparation was going on for
renewing the attack.
When Leo of Tripolis
reconnoitred the fortifications, he had ascertained that his ships could
approach the wall in several places, and he had carefully marked the spots. The
interval had been employed in getting everything ready for an attack in this
quarter, and now the night was devoted to complete the work, in order that the
besieged might remain in ignorance of the design until the moment of its
execution. It was necessary to form stages, in which the assailants could
overlook the defenders of the place, and from which they could descend on the
wall. The project was executed with ability and promptitude in a very simple
manner. Two ships were bound firmly together by cables and chains, and the long
yards of the immense lateen sails then in use were reversed, so as to extend
far beyond the bows of the double ship. These yards were strong enough to
support a framework of wood capable of containing a small body of men, who were
protected by boards on the sides from missiles, while shrouds kept up a
constant communication with the deck below. These cages, when swung aloft from
the yards, could be elevated above the battlements where the sea-wall was
lowest, and to the besieged looked like the tops of towers suddenly raised out
of the sea. In the morning the double ships were rowed into their positions,
and the fight commenced between the besiegers in their hanging towers and the
defenders on the ramparts. Stones, arrows, pots filled with flaming
combustibles, and fire launched from long brazen tubes, the composition of which
had been at an earlier period a secret known only in the Byzantine arsenal, now
came pouring down from above on the Greeks, who were soon driven from the
battlements. The Ethiopians of the Alexandrian ships were the first to make
good their footing on the wall, and as soon as they had cleared the whole line
of the fortifications towards the sea from its defenders, they broke open the
gates, and the crews of the other ships rushed into the city. The sailors
employed to collect the booty entered with their drawn swords, wearing only
their trousers, in order that no plunder might be abstracted secretly. The
militia fled without a thought of further resistance: the Slavonians escaped
from a gate in the citadel, which they had secured as a means of retreat.
The Saracens divided themselves into bands, and
commenced slaughtering every person they found in the streets, though they
encountered crowds of women and children, who had rushed out of their houses to
learn the cause of the unusual commotion. A number of the inhabitants
endeavoured to escape by the Golden Gate, which formed the entrance of the Egnatian Way into the city from the west, but the crowd
rendered it impossible to throw open the doors. A party of Ethiopians came upon
the people as they were struggling to effect their purpose. Hundreds were
crushed to death or suffocated, and the blacks stabbed the rest, without
sparing age or sex. John Cameniates, his father, his
uncle, and two brothers, fled towards the wall that separates the town from the
citadel, intending to conceal themselves in a tower until the first fury of the
assailants was assuaged. They had hardly ascended the wall when a band of
Ethiopians reached the place in pursuit of a crowd of people, whom they
murdered before the eyes of the terrified family. The Ethiopians then mounted
the wall, but a tower was between them and Cameniates,
of which the floor was in such a ruinous condition that it seemed dangerous to
pass. As the enemy paused, John Cameniates deemed the
moment favourable to implore mercy, and running quickly over a beam that
remained unbroken, he threw himself at the feet of the black captain, promising
that he would reveal where a treasure was hidden, in case his own life and that
of his relations was spared. His confidence won the favour of the barbarians,
one of whom understood Greek, and the family was taken under their protection;
yet as they were marching through the streets, Cameniates
received two wounds from an Ethiopian belonging to another band. On their way
to the port the prisoners were carried into the convent of Akroullios,
where they found the chief of the Ethiopians seated in the vestibule. After
hearing the promises of old Cameniates, he rose and
entered the church, in which about three hundred Christians had been collected.
There, seating himself cross-legged on the altar, he made a signal to his
followers, who immediately put all to death, leaving only the family of Cameniates. From this hideous spectacle they were conducted
to the Saracen admiral.
After Leo of Tripolis
had heard what Cameniates had to say, he sent a guard
to convey the treasure to the port. Fortunately the hoard, which contained all
the wealth of many members of the family, was found untouched, for had it not
satisfied the avarice of the chiefs, the whole family would have been murdered,
as happened in many other cases. This treasure was received by Leo only as a
ransom for the lives of his prisoners, who were embarked in order to be
exchanged at Tarsus for Saracens in captivity among the Christians. Cameniates found Leo, the general of the theme of
Thessalonica, Niketas, the third envoy of the
emperor, and Rodophyles, a eunuch of the imperial
household, who had stopped as he was conveying a hundred pounds’ weight of gold
to the Byzantine army in Italy, all among the prisoners. Rodophyles
was brought before the Saracen admiral, who had learned from the captives that
he was entrusted with treasure. The eunuch boldly replied that he had performed
his duty to the emperor, by sending away the gold to the general of the theme
of Strymon as soon as the enemy approached; and when Leo of Tripolis
found that this was true, he flew into a passion, and ordered Rodophyles to be beaten to death on the spot.
Several days were spent in collecting the booty
in the city, in releasing such of the captives as had friends in the
neighbourhoods able to purchase their liberty by the payment of a second
ransom, and in negotiating the exchange of two hundred persons, for whom an
officer of the emperor named Simeon engaged that an equal number of Saracen
captives should be delivered up at Tarsus. When all other business was settled,
the Saracens threatened to burn the city, and succeeded in forcing the general
of Strymon to deliver up the gold for which Rodophyles
had lost his life, in order to save the place from destruction. The hostile
fleet quitted the harbour of Thessalonica ten days after the capture of the
city. Cameniates was embarked in the ship of the
Egyptian admiral, who served under Leo of Tripolis.
The crew consisted of two hundred men and eight hundred captives; men, women,
and children were crowded together on the lower deck. These unfortunate people,
all of whom were of the higher ranks, suffered indescribable misery, and many
died of hunger, thirst, and suffocation before they reached the island of
Crete, where, after a fortnight's confinement, they were allowed to land for
the first time. The fleet had deviated from its course in order to avoid
falling in with the Byzantine squadron, for it was impossible to fight when
every ship was crowded with prisoners. It had therefore remained six days at
Patmos and two at Naxos, which was then tributary to the Saracens at Crete.
The fleet anchored at Zontarion,
a port opposite the island of Dia, which afforded
better shelter than the harbour of Chandax, and where
it could obtain the seclusion necessary for dividing the slaves and spoil among
the different parties composing the expedition, in order that each might hasten
home before the autumnal storms commenced. The whole of the captives were
landed, and three days were spent by them in endeavouring to find their
relations, and unite families that had been dispersed, many of which were again
separated by the new division. As not only the fifty-four ships of Leo's fleet,
but also several Byzantine men-of-war and merchantmen, taken in the port of
Thessalonica, had been filled with prisoners, it is not surprising that the
number, even after the loss sustained on the passage, still amounted to
twenty-two thousand souls. Of these, with the exception of the small number
reserved for exchange at Tarsus, all consisted of young men and women in the
flower of their youth, or children remarkable for the bloom of their beauty:
they had been saved from the slaughter of the older inhabitants, or selected
from those seized in the houses, because they were sure of commanding a high
price in the slave-markets of the East. When all the booty had been landed, the
spoil was divided by lot, and then the fleet dispersed, the ships sailing from
Crete directly to Alexandria, or to the different ports of Syria to which they
belonged. Many of the unfortunate prisoners, exposed to sale in the
slave-markets of Fostal, the capital of Egypt and
Damascus, were transported to Ethiopia and Arabia, and even to the southern
parts of Africa; the more fortunate were repurchased from those to whose share
they had fallen, by the Cretans, and by them resold to their friends.
The island of Crete had become a great
slave-mart, in consequence of the extensive piracies of its Saracen population;
and at this time the slave-trade was the most profitable branch of commerce in
the Mediterranean. A large portion of the Greek inhabitants of Crete having
embraced Mohammedanism, and established communications with the Christian slave-merchants
in the Byzantine Empire, carried on a regular trade in purchasing Byzantine
captives of wealthy families, and arranging exchanges of prisoners with their
relations. As these exchanges were private speculations, and not, like those at
Tarsus, under the regulation of an official cartel, the Christians were
generally compelled to pay a considerable sum as redemption-money, in order to
deliver their relatives, in addition to releasing a Saracen captive. After the
buying and selling of the captives from Thessalonica had been carried on for
several days, the Saracens embarked their prisoners for their ultimate
destination. The wife of one of the brothers of Cameniates
was purchased by a Cretan slave-merchant, but he had the misery of seeing his
mother, his wife, and two of his children, (for the third had died during the
voyage) embarked in a ship belonging to Sidon. Cameniates,
with his father, and the greater part of the captives set apart for the
exchange at Tarsus, were put on board a Byzantine man-of-war, the upper deck of
which was occupied by the Saracens, while the Christians were crowded on the
lower, in filth and darkness.
On the passage from Crete to Syria, an event
happened which shows that Leo, the Saracen admiral, was a man of energy and
courage, well fitted for his daring occupation, and by no means so deaf to the
calls of humanity, in the hour of the most terrific danger, as his ferocious
conduct after the taking of Thessalonica might lead us to believe. A violent
storm threatened one of the smaller galleys with destruction, for it broke in
the middle—an accident to which ancient ships, from their extreme length and
want of beam, were very liable. The Saracens on board were near the admiral's
ship, and that in which Cameniates was embarked, and
they requested Leo to order the crew of the Byzantine man-of-war to throw all
the captives overboard and receive them. The order was given, allowing the crew
to quit the sinking ship, but the violence of the wind had driven the ship in
which Cameniates was embarked to such a distance that
the signals of the admiral were unnoticed or unheeded. Leo, however, ordered
his own ship to be brought as near the galley as possible, and succeeded in
saving, not only the Saracen crew, but every Christian on board, though the
crews and captives of the two vessels amounted to upwards of one thousand
persons. The Byzantine generals, Leo and Niketas,
who were on board Leo’s ship, recounted the circumstances to Cameniates, and declared that their ship was ill-calculated
to contain so great a crowd, and was navigated with great difficulty. After
refitting at Cyprus, the squadron reached Tripolis on
the 14th of September. The father of Cameniates died
there, before the prisoners were removed to Tarsus. While waiting at Tarsus, in
fear of death from the unhealthiness of the place, Cameniates wrote the account of his sufferings, from which
the preceding narrative has been extracted; and we must pardon what he calls
the feebleness, but what others are more likely to term the inflation of his
style, on account of the interesting matter embalmed in its verbosity. The
worthy Anagnostes appears to have returned to his
native city, and obtained the office of koubouklesios
to the archbishop.
The taking of Thessalonica affords a sad lesson
of the inefficiency of central governments, which deny the use of arms to the
people, to defend the wealthy and unfortified cities of an extensive empire.
The tendency of a court to expend the revenues of the state on the pageantry of
power, on palaces, churches, and fêtes in the capital, without bestowing a
thought on the destruction of a village or the loss of a parish, reveals to us
one of the paths by which despotic power invariably tends to degrade the mass
of human civilization.
The wealth the Saracens had obtained at
Thessalonica invited them to make fresh attacks on the empire, until at last
the public sufferings compelled the Emperor Leo, in the last year of his reign,
to make a vigorous attempt to put an end to the piracies of the Cretans, A.D.
912. Himerios, who had gained a naval victory over
the Saracens in the year 909, was entrusted with the command of a powerful
fleet, and commenced his operations by clearing the Archipelago of the Cretan
pirates. His fleet consisted of forty dromons or
war-galleys of the largest size, besides other vessels; and it was manned by
twelve thousand native sailors, besides seven hundred Russians, who are
considered worthy of especial enumeration. A powerful army, under the orders of
Romanus the future emperor, was assembled at Samos for the purpose of besieging
Chandax; but after eight months of insignificant
demonstrations, the expedition was defeated with great loss by the Saracens,
under the command of Leo of Tripolis and Damian, off
the coast of Samos. Himerios escaped with difficulty
to Mitylene, but Romanus saved the remains of the
imperial force.
In southern Italy, everything was in such a
state of confusion that it is not worth while
following the political changes it suffered. The dukes of Naples, Gaeta,
Salerno and Amalfi were at times the willing subjects of the Byzantine emperor,
and at times their personal ambition induced them to form alliances with the
Saracens of Africa and Sicily, or, with the Pope and the Romans, to carry on
war with the Byzantine generals of the theme of Longibardia
(Apulia). The Italian population, as in ancient times, consisted of many
nations living under different laws and usages, so that only a powerful central
government, or a system of political equality, could preserve order in the
discordant elements. The state of civilization rendered the first difficult,
the second impossible. The popes were always striving to increase their power,
allying themselves alternately with the Franks and the Byzantines; the native
Italian population in the cities was struggling for municipal independence; a
powerful aristocracy, of Germanic origin, was contending for power; the
Byzantine authorities were toiling to secure an increase of revenue, and the
whole peninsula was exposed to the plundering incursions either of the
Hungarians or of the Saracens. In this scene of confusion the Emperor Leo was
suddenly compelled to take an active part by the loss of Bari, which was seized
by the Duke of Beneventum. A Byzantine army regained possession of that city,
and revenged the injury the Greeks had suffered by taking Beneventum, which,
however, only remained in possession of the imperial troops for four years. The
Byzantine fleet in Italy was subsequently defeated by the Sicilian Saracens in
the Straits of Messina. In short, the administration of Leo the Philosopher in
Italy was marked by his usual negligence and incapacity, and the weakness of
his enemies alone preserved the Byzantine possessions.
The kingdom of Bulgaria had for a considerable period
proved a quiet neighbour and useful ally. It formed a barrier against the
Turkish tribes, whom the ruin of the Khazar Empire drove into Europe. Leo,
however, allowed himself to be involved in hostilities with the Bulgarians by
the avarice of his ministers. Stylianos, the father of his second wife Zoe,
established a monopoly of the Bulgarian trade in favour of two Greek merchants.
To conceal the extortions to which this monopoly gave rise, the depôt of the Bulgarian commerce was removed from Constantinople
to Thessalonica. The Bulgarians, whose interest suffered by this fraud, applied
to their King Simeon for protection; and when the Emperor Leo, after repeated
solicitations, took no steps to redress the injustice, the Bulgarian monarch
declared war. An almost uninterrupted peace of seventy-four years had existed
between the sovereigns of Constantinople and Bulgaria, for only temporary and
trifling hostilities had occurred since the treaty between Leo V and Mortagan in 814. Bogoris—called,
after his baptism, Michael—had governed his kingdom with great prudence, and
not only converted all his subjects to Christianity, but also augmented their
means of education and wellbeing. His own religious views induced him to join
the Eastern Church, and he sent his second son Simeon to Constantinople for his
education. Bogoris retired into a monastery, and left
the throne to his eldest son Vladimir, about the year 885. The disorderly
conduct of Vladimir drew his father from his retreat, who was compelled to
dethrone and put out the eyes of this unworthy prince, before immuring him in a
monastery. He then placed his second son Simeon on the throne, (A.D. 888,) and,
retiring again to his cell, died a monk, A.D. 907.
Simeon proved an able and active monarch. His
education at Constantinople had enlarged his mind, but inspired him with some
contempt for the meanness and luxury of the Byzantine court, and for the
pedantry and presumption of the Greek people. He was himself both a warrior and
a scholar, but he followed the military system of the Bulgarians, and wrote in
his native language. The Bulgarian nation had now attained the position
occupied some centuries before by the Avars. They were the most civilized and
commercial of all the northern barbarians, and formed the medium for supplying
the greater part of Germany and Scandinavia with the necessary commodities from
Asia, and with Byzantine manufactures and gold. This extensive and flourishing
trade had gone on increasing ever since a treaty, fixing the amount of duties to
be levied on the Byzantine frontier, had been concluded in the year 716, during
the reign of Theodosius III. The stipulations of that treaty had always formed
the basis on which the commercial relations between the two states had been
re-established, at the conclusion of every war; but now two Greek merchants, Stavrakios and Kosmas, bribed Mousikos,
a eunuch in the household of Stylianos, to procure an imperial ordinance for
transferring the whole of the Bulgarian trade to Thessalonica. These Greeks,
having farmed the customs, felt that they could carry on extortions at a
distance which could not be attempted as long as the traders could bring their
goods to Constantinople, and place themselves under the immediate protection of
the central administration. The monopoly, though it inflicted great losses both
on the Greek and Bulgarian traders, was supported by the favourite minister of
the emperor, who refused to pay any attention to the reclamations of the
Bulgarian government in favour of its subjects. Simeon, who was not of a
disposition to submit to contemptuous treatment, finding that he had no hope of
obtaining redress by peaceable means, invaded the empire. The Byzantine army
was completely defeated, and the two generals who commanded were slain in the
first battle. But Simeon tarnished his glory by his cruelty: he ordered the
noses of all the prisoners to be cut off, and sent the Byzantine soldiers, thus
mutilated, to Constantinople. Leo, eager to revenge this barbarity, sent a
patrician, Niketas Skleros, to urge the Hungarians, a
Turkish tribe which had recently quitted the banks of the Don to occupy the
country still possessed by its descendants, to attack the Bulgarians. They did
so, and defeated them. They sold their prisoners to the Emperor Leo, who was
compelled, shortly after, to deliver them to Simeon, King of Bulgaria, without
ransom, in order to purchase peace; for the Magyars were defeated in a second
battle, and retired from the contest. Leo, like many absolute sovereigns, had
conceived too high an idea of his power and prerogatives to pay any respect to
his engagements, when he thought it for his advantage to forget his promises.
He took the earliest opportunity of seeking for revenge, and having assembled
what he supposed was an invincible army, he sent Leo Katakalon,
his best general, to invade Bulgaria. This army was completely destroyed at a
place called Bulgarophygos, and after this lesson Leo
was glad to conclude peace, A.D.893.
About the same time the oppressive conduct of
the imperial governor at Cherson caused an insurrection of the inhabitants, in
which he was murdered.
Leo, in spite of his title of ‘the Philosopher’,
was not a man in whose personal history mankind can feel much interest. Though
his reign was undisturbed by rebellion or civil war, his life was exposed to
frequent dangers. His concubine Zoe discovered a conspiracy against him, and
another was revealed by the renegade Samonas, and
became the origin of his great favour at court. The prime conspirator was
scourged and exiled to Athens. In 902, an attempt was made to murder Leo in the
church of St Mokios by a madman, who was armed only
with a stick. The blow was broken by the branch of a chandelier, yet the
emperor received a severe wound.
Leo died in the year 912, after a reign of
twenty-five years and eight months.
Sect.
III
ALEXANDER
(912-913), MINORITY OF CONSTANTINE VII PORPHYROGENITUS
(913-920), ROMANUS I LECAPENUS, (912-944)
Alexander, who succeeded to the throne, or
rather to the government of the empire, on the death of his brother Leo, (for
he had long borne the title of Emperor), was more degraded in his tastes, and
more unfit for his station, than Michael the Drunkard. Fortunately for his
subjects, he reigned only a year; yet he found time to inflict on the empire a
serious wound, by rejecting the offer of Simeon, king of Bulgaria, to renew the
treaty concluded with Leo. Alexander, like his predecessor, had a taste for astrology;
and among his other follies he was persuaded that an ancient bronze statue of a
boar in the Agora was his own genius. This work of art was consequently treated
with the greatest reverence; it was adorned with new tusks and other ornaments,
and its reintegration in the hippodrome was celebrated as a public festival,
not only with profane games, but even with religious ceremonies, to the scandal
of the orthodox.
Leo VI had undermined the Byzantine system of
administration, which Leo III had modelled on the traditions of imperial Rome.
He had used his absolute, power to confer offices of the highest trust on court
favourites notoriously incapable of performing the duties entrusted to them.
The systematic rules of promotion in the service of the government; the
administrative usages which were consecrated into laws; the professional
education which had preserved the science of government from degenerating with
the literature and language of the empire, were for the first time habitually
neglected and violated. The administration and the court were confounded in the
same mass, and an emperor, called the Philosopher, is characterized in history
for having reduced the Eastern Empire to the degraded rule of an Oriental and
arbitrary despotism. Alexander carried this abuse to a great extent, by
conferring high commands on the companions of his debaucheries, and by
elevating men of Slavonian and Saracen origin to the highest dignities.
The only act of Alexander’s reign that it is
necessary to particularize is the nomination of a regency to act during the
minority of his nephew Constantine. The Patriarch Nikolaos, who had been
reinstated in office, was made one of its members; but Zoe Carbopsina,
the young emperor’s mother, was excluded from it.
Constantine VII was only seven years old when he
became sole emperor. The regency named by Alexander consisted of six members
exclusive of the Patriarch, two of whom, named Basilitzes
and Gabrilopulos, were Slavonians, who had attained
the highest employments and accumulated great wealth by the favour of
Alexander. The facility with which all foreigners obtained the highest offices
at Constantinople, and the rare occurrence of any man of pure Hellenic race in
power, is a feature of the Byzantine government that requires to be constantly
borne in mind, as it is a proof of the tenacity with which the empire clung to
Roman traditions, and repudiated any identification with Greek nationality.
It is difficult, in the period now before us, to
select facts that convey a correct impression of the condition, both of the
government and the people. The calamities and crimes we are compelled to
mention tend to create an opinion that the government was worse, and the
condition of the inhabitants of the empire more miserable than was really the
case. The ravages of war and the incursions of pirates wasted only a small
portion of the Byzantine territory, and ample time was afforded by the long
intervals of tranquillity to repair the depopulation and desolation caused by
foreign enemies. The central government still retained institutions that
enabled it to encounter many political storms that ruined neighbouring nations;
yet the weakness of the administration, the vices of the court, and the
corruption of the people during the reigns of Constantine Porphyrogenitus and
his father-in-law Romanus I, seemed to indicate a rapid decay in the strength
of the empire, and they form a heterogeneous combination with the institutions
which still guaranteed security for life and property to an extent unknown in
every other portion of the world, whether under Christian or Mohammedan sway.
The merits and defects of the Byzantine government are not found in combination
in any other portion of history, until we approach modern times.
Hereditary succession was never firmly
established in the Byzantine Empire. The system of centralization rendered the
prime-minister, who carried on the administration for a minor or a weak
sovereign, virtually master of the empire. Against this danger Alexander had
endeavoured to protect his nephew, by creating a regency of six members, no one
of whom could aspire at becoming the colleague of young Constantine. But the
arbitrary nature of the imperial power created a feeling of insecurity in the
minds of all officials, as long as that power was not vested in a single
individual. This feeling inspired every man of influence with the hope of being
able to render himself sole regent, and with the desire of assuming the title
of Emperor, as the only method of permanently maintaining the post of guardian
to the young prince. The most popular man of the time was Constantine Dukas, who had fled to the Saracens with his father Andronikos, in order to escape the anger of Leo VI. His
father had embraced Mohammedanism, but Dukas had
thrown himself on the mercy of Leo rather than forsake his religion, and had
been rewarded by a command on the south-eastern frontier. For three years he
served with distinction, and his valour and liberality rendered him popular
among the soldiers. The death of Alexander found him commanding a division of
the Byzantine army in Asia Minor, with the rank of general of the imperial
guard: and a party of the officers of state, knowing his boundless ambition,
fixed their eyes on him as the man most likely to overthrow the regency. Even
the Patriarch Nikolaos was privy to the schemes of those who urged Dukas to repair secretly to Constantinople, for this
ambitious ecclesiastic expected more authority over a young man possessing
absolute power, than over six wary statesmen experienced in every department of
public business.
As soon as Dukas
reached the capital, he was proclaimed emperor by his partisans, who had
already prepared the troops and the people for a change; and he marched
immediately to the palace of Chalke, where the young emperor resided, and of
which he expected to gain possession without difficulty. His attack was so
sudden that he rendered himself master of the outer court; but the alarm was
soon given, and all the entries into the palace were instantly closed. John Eladas, one of the members of the regency, assumed the
command of the guards on duty, and a furious battle was fought in the court.
The rebels were repulsed, and the horse of Dukas
slipping on the flags of the pavement he was slain. Three thousand men are said
to have fallen in this short tumult, in which both parties displayed the most
daring courage. The conspirators who fell were more fortunate than those who
were taken by the regency, for these latter were put to death with inhuman
cruelty; and the Patriarch was justly censured for the apathy he showed when
men were tortured, of whose plots he had been cognisant. Several persons of
high rank were beheaded, and some were hung on the Asiatic shore opposite the
imperial palace. The wife of Constantine Dukas was
compelled to take the veil, and banished to her property in Paphlagonia, where
she founded a monastery. Stephen, her only surviving son, was made a eunuch,
and every other male of the noble house of Dukas
perished on this occasion. The family that afterwards bore the name, and
ascended the throne of Constantinople, was of more modern origin.
The affection of the young emperor for his
mother, and the intrigues of the different members of the regency, who expected
to increase their influence by her favor, reinstated
Zoe Carbopsina in the palace, from which she had been
expelled by Alexander. As she had received the imperial crown, she shared the
sovereign authority with the regents as a matter of right, and through the
influence of John Eladas, she soon became the
absolute mistress of the public administration. Zoe thought of little but
luxury and amusement. Her administration was unfortunate, and a complete defeat
of the Byzantine army by the Bulgarians created a general feeling that the direction
of public affairs ought no longer to be entrusted to a woman of her thoughtless
disposition.
The evils inflicted on the inhabitants of Thrace
by Simeon, king of Bulgaria, after his rupture with Alexander, equaled the sufferings of the empire during the earlier
incursions of the Huns and Avars. In the year 913, shortly after Alexander’s
death, Simeon marched up to the walls of Constantinople almost without
opposition; but he found the city too well garrisoned to admit of his remaining
long in its vicinity: he retired after an ineffectual attempt to settle the
terms of a treaty in a conference with the Patriarch. In 914 he again invaded
the empire, and in this campaign Adrianople was betrayed into his hands by its
governor, an Armenian named Pankratakas, who,
however, as soon as the Bulgarians retired, restored it to the Byzantine
government.
A Turkish tribe, called by the Byzantine writers
Patzinaks, who had contributed to destroy the flourishing monarchy of the
Khazars, had driven the Magyars or Hungarians before them into Europe, and at
this period had extended their settlements from the shores of the Sea of Azof
and the falls of the Dnieper to the banks of the Danube. They were thus neighbors of the Russians and the Bulgarians, as well as of
the Byzantine province of Cherson. They were nomades,
and inferior in civilization to the nations in their vicinity, by whom they
were dreaded as active and insatiable plunderers, always ready for war and
eager for rapine. The regency of the Empress Zoe, in order to give the people
of Thrace some respite from the ravages of the Bulgarians, concluded an
alliance with the Patzinaks, who engaged, on receiving a sum of money, to act
in cooperation with the imperial forces. They were to attack the Bulgarians in
the rear, the means of crossing the Danube being furnished by the Byzantine
government. Zoe, in the meantime, trusting to negotiations she was carrying on
at Bagdad for securing tranquility in Asia Minor,
transferred the greater part of the Asiatic army to Europe, and prepared to
carry the war into the heart of Bulgaria, and compel Simeon to fight a battle,
in order to prevent his country being laid waste by the Patzinaks. A splendid
army was reviewed at Constantinople, and placed under the command of Leo
Phokas, a man possessing great influence with the aristocracy, and a high
military reputation. Before the troops marched northward they received new arms
and equipments; liberal advances of pay were made to
the soldiers, and numerous promotions were made among the officers. The second
in command was Constantine the Libyan, one of the conspirators in the plot of Dukas, who had escaped the search of the regency until he
obtained the pardon obtained Zoe's government. The fleet appointed to enter the
mouth of the Danube, in order to transport the Patzinaks over the river, was
placed under the command of Romanus the grand admiral.
Leo Phokas pressed forward, confident of
success; but Romanus felt no inclination to assist the operation of one whom a
successful campaign would render the master of the empire. He is accused of
throwing impediments in the way of the Patzinaks, and delaying to transport
them over the Danube at the time and place most likely to derange the
operations of the Bulgarians. The conduct of Leo was rash, that of Romanus
treacherous. Simeon was enabled to concentrate all his forces and fight a
battle at a place called Achelous, in which the Byzantine army was defeated,
with an immense loss both in officers and men, (20th August 917). Leo escaped
to Mesembria, where he attempted to rally the fugitives; but Romanus, as soon
as he heard of the disaster, sailed directly to Constantinople without
attempting to make any diversion for the relief of his countrymen, or
endeavouring to succour the defeated troops as he passed Mesembria. He was
accused of treason on his return, and condemned to lose his sight; but he
retained possession of the fleet by the support of the sailors; and the
empress, who began to perceive her unpopularity, countenanced his disobedience,
as she expected to make use of his support.
The partisans of Leo openly urged his claims to
be placed at the head of the administration, as the only man capable by his
talents of preventing a revolution; and the chamberlain Constantine urged Zoe
to appoint him a member of the regency, and invest him with the conduct of
public affairs. The empress began to distrust Romanus, from the preponderating
power he possessed as long as the fleet remained in the vicinity of the
capital. The fleet was therefore ordered into the Black Sea; but Romanus had
already received secret encouragement to oppose the designs of Leo from
Theodore, the governor of the young emperor, and he delayed sailing, under the
pretext that the sailors would not put to sea until their arrears were paid.
The crisis was important; so the chamberlain Constantine visited the fleet with
the money necessary for paying the sailors, determined to hasten its departure,
and perhaps to arrest the grand admiral. This step brought matters to an issue.
Romanus seized the money and paid the sailors himself, keeping the chamberlain
under arrest. This daring conduct on the part of a man hitherto considered as
deficient in ambition as well as capacity, spread alarm in the palace, for it
revealed to the empress that there was another pretender to supreme power. Zoe
immediately despatched the Patriarch Nikolaos, and some of the principal
officers of state, to visit the fleet in order to induce the sailors to return
to their allegiance; but the populace, eager for change, and delighted to see
the government in a state of embarrassment, attacked the envoys with stones,
and drove them back into the palace. The empress, at a loss what measures to
adopt, vainly sought for information concerning the causes of this sudden revolution.
At last Theodore, the young emperor’s governor, declared that the conduct of
Leo Phokas and the chamberlain Constantine had caused the popular
dissatisfaction, for Leo had ruined the army and Constantine had corrupted the
administration. He suggested that the easiest mode of putting an end to the
existing embarrassments would be for the young Emperor Constantine to assume
the supreme power into his own hands. This was done, and the young prince, or
rather his tutor Theodore in his name, invited the Patriarch and one of the
regents named Stephen to consult on the measures to be adopted, though both
were known to be hostile to his mother's administration. This produced an
immediate revolution at court. The principal officers of state attached to the
party of Phokas were dismissed from their employments, which were conferred on
men pledged to support the new advisers of the young emperor. Leo, not
perceiving that Romanus was directly connected with the new administration,
proposed a coalition, but received from that wary intriguer only assurances of
friendship and support, while he openly obeyed the orders of the new ministers.
Romanus, however, was soon informed by his friend Theodore that the Patriarch
and Stephen had resolved to remove him from his command, that they might render
him as harmless as Leo : bold measures were therefore rendered necessary, and
without hesitation the admiral ranged his fleet in hostile array under the
walls of the palace Bukoleon. His friends within,
under the direction of the patrician Niketas, invited
him to enter and protect the young emperor, and at the same time forced the
Patriarch and Stephen to retire. The Emperor Constantine had been already
predisposed in favor of Romanus by his tutor, so that
he received the insurgent admiral in a friendly manner. The young prince,
accompanied by the court, repaired to the chapel in Pharo,
where Romanus took an oath of fidelity on the wood of the true cross, and was
invested with the offices of and master and grand heteriarch,
or general of the foreign guards, on the 25th of March 919.
Before a month elapsed, the fortunes of Romanus
were further advanced by the charms of his daughter Helena. Constantine VII
became deeply smitten with her beauty, and the ambition of the father
precipitated the marriage in order to secure the title of Basileopater,
which gave him precedence over every other officer of state, 27th April 919. He
was now even more than prime-minister, and his position excited deeper envy.
Leo Phokas took up arms in Bithynia and marched to Chrysopolis,
(Scutari), declaring that his object was to deliver the young emperor from
restraint; but his movement was so evidently the result of disappointed
ambition that he found few to support him, and he was soon taken prisoner and
deprived of sight. Another conspiracy, having for its object the assassination
of the Basileopater, also failed. The Empress Zoe was
accused of attempting to poison him, and immured in a monastery. The governor
Theodore, perceiving that he no longer enjoyed the confidence of the friend he
had contributed to elevate, began to thwart the ambitious projects of Romanus,
and was banished to his property in Opsikion. Romanus, finding that there was
now nothing to prevent his indulging his ambition, persuaded his son-in-law to
confer on him the title of Caesar, and shortly after to elevate him to the rank
of emperor. He was crowned as the colleague of Constantine Porphyrogenitus by
the Patriarch Nikolaos in the Church of St Sophia, on the 17th December 919.
Few men ever possessed the absolute direction of
public affairs in the Byzantine Empire without assuming the imperial title,
even though they had no intention of setting aside the sovereign whose throne
they shared. It was well understood that there was no other means of securing
their position, for as long as they remained only with the rank of
prime-minister or Caesar, they were exposed to lose their sight, or be put to
death by a secret order of the sovereign, obtained through the intrigues of a
eunuch or a slave. But as soon as they assumed the rank of emperor of the
Romans, their person was sacred, being protected both by the law of high
treason and the force of public opinion, which regarded the emperor as the
Lord's anointed. Two of the greatest sovereigns who ever sat on the throne of
Constantinople, Nicephorus II (Phokas), and John I (Zimiskes), shared the
throne with Basil II and Constantine VIII as Romanus I did with Constantine
VII.
Romanus was a man whose character was too weak
to admit of enlarged views. His vanity was hurt by the fact that he occupied
only the second place in the empire, and to gratify his passion for pageantry,
and secure the place of honour in the numerous ceremonies of the Byzantine
court, he usurped the place of his son-in-law and conferred the imperial crown
on his own wife Theodora, and on his eldest son Christophoros, giving both
precedence over the hereditary emperor. Romanus had served in his youth as a
marine, and he had risen to the highest rank without rendering himself remarkable
either for his valour or ability; the successful career of his family,
therefore, naturally excited the dissatisfaction of the aristocracy and the
ambition of every enterprising officer. His reign was disturbed by a series of
conspiracies, all having for their avowed object the restoration of Constantine
Porphyrogenitus to his legitimate rights, though, probably, the real object of
the conspirators was to gain possession of the power and position occupied by
Romanus. In the year 921, the great officers of the empire—the grandmaster of
the palace, the minister of fortifications, and the director-general of
charitable institutions—were discovered plotting. Shortly after, a patrician,
with the aid of the captain of the guard of Maglabites
or mace-bearers, undismayed by the preceding failure, again attempted to
dethrone Romanus; and a third conspiracy, planned by the treasurer and keeper
of the imperial plate, one of the chamberlains, and the captain of the imperial
galley, was organized. All were discovered, and the conspirators were punished.
In 924, Boilas, a patrician, rebelled on the
frontiers of Armenia, but his troops were defeated by the celebrated general
John Kurkuas, and he was confined in a monastery. Again, in 926, one of the
ministers of state and the postmaster-general formed a plot, which proved
equally abortive.
As years advanced, the feeble character of
Constantine Porphyrogenitus became more apparent. His want of talent, and his
devotion to literature and art, warned the ablest statesmen to avoid
compromising their fortunes by supporting the cause of one so little qualified
to defend his own rights. Romanus, too, having assumed his three sons,
Christophoros, Stephanos, and Constantinos, as his
colleagues, and placed his son Theophylaktos on the patriarchal throne,
considered his power perfectly secure. The spirit of discontent was,
nevertheless, very prevalent; the people in the capital and the provinces were
as little inclined to favour the usurping family as the nobility. An impostor,
born in Macedonia, made his appearance in the theme Opsikion, where he
announced himself to be Constantine Dukas; and though
taken, and condemned to lose his hand like a common forger, he was enabled to
raise a second rebellion after his release. He procured an artificial hand of
brass, with which he wielded his sword; the common people flocked round him,
and resisted the government with so much determination that he was captured
with difficulty, and, to revenge the display he had made of the weakness of
Romanus’s power, he was burned alive in the Amastrianon
at Constantinople.
In early life Romanus had been a votary of
pleasure, but when the possession of every wish for three-and-twenty years had
tamed his passions, he became a votary of superstition. Feelings of religion
began to affect his mind, and at last he allowed it to be discovered that he
felt some remorse for having robbed his son-in-law of his birth-right, in order
to bestow the gift on his own children, who treated him with less respect than
their brother-in-law. Christophoros was dead, and Stephanos, impelled either by
fear that his father would restore Constantine Porphyrogenitus to the first
place in the government, or excited by the usual unprincipled ambition that
pervaded the Byzantine court, resolved to secure the possession of supreme
authority by deposing his father. Romanus was seized by the agents of his son
and carried off to the island of Prote, where he was
compelled to embrace the monastic life. Constantinos,
his younger son, though he had not been privy to the plot, readily joined in
profiting by his father’s ill-treatment. Such crimes, however, always excite
indignation in the breasts of the people; and in this case the inhabitants of
Constantinople, hearing vague rumours of scenes of dethronement, banishment,
and murder, in the imperial palace, became alarmed for the life of their lawful
sovereign, Constantine Porphyrogenitus. They felt an attachment to the injured
prince, whom they saw constantly at all the church ceremonies, degraded from
his hereditary place; his habits were known, many spoke in his praise, nobody
could tell any evil of him. A mob rushed to the palace, and, filling the
courts, insisted on seeing the lawful emperor. His appearance immediately
tranquillized the populace, but hopes were awakened in the breasts of many
intriguers by this sudden display of his influence. A new vista of intrigue was
laid open, and the most sagacious statesmen saw that his establishment on the
throne as sole emperor was the only means of maintaining order. Every man in
power became a partisan of his long-neglected rights, and a restoration was
effected without opposition. The Emperors Stephanos and Constantinos
were seized by the order of Constantine VII, while they were sitting at a
supper-party, and compelled to adopt the monastic habit, 27th January 945.
CONSTANTINE
VII (PORPHYROGENITUS), ROMANUS II.
A.D. 945-963.
We are principally indebted to the writings of
the Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus, or to works compiled by his order,
for our knowledge of Byzantine history during the latter half of the ninth
and earlier half of the tenth centuries. His own writings give us a picture of
his mind, for he generally communicates his information as it occurs to
himself, without hunting for classic and ecclesiastical phrases, and seeking
for learned allusions and antiquated words to confuse and astonish his readers,
as was the fashion with most of the Byzantine nobles who affected the literary
character. Of his person we have a correct description in the writings of his
dependants. He was tall and well made, with broad shoulders, a long neck, and a
long face. This last feature is represented in caricature on some of the coins
of his rein. His skin was extremely fair, his complexion ruddy, his eyes soft
and expressive, his nose aquiline, and his carriage straight as a cypress. He
was a lover of good cheer, and kept the best of cooks, and a cellar of
excellent wine of all the choicest kinds; but he indulged in no excesses, and
his morals were pure. He was reserved and mild in his intercourse with his
familiars, eloquent and liberal to his dependants, so that we must not wonder that
his panegyrists forgot his defects. In a despotic sovereign, such a character
could not fail to be popular.
Constantine’s long seclusion from public
business had been devoted to the cultivation of his taste in art, as well as to
serious study. He was a proficient in mathematics, astronomy, architecture,
sculpture, painting, and music. The works of his pencil were of course lauded
as equal to the pictures by Apelles; his voice was often heard in the solemn
festivals of the church. An encyclopaedia of historical knowledge—of which a
part only has reached our time, but even this part has preserved many valuable
fragments of ancient historians—and treatises on agriculture and the veterinary
art, were compiled under his inspection.
The historical works written by his order were a
chronicle in continuation of the Chronography of Theophanes, embracing the
period from the reign of Leo V (the Armenian) to the death of Michael III. The
name of the writer is said to be Leontios. A second
work on the same period, but including the reign of Basil I, was also written
by Genesius; and a third work, by an anonymous continuator, carried Byzantine
history down to the commencement of the reign of his son Romanus II.
The writings ascribed to Constantine himself are
peculiarly valuable, for several relate to subjects treated by no other author.
The life of his grandfather, Basil I, tells some truths, from vanity, that an
experienced flatterer would have concealed for fear of wounding family pride. A
short geographical notice of the themes or administrative divisions of the
Byzantine Empire gives us the means of connecting medieval with ancient
geography. But the emperor's most valuable work is a treatise on the government
of the empire, written for the use of his son Romanus, which abounds with
contemporary information concerning the geographical limits and political
relations of the people on the northern frontier of the empire and of the Black
Sea, with notices of the Byzantine power in Italy, and of the condition of the
Greeks and Slavonians in the Peloponnesus, of which we should otherwise know
almost nothing. Two essays on military tactics—one relating to naval and
military operations with the regular troops of the empire, and the other to the
usages of foreigners—contain also much information. The longest work, however,
that Constantine wrote, and that on which he prided himself most, was an
account of the ceremonies and usages of the Byzantine court. It is probably now
the least read of his writings, yet it has been edited with care, though it is
published without an index which merited more than a translation.
The government of Constantine was on the whole
mild and equitable, and the empire during his reign was rich and flourishing.
When he became despotic master of the East, he continued to think and act very
much as he had done in his forced seclusion. He displayed the same simplicity
of manner and goodness of heart. His weakness prevented him from being a good
sovereign, but his humanity and love of justice preserved him from being a bad
one, and he continued all his life to be popular with the mass of his subjects.
His kind disposition induced him to allow his son, Romanus II, to marry
Theophano, a girl of singular beauty, and of the most graceful and fascinating
manners, but the daughter of a man in meat circumstances. The Byzantine
historians, who are more frequently the chroniclers of aristocratic scandal
than of political history, and whose appetite for popular calumny swallows the
greatest improbabilities, have recorded that Theophano repaid the goodness of
the emperor by inducing Romanus to poison his father. They pretend that the
chief butler was gained, and that Constantine partook of a beverage, in which
poison was mingled with medicine prescribed by his physician. Accident
prevented him from swallowing enough to terminate his life, but the draught
injured a constitution already weak. To recover from the languor into which he
fell, he made a tour in Bithynia in order to enjoy the bracing air of Mount
Olympus, and visit the principal monasteries and cells of anchorites, with
which the mountain was covered. But his malady increased, and he returned to
Constantinople to die, 9th Nov. 959.
The picture which we possess of the conduct of
Constantine in his own family is so amiable, that we are compelled to reject
the accusations brought against Romanus and Theophano;—we can no more believe
that they poisoned Constantine, than we can credit all the calumnies against
Justinian recounted by Procopius. To perpetrate such a crime, Romanus would
have been one of the worst monsters of whose acts history has preserved a
record; and a character so diabolical would have revealed its inherent
wickedness during the four years he governed the empire with absolute power.
Yet he appears only as a gay, pleasure-loving, pleasure-hunting prince. His
father and his sisters always regarded him with the tenderest affection.
Agatha, the youngest, was her father's constant companion in his study, and
acted as his favourite secretary. Seated by his side, she read to him all the
official reports of the ministers; and when his health began to fail, it was
through her intermediation that he consented to transact public business. That
such a proceeding created no alarming abuses, and produced neither serious
complaints nor family quarrels, is more honourable to the heart of the princess
than her successful performance of her task to her good sense and ability. It
proves that affection, and not ambition, prompted her conduct. Historians and
novelists may recount that Romanus, who lived in affectionate intercourse with
such a father and sister, became a parricide, but the tenor of actual life
rejects the possibility of any man acting suddenly, and for once, as a monster
of iniquity.
The necessity of a safety-valve for political
dissatisfaction, such as is afforded by a free press or a representative
assembly, to prevent sedition, is evident, when we find a popular prince like
Constantine exposed to numerous conspiracies. Men will not respect laws which
appear to their minds to be individual privileges, and not national
institutions. Conspiracies then form an ordinary method of gambling for
improving a man’s fortune, and though few could aspire at the imperial throne,
every man could hope for promotion in a change. Hence, we find a plot concocted
to place the old Romanus I again on the throne. Partisans were even found who
laboured for the worthless Stephanos, who was successively removed to Proconessus, Rhodes, and Mitylene.
Constantinos also, who was transported to Tenedos and
then to Samothrace, made several attempts to escape. In the last he killed the
captain of his guards, and was slain by the soldiers. The conspirators in all
these plots were treated with comparative mildness, for the punishment of death
was rarely inflicted either by Romanus I or Constantine VII.
In spite of the wealth of the empire, and though
the government maintained a powerful standing army and regular navy, there were
many signs of an inherent weakness in the state. The emperors attempted to make
pride serve as a veil for all defects. The court assumed an inordinate degree
of pomp in its intercourse with foreigners. This pretension exposed it to envy;
and the affectation of contempt assumed by the barbarians, who were galled by
Byzantine pride, has been reflected through all succeeding history, so that we
find even the philosophic Gibbon sharing the prejudices of Luitprand.
Constantine Porphyrogenitus has fortunately left us an unvarnished picture of
this senseless presumption, written with the foolish simplicity of an emperor
who talks of what a statesman would feel inclined to conceal. He tells of the
diplomatic arts and falsehoods to be used in order to prevent foreign princes
obtaining a dress or a crown similar to that worn by the emperor of
Constantinople; and he seems to consider this not less important than
preventing them from obtaining the secret of Greek fire. Foreign ambassadors
are to be told that such crowns were not manufactured on earth, but had been
brought by an angel to the great Constantine, the first Christian emperor; that
they have always been deposited in the sacristy of St Sophia’s, under the care
of the Patriarch, and are only to be used on certain fixed ceremonies. The
angel pronounced a malediction on any one who ventured to use them, except on
the occasions fixed by immemorial usage; and the Emperor Leo IV, who had
neglected this divine order, and placed one on his head, had quickly died of a
brain fever. Similar tales and excuses were to be invented, in order to refuse
the demands of princes who wished to intermarry with the imperial family; and
the bestowal of Greek fire was to be eluded in the same way.
The attachment of the people had once rendered
the Patriarch almost equal to the emperor in dignity, but the clergy of the
capital were now more closely connected with the court than the people. The
power of the emperor to depose as well as to appoint the Patriarch was hardly
questioned, and of course the head of the Eastern Church occupied a very inferior
position to the Pope of Rome. The church of Constantinople, filled with courtly
priests, lost its political influence, and both religion and civilization
suffered by this additional centralization of power in the imperial cabinet.
From this period we may date the decline of the Greek Church.
The Patriarch Nikolaos, the mystic who had been
deposed by Leo VI for opposing his fourth marriage, (A.D. 908,) was reinstated
by Alexander, who acted in opposition to most of his brother's measures, A.D.
912. After Romanus I was established on the throne, Nikolaos yielded so far to
the pre-eminence of the civil power as to consent to a union with the party of
his successor, Euthymios, and to own that the
marriage of Leo had been sanctified by the act of the Patriarch de facto. This
was done to avoid what Nikolaos called scandal in the church, but the political
experience of the bigoted ecclesiastic having shown him that he must look for
support and power to the emperor, and not to the people, he became at last as
subservient to the court as the mild Euthymios had
ever been. On the death of Nikolaos, (925,) Stephen the eunuch, who was
archbishop of Amasia, was appointed his successor,
who, after a patriarchate of three years, was succeeded by Tryphon
(A.D. 928). Tryphon held the office provisionally
until Theophylaktos, the son of the Emperor Romanus I, should have attained the
full age for ordination; but in order to avoid too great scandal in the church,
Tryphon was deposed a year before Theophylaktos was
appointed. The imperial youth was then only sixteen years of age, but his
father obtained a papal confirmation of his election by means of Alberic, consul and patrician of Rome, who kept his own
brother, Pope John XI, a prisoner at the time. Legates were sent to Constantinople,
who installed Theophylaktos in the patriarchal chair on the 2d February 933.
The highest order of priests in the corporation then called the Church, both in
the East and West, insulted Christianity. The crimes and debauchery of the
papal court were, however, more offensive than the servility and avarice of the
Greek hierarchy. John XI was appointed Pope at the age of twenty-five, through
the influence of his mother Marosia (AD 931). Marosia and her second husband, Guy of Tuscany, had dethroned,
and it is supposed murdered, John X, of the family of Cenci. John XI as we have
mentioned, was imprisoned by his brother Alberic, and
died in confinement, a victim to the political intrigues of his brother and his
mother. Alberic ruled Rome for about thirty years,
and during that time the popes were only the patriarchs of the Latin church. On
Alberic's death, his son Octavian succeeded him as
patrician, and became Pope at the age of eighteen, under the name of John XII
(AD 956). He is generally considered the greatest criminal that ever occupied
the papal throne.
The conduct of the Patriarch Theophylaktos was
not much worse than might have been expected from a young man whose father had
provided him with a bishopric, merely that he might enjoy a suitable rank and
revenue. As long as his father could keep persons about the young man capable
of controlling his conduct, outward decency was preserved; but age soon
rendered him independent of advice, and he openly indulged tastes extremely
unsuitable to his ecclesiastical dignity. He lived like a debauched young
prince, and sold ecclesiastical preferments to raise money for his pleasures.
He converted the celebration of divine service at St. Sophia's into a musical
festival, adorned with rich pageantry. His passion for horses and for hunting
exceeded that of the Emperor Basil I, and it caused his death, as it had done
that of the imperial groom. The patriarchal stables are said to have contained
two thousand horses. The magnificence of the building, and the manner in which
his favourite steeds were fed, bathed, and perfumed, was one of the wonders of
Constantinople. On one occasion, as Theophylaktos was officiating at the high
altar of St. Sophia’s, a slave crept up to him and whispered that his favourite
mare had foaled. The congregation was alarmed by the precipitation with which
the “most holy” pontiff finished the service. The young Patriarch threw aside
his ecclesiastical vestments as quickly as possible, and ran to the stable.
After satisfying himself that everything was done for the comfort of the mare
and foal, he returned to his cathedral to occupy his place in the procession.
The people of Constantinople submitted to receive religious instruction from
this festival and hunting loving Patriarch for twenty years; but strange must
have been the reports that circulated through the provinces of the empire
concerning the impious proceedings, profane songs, indecent dances, and
diabolical ceremonies, with which he defiled the Church of the Divine Wisdom,
could we look into the secret history of some provincial Procopius. The death
of Theophylaktos was in keeping with his life. One of his horses, as
self-willed as the Patriarch, and as unfit for its duty, dashed him against a
wall. The accident brought on a dropsy, and he died in 956, after having too
long disgraced the Greek church, and made St. Sophia's an opera-house. He was
succeeded by Polyeuktos, an ecclesiastic whose
parents had marked him out for an ecclesiastical life.
It has been said that the general condition of
the inhabitants of the Byzantine empire was prosperous; but in a despotic
government, any negligence on the part of the central administration is
infallibly followed by cruelty and extortion on the part of some of its distant
agents, who exercise a power too great to be left uncontrolled without the
certainty of abuse. The weakness both of Romanus I and Constantine VII allowed
considerable disorder to prevail at Constantinople, and the grossest acts of
tyranny to be committed in the provinces. Chases, a man of Saracen extraction,
was raised to high office by the companions of the debauchery of Alexander, and
was governor of the theme of Hellas during the minority of Constantine. His
insatiable avarice and infamous profligacy at last drove the inhabitants of
Athens to despair, and as he was attending divine service in the great temple
of the Acropolis—once dedicated to the Divine Wisdom of the pagans—they rose in
tumult, and stoned their oppressor to death at the altar. A governor of Cherson
had been murdered for oppression at the end of the reign of Leo the
Philosopher. John Muzalon, the governor of Calabria,
now shared the same fate. As no attention was paid by such officers to
protecting the commercial lines of trade either by sea or land, the navigation
of the Archipelago and the Adriatic was infested by pirates, and the great
roads of Asia and Europe were dangerous from the bands of brigands, who
remained unmolested in their vicinity. Urso Participatio, the seventh doge of Venice, sent his son Petro
to Constantinople to announce his election, and concert measures to protect the
commerce of the Adriatic against the Saracen and Slavonian pirates. Petro was honored with the title of protospatharios,
and received many valuable presents from the emperor. But no measures were
adopted for protecting trade; and as the son of the doge of Venice returned
home, he was seized by Michael, duke of Slavonia, and delivered to Simeon, king
of Bulgaria. The Slavonian kept the presents he had received, and the Bulgarian
compelled his father to pay a large ransom for his release.
Hugh of Provence, king of Italy, sent an embassy
to Romanus I. The Slavonians in the neighbourhood of Thessalonica attacked the
ambassadors, but the Italians of their suite defeated the brigands, and
captured several, whom they carried to Constantinople and delivered to the
emperor for punishment.
Weak, however, as the Byzantine Empire may
appear to us, it presented a very different aspect to all contemporary
governments; for in every other country the administration was worse, and
property and life were much more insecure. Its alliance was consequently
eagerly sought by every independent state, and the court of Constantinople was
visited by ambassadors from distant parts of Europe, Africa, and Asia. The
Greeks were then the greatest merchants and capitalists in the world, and their
influence was felt not only by all the nations professing Christianity, but by
the rival caliphs of Bagdad and Cordova, and the hostile Mohammedan princes of
Egypt and Mauritania; it extended even to the Saxon monarchs of England.
The Slavonians of the Peloponnesus, who had
gained a temporary independence during the latter part of the reign of
Theophilus, remained tranquil from the time of their subjection by
Theodora’s regency, until the careless administration of Romanus I again
invited them to rebel. Two tribes, the Melings and Ezerites, who dwelt round Mount Taygetus
in a state of partial independence, conceived the hope of delivering themselves
from the Byzantine yoke, and boldly refused to pay the usual tribute. Krinites Arotras, the general of
the Peloponnesian theme, was ordered to reduce them to obedience, but he was
unable to make them lay down their arms until he had laid waste their country
from March to November, without allowing them either to reap or sow. On their
submission, their tribute was increased, and each tribe was obliged to pay six
hundred byzants annually. But disturbances occurring not long afterwards among
the Byzantine officers, and a new tribe called the Slavesians
entering the peninsula, the Melings and Ezerites sent deputies to the Emperor Romanus to solicit a
reduction of their tribute. The peaceable inhabitants saw their property
threatened with plunder and devastation if the Melings
and Ezerites should unite with the Sclavesians; the central government was threatened with the
loss of the revenues of the province; so the emperor consented to issue a
golden bull, or imperial charter with a golden seal, fixing the tribute of the Melings at sixty gold byzants, and that of the Ezerites at three hundred, as it had been before their
rebellion.
The Slavonian population of the Peloponnesus was
not confined to the tributary districts; nor, indeed, were these the only Sclavonians who retained their own local administration.
The whole country, from the northern bank of the Alpheus to the sources of the Ladon and Erymanthus, was in their possession and they
governed it according to their national usages until the Crusaders conquered
Greece. A considerable body of the Sclavonians had
also begun to adopt Byzantine civilization, and some of the wealthiest
contended for the highest places in the administration of the empire. The
patrician Niketas took an active share in the
intrigues which placed the imperial crown on the head of Romanus. His pride and
presumption, as well as his Slavonian descent, are ridiculed by the Emperor
Constantine Porphyrogenitus, though the patrician had formed an alliance with
the imperial family.
From this time we hear nothing more of the Sclavonians settled in the Peloponnesus, until the
peninsula was invaded by the Crusaders, after they had taken Constantinople,
and established the Frank empire of Romania (A.D. 1204).
The condition of the town of Maina
and the district about Cape Taenarus presents us with a picture of the
vicissitudes the Greeks had suffered during the decline of the Roman Empire.
The population of this rugged promontory consisted of the poorer class of
agricultural Laconians, and it kept possession of this arid district when the Sclavonians seized the rich plain of the Eurotas, and drove the Greeks out of Sparta. The strangers
occupied all the rich pastures on Mount Taygetus, but
want of water prevented their advance along the promontory of Taenarus, and the
fortified town of Maina enabled the inhabitants to
defend their liberty, and support themselves by exporting oil. This secluded
country long remained in a state of barbarism, and the rural population soon
relapsed into idolatry, from which they were not converted to Christianity
until the reign of Basil I. In the time of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, the
town of Maina was a place of some commercial
importance, and was governed by an officer appointed by the general of the
Peloponnesian theme; but the district continued to pay only four hundred pieces
of gold to the imperial treasury, which was the amount levied on it in the days
of the Roman empire.
It was fortunate for the Byzantine empire that
the caliphate of Bagdad had lost its former military power, for if an active
enemy on the southern frontier had taken advantage of the embarrassments caused
by an enterprising warrior like Simeon, king of Bulgaria, in the north, the
empire might have been reduced to the deplorable condition from which it had
been raised by the vigour of the Iconoclasts. But repeated rebellions had
separated many of the richest provinces from the caliphate, and the tyranny of
a religious sway, that enforced unity of faith by persecution, compelled heresy
to appeal to the sword on every difference of opinion. This additional cause of
ruin and depopulation, added to the administrative anarchy that was constantly
on the increase in the caliph's dominions, had greatly weakened the Saracen
power. The innumerable discussions which a formal orthodoxy created in the
Greek Church were trifling in comparison with those which the contemplative
tendencies of the Asiatic mind raised in the bosom of Islam.
Several independent dynasties were already
founded within the dominions of the caliph of Bagdad, which were disturbed by
several sects besides the Karmathians. Yet, amidst
all their civil wars, the Mohammedans made continual incursions into Asia
Minor, and the Byzantine troops avenged the losses of the Christians by
ravaging Syria and Mesopotamia. Slaves and cattle were carried off by both
parties, whether victors or vanquished, so that the country became gradually
depopulated; and in succeeding generations we find the richest provinces
between the Halys, the Euphrates, and the
Mediterranean in a state of desolation. The suburbs of the towns were reduced
to ashes; valleys, once swarming with inhabitants, and cultivated with the
spade, so that they could support millions, were reduced to sheep-walks. During
the regency of Zoe, Damian, emir of Tyre, with a powerful fleet under his
command, attacked Strobelos in Carla, but he was
repulsed; and in the following year the Byzantine army made an irruption into
the territories of Germanicia and Samosata, and carried off fifty thousand
prisoners, according to the accounts of the Arabian historians. The
empress-regent would have willingly concluded peace with the Saracens at this
time, for she was compelled to transport the greater part of the Asiatic army
into Europe to resist Simeon, king of Bulgaria, and it appears that a truce and
exchange of prisoners took place. The Byzantine arms had been so much more
successful than the Saracen during the preceding campaigns, that when all the
Christians had been exchanged, the number of Mohammedans still unredeemed was
so great that the caliph had to pay a hundred and twenty thousand pieces of
gold for their release, according to the stipulated price fixed by the
convention.
Romanus I, who had obtained the throne by means
of the support of the navy, appears to have paid more attention to keep it in
good order than his predecessors. In the year 926, Leo of Tripolis,
who visited the Archipelago, seeking to repeat his exploits at Thessalonica,
was encountered in the waters of Lemnos by the imperial squadron under John Radenos, and so completely defeated that it was with
difficulty he saved his own ship.
The wars of the Karmathians
brought the caliphate into such a disturbed state that the Christians of
Armenia again raised their banner, and, uniting their forces with the Byzantine
generals, obtained great successes over the Saracens. John, the son of that
Kurkuas, who had been deprived of sight for conspiring against Basil I, was
appointed commander-in-chief by Romanus, and commenced a career of conquest
ably followed up a few years later by the Emperors Nicephorus II and John I
(Zimiskes.) The military skill of John Kurkuas, the high discipline of his
army, and the tide of conquest which flowed with his presence, revived
aspirations of military renown long dormant at Constantinople. The learned were
pleased to compare him with Trajan and Belisarius, the heroes of the Western
and Eastern Empires.
As early as the reign of Leo VI, the Armenians
under Melias had made considerable progress. The
territory they delivered from the yoke of the Mohammedans was formed into a
small theme, called Lykandos, and Melias
was named its general, with the rank of patrician. From the year 92o to 942,
John Kurkuas was almost uninterruptedly engaged against the Saracens. In 927 he
ravaged the province of Melitene, and took the capital, of which, however, he
only retained possession for a month. Two years after, the Saracen emir of
Melitene, finding himself unable to resist the Byzantine armies, engaged to pay
tribute to the emperor. In the meantime, the Armenians, with the assistance of
a division of Byzantine troops, had pushed their conquests to the lake of Van,
and forced the Saracens of Aklat and Betlis not only to pay tribute, but to allow the cross to
be elevated in their cities higher than the domes of their mosques. The long
series of annual incursions recorded by the Byzantine and Arabian writers may
be described in the words plunder, slavery, depopulation. In the campaign of
941, the Byzantine troops are said to have reduced fifteen thousand Saracens to
slavery. But the exploit which raised the reputation of John Kurkuas to the
highest pitch of glory, was the acquisition of the miraculous handkerchief with
a likeness of our Saviour visibly impressed on its texture; a relic which the
superstition of the age believed had been sent by Christ himself to Abgarus, prince of Edessa. In the year 942, John Kurkuas
crossed the Euphrates, plundered Mesopotamia as far as the banks of the Tigris,
took Nisibis, and laid siege to Edessa. The inhabitants of the city purchased
their safety by surrendering the miraculous handkerchief. The victorious
general was removed from his command shortly after, and the relic was
transported to Constantinople by others.
The parallel drawn by the people of
Constantinople between John Kurkuas and Belisarius, seems imperfectly borne out
by the conquests of the later general; but the acquisition of a relic weighed,
in those days, more than that of a kingdom. Yet, perhaps, even the miraculous
portrait of Edessa would not have been compared with the conquest of the Vandal
and Gothic monarchies, had the two-and-twenty years of John Kurkuas’s
honourable service not been repaid by courtly ingratitude. In the plenitude of
his fame, the veteran was accused of aspiring at the empire, and removed from
all his employments. Romanus I, like Justinian, when he examined the
accusation, was convinced of its falsity, but he was jealous and mean-spirited.
During the government of Constantine VII, the
war was continued with vigour on both sides. Seif Addawalah,
the Hamdanite, called by the Greeks Chabdan, who was emir of Aleppo, invaded the empire with
powerful armies. Bardas Phokas, the Byzantine general, displayed more avarice
than energy; and even when replaced by his son Nicephorus, the future emperor,
victory was not immediately restored to the imperial standards. But towards the
end of Constantine’s reign, Nicephorus, having removed various abuses both in
the military and civil service, which had grown out of the gains arising from
the traffic in plunder, and slaves captured in the anneal forays of the troops,
at last prepared an army calculated to prosecute the war with glory. The result
of this labour became visible in the reign of Romanus II.
After the conquest of Crete, the whole
disposable force of the empire in Asia was placed under the command of
Nicephorus, who, according to the Arabians, opened the campaign of 962 at the
head of one hundred thousand men. The Saracens were unable to oppose this army
in the field; Doliche, Hierapolis, and Anazarba were captured, and Nicephorus advanced to Aleppo,
where Seif Addawalah had collected an army to protect
his capital. The position of the Hamdanite was turned
by the superior tactics of the Byzantine general, his communications with his
capital cut off, his army at last defeated, and his palace and the suburbs of
Aleppo occupied. A sedition of the Arab troops, and a quarrel between the
inhabitants and the garrison, enabled Nicephorus to enter the city, but the
citadel defied his attacks. On the approach of a Saracen army from Damascus,
Nicephorus abandoned his conquest, carrying away immense booty from the city of
Aleppo, and retaining possession of sixty forts along the range of Mount Taurus
as the result of his campaign.
The disastrous defeat of the Byzantine army by
the Bulgarians at Achelous was the primary cause of the elevation of Romanus I
to the throne; and as emperor, he conducted the war quite as ill as he had
directed the operations of the fleet when admiral, though he could now derive
no personal advantage from the disasters of his country. In 921, the warlike
monarch of the Bulgarians advanced to the walls of Constantinople, after
defeating a Byzantine army under John Rector. The imperial palace of the
fountains, and many villas about the city, were burned, and Simeon retired
unmolested with immense booty. The city of Adrianople was taken in one campaign
by treachery, lost and reconquered in another by famine. In the month of
September 923, Simeon again encamped before the walls of Constantinople, after
having ravaged the greater part of Thrace and Macedonia with extreme barbarity,
destroying the fruit-trees and burning the houses of the peasantry. He offered,
however, to treat of peace, and proposed a personal interview with Romanus I,
who was compelled to meet his proud enemy without the walls, in such a way that
the meeting had the appearance of a Roman emperor suing for peace from a
victorious barbarian. Romanus, when he approached the ground marked out for the
interview, saw the Bulgarian army salute Simeon as an emperor with loud shouts
and music, while the bodyguard of the Bulgarian king, resplendent with silver
armour, astonished the people of Constantinople by its splendour, and the
veteran soldiers of the empire by its steady discipline. It seems that the
rebellion of the Slavonians in the Peloponnesus filled Romanus with anxiety;
but he affected to solicit peace from motives of religion and humanity, that he
might alleviate the sufferings of his subjects. The basis of peace was settled
at this conference, and Simeon retired to his own kingdom laden with the
plunder of the provinces and the gold of the emperor. The Byzantine writers
omit to mention any of the stipulations of this treaty, so that there can be no
doubt that it was far from honourable to the empire. It must be remarked,
however, that they are always extremely negligent in their notice of treaties,
and have not transmitted to us the stipulations of any of those concluded with
the Khazars, or other nations through whose territory a great part of the
commercial intercourse of the Byzantine empire with India and China was carried
on, and from which the wealth of Constantinople was in a great measure derived.
Simeon then turned his arms against the Servians and Croatians. His cruelty in these hostilities is
said to have surpassed anything ever witnessed. The inhabitants were everywhere
deliberately murdered, and all Servia was so depopulated that its richest
plains remained uncultivated for many years. Every inhabitant not slain was
carried into Bulgaria to be sold as a slave; and the capital was so completely
destroyed, that, seven years after the retreat of the invaders, only fifty men
were found in its vicinity, living as hunters. At last the Bulgarian army was
completely defeated by the Croatians, whom the cruelty of Simeon had driven to
despair. Simeon died shortly after, and Servia placed itself under the
protection of the Byzantine government.
Bulgaria bad been formidable at this time by the
talents of Simeon rather than its own power. It was now threatened with
invasion by the Magyars, who were carrying on plundering incursions into
Germany, Italy, and even into France. Peter, who had succeeded his father
Simeon, was anxious to secure his southern frontier by forming a closer union
with the empire: he married Maria, the daughter of the Emperor Christophoros,
and a long peace followed this alliance. But the ties of allegiance were not
very powerful among the Bulgarian people, and a rebellion was headed by Michael
the brother of Peter. The rebels maintained themselves in a state of
independence after Michael's death, and when they were at last compelled to
emigrate, they entered the territory of the empire, and, passing through the
themes of Strymon, Thessalonica, and Hellas, seized on Nicopolis,
and retained possession of that city and the surrounding country for some time,
It seems that the incursion of Sclavesians into the
Peloponnesus was connected with this inroad of the Bulgarians.
Thrace had not enjoyed sufficient respite from
the ravages of the Bulgarians to recover its losses, before it was plundered by
the Hungarians, who advanced to the walls of Constantinople in 934. The retreat
of these barbarians was purchased by a large sum of money, paid in the
Byzantine gold coinage, which was then the most esteemed currency throughout
the known world. In 943, the Hungarians again ravaged Thrace, and their retreat
was again purchased with gold. The last year of the reign of Constantine VII
was again marked by an invasion of the Hungarians, who approached
Constantinople; but on this occasion they were defeated by the imperial troops,
who attacked their camp during the night.
The Byzantine wars in Italy present a series of
vicissitudes connected with political intrigues, based on no national object,
and leading to no general result. The imperial generals at times united with
the Saracens to plunder the Italians, and at times aided the Italians to oppose
the Saracens; sometimes occupied to accumulate treasures for themselves, and at
others to extend the influence of the emperor. One of the Byzantine governors,
named Krinitas, carried his avarice so far as to
compel the people of Calabria (Apulia) to sell their grain at a low price, and
then, having created a monopoly of the export trade in his own favour, sold it
at an exorbitant profit to the Saracens of Africa. Constantine VII, hearing of
this extortion, dismissed him from all employment, and confiscated his wealth;
but the people who were governed by deputies possessing such powers were sure to
be the victims of oppression.
During the regency of Zoe (AD 915), Eustathios, the governor of Calabria, concluded a treaty
with the caliph of Africa, by which the Byzantine authorities in Italy were
bound to pay a yearly tribute of 22,000 gold byzants, and the caliph engaged to
restrain the hostilities of the Saracens of Sicily. This tribute was
subsequently reduced to 11,000 byzants, but the treaty remained in force until
the reign of the Emperor Nicephorus II. Even this distant province in the south
of Italy was not safe from the plundering incursions of the Hungarians, who in
the year 948 embarked on the Adriatic, and ravaged Apulia under the walls of
Otranto. The general interests of Christianity, as well as the extent of
Byzantine commerce, induced the Byzantine government to aid Hugh of Provence
and the Genoese in destroying the nest of Saracen pirates established at Fraxinet, in the Alps, to the eastward of Nice.
Romanus II was only twenty-one years of age when
he ascended the throne. He bore a strong resemblance to his father in person,
and possessed much of his good-nature and mildness of disposition, but he was
of a more active and determined character. Unfortunately, he indulged in every
species of pleasure with an eagerness that ruined his health and reputation,
though his judicious selection of ministers prevented its injuring the empire.
He was blamed for inhumanity, in compelling his sisters to enter a monastery;
but as his object was a political one, in order to prevent their marriage, he
was satisfied with their taking the veil, though they refused to wear the
monastic dress; and be allowed them to live as they thought fit, and dispose of
their own private fortunes at will. His own object was obtained if he prevented
any of the ambitious nobles from forming an alliance with them, which would
have endangered the hereditary right of his own children. His good-nature is
avouched by the fact that when Basilios called the Bird, a favourite
minister of his father, engaged a number of patricians in a conspiracy to seize
the throne, he allowed none of the conspirators to be put to death. Though he
spent too much of his time surrounded by actors and dancers, both the
administration of civil and military affairs was well conducted during his
reign. His greatest delight was in hunting, and he spent much of his time in
the country surrounded by his gay companions, his horses, and his dogs. His
excesses in pleasure and fatigue soon ruined his constitution; but when he died
at the age of twenty-four, the people, who remembered his tall well-made figure
and smiling countenance, attributed his death to poison. His wife, whose beauty
and graceful manner never won the public to pardon a low alliance, which
appeared to their prejudices to disgrace the majesty of the purple, was accused
of this crime, as well as of having instigated the death of her father-in-law.
Romanus on his death-bed did not neglect his duty to the empire. He had
observed that his able prime-minister, Joseph Bringas, had begun to manifest
too great jealousy of Nicephorus Phokas; he therefore left it as his dying
injunction that Nicephorus should not be removed from the command of the army
employed against the Saracens.
Joseph Bringas, who conducted the administration
during the reign of Romanus II, was a man of talent and integrity. His worst
act, in the eyes of his contemporaries, was, that he withdrew a eunuch, named
John Cherinas, from a monastery into which he had
been exiled by Constantine VII, and conferred on him the dignity of patrician,
with the command of the foreign guards. The Patriarch protested in vain against
this act of sacrilege; Bringas wanted a man to command the guard, over whom he
knew the leading nobles could exercise no influence; so the monk quitted his
frock, put on armour, and became a leading man at court. Sisinios,
one of the ablest and most upright men in the public service, was made prefect
of Constantinople, and rendered the administration of justice prompt and
equitable. A general scarcity tried the talents and firmness of Bringas, and he
met the difficulty by his great exertions, though it occurred at the very time
it was necessary to make extraordinary preparations to provision the expedition
against Crete. Every measure to alleviate the public distress was taken in a
disinterested spirit. Everything required for the army was immediately paid
for; to prevent speculation in corn, the exportation of provisions from the
capital was prohibited—a law which may often be rendered necessary as a
temporary measure of police, though it is a direct violation of the permanent
principles of sound commercial policy.
The great event of the reign of Romanus II was
the conquest of Crete. The injury inflicted on Byzantine commerce by the
Saracen corsairs, fitted out in the numerous ports on the north side of that
island, compelled many of the Greek islands of the Archipelago to purchase
protection from the rulers of Crete by the payment of a regular tribute. The
trade of Constantinople and its supplies of provisions were constantly
interrupted, yet several expeditions against Crete, fitted out on the largest
scale, had been defeated. The overthrow of that undertaken in the reign of Leo
VI has been noticed. Romanus I was unwilling to revive the memory of his share
in that disaster, and left the Cretans undisturbed during his reign; but
Constantine VII, towards the end of his reign, prepared an expedition on a very
grand scale, the command of which he entrusted to a eunuch named Gongyles. This expedition was completely defeated; the
Byzantine camp was taken, and the greater part of the force destroyed. Gongyles himself escaped with difficulty.
Romanus was hardly seated on the throne before
he resolved to wipe off the disgrace the empire had suffered. The only
mode of protecting the commerce of the capital and the coasts of Greece was to
conquer the island of Crete, and expel all the Saracen population. Romanus
determined to fit out an expedition on a scale suitable for this undertaking,
and he knew that in Nicephorus Phokas he possessed a general equal to the
enterprise. Bringas aided the emperor with zeal and energy, and gave no
countenance to the endeavours that some courtiers made to awaken the jealousy
of Romanus, that too much glory might accrue to Nicephorus from the successful
termination of so great an undertaking.
The expedition was strong in numbers and
complete in its equipments. The fleet consisted of dromons and chelands. The dromon was the war-galley, which had taken the place of the
triremes of the ancient Greeks and the quinqueremes of the Romans; it had only
two tiers of rowers, and the largest carried three hundred men, of whom seventy
were marine soldiers. The chelands were smaller and
lighter vessels, adapted for rapid movements, and fitted with tubes for
launching Greek fire, and their crews seem to have varied from 120 to 16o men.
More than three hundred large transports attended the ships of war, freighted
with military machines and stores. We are not to suppose that the dromons and chelands were all
fitted for war; a few only were required for that purpose, and the rest served
as transports for the army, and the provisions necessary for a winter campaign.
The land forces consisted of chosen troops from the legions of Asia and Europe,
with Armenian, Slavonian, and Russian auxiliaries. The port of Phygela, near Ephesus, served as the place of rendezvous
for the ships collected from the coasts of Greece and the islands of the
Aegean. Everything was ready in the month of July 96o, and Nicephorus
disembarked his troops in Crete without sustaining any loss, though the
Saracens attempted to oppose the operation. The city of Chandax
was prepared to defend itself to the last extremity, and the Mohammedans in the
rest of the island took active measures for resisting the progress of the
Byzantine troops, and preventing their deriving any supplies from the interior.
Chandax was too strongly fortified to be taken
without a regular siege, so that the first operation of Nicephorus was to
invest it in form. To insure the fall of the place, even at the risk of
prolonging the siege, he began his operations by forming a complete
circumvallation round his camp and naval station, which he connected with the
sea on both sides of the city, and thus cut the enemy off from all communication
with the Saracens in the country. The pirates of Chandax
had often been at war with all the world, and they had fortified their
stronghold in such a way that it could be defended with a small garrison, while
the bulk of their forces were cruising in search of plunder. The repeated
attacks of the Byzantine emperors had also warned them of the dangers to which
they were exposed. Towards the land, a high wall protected the city; it was
composed of sun-dried bricks, but the mortar of which they were formed had been
kneaded with the hair of goats and swine into a mass almost as hard as stone,
and it was so broad that two chariots could drive abreast on its summit. A
double ditch of great depth and breadth strengthened the work, and rendered
approach difficult.
One of the parties sent out by Nicephorus to
complete the conquest of the island having been cut off, he was compelled to
take the field in person as soon as he had completed his arrangements for
blockading the fortress during the winter. The Saracens, encouraged by their
success, had assembled an army, and proposed attempting to relieve the besieged
city, when they were attacked in their position, and routed with great loss.
The Byzantine general, in order to intimidate the defenders of Chandax, ordered the heads of those slain in the country to
be brought to the camp, stimulating the activity of his soldiers in this
barbarous service by paying a piece of silver for every head. They were then
ranged on spears along the whole line of the circumvallation towards the
fortifications of the city; and the number of slain was so great, that many
more were cast into the place by means of catapults, in order to let the
besieged see the full extent of the loss of their countrymen.
A strict blockade was maintained during the
whole winter. When the weather permitted, light galleys cruised before the
port, and at all times several of the swiftest dromons
and chelands were kept ready to pursue any vessel
that might either attempt to enter or quit the port. But though the Saracens
were reduced to suffer great privations, they showed no disposition to
surrender, and Nicephorus pressed on the siege as spring advanced with mines
and battering-rams. At last a practicable breach was effected, and the place
was taken by storm on the 7th of May, 961. The accumulated wealth of many years
of successful piracy was abandoned to the troops, but a rich booty and numerous
slaves were carried to Constantinople, and shown in triumph to the people.
To complete the conquest of the island, it was
necessary to exterminate the whole of the Saracen population. To effect this,
the fortifications of Chandax were levelled with the
ground, and a new fortress called Temenos, situated on a high and rugged hill,
about twelve miles inland, was constructed and garrisoned by a body of
Byzantine and Armenian troops. Many Saracens, however, remained in the island,
but they were reduced to a state approaching servitude. The greater part of the
Greek population in some parts of the island had embraced Mohammedanism during
the 135 years of Saracen domination. When the island was reconquered, an
Armenian monk named Nikon became a missionary to these infidels, and he had the
honour of converting numbers of the Cretans back to Christianity. As soon as
the conquest of the island was completed, the greater part of the army was
ordered to Asia Minor; but Nicephorus was invited by the emperor to visit
Constantinople, where he was allowed the honour of a triumph. He brought Kurup, the Saracen emir of Crete, a prisoner in his train.
We may here pause to take a cursory view of the
state of Greece during the ninth and tenth centuries. The preceding pages have
noticed the few facts concerning the fortunes of this once glorious land that
are preserved in the Byzantine annals, but these facts are of themselves
insufficient to explain how a people, whose language and literature occupied a
predominant position in society, enjoyed neither political power nor moral
pre-eminence as a nation. The literary instruction of every child in the empire
who received any intellectual culture was thoroughly Greek: its first prayers
were uttered in that language: its feelings were refined by the perusal of the
choicest passages of the Greek poets and tragedians, and its opening mind was
enlarged by the writings of the Greek historians and philosophers; but here the
influence ended, for the moral education of the citizen was purely Roman. The
slightest glance into history proves that the educated classes in the Byzantine
Empire were generally destitute of all sympathy with Greece, and looked down on
the Greeks as a provincial and alien race. The fathers of the church and the
ecclesiastical historians, whose works were carefully studied, to complete the
education of the Byzantine youth, and to prepare them for public life, quickly
banished all Hellenic fancies from their minds as mere schoolboy dreams, and
turned their attention to the atmosphere of practical existence in church and
state. Byzantine society was a development of Roman civilization, and hence the
Byzantine mind was practical and positive : administration and law were to it
what liberty and philosophy had been to the Hellenes of old. The imagination
and the taste of Hellas had something in their natural superiority that was
repulsive to Byzantine pedantry, while their paganism excited the contempt of
ecclesiastical bigots. A strong mental difference was therefore the permanent
cause of the aversion to Greece and the Greeks that is apparent in Byzantine
society, and which only begins to disappear after the commencement of the
eleventh century. Its operation is equally visible in the Hellenic race, in
whom the spirit of local patriotism has always been powerful, and it kept them
aloof from the Byzantine service, so that the native Greeks really occupy a
less prominent figure in the social and political history of the empire than
they were entitled to claim.
The great social feature of the Hellenic race,
during the ninth and tenth centuries, is the stationary condition of society,
for the apathy resulting from the secret protestation of the Greek mind against
Roman influence was confined to the higher classes. The eighth century was
unquestionably a period of great activity, increase, and improvement among the
Greeks, as among every other portion of the population of the Eastern Empire.
But after the subjection of the Slavonian colonists in the first years of the
ninth century, and the reestablishment of extensive commercial relations over
the whole Mediterranean, Greek society again relapsed into a stationary
condition. There is no doubt that the general aspect of the country had
undergone a total change ; and its condition in the tenth century was as
different from its condition in the seventh, as the state of the southern
provinces of Russia, in the present century, is from their state in the
thirteenth, after the devastations of the Tartars. Numerous new cities had been
built.
The legendary history of the Greek monasteries
tells us that the country was once utterly deserted, that the rugged limestone
mountains were overgrown with forests and thick brushwood, and that into these
deserted spots holy hermits retired to avoid the presence of pagan Sclavonians, who occupied the rich plains and pastoral
slopes of the lower hills. In these retreats the holy anchorites dreamed that
they were dwelling in cells once occupied by saints of an earlier day—men who
were supposed to have fled from imaginary persecutions of Roman emperors, who
had depopulated whole provinces by their hatred to Christianity, instead of by
administrative oppression; and the hermits saw visions revealing where these
predecessors had concealed portraits painted by St. Luke himself, or miraculous
pictures, the work of no human band. Such is perhaps a not unapt representation
of a large part of the rural districts of Greece during the seventh century.
The immense extent of the private estates of a few rich individuals, from the
time of Augustus to that of Leo the Philosopher, left whole provinces
depopulated, and fit only to be used as pasture. Landlords, robbers, pirates,
and slavery had all conspired to reduce Greece to a state of degradation and
depopulation before the Sclavonians colonized her
soil.
The vigorous administration of the Iconoclasts
restored order, reduced the aristocracy to obedience, subdued the Sclavonians, and revived industry and commerce. The state
of Greece was again changed, the Greek population increased as if they had been
new colonists settled on a virgin soil, and from the end of the ninth century
to the invasion of the Crusaders, Greece was a rich and flourishing province.
The material causes of this wealth are as evident as the moral causes of its
political insignificance. The great part of the commerce of the Mediterranean
was in the hands of the Greeks; the wealth and laws of the Byzantine empire
placed ample capital at their command; the silk manufacture was to Thebes and
Athens what the cotton manufacture now is to Manchester and Glasgow; Monemvasia
was then what Venice became at a later period; the slave-trade, though it
filled the world with misery, and Christian society with demoralization,
brought wealth to the shores of Greece. The mass of the agricultural
population, too, enjoyed as much prosperity as the commercial. The produce of
the country was abundant, and labor bore a far higher
price than has ever been the case in Western Europe. This was a natural result
of the state of things in the vicinity of every town and village in Greece. The
nature of all the most valuable produce of the land rendered the demand for
labour at particular seasons very great; and this labour yielded immense
profits, for it fructified olive groves, vineyards, and orchards of the
choicest kinds, formed by the accumulated capital of ages. The labour of a few
days created an amount of produce which bore no comparison with its cost, and
Greece at this time possessed a monopoly of the finer kinds of oil, wine, and
fruit. Moreover, the pastoral habits of the Sclavonians,
who still occupied large provinces at a distance from the principal towns,
prevented the cultivation of corn over a great extent of country; and the ruin
of the excellent roads, which in ancient times had admitted of the transport of
huge blocks of marble, and the march of armies accompanied by elephants over
the roughest mountains, rendered the transport of grain to any considerable
distance impossible. All these circumstances rendered labour valuable. The
cultivation of grain by spade husbandry was often a matter of necessity, so
that the agricultural labourer could easily maintain a position of comparative
ease and abundance.
In this state of society, the only chance of
improvement lay in the moral advancement of the citizen, which required the
union of free local institutions with a well-organized central administration
of the state, and a system for distributing justice over which the highest
political power could exert no influence. Unfortunately no central government
on the continent of Europe, which has possessed strength sufficient to repress
local selfishness, and the undue power of privileged classes, has ever yet
avoided fiscal oppression; and this was the case in the Byzantine empire. The
social condition of the Greeks nourished intense local selfishness; the central
operation of the Byzantine government led to severe fiscal exactions. The
result of the political and financial, as well as of the moral state of the
country, was to produce a stationary condition of society. Taxation absorbed
all the annual profits of industry; society offered no invitation to form new
plantations, or extend existing manufactures, and the age afforded no openings
for new enterprises; each generation moved exactly in the limits of that which
had preceded it, so that Greece, though in a state of material prosperity, was
standing on the brink of decline. That decline commenced the moment the
Italians were enabled to avail themselves of the natural resources of their
country. Amalfi, Pisa, Genoa, and Venice, freed from the fiscal oppression of
a central government, became first the rivals and then the superiors of the
Greeks in commerce, industry, and wealth.
PERIOD OF CONQUEST AND
MILITARY GLORY
A.D. 963- 1025
Sect.
I
REIGN
OF NICEPHORUS II, PHOKAS, AND JOHN I
(ZIMISKES)
A.D.
963-1025
The Empress Theophano was left by Romanus II
regent for her sons, but as she was brought to bed of a daughter only two days
before her husband’s death, the whole direction of public business remained in
the hands of Joseph Bringas, whose ability was universally acknowledged, but
whose severity and suspicious character rendered him generally
unpopular. His jealousy soon involved him in a contest for power with
Nicephorus Phokas, who, however, did not venture to visit Constantinople until
his personal safety was guaranteed by the Empress Theophano and the Patriarch
Polyeuktes. Nicephorus was allowed to celebrate his victories in Syria by a
triumph, in which he displayed to a superstitious crowd the relics he had
obtained by his victories over the Mohammedans; and the piety of the age
attached as much importance to these as his troops did to the booty and slaves
with which they were enriched. Bringas saw that the popularity of Nicephorus
and the powerful influence of his family connections must soon gain him the
title of Emperor, and his jealousy appears to have precipitated the event he
feared. He formed a plot to have the victorious general seized, in order that
his eyes might be put out. Nicephorus being informed of his danger, and having
secured the support of the Patriarch by his devout conduct, persuaded
Polyeuktes to take prompt measures to protect him from the designs of Bringas.
The senate was convoked, and the Patriarch proposed that Nicephorus should be
entrusted with the command of the army in Asia, according to the last will of
Romanus II. Bringas did not venture to oppose this proposal of the Patriarch,
which was eagerly adopted; and Nicephorus, after taking an oath never to injure
the children of Romanus, his lawful sovereigns, proceeded to take the command
of all the Byzantine forces in Asia.
Bringas still pursued his schemes; he wrote to
John Zimiskes, the ablest and most popular of the generals under the orders of
Nicephorus, offering him the supreme command if he would seize the
general-in-chief, and send him to Constantinople as a prisoner. Zimiskes was
the nephew of Nicephorus; but his subsequent conduct shows that conscience
would not have arrested him in the execution of any project for his own
aggrandizement. On the present occasion, he may have thought that the power of
Bringas was not likely to be permanent, and he may have known that he would
show little gratitude for any service; while the popularity of Nicephorus with
the troops made fidelity to his general the soundest policy. Zimiskes carried
the letter of the prime-minister to Nicephorus, and invited him to assume the
imperial title, as the only means of securing his own life and protecting his
friends. It is said that John Zimiskes and Romanus Kurkuas were compelled to
draw their swords, and threaten to kill their uncle, before he would allow
himself to be proclaimed emperor. The same thing had been said of Leo V (the
Armenian), that he was compelled to mount the throne by his murderer and
successor, Michael II. Nicephorus at last yielded, and marched immediately from
Caesarea to Chrysopolis, where he encamped. Bringas
found little support in the capital. Basilios, the natural son of the Emperor
Romanus I, armed his household, in which he had three thousand slaves, and,
exciting a sedition of the populace, sallied into the streets of
Constantinople, and attacked the houses of the ministers, most of whom were
compelled to seek an asylum in the churches. Nicephorus was invited to enter
the capital, where he was crowned by the Patriarch Polyeuktes, in St. Sophia’s,
on the 16th of August, 963.
The family of Phocas was of Cappadocian origin,
and had now for three generations supplied the empire with distinguished
generals. Nicephorus proved an able emperor, and a faithful guardian of the
young emperors; but his personal bearing was tinged with military severity, and
his cold phlegmatic temper prevented his using the arts necessary to gain
popularity either with the courtiers or the citizens. His conduct was moral,
and he was sincerely religious; but he was too enlightened to confound the
pretensions of the church with the truth of Christianity, and, consequently, in
spite of his real piety, he was calumniated by the clergy as a hypocrite.
Indeed, there was little probability that a strict military disciplinarian, who
ascended the throne at the age of fifty-one, should prove a popular prince,
when he succeeded a young and gay monarch like Romanus II.
The coronation of Nicephorus was soon followed
by his marriage with Theophano, a match which must have been dictated to the
beautiful widow by ambition and policy rather than love; though the Byzantine
writers accuse her of a previous intrigue with the veteran general, and record
that she exerted great authority over him by her persuasive manners. The marriage
ceremony was performed by the Patriarch, but shortly after its celebration he
forbade the emperor to enter the chancel of St. Sophia's, where the imperial
throne was placed, declaring that even the emperor must submit to the penance
imposed by the orthodox church on second marriages, which excluded the
contracting party from the body of the church for a year. The hostile feeling,
on the part of Polyeuktes, that produced this insolence, also encouraged a
report that Nicephorus had acted as godfather to one of the children of Romanus
and Theophano—a connection which, according to the Greek church, forms an
impediment to marriage. The Patriarch appears to have adopted this report
without consideration, and threatened to declare the marriage he had celebrated
null; he had even the boldness to order the emperor to separate from Theophano
immediately. But this difficulty was removed by the chaplain who had officiated
at the baptism. He came forward, and declared on oath that Nicephorus had not
been present, nor had he, the priest, ever said so. The Patriarch found
himself compelled to withdraw his opposition, and, to cover his defeat, he
allowed Nicephorus to enter the church without remark. This dispute left a
feeling of irritation on the mind of the emperor, and was probably the cause of
some of his severities to the clergy, while it certainly assisted in rendering
him unpopular among his bigoted subjects.
Nicephorus had devoted great attention to
improving the discipline of the Byzantine army, and, as it consisted in great
part of mercenaries, this could only be done by a liberal expenditure. His
chief object was to obtain troops of the best quality, and all the measures of
his civil administration were directed to fill the treasury. An efficient army
was the chief support of the empire; and it seemed, therefore, to Nicephorus
that the first duty of an emperor was to secure the means of maintaining a
numerous and well-appointed military force. Perhaps the people of
Constantinople would have applauded his maxims and his conduct, had he been
more liberal in lavishing the wealth he extorted from the provinces on
festivals and shows in the capital. A severe famine, at the commencement of his
reign, increased his unpopularity. This scarcity commenced in the reign of
Romanus II, and, among the reports circulated against Joseph Bringas, it was
related that he had threatened to raise the price of wheat so high, that, for a
piece of gold, a man should only purchase as much as he could carry away in his
pockets. It is very probable that the measures adopted by Nicephorus tended to
increase the evil, though Zonaras, in saying that he allowed each merchant to
use his own interest as a law, would lead us to infer that he abolished
monopolies and maximums, and left the trade in grain free. The fiscal measures
of his reign, however, increased the burden of taxation. He retrenched the
annual largesses of the court, and curtailed the
pensions granted to courtiers. The worst act of his reign, and one for which
the Byzantine historians have justly branded him with merited odium, was his
violation of the public faith, and the honour of the Eastern Empire, by
adulterating the coin, and issuing a debased coin, called the tetarteron. This
debased money he employed to pay the debts of the state, while the taxes
continued to be exacted in the old and pure coin of the empire. The standard of
the coinage of the Eastern Empire, it must always be borne in mind, remained
always the same until the taking of Constantinople by the Crusaders. The gold
coins of Leo III and of Isaac II are of the same weight and purity; and the few
emperors who disgraced their reigns by tampering with the currency have been
branded with infamy. Perhaps there is no better proof of the high state of
political civilization in Byzantine society. But the strong grounds of
dissatisfaction against Nicephorus were ripened into personal animosity by an
accidental tumult in the hippodrome, in which many persons lost their lives. It
happened that, while the troops were going through the evolutions of a
sham-fight, a report arose that the emperor intended to punish the people, who
had thrown stones at him, and insulted him as he passed through the streets.
This caused a rush out of the enclosures, and many persons, men, women, and children,
perished. The citizens, of course, insisted that the massacre was premeditated.
The whole reign of Nicephorus was disturbed by
the ill-will of the clergy, and one of his wisest measures met with the most
determined opposition. In order to render the military service more popular
among his native subjects, and prevent the veterans from quitting the army
under the influence of religious feelings distorted by superstition, he wished
the clergy to declare that all Christians who perished in war against the
Saracens were martyrs in the cause of religion. But the Patriarch, who was more
of a churchman than a patriot, considered it greater gain to the clergy to
retain the power of granting absolutions, than to bestow the most liberal
donation of martyrs on the church; and he appealed to the canons of St. Basil
to prove that all war was contrary to Christian discipline, and that a
Christian who killed an enemy, even in war with the Infidels, ought to be
excluded from participating in the holy sacrament for three years. With a
priesthood supporting such religious opinions, the Byzantine Empire had need of
an admirable system of administration, and a series of brave and warlike
emperors, to perpetuate its long existence. In the first year of his reign,
Nicephorus endeavoured to restrain the passion for founding monasteries that
then reigned almost universally. Many converted their family residences into
monastic buildings, in order to terminate their lives as monks, without
changing their habits of life. The emperor prohibited the foundation of any new
monasteries and hospitals, enacting that only those already in existence should
be maintained; and he declared all testamentary donations of land property in
favour of the church void. He also excited the anger of the clergy, by
forbidding any ecclesiastical erection to be made until the candidate had
received the imperial approbation. He was in the habit of leaving the
wealthiest sees vacant, and either retained the revenues or compelled the new
bishop to pay a large portion of his receipts annually into the imperial
treasury.
Nicephorus was so well aware of his
unpopularity, that he converted the great palace into a citadel, which he made
capable of defence with a small garrison. As the army was devoted to him, he
knew that beyond the walls of Constantinople he was in no danger. In estimating
the character and conduct of Nicephorus II, we must not forget that his enemies
have drawn his portrait, and that, unfortunately for his reputation, modern
historians have generally attached more credit to the splenetic account of the
Byzantine court by Luitprand, the bishop of Cremona,
than diplomatic despatches of that age are entitled to receive. Luitprand visited Constantinople as ambassador from the
German emperor, Otho the Great, to negotiate a marriage between young Otho and
Theophano, the stepdaughter of Nicephorus. Otho expected that the Byzantine
emperor would cede his possessions in southern Italy as the dowry of the
princess; Nicephorus expected the German emperor would yield up the suzerainty
over Beneventum and Capua for the honour of the alliance. As might be expected,
from the pride and rapacity of both parties, the ambassador failed in his
mission; but he revenged himself by libelling Nicephorus; and his picture of
the pride and suspicious policy of the Byzantine court in its intercourse with
foreigners gives his libel some value, and serves as an apology for his
virulence.
The darling object of Nicephorus was to break
the power of the Saracens, and extend the frontiers of the empire in Syria and
Mesopotamia. In the spring of 964, he assembled an army against Tarsus, which
was the fortress that covered the Syrian frontier. The river Cydnus flowed through the city, dividing it into two
portions, which were united by three bridges. The place was populous, well fortified, and amply supplied with every means of
defence, so that the emperor was compelled to raise the siege, and lead his
army against Adana, which he took. He then formed the siege of Mopsuestia, and, employing his men to run a subterraneous
gallery under the walls, he prevented the besieged from observing the operation
by throwing the earth taken from the excavation into the Pyramus during the
night. When his mine was completed, the beams which supported the walls were
burned, and as soon as the rampart fell, the Byzantine army carried the place
by storm. Next year (965), Nicephorus again formed the siege of Tarsus with an
army of forty thousand men. The place was inadequately supplied with
provisions; and though the inhabitants were a warlike race, who had long
carried on incursions into the Byzantine territory, they were compelled to
abandon their native city, and retire into Syria, carrying with them only their
personal clothing. A rich cross, which the Saracens had taken when they
destroyed the Byzantine army under Stypiotes in the
year 877, was recovered, and placed in the church of St. Sophia at
Constantinople. The bronze gates of Tarsus and Mopsuestia,
which were of rich workmanship, were also removed, and placed by Nicephorus in
the new citadel he had constructed to defend the palace. In the same year
Cyprus was reconquered by an expedition under the command of the patrician Niketas.
For two years the emperor was occupied at
Constantinople by the civil administration of the empire, by a threatened
invasion of the Hungarians, and by disputes with the king of Bulgaria; but in
968 he again resumed the command of the army in the East. Early in spring he
marched past Antioch at the head of eighty thousand men, and, without stopping
to besiege that city, he rendered himself master of the fortified places in its
neighbourhoods, in order to cut it off from all relief from the caliph of
Bagdad. He then pushed forward his conquests; Laodicea, Hierapolis, Aleppo, Arca,
and Emesa were taken, and Tripolis
and Damascus paid tribute to save their territory from being laid waste. In
this campaign many relics were surrendered by the Mohammedans. In consequence
of the approach of winter, the emperor led his army into winter quarters, and
deferred forming the siege of Antioch until the ensuing spring. He left the
patrician Burtzes in a fort on the Black Mountain,
with orders to watch the city, and prevent the inhabitants from collecting
provisions and military stores. The remainder of the army, under the command of
Peter, was stationed in Cilicia. As he was anxious to reserve to himself the
glory of restoring Antioch to the empire, he ordered his Lieutenants not to
attack the city during his absence. But one of the spies employed by Burtzes brought him the measure of the height of a tower
which it was easy to approach, and the temptation to take the place by surprise
was not to be resisted. Accordingly, on a dark winter night, while there was a
heavy fall of snow, Burtzes placed himself at the
head of three hundred chosen men, and gained possession of two of the towers of
Antioch. He immediately sent off a courier to Peter, requesting him to advance
and take possession of the city; but Peter, from fear of the emperor's jealousy,
delayed moving to the assistance of Burtzes for three
days. During this interval, however, Burtzes defended
himself against the repeated attacks of the whole population with great
difficulty. The Byzantine army at length arrived, and Antioch was annexed to
the empire after having remained 328 years in the power of the Saracens. The
Emperor Nicephorus, instead of rewarding Burtzes for
his energy, dismissed both him and Peter from their commands.
The Fatimite caliph Moez
reigned at Cairowan, and was already contemplating
the conquest of Egypt. Nicephorus not only refused to pay him the tribute of
eleven thousand gold byzants, stipulated by Romanus I, but even sent an
expedition to wrest Sicily from the Saracens. The chief command was entrusted
to Niketas, who had conquered Cyprus; and the army,
consisting chiefly of cavalry, was more particularly placed under the orders of
Manuel Phokas, the emperor's cousin, a daring officer. The troops were landed
on the eastern coast, and Manuel rashly advanced, until he was surrounded by
the enemy and slain. Niketas also had made so little
preparation to defend his position, that his camp was stormed, and he himself
taken prisoner and sent to Africa. Nicephorus, who had a great esteem for Niketas in spite of this defeat, obtained his release by
sending to Moez the sword of Mahomet, which had
fallen into his hands in Syria. Niketas consoled
himself during his captivity by transcribing the works of St. Basil, and a MS.
of his penmanship still exists in the National Library at Paris.
The affairs of Italy were, as usual, embroiled
by local causes. Otho, the emperor of the West, appeared at the head of an army
in Apulia, and having secured the assistance of Pandulf, prince of Beneventum,
called Ironhead, carried on the war with frequent vicissitudes of fortune.
Ironhead was taken prisoner by the Byzantine general, and sent captive to
Constantinople. But the tyrannical conduct of the Byzantine officials lost all
that was gained by the superior discipline of the troops, and favoured the
progress of the German arms. Society had fallen into such a state of isolation,
that men were more eager to obtain immunity from all taxation than protection
for industry and property, and the advantages of the Byzantine administration
ceased to be appreciated.
The European provinces of the empire were
threatened with invasion both by the Hungarians and Bulgarians. In 966,
Nicephorus was apprised of the intention of the Hungarians, and he solicited
the assistance of Peter, king of Bulgaria, to prevent their passing the Danube.
Peter refused, for he had been compelled to conclude a treaty of peace with the
Hungarians, who had invaded Bulgaria a short time before. It is even said that
Peter took advantage of the difficulty in which Nicephorus appeared to be
placed, by the numerous wars that occupied his troops, to demand payment of the
tribute Romanus I had promised to Simeon. Nicephorus, in order to punish the
insolence of one whom he regarded as his inferior, sent Kalokyres,
the son of the governor of Cherson, as ambassador to Russia, to invite Swiatoslaff, the Varangian prince of Kieff,
to invade Bulgaria, and entrusted him with a sum of fifteen hundred pounds'
weight of gold, to pay the expenses of the expedition. Kalokyres
proved a traitor : he formed an alliance with Swiatoslaff,
proclaimed himself emperor, and involved the empire in a bloody war with the
Russians.
Unpopular as Nicephorus II was in the capital,
his reign was unusually free from rebellions of the troops or insurrections in
the provinces. His life was terminated in his own palace by domestic treachery.
His beautiful wife Theophano, and his valiant nephew John Zimiskes, were his
murderers. Theophano was said to have been induced to take part in the
conspiracy from love for Zimiskes, whom she expected to marry after he mounted
the throne. Zimiskes murdered his friend and relation from motives of ambition.
A band of conspirators, selected from the personal enemies of the emperor,
among whom was Burtzes, accompanied John Zimiskes at
midnight to the palace wall overlooking the pont of Bukoleon, and the female attendants of the empress hoisted
them up from their boat in baskets. Other assassins had been concealed in the
palace during the day, and all marched to the apartment of the emperor. Nicephorus
was sleeping tranquilly on the floor—for he retained the habits of his military
life amidst the luxury of the imperial palace. Zimiskes awoke him with a kick,
and one of the conspirators gave him a desperate wound on the head, while
Zimiskes insulted his uncle with words and blows: the others stabbed him in the
most barbarous manner. The veteran, during his sufferings, only exclaimed, “O
God! grant me thy mercy”. John I was immediately proclaimed emperor by the
murderers. The body of Nicephorus was thrown into the court, and left all day
on the snow exposed to public view, that everybody might be convinced he was
dead. In the evening it was privately interred.
Thus perished Nicephorus Phokas on the 10th
December 969—a brave soldier, an able general, and, with all his defects, one
of the most virtuous men and conscientious sovereigns that ever occupied the
throne of Constantinople. Though born of one of the noblest and wealthiest
families of the Eastern Empire, and sure of obtaining the highest offices at a
proud and luxurious court, he chose a life of hardship in pursuit of military
glory; and a contemporary historian, who wrote after his family had been ruined
by proscription, and his name had become odious, observes, that no one had ever
seen him indulge in revelry or debauchery even in his youth.
REIGN
OF JOHN I ZIMISKES
John I was a daring warrior and an able general.
He was thoughtless, generous, and addicted to the pleasures of the table, so
that, though he was by no means a better emperor than Nicephorus, he was far
more popular at Constantinople: hence we find that his base assassination of
his sovereign and relative was easily pardoned and forgotten, while the fiscal
severity of his predecessor was never forgiven. The court of Constantinople was
so utterly corrupt, that it was relieved from all sense of responsibility; the
aristocracy knew no law but fear and private interest, and no crime was so
venial as successful ambition. The throne was a stake for which every courtier
held it lawful to gamble, who was inclined to risk his eyes or his life to gain
an empire. Yet we must observe that both Nicephorus and John were men of nobler
minds than the nobles around them, for both respected the rights and persons of
their wards and legitimate princes, Basil and Constantine, and contented
themselves with the post of prime-minister and the rank of emperor.
The chamberlain Basilios had been rewarded by
Nicephorus, for his services in aiding him to mount the throne, with the rank
of President of the Council, a dignity created on purpose. He was now entrusted
by John with the complete direction of the civil administration. The partisans
of Nicephorus were removed from all offices of trust, and their places filled
by men devoted to Zimiskes, or hostile to the family of Phokas. All political
exiles were recalled, and a parade of placing the young emperors, Basil and
Constantine, on an equality with their senior colleague was made, as an
insinuation that they had hitherto been retained in an unworthy state of inferiority.
At the same time, measures were adopted to prevent the rabble of the capital
from plundering the houses of the wealthy nobles who had been dismissed from
their appointments, which was a usual proceeding at every great political
revolution in Constantinople.
The coronation of John I was delayed by the
Patriarch for a few days, for Polyeuktes lost no opportunity of showing his
authority. He therefore refused to perform the ceremony until Zimiskes declared
that he hart not imbued his hands in the blood of his sovereign. He pointed out
his fellow-conspirators, Leo Valantes and Atzypotheodoros, as the murderers, and excused himself by
throwing the whole blame of the murder on the Empress Theophano. The officers
thus sacrificed were exiled, and the empress was removed from the imperial
palace. John was then admitted to the favour of the Patriarch, on consenting to
abrogate the law of Nicephorus, providing that the candidates for
ecclesiastical dignities should receive the emperor's approbation before their
election, and promising to bestow all his private fortune in charity. After his
coronation, he accordingly distributed one-half of his fortune among the poor
peasants round Constantinople, and employed the other in founding an hospital
for lepers, in consequence of that disease having greatly increased about this
time. He also increased his popularity by remitting the tribute of the Armeniac
theme, which was his native province, and by Priding to the largesses
which it was customary for the emperor to distribute.
The Patriarch Polyeuktes died about three months
after the coronation, and Zimiskes selected Basilios, a monk of Mount Olympus,
as his successor; and without paying any respect to the canons which forbid the
interference of the laity in the election of bishops, he ordered him to be
installed in his dignity. The monk proved less compliant than the emperor
expected. After occupying the patriarchal chair about five years, he was
deposed for refusing to appear before the emperor to answer an accusation of
treason. The Patriarch declared the emperor incompetent to sit as his judge,
asserting that he could only be judged or deposed by a synod or general council of the church. He was nevertheless banished to a
monastery he had built on the Scamander, and from which he is called Scamandrinos. Antonios, the abbot
of Studio; was appointed Patriarch in his place.
The family of Phokas had so long occupied the
highest military commands, and disposed of the patronage of the empire, that it
possessed a party too powerful to be immediately reduced to submission. The
reign of John was disturbed by more than one rebellion excited by its members.
Leo, the brother of Nicephorus, had distinguished himself by gaining a great
victory over the Saracens in the defiles of Kylindros,
near Andrassos, while his brother was occupied with
the conquest of Crete. During the reign of Nicephorus he held the office of curopalates, but had rendered himself hated on account of
his rapacity. His second son, Bardas Phokas, held the office of governor of Koloneia and Chaldia when
Nicephorus was murdered, and was banished to Amasia.
Bardas was one of the best soldiers and boldest champions in the Byzantine
army. In the year 97o he escaped from confinement, and rendered himself master
of Caesarea, where he assumed the title of Emperor. In the meantime his father,
escaping from Lesbos, and his elder brother Nicephorus from Imbros, attempted
to raise a rebellion in Europe. These two were soon captured, and John,
satisfied that he had ruined the family when he murdered the Emperor
Nicephorus, spared their lives, and allowed the sentence which condemned them
to lose their eyes to be executed in such a way that they retained their
eyesight. Bardas, however, gave the emperor some trouble, and it was necessary
to recall Bardas Skleros from the Russian war to take the command against him.
Phokas, when deserted by his army, escaped to a castle he had fortified as a
place of refuge, where he defended himself until Skleros persuaded him to
surrender, on a promise that he should receive no personal injury. Zimiskes,
who admired his daring courage, condemned him to reside in the island of Chios,
and adopt the monastic robe. His father Leo, who escaped a second time from
confinement, and visited Constantinople in the hope of rendering himself master
of the palace during the absence of the emperor, was discovered, and dragged
from St. Sophia’s, in which he sought an asylum. His eyes were then put out,
and his immense estates confiscated.
John, in order to connect himself with the
Basilian dynasty, married Theodora, one of the daughters of Constantine VII
Porphyrogenitus. Another more important marriage is passed unnoticed by the
Byzantine writers. Zimiskes, finding that he could ill spare troops to defend the
Byzantine possessions in Italy against the attacks of the Western emperor,
released Pandulf of Beneventum, after he had remained three years a prisoner at
Constantinople, and by his means opened amicable communications with Otho the
Great. A treaty of marriage was concluded between young Otho and Theophano, the
sister of the Emperors Basil and Constantine. The nuptials were celebrated at
Rome on the 14th of April 972; and the talents and beauty of the Byzantine
princess enabled her to act a prominent and noble part in the history of her
time.
A curious event in the history of the Eastern
Empire, which ought not to pass unnoticed, is the transportation of a number of
heretics, called by historians Manicheans, from the eastern provinces of Asia
Minor, to increase the colonies of Paulicians and other heretics already
established round Philippopolis. This is said to have been done by the Emperor
John, by advice of a hermit named Theodoros, whom he elevated to the dignity of
Patriarch of Antioch. The continual mention of numerous communities of heretics
in Byzantine history proves that there is no greater delusion than to speak of
the unity of the Christian church. Dissent appears to have been quite as
prevalent, both in the Eastern and Western churches, before the time of Luther,
as it has been since. Because the Greeks and Italians have been deficient in
religious feeling, and their superior knowledge enabled them to affect contempt
for other races, the history of dissent has been neglected, and religious investigation
decried under the appellation of heresy.
The Russian war was the great event of the reign
of John Zimiskes. The military fame of the Byzantine emperor, who was
unquestionably the ablest general of his time, the greatness of the Russian
nation, whose power now overshadows Europe, the scene of the contest, destined
in our day to be again the battlefield of Russian armies in a more successful
campaign, and the political interest which attaches to the first attempt of a
Russian prince to march by land to Constantinople, all combine to give a
practical as well as a romantic interest to this war.
The first Russian naval expedition against
Constantinople in 865 would probably have been followed by a series of
plundering excursions, like those carried on by the Danes and Normans on the
coasts of England and France, had not the Turkish tribe called the Patzinaks
rendered themselves masters of the lower course of the Dnieper, and become
instruments in the hands of the emperors to arrest the activity of the bold
Varangians. The northern rulers of Fief were the same rude warriors that
infested England and France, but the Russian people was then in a more advanced
state of society than the mass of the population in Britain and Gaul. The
majority of the Russians were freemen; the majority of the inhabitants of
Britain and Gaul were serfs. The commerce of the Russians was already so
extensive as to influence the conduct of their government, and to modify the
military ardour of their Varangian masters. But this commerce, after the fall
of the Khazar Empire, and the invasion of Europe by the Magyars and Patzinaks,
was carried on under obstacles which tended to reduce its extent and diminish
its profits, and which it required no common degree of skill and perseverance
to overcome. The wealth revealed to the rapacious Varangian chiefs of Kiev by
the existence of this trade invited them to attack Constantinople, which
appeared to be the centre of immeasurable riches.
After the defeat in 865, the Russians induced
their rulers to send envoys to Constantinople to renew commercial intercourse,
and invite Christian missionaries to visit their country; and no inconsiderable
portion of the people embraced Christianity, though it continued long after
better known to the Russian merchants than to the Varangian warriors. The
commercial relations of the Russians with Cherson and Constantinople were now
carried on directly, and numbers of Russian traders took up their residence in
these cities. The first commercial treaty between the Russians of Kiev and the
Byzantine Empire was concluded in the reign of Basil I. The intercourse
increased from that time. In the year 902, seven hundred Russians are mentioned
as serving on board the Byzantine fleet with high pay; in 935, seven Russian
vessels, with 415 men, formed part of a Byzantine expedition to Italy; and in
949, six Russian vessels, with 629 men, were engaged in the unsuccessful
expedition of Gongyles against Crete. In 966, a corps
of Russians accompanied the unfortunate expedition of Niketas
to Sicily. There can be no doubt that these were all Varangians, familiar, like
the Danes and Normans in the West, with the dangers of the sea, and not native
Russians, whose services on board the fleet could have been of little value to
the masters of Greece.
But to return to the history of the Byzantine
wars with the Russians. In the year 907, Oleg, who was regent of Kiev during
the minority of Igor the son of Rurik, assembled an army of Varangians,
Slavonians, and Croatians, and, collecting two thousand vessels or boats of the
kind then used on the northern shore of the Euxine, advanced to attack
Constantinople. The exploits of this army, which pretended to aspire at the
conquest of Tzaragrad, or the City of the Caesars,
were confined to plundering the country round Constantinople; and it is not
improbable that the expedition was undertaken to obtain indemnity for some
commercial losses sustained by imperial negligence, monopoly, or oppression.
The subjects of the emperor were murdered, and the Russians amused themselves
with torturing their captives in the most barbarous manner. At length Leo
purchased their retreat by the payment of a large sum of money. Such is the
account transmitted to us by the Russian monk Nestor, for no Byzantine writer
notices the expedition, which was doubtless nothing more than a plundering
incursion, in which the city of Constantinople was not exposed to any danger.
These hostilities were terminated by a commercial treaty in 912, and its
conditions are recorded in detail by Nestor.
In the year 941, Igor made an attack on
Constantinople, impelled either by the spirit of adventure, which was the charm
of existence among all the tribes of Northmen, or else roused to revenge by
some violation of the treaty of 912. The Russian flotilla, consisting of
innumerable small vessels, made its appearance in the Bosphorus while the
Byzantine fleet was absent in the Archipelago. Igor landed at different places
on the coast of Thrace and Bithynia, ravaging and plundering the country; the
inhabitants were treated with incredible cruelty; some were crucified, others
were burned alive, the Greek priests were killed by driving nails into their
heads, and the churches were destroyed. Only fifteen ships remained at
Constantinople, but these were soon fitted up with additional tubes for
shooting Greek fire. This force, trifling as it was in number, gave the
Byzantines an immediate superiority at sea, and the patrician Theophanes sailed
out of the port to attack the Russians. Igor, seeing the small number of the
enemy's ships, surrounded them on all sides, and endeavoured to carry them by
boarding; but the Greek fire became only so much more available against boats
and men crowded together, and the attack was repulsed with fearful loss. In the
meantime, some of the Russians who landed in Bithynia were defeated by Bardas
Phokas and John Kurkuas, and those who escaped from the naval defeat were
pursued and slaughtered on the coast of Thrace without mercy. The Emperor
Romanus ordered all the prisoners brought to Constantinople to be beheaded.
Theophanes overtook the fugitive ships in the month of September, and the
relics of the expedition were destroyed, Igor effecting his escape with only a
few boats. The Russian Chronicle of Nestor says that, in the year 944, Igor,
assisted by other Varangians, and by the Patzirt,
prepared a second expedition, but that the inhabitants of Cherson so alarmed
the Emperor Romanus by their reports of its magnitude, that he sent
ambassadors, who met Igor at the mouth of the Danube, and sued for peace on
terms to which Igor and his boyards consented. This is probably merely a salve
applied to the vanity of the people of Kiev by their chronicler; but it is
certain that a treaty of peace was concluded between the emperors of
Constantinople and the princes of Kiev in the year 945. The stipulations of
this treaty prove the importance attached to the commerce carried on by the
Russians with Cherson and Constantinople. The two Russo-Byzantine treaties
preserved by Nestor are documents of great importance in tracing the history of
civilization in the east of Europe. The attention paid to the commercial
interests of the Russian traders visiting Cherson and Constantinople, and the
prominence given to questions of practical utility instead of to points of dynastic ambition, may serve as a contrast to
many modern treaties in the west of Europe. The trading classes would not have
been powerful enough to command this attention to their interests on the part
of the warlike Varangians, had a numerous body of free citizens not been
closely connected with the commercial prosperity of Russia. Unfortunately for
the people, the municipal independence of their cities, which had enabled each
separate community to acquire wealth and civilization, was not joined to any
central institutions that insured order and a strict administration of justice,
consequently each city fell separately a prey to the superior military force of
the comparatively barbarian Varangians of Scandinavia. The Varangian conquest
of Russia had very much the same effect as the Danish and Norman conquests in
the West. Politically, the nation appeared more powerful, but the condition of
all ranks of the people socially was much deteriorated. It was, however, the
Tartar invasion which separates the modem and the medieval history of Russia,
and which plunged the country into the state of barbarism and slavery from
which Peter the Great first raised it.
The cruelty of the Varangian prince Igor, after
his return to Russia, caused him to be murdered by his rebellious subjects.
Olga, his widow, became regent for their son Swiatoslaff.
She embraced the Christian religion, and visited Constantinople in 957, where
she was baptized. The Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus has left us an account
of the ceremony of her reception at the Byzantine court. A monk has preserved
the commercial treaties of the empire, an emperor records the pageantry that
amused a Russian princess. The high position occupied by the court of Kiev in
the tenth century is also attested by the style with which it was addressed by
the court of Constantinople. The golden bulls of the Roman emperor of the East,
addressed to the prince of Russia, were ornamented with a pendent seal equal in
size to a double solidus, like those addressed to the kings of France.
We have seen that the Emperor Nicephorus II sent
the patrician Kalokyres to excite Swiatoslaff
to invade Bulgaria, and that the Byzantine ambassador proved a traitor and
assumed the purple. Swiatoslaff soon invaded Bulgaria
at the head of a powerful army, which the gold brought by Kalokyres
assisted him to equip, and defeated the Bulgarian army in a great battle, AD
968. Peter, king of Bulgaria, died shortly after, and the country was involved
in civil broils; taking advantage of which, Swiatoslaff
took Presthlava the capital, and rendered himself
master of the whole kingdom. Nicephorus now formed an alliance with the
Bulgarians, and was preparing to defend them against the Russians, when Swiatoslaff was compelled to return home, in order to
defend his capital against the Patzinaks. Nicephorus assisted Boris and
Romanus, the sons of Peter, to recover Bulgaria, and concluded an offensive and
defensive alliance with Boris, who occupied the throne. After the assassination
of Nicephorus, Swiatoslaff returned to invade
Bulgaria with an army of 6o,000 men, and his enterprise assumed the character
of one of those great invasions which had torn whole provinces from the Western
Empire. His army was increased by a treaty with the Patzinaks and an alliance
with the Hungarians, so that he began to dream of the conquest of
Constantinople, and hoped to transfer the empire of the East from the Romans of
Byzantium to the Russians. It was fortunate for the Byzantine empire that it
was ruled by a soldier who knew how to profit by its superiority in tactics and
discipline. The Russian was not ignorant of strategy, and having secured his
flank by his alliance with the Hungarians, he entered Thrace by the western
passes of Mount Haemus, then the most frequented road between Germany and
Constantinople, and that by which the Hungarians were in the habit of making
their plundering incursions into the empire.
John Zimiskes was occupied in the East when Swiatoslaff completed the second conquest of Bulgaria and
passed Mount Haemus, expecting to subdue Thrace during the emperor's absence
with equal ease, AD 97o. The empire was still suffering from famine. Swiatoslaff took Philippopolis, and murdered twenty
thousand of the inhabitants. An embassy sent by Zimiskes was dismissed with a
demand of tribute, and the Russian army advanced to Arcadiopolis,
where one division was defeated by Bardas Skleros, and the remainder retired
again behind Mount Haemus.
In the following spring, 971, the Emperor John
took the field at the head of an army of fifteen thousand infantry and thirteen
thousand cavalry, besides a bodyguard of chosen troops called the Immortals,
and a powerful battery of field and siege engines. A fleet of three hundred
galleys, attended by many smaller vessels, was despatched to enter the Danube
and cut off the communications of the Russians with their own country.
Military operations for the defence and attack
of Constantinople are dependent on some marked physical features of the country
between the Danube and Mount Haemus. The Danube, with its broad and rapid
stream, and line of fortresses on its southern bank, would be an impregnable
barrier to a military power possessing an active ally in Hungary and Servia;
for it is easy to descend the river and concentrate the largest force on any
desired point of attack, to cut off the communications or disturb the flanks of
the invaders. Even after the line of the Danube is lost, that of Mount Haemus
covers Thrace; and it formed a rampart to Constantinople in many periods of
danger under the Byzantine emperors. It was then traversed by three great
military roads passable for chariots. The first, which has a double gorge, led
from Philippopolis to Sardica by the pass called the Gates of Trajan (now Kapou Dervend), throwing out
three branches from the principal trunk to Naissos
and Belgrade. The great pass forms the point of communication likewise with the
upper valley of the Strymon, from Skupi to Ulpiana, and the northern parts of Macedonia. Two secondary
passes communicate with this road to the north-east, affording passage for an
army—that of Kezanlik, and that of Isladi; and these form the shortest lines of communication
between Philippopolis and the Danube about Nicopolis,
through Bulgaria. The second great pass is towards the centre of the range of
Haemus, and has preserved among the Turks its Byzantine name of the Iron Gate.
It is situated on the direct line of communication between Adrianople and Roustchouk. Through this pass a good road might easily be
constructed. The third great pass is that to the east, forming the great line
of communication between Adrianople and the Lower Danube near Silistria (Dorystolon). It is
called by the Turks Nadir Dervend. The range of
Haemus has several other passes independent of these, and its parallel ridges
present numerous defiles. The celebrated Turkish position at Shoumla is adapted to cover several of these passes,
converging on the great eastern road to Adrianople.
The Emperor John marched from Adrianople just
before Easter, when it was not expected that a Byzantine emperor would take the
field. He knew that the passes on the great eastern road had been left
unguarded by the Russians, and he led his army through all the defiles of Mount
Haemus without encountering any difficulty. The Russian troops stationed at Presthlava, who ought to have guarded the passes, marched
out to meet the emperor when they heard he had entered Bulgaria. Their whole
army consisted of infantry; but the soldiers were covered with chain armour, and
accustomed to resist the light cavalry of the Patzinaks and other Turkish
tribes. They proved, however, no match for the heavy-armed lancers of the
imperial army; and, after a vigorous resistance, were completely routed by John
Zimiskes, leaving eight thousand five hundred men on the field of battle. On
the following day Presthlava was taken by escalade,
and a body of seven thousand Russians and Bulgarians, who attempted to defend
the royal palace, which was fortified as a citadel, were put to the sword after
a gallant defence. Sphengelos, who commanded this
division of the Russian force, and the traitor Kalokyres,
succeeded in escaping to Dorystolon, where Swiatoslaff had concentrated the rest of the army; but
Boris, king of Bulgaria, with all his family, was taken prisoner in his
capital.
The emperor, after celebrating Easter in Presthlava, advanced by Pliscova
and Dinea to Dorystolon,
where Swiatoslaff still hoped for victory, though his
position was becoming daily more dangerous. The Byzantine fleet entered the
Danube and took up its station opposite the city, cutting off all the
communications of the Russians by water, at the same time that the emperor
encamped before the walls and blockaded them by land. Zimiskes, knowing he had
to deal with a desperate enemy, fortified his camp with a ditch and rampart
according to the old Roman model, which was traditionally preserved by the
Byzantine engineers. The Russians enclosed within the walls of Dorystolon were more numerous than their besiegers, and Swaitoslaff hoped to be able to open his communications
with the surrounding country, by bringing on a general engagement in the plain
before all the defenses of the camp were completed.
He hoped to defeat the attacks of the Byzantine cavalry by forming his men in
squares, and, as the Russian soldiers were covered by long shields that reached
to their feet, he expected to be able, by advancing his squares like moving
towers, to clear the plain of the enemy. But while the Byzantine legions met
the Russians in front, the heavy-armed cavalry assailed them with their long
spears in flank, and the archers and slingers under cover watched coolly to
transfix every man where an opening allowed their missiles to penetrate. The
battle nevertheless lasted all day, but in the evening the Russians were
compelled, in spite of their desperate velour, to retire into Dorystolon without having effected anything. The infantry
of the north now began to feel its inferiority to the veteran cavalry of Asia
sheathed in plate armour, and disciplined by long campaigns against the
Saracens. Swiatoslaff, however, continued to defend
himself by a series of battles rather than sorties, in which he made desperate
efforts to break through the ranks of his besiegers in vain, until at length it
became evident that he must either conclude peace, die on the field of battle,
or be starved to death in Dorystolon. Before
resigning himself to his fate, he made a last effort to cut his way through the
Byzantine army; and on this occasion the Russians fought with such desperation,
that contemporaries ascribed the victory of the Byzantine troops, not to the
superior tactics of the emperor, nor to the discipline of a veteran army, but
to the personal assistance of St. Theodore, who found it necessary to lead the charge
of the Roman lancers, and shiver a spear with the Russians himself, before
their phalanx could be broken. The victory was complete, and Swiatoslaff sent ambassadors to the emperor to offer terms
of peace.
The siege of Dorystolon
had now lasted more than two months, and the Russian army, though reduced by
repeated losses, still amounted to twenty-two thousand men. The valour and
contempt of death which the Varangians had displayed in the contest, convinced
the emperor that it would cause the loss of many brave veterans to insist on
their laying down their arms; he was therefore willing to come to terms, and
peace was concluded on condition that Swiatoslaff
should yield up Dorystolon, with all the plunder,
slaves, and prisoners in possession of the Russians, and engage to swear
perpetual amity with the empire, and never to invade either the territory of
Cherson or the kingdom of Bulgaria; while, on the other hand, the Emperor John
engaged to allow the Russians to descend the Danube in their boats, to supply
them with two medimni of wheat for each surviving
soldier, to enable them to return home without dispersing to plunder for their
subsistence, and to renew the old commercial treaties between Kiev and
Constantinople, July, 971.
After the treaty was concluded, Swiatoslaff desired to have a personal interview with his
conqueror. John rode down to the bank of the Danube clad in splendid
armour, and accompanied by a brilliant suite of guards on horseback. The short
figure of the emperor was no disadvantage where he was distinguished by the
beauty of his charger and the splendour of his arms, while his fair
countenance, light hair, and piercing blue eyes fixed the attention of all on
his bold and good-humoured face, which contrasted well with the dark and sombre
visages of his attendants. Swiatoslaff arrived by
water in a boat, which he steered himself with an oar. His dress was white,
differing in no way from that of those under him, except in being cleaner.
Sitting in the stern of his boat, he conversed for a short time with the
emperor, who remained on horseback close to the beach. The appearance of the
bold Varangian excited much curiosity, and is thus described by a historian who
was intimate with many of those who were present at the interview: the Russian
was of the middle stature, well formed, with strong neck and broad chest. His
eyes were blue, his eyebrows thick, his nose flat, and his beard shaved, but
his upper lip was shaded with long and thick mustaches.
The hair of his head was cropped close, except two long locks which hung down
on each side of his face and were thus worn as a mark of his Scandinavian race.
In his ears he wore golden earrings ornamented with a ruby between two pearls,
and his expression was stern and fierce.
Swiatoslaff immediately quitted Dorystolon,
but he was obliged to winter on the shores of the Euxine, and famine thinned
his ranks. In spring he attempted to force his way through the territory of the
Patzinaks with his diminished army. He was defeated, and perished near the cataracts
of the Dnieper. Kour, prince of the Patzinaks, became
the possessor of his skull, which he shaped into a drinking-cup, and adorned
with the moral maxim, doubtless not less suitable to his own skull, had it
fallen into the hands of others, “He who covets the property of others, oft
loses his own”. We have already had occasion to record that the skull of the
Byzantine emperor, Nicephorus I, had ornamented the festivals of a Bulgarian
king; that of a Russian sovereign now figured in the tents of a Turkish tribe.
The results of the campaign were as advantageous
to the Byzantine empire as they were glorious to the Emperor John. Bulgaria was
conquered, a strong garrison established in Dorystolon,
and the Danube once more became the frontier of the Roman empire. The peace
with the Russians was uninterrupted until about the year 988, when, from some
unknown cause of quarrel, Vladimir the son of Swiatoslaff
attacked and gained possession of Cherson by cutting off the water.
The Greek city of Cherson, situated on the
extreme verge of ancient civilization, escaped for ages from the impoverishment
and demoralization into which the Hellenic race was precipitated by the Roman
system of concentrating all power in the capital of the empire. Cherson was
governed for centuries by its own elective magistrates, and it was not until
towards the middle of the ninth century that the Emperor Theophilus destroyed
its independence. The people, however, still retained in their own hands some
control over their local administration, though the Byzantine government lost
no time in undermining the moral foundation of the free institutions which had
defended a single city against many barbarous nations that had made the Roman
emperors tremble. The inhabitants of Cherson long looked with indifference on
the favour of the Byzantine emperor, cherished the institutions of Hellas, and
boasted of their self-government.
A thousand years after the rest of the Greek
nation was sunk in irremediable slavery, Cherson remained free. Such a phenomenon
as the existence of manly feeling in one city, when mankind everywhere else
slept contented in a state of political degradation, deserved attentive
consideration. Indeed, we may be better able to appreciate correctly the
political causes that corrupted the Greeks in the Eastern Empire, if we can
ascertain those which enabled Cherson, though surrounded by powerful enemies
and barbarous nations, to preserve
A Homer’s language murmuring in her streets,
And in her haven many a mast from Tyre.
In the reign of Diocletian, while Themistos was president of Cherson, Sauromates,
king of Bosporos, passing along the eastern shores of
the Euxine, invaded the Roman Empire. He overran Lazia
and Pontus without difficulty, but on the banks of the Halys
he found the Roman army assembled under the command of Constantius Chlorus. On hearing of this invasion, Diocletian sent
ambassadors to invite the people of Cherson to attack the territories of the
king of Bosporus, in order to compel him to return home. Cherson, holding the
rank of an allied city, could not avoid conceding that degree of supremacy to
the Roman emperor which a small state is compelled to yield to a powerful
protector, and the invitation was received as a command. Chrestos
had succeeded Themistos in the presidency; he sent an
army against Bosporos, and took the city. But the
Chersonites, though brave warriors, sought peace, not conquest, and they
treated the royal family and all the inhabitants of the places that had fallen
into their hands, in a way to conciliate the goodwill of their enemies. Their
successes forced Sauromates to conclude peace and
evacuate the Roman territory, in order to regain possession of his capital and
family. As a reward for their services, Diocletian granted the Chersonites
additional security for their trade, and extensive commercial privileges
throughout the Roman Empire.
In the year 332, when Constantine the Great, in
his declining age, had laid aside the warlike energy of his earlier years, the
Goths and Sarmatians invaded the Roman Empire. The emperor called on the
inhabitants of Cherson, who were then presided over by Diogenes, to take up
arms. They sent a force well furnished with field-machines to attack the Goths,
who had already crossed the Danube, and defeated the barbarians with great
slaughter. Constantine, to reward their promptitude in the service of the
empire, sent them a golden statue of himself in imperial robes, to be placed in
the hall of the senate, accompanied with a charter ratifying every privilege
and commercial immunity granted to their city by preceding emperors. He
bestowed on them also an annual supply of the materials necessary for
constructing the warlike machines of which they had made such good use, and pay
for a thousand artillerymen to work these engines. This subsidy continued to be
paid in the middle of the tenth century, in the time of Constantine
Porphyrogenitus.
Years passed on, and Sauromates,
the grandson of him who invaded the empire in the time of Diocletian,
determining to efface the memory of his grandfather's disgrace, declared war
with Cherson. He was defeated by Vyskos, the
president of Cherson, at Kapha, and compelled to
conclude a treaty of peace, by which Kapha was
declared the frontier of the territory of Cherson. Another Sauromates,
having succeeded to the throne of Bosporos,
determined to regain possession of Kapha, when Pharnakes was president of Cherson. A single combat between
the gigantic king and the patriotic president, in which Sauromates
was slain, terminated this war. The dynasty of the Sauromatan
family ended, and Bosporos, becoming a free city in
alliance with Cherson, raised a statue to Phamakes as
a testimony of his moderation and philanthropy.
Again, after an interval of years, Lamachos was president of Cherson, but the people of Bosporos, corrupted by the memory of a court, and loving
pageantry better than liberty, had elected a king named Asandros.
The Bosporians proposed that the son of Asandros should marry the only daughter of Lamachos, in order to draw closer the alliance between the
two states; and to this the Chersonites consented, but only on condition that
the young Asander should take up his residence in
Cherson, and engage never to return to Bosporos—not
even to pay the shortest visit to the king his father, or any of his
relations—under pain of death. The marriage was celebrated, and Asander dwelt with the young Gycia
in the palace of Lamachos, which was a building of
regal splendour, covering four of the quadrangles marked out by the intersection
of the streets in the quarter of Cherson called Sousa, and having its own
private gate in the city walls. Two years after the celebration of this
marriage, Lamachos died; his daughter inherited the
whole of his princely fortune, and Zetho was elected
president of Cherson. At the end of a year, Gycia
went out to decorate her father's tomb, and wishing to honour his memory with
the greatest solemnity, she received permission from the president and senate
to entertain the whole body of the citizens of Cherson, with their wives and
children, at a funeral banquet on the anniversary of her father's death as long
as she lived. The celebration of this festival suggested to her husband a plan
of rendering himself tyrant of Cherson, and for two years he collected men and
warlike stores secretly from Bosporos, by means of
the ships employed in his commercial affairs. These he concealed in the immense
warehouses enclosed within the walls of his wife's palace. Three of his own
followers from Bosporos were alone entrusted with the
secret of his plot. After a lapse of two years, Asander
had collected two hundred Bosporians, with their
armour, in the palace of Gycia, and was waiting for
the approaching anniversary of the death of Lamachos
to destroy the liberty of Cherson.
It happened at this time that a favourite maid
of Gycia, offending her mistress, was ordered to be
banished from her presence, and confined in a room over the warehouse in which
the Bosporians were concealed. As the girl was
sitting alone, singing and spinning, her spindle dropped, and rolled along the
floor till it fell into a hole near the wall, from which she could only recover
it by raising up one of the tiles of the pavement. Leaning down, she saw
through the ceiling a crowd of men in the warehouse below, whom she knew by
their dress to be Bosporians, and soldiers. She
immediately called a servant, and sent him to her mistress, conjuring her to
come to see her in her prison. Gycia, curious to see
the effect of the punishment on her favorite, visited
her immediately, and was shown the strange spectacle of a crowd of foreign
soldiers and a magazine of arms concealed in her own palace. The truth flashed
on her mind; she saw her husband was plotting to become the tyrant of her
native city, and every feeling of her heart was wounded.
She assembled her relations, and by their means
communicated secretly with the senate, revealing the plot to a chosen
committee, on obtaining a solemn promise that when she died she should be
buried within the walls of the city, though such a thing was at variance with
the Hellenic usages of Cherson. Whether from the danger of attacking two
hundred heavy-armed men, or to avoid war with Bosporos,
the president and senate of Cherson determined to destroy the conspiracy by
burning the enemy in their place of concealment, and Gycia
willingly gave her ancestral palace to the flames to save her country.
When the day of the anniversary of her father’s
funeral arrived, Gycia ordered the preparations for
the annual feast to be made with more than ordinary liberality, and Asander was lavish in his distribution of wine; but due
precautions had been taken that the gates of the city should be closed at the
usual hour, and all the citizens in their dwellings. At the banquet in her own
palace Gycia drank water out of a purple goblet,
while the servant who waited on Asander served him
with the richest wines. To the delight of her husband, Gycia
proposed that all should retire to rest at an early hour, and she took a last
melancholy leave of her husband, who hastened to give his three confidants
their instructions, and then lay down to rest until the midnight should call
him to complete his treachery. The gates, doors, and windows of the palace were
shut up, and the keys, as usual, laid beside Gycia.
Her maids had packed up all her jewels, and when Asander
was plunged in a sound sleep from the wine he had drank, Gycia
rose, locked every door of the palace as she passed, and hastened out,
accompanied by her slaves. Order was immediately given to set fire to the
building on every side, and thus the liberty of Cherson was saved by the
patriotism of Gycia.
The spot where the palace had stood remained a
vacant square in the time of the Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus, and Gycia during her lifetime would never allow even the ruins
to be cleared away. Her countrymen erected two statues of bronze to honor her patriotism—one in the public agora, showing her
in the flower of youth, dressed in her native costume, as when she saved her
country; the other clad as a heroine armed to defend the city. On both
inscriptions were placed commemorating her services and no better deed could be
done at Cherson than to keep the bases of these statues bright and the
inscriptions legible, that the memory of the treachery of the king's son, and
the gratitude due to the patriotism of Gycia, might
be ever fresh in the hearts of the citizens.
Some years after this, when Stratophilos
was president, Gycia, suspecting that the gratitude
of her countrymen was so weakened that they would no longer be inclined to
fulfil their promise of burying her within the walls, pretended to be dead. The
event was as she feared; but when the procession had passed the gates, she
rose up from the bier and exclaimed, “Is this the way the people of Cherson keep
their promise to the preserver of their liberty?” Shame proved more powerful
than gratitude. The Chersonites now swore again to bury her in the city, if she
would pardon their falsehood. A tomb was accordingly built during her lifetime,
and a gilded statue of bronze was erected over it, as an assurance that the
faith of Cherson should not be again violated. In that tomb Gycia
was buried, and it stood uninjured in the tenth century, when an emperor of
Constantinople, impressed with admiration of her patriotism, so unlike anything
he had seen among the Greek inhabitants of his own wide extended empire,
transmitted a record of her deeds to posterity.
Cherson retained its position as an independent
state until the reign of Theophilus, who compelled it to receive a governor
from Constantinople; but, even under the Byzantine government, it continued to
defend its municipal institutions, and, instead of slavishly soliciting the
imperial favour, and adopting Byzantine manners, it boasted of its constitution
and self-government. But it lost gradually its former wealth and extensive
trade; and when Vladimir, the sovereign of Russia, attacked it in 988, it
yielded almost without a struggle. The great object of ambition of all the
princes of the East, from the time of Heraclius to that of the last Comnenos of Trebizond, was to form matrimonial alliances
with the imperial family. Vladimir obtained the hand of Anne, the sister of the
Emperors Basil II and Constantine VIII, and was baptised and married in the
Church of the Panaghia at Cherson. To soothe the vanity of the empire, he
pretended to retain possession of his conquest as the dowry of his wife. Many
of the priests who converted the Russians to Christianity, and many of the
artists who adorned the earliest Russian churches with paintings and mosaics,
were natives of Cherson. The church raised Vladimir to the rank of a saint; the
Russians conferred on him the title of the Great.
John Zimiskes, having terminated the Russian
war, compelled Boris to resign the crown of Bulgaria, and accept the title of
Magister, as a pensioner of the Byzantine court. The frontier of the Eastern
Empire was once more extended to the Danube.
The Saracen war had been carried on vigorously
on the frontiers of Syria, while the Emperor John was occupied with the Russian
campaign. The continued successes of the Byzantine arms had so alarmed the
Mohammedan princes, that an extensive confederacy was formed to recover
Antioch, and the command of the army of the caliph was intrusted to Zoher, the lieutenant of the Fatimites
in Egypt. The imperial army was led by the patrician Nikolaos, a man of great
military skill, who had been a eunuch in the household of John Zimiskes; and he
defeated the Saracens in a pitched battle, and saved Antioch for a time. But in
the following year (973) the conquest of Nisibis filled the city of Bagdad with
such consternation, that a levy of all Mussulmans was ordered to march against
the Christians. The Byzantine troops in Mesopotamia were commanded by an
Armenian named Temelek Melchi,
who was completely routed near Amida. He was himself
taken prisoner, and died after a year’s confinement.
With all his talents as a general, John does not
appear to have possessed the same control over the general administration as
Nicephorus; and many of the cities conquered by his predecessor, in which the
majority of the inhabitants were Mohammedans, succeeded in throwing off the
Byzantine yoke. Even Antioch declared itself independent. A great effort became
necessary to regain the ground that had been lost; and, to make this, John
Zimiskes took the command of the Byzantine army in person in the year 974. He
marched in one campaign from Mount Taurus to the banks of the Tigris, and from
the banks of the Tigris back into Syria, as far as Mount Libanon,
carrying his victorious arms, according to the vaunting inaccuracy of the
Byzantine geographical nomenclature, into Palestine. His last campaign, in the
following year, was the most brilliant of his exploits. In Mesopotamia he
regained possession of Amida and Martyropolis;
but these cities contained so few Christian inhabitants that he was obliged to
leave the administration in the hands of Saracen emirs, who were charged with
the collection of the tribute and taxes. Nisibis he found deserted, and from it
he marched by Edessa to Hierapolis or Membig, where
he captured many valuable relics, among which the shoes of our Savior, and the hair of John the Baptist, are especially
enumerated. From Hierapolis John marched to Apamea, Emesa, and Baalbec, without
meeting any serious opposition. The emir of Damascus sent valuable presents,
and agreed to pay an annual tribute to escape a visit. The emperor then crossed
Mount Libanon, storming the fortress of Borzo, which commanded the pass, and, descending to the
seacoast, laid siege to Berytus, which soon
surrendered, and in which he found an image of the crucifixion that he deemed
worthy of being sent to Constantinople. From Berytus
he marched northward to Tripolis, which he besieged
in vain for forty days. The valor of the garrison and
the strength of the fortifications compelled him to raise the siege; but his
retreat was ascribed to fear of a comet, which illuminated the sky with a
strange brilliancy. As it was now September, he wished to place his worn-out troops
in winter-quarters in Antioch; but the inhabitants shut the gates against him.
To punish them for their revolt, he had the folly to ravage their territory,
and cut down their fruit-trees; forgetting, in his barbarous and impolitic
revenge, that he was ruining his own empire. Burtzes
was left to reconquer Antioch for the second time; which, however, he did not
effect until after the death of the Emperor John.
The army was then placed in winter-quarters on
the frontiers of Cilicia, and the emperor hastened to return to Constantinople.
On the journey, as he passed the fertile plains of Longias
and Dryze, in the vicinity of Anazarba
and Podandus, he saw them covered with flocks and
herds, with well-fortified farmyards, but no smiling villages. He inquired with
wonder to whom the country belonged, in which pasturage was conducted on so
grand a scale; and he learned that the greater part of the province had been
acquired by the president Basilios in donations from himself and his
predecessor, Nicephorus. Amazed at the enormous accumulation of property in the
hands of one individual, he exclaimed, “Alas! the wealth of the empire is
wasted, the strength of the armies is exhausted, and the Roman emperors toil
like mercenaries, to add to the riches of an insatiable eunuch!” This speech
was reported to the president. He considered that he had raised both Nicephorus
and John to the throne; his interest now required that it should return to its
rightful master, and that the young Basil should enjoy his heritage. The Emperor
John stopped on his way to Constantinople at the palace of Romanos,
a grandson of Romanus I; and it is said he there drank of a poisoned cup
presented to him by a servant gained by the president. Certain it is that John
Zimiskes reached the capital in a dying state, and expired on the 10th of
January 976, at the age of fifty-one.
REIGN OF BASIL II
BULGAROKTONOS,
A.D. 976-1025.
Basil II was only twenty years of age when he
assumed the direction of public affairs, and for some time he continued to
indulge in the pursuit of pleasure, allowing the president Basilios to exercise
the imperial power to its fullest extent. Indeed, there can be no doubt that
the prime-minister would have attempted to occupy the place of Nicephorus and
Zimiskes, had his condition not effectually excluded him from the throne. For
some time, however, he ventured to exclude Basil from any active share in the details
of administration, and endeavoured to divert his attention to the pomp of the
imperial court, and to the indulgence of his passions, to which it was thought
the young man was naturally inclined. This conduct probably awakened suspicions
in the mind of Basil, who possessed a firm and energetic character, and he
watched the proceedings of his powerful minister with attention. His brother,
Constantine VIII, who was seventeen when John Zimiskes died, enjoyed the rank
of his colleague, but was allowed no share in the public administration, and
appeared well satisfied to be relieved from the duties of his station, as he
was allowed to enjoy all its luxuries. Basil soon gave up all idle amusements,
and devoted his whole time and energy to military studies and exercises, and to
public business. Indefatigable, brave, and stern, his courage degenerated into
ferocity, and his severity into cruelty. Yet, as he reigned the absolute master
of an unprincipled court, and of a people careless of honour and truth, and as
the greater part of his life was spent in war with barbarous enemies, we may
attribute many of his faults as much to the state of society in his age as to
his own individual character. He believed that he was prudent, just, and
devout; others considered him severe, rapacious, cruel and bigoted. For Greek
learning he cared little, and he was a type of the higher Byzantine moral
character, which retained far more of its Roman than its Greek origin, both in
its vices and its virtues. In activity, courage, and military skill he had few
equals.
Several of the great nobles of the empire
considered that their power entitled them to occupy the place left vacant by
the death of Zimiskes; and as the great qualities of Basil II were still
unknown, they envied the influence of the president Basilios. Among the leading
members of the aristocracy, Bardas Skleros, who commanded the army in Asia,
gave the president most umbrage, from his military reputation and great
popularity. Skleros was accordingly removed from the command of the army, and
appointed duke or governor of Mesopotamia. This step precipitated his
rebellion. The two ablest generals in the empire were Bardas Skleros and Bardas
Phokas: both were men of illustrious families, and both had filled high offices
in the state. As early as the reign of Michael I, a Skleros had been governor
of the Peloponnesus; and for four generations the family of Phokas had supplied
the empire with a succession of military leaders. Skleros and Phokas had
already been opponents in the reign of John I. These two men may be taken as
types of the military nobles of the Byzantine empire in the tenth century; and
no tale of daring deeds or romantic vicissitudes among the chivalrous
adventurers of the West, who had no patrimony but their swords, was more
strange than many an episode in the lives of these two nobles, nursed in silken
raiment, whose youth was passed in marble palaces on the soft shores of the
Bosphorus, who were educated by pedantic grammarians, and trained by Greek
theologians, who deemed the shedding even of Saracen blood a sin. Yet these
nobles valued themselves as much on their personal skill in arms and headlong
daring as any Danish adventurer or Norman knight
Bardas Skleros no sooner reached Mesopotamia
than he assumed the title of Emperor, and invaded Asia Minor. He had made no
preparations for his rebellion; he trusted to his military reputation for
collecting a small army, and to his own skill to make the best use of the
troops that joined his standard: nor was he wanting to his fame. Some pecuniary
assistance from the emirs of Amida and Martyropolis recruited his finances, and a body of three
hundred well-armed Saracen horse was considered a valuable addition to his
little army. Undismayed by partial defeats and immense difficulties, he at last
gained a complete victory over the Byzantine army at Lapara,
on the frontiers of Armenia, and a second at Rageas,
over a generalissimo of the empire, who had been sent to repair the preceding
disaster. Skleros then marched to Abydos, took Nicaea, and sent his son Romanes
into Thrace to make preparations for the siege of Constantinople.
The rebellion of Bardas Phokas, and his exile to
Chios, have been already mentioned. He was now called from his retreat, and
laid aside the monastic dress, which he had worn for six years, to resume his
armour. The old rivals again met in arms, and at first fortune continued to
favour Skleros, who was a better tactician than Phokas. The imperial army was
defeated at Amorium, but the personal valour of
Phokas covered the retreat of his soldiers, and preserved their confidence; for
when Constantine Gabras pressed too closely on the
rear, Phokas, who was watching his movements, suddenly turned his horse, and,
galloping up to the gallant chief, struck him lifeless with his mace-at-arms,
and rejoined his own rearguard
unhurt. A second battle was fought near Basilika
Therma, in the theme Charsiana, and Skleros was again
victorious. Phokas retired into Georgia (Iberia), where he received assistance
from David, the king of that country, which enabled him to assemble a third
army on the banks of the Halys. He found Skleros
encamped in the plain of Pankalia. An engagement took
place, in which the superior generalship of the rebel
emperor was again evident, and Phokas, reduced to despair, sought to terminate
the contest by a personal encounter with his rival. They soon met, and their
companions suspended the conflict in their immediate vicinity to view the
combat between two champions, both equally celebrated for their personal
prowess. Skleros was armed with the sword, Phokas with the mace-at-arms; the
sword glanced from the well-tempered armour, the mace crushed the helmet, and
Skleros fell senseless on his horse's neck. The guards rushing to the rescue,
Phokas gained an eminence, from which he could already see a portion of his
army in full retreat. But the fortune of the day was changed by an accident. As
the officers of Skleros were carrying their wounded leader to a neighbouring
fountain, his horse escaped and galloped through the ranks of the army, showing
the troops the imperial trappings stained with blood. The cry arose that
Skleros was slain. The tie that united the rebels was broken, and the soldiers
fled in every direction, or laid down their arms. On recovering, Skleros found
that nothing was left for him but to escape with his personal attendants into
the Saracen territory, where he was thrown into prison by order of the caliph.
Several of his partisans prolonged their resistance through the winter.
Bardas Phokas continued to command the imperial
army in Asia for eight years, carrying on war with the Saracens, and compelling
the emir of Aleppo to pay tribute to Constantinople. But as the Emperor Basil
II advanced in years, his firm character began to excite general
dissatisfaction among the Byzantine nobles, who saw that their personal
influence, and power of enriching themselves at the public expense, were likely
to be greatly curtailed. The attention the emperor paid to public business, and
his strict control over the conduct of all officials, began to alarm the
president Basilios; while his determination to command the army in person, and
to regulate promotions, excited the dissatisfaction of Phokas, who allowed his
government to become the refuge of every discontented courtier. The only
campaign in which the emperor had yet commanded was one against Samuel, king of
Bulgaria, which had proved signally disastrous, so that his interference in
military matters did not appear to be authorized by his experience in tactics
and strategy. It seems probable that the president excited Phokas to take up
arms, as a means of rendering the emperor more dependent on his influence and
the support of the aristocracy; but Phokas doubtless required very little
prompting to make an attempt to seize the throne. Assembling the leading men in
his government, and the principal officers of the army under his command, at
the palace of Eustathios Maleinos, in the theme Charsiana, he was proclaimed emperor on the 1sth of August
987.
Nearly about the same time, Bardas Skleros
succeeded in escaping from the Saracens and entering the empire. He had been
released from his prison at Bagdad, and intrusted with the command of a legion
of Christian refugees, with which he had distinguished himself in the civil
wars of the Mohammedans. His adventures in this service were not unlike those
recorded of Manuel in the reign of Theophilus. His sudden appearance in the
empire, and his resumption of his claim to the imperial throne, brought the two
ancient rivals again into the field, both as rebel emperors, and it seemed that
they must decide by a new war which was to march as victor against Basil at
Constantinople. Phokas gained the advantage by treachery. He concluded a treaty
with his rival, by which a division of Asia Minor was agreed on; and when
Skleros visited his camp to hold a conference, Phokas detained him a prisoner.
Phokas then devoted all his energy to dethrone his sovereign; and during the
summer of 988, he subdued the greater part of Asia Minor; but at the
commencement of the following year, a division of his army which he sent to the
Bosphorus was defeated by the Emperor Basil, who had just obtained an auxiliary
corps of Varangians from his brother-in-law Vladimir, the sovereign of Kiev. Phokas
was at this time besieging Abydos, which defended itself with obstinacy until
the Emperors Basil and Constantine arrived with the imperial army to relieve
it. The imperial troops arrived by sea, and, debarking near Abydos, formed
their camp in the plain. Phokas, leaving part of his force to continue the
siege, drew out his army to give battle to the emperors. When the two armies
were taking up their ground, Phokas rode along the field, seeking for an
opportunity to decide the fate of the war by one of those feats of arms in
which his personal prowess was so distinguished. His eye caught a sight of the
Emperor Basil engaged in ordering the movements of his army, and, dashing
forward with his mace-at-arms, he prepared to close in single combat with his sovereign.
At the very moment when the object of his sudden movement flashed on the minds
of all, Phokas wheeled round his horse, galloped to a little eminence, where he
dismounted in sight of both armies and lay down on the ground. A long interval
of suspense occurred. Then a rumour ran along the ranks of the rebels that
their leader was dead, and the troops dispersed without striking a blow. Phokas
had drank a glass of cold water as he mounted his horse, according to his usual
custom, and whether he perished by poison or by a stroke of apoplexy was
naturally a question not easily settled by the suspicious and vicious
Constantinopolitans. Thus ended the career of Bardas Phokas, by a death as
strange as the events of his romantic life. He died in the month of April 989.
Bardas Skleros regained his liberty on the death
of his rival, but resigned his pretensions to the imperial dignity on receiving
the pardon of Basil. The meeting of the emperor and the veteran warrior was
remarkable. The eyesight of Skleros had begun to fail, and he had grown
extremely corpulent. He had laid aside the imperial costume, but continued to
wear purple boots, which were part of the insignia of an emperor. As he
advanced to the tent of Basil, leaning on two of his equerries, Basil, surprised
at his infirmity, exclaimed to his attendants, “Is this the man we all trembled
at yesterday?” But as soon as he perceived the purple boots, he refused to
receive the infirm old general until they were changed. Skleros had then a
gracious audience, and was requested to sit down. He did not long survive.
The same attention to public business on the
part of the emperor which caused the rebellion of Phokas, produced the fall of
the president Basilios, whom Basil deprived of all his offices about the same
time. His estates were confiscated, his acts annulled, the populace of
Constantinople were allowed to plunder his palace, the sacred offerings and
dedications he had made were destroyed, and even the monastery he had founded
was dissolved. The celebrated minister died in exile, after having attained a
degree of wealth and power which marks an unhealthy condition of the body
politic in the Byzantine Empire. No such accumulation of fortune as Basilios is
reported to have possessed, could ever have been obtained by a public servant
without the exertion of the grossest oppression, either on the part of the
individual or the government. The riches of Basilios must almost have rivalled
the wealth of Crassus; at least, he came under the definition of a rich man,
according to that wealthy Roman, for he was able to maintain an army. At an
early part of his political career, he armed a household of three thousand
slaves to aid in placing the imperial crown on the head of Nicephorus II. The
aristocracy of Constantinople at this period bore some resemblance, in its
social position, to that of Rome at the fall of the Republic, both in wealth
and political corruption. The estates of Eustathios Maleïnos, in whose house Phokas raised the standard of
revolt, were not less extensive than those of the ambitious president. Maleïnos was fortunate enough to escape punishment for his
share in the rebellion, but some years after, as Basil was returning from a
campaign in Syria (AD 995), he stopped at the palace of Maleïnos
in Cappadocia, and was amazed at the strength of the building, and the wealth,
power, and splendour of the household. The emperor saw that a man of courage,
in possession of so much influence, and commanding such a number of armed
servants, could at any moment commence a rebellion as dangerous as that of
Skleros or Phokas. Maleïnos received an invitation to
accompany the court to the capital, and was never again allowed to visit his
estates in Cappadocia. At his death, his immense fortune was confiscated, and
most writers ascribed the legislative measures of Basil, to protect the landed
property of small proprietors from the encroachments of the wealthy, to the
impression produced on his mind by witnessing the power of Maleïnos
in Cappadocia; but we must bear in mind that, from the time of Romanus I, the
Byzantine emperors had been vainly endeavouring to stem the torrent of
aristocratic predominance in the provinces; and both Constantine VII
Porphyrogenitus and Nicephorus II, though in general extremely dissimilar in
character and policy, agreed in passing laws to protect the poor against the
rich. Basil II fully appreciated all the evils which resulted from the tendency
of society to accumulate wealth in the hands of a few individuals, and he
endeavoured to aid the middle classes in defending their possessions; but all
the power he could exert was unable to prevent the constant diminution that was
going on in the number of the smaller landed proprietors, the middle classes in
the towns, and generally of the civilised races of mankind throughout the
greater part of his empire. The task was beyond the power of legislation, and
required an improvement in the moral as well as the political constitution of
society. The attempts of the emperor to arrest the progress of the evil may
have been useless, but they were unquestionably not disadvantageous to the
people. It is therefore strange to find the Patriarch, the higher clergy, and
the monks opposed to these measures, and engaged in endeavouring to turn him
from his purpose, particularly when he wished to render the rich responsible
for the taxes of the ruined poor of their district. The Greek Church has,
however, generally been a servile instrument either of the sovereign power or
of the aristocracy, and has contributed little either to enforce equity or
civil liberty, when the mass of the lower orders was alone concerned. The evil
of increasing wealth in the hands of a few individuals, and of a gradual
diminution of the intelligent population in the Byzantine Empire, went on
augmenting from the time of Basil II. Asia and Europe both lost their civilized
races; the immense landed estates of a few Byzantine aristocrats were
cultivated by Mohammedan slaves, or Slavonian, Albanian, and Vallachian serfs; manufactures and trade declined with the
population, the towns dwindled into villages, and no class of native
inhabitants remained possessing strength and patriotism to fight for their
homes when a new race of invaders poured into the empire.
The reign of Basil II is the culminating point
of Byzantine greatness. The eagles of Constantinople flew during his life, in a
long career of victory, from the banks of the Danube to those of the Euphrates,
and from the mountains of Armenia to the shores of Italy. Basil's indomitable
courage, terrific cruelty, indifference to art and literature, and religious
superstition, all combine to render him a true type of his empire and age. The
great object of his policy was to consolidate the unity of the administration
in Europe by the complete subjection of the Bulgarians and Sclavonians,
whom similarity of language had almost blended into one nation, and had
completely united in hostility to the imperial government.
Four sons of a Bulgarian noble of the highest
rank had commenced a revolutionary movement in Bulgaria against the royal
family, after the death of Peter and the first victories of the Russians. In
order to put an end to these troubles, Nicephorus II had, on the retreat of Swiatoslaff, replaced Boris, the son of Peter, on the
throne of Bulgaria; and when the Russians returned, Boris submitted to their
domination. Shortly after the death of John I (Zimiskes), the Bulgarian leaders
again roused the people to a struggle for independence. Boris, who escaped from
Constantinople to attempt recovering his paternal throne, was accidentally
slain, and the four brothers again became the chiefs of the nation. In a short
time three perished, and Samuel alone remained, and assumed the title of King.
The forces of the empire were occupied with the rebellion of Skleros, so that
the vigour and military talents of Samuel succeeded not only in expelling the
Byzantine authorities from Bulgaria, but also in rousing the Sclavonians of Macedonia to throw off the Byzantine yoke.
Samuel then invaded Thessaly, and extended his plundering excursions over those
parts of Greece and the Peloponnesus still inhabited by the Hellenic race. He
carried away the inhabitants of Larissa in order to people the town of Prespa, which he then proposed to make his capital, with
intelligent artisans and manufacturers; and, in order to attach them to their
new residence by ties of old superstition, he removed to Prespa
the body of their protecting martyr, St. Achilles, who some pretended had been
a Roman soldier, and others a Greek archbishop. Samuel showed himself, both in
ability and courage, a rival worthy of Basil; and the empire of the East seemed
for some time in danger of being transferred from the Byzantine Romans to the Sclavonian Bulgarians.
In the
year 981, the Emperor Basil made his first campaign against the new Bulgarian
monarchy in person. His plan of operations was to secure the great western
passes through Mount Haemus, on the road from Philippopolis to Sardica, and by
the conquest of the latter city he hoped to cut off the communication between
the Bulgarians north of Mount Haemus and the Sclavonians
in Macedonia. But his military inexperience, and the relaxed discipline of the
army, caused this well-conceived plan to fail. Sardica was besieged in vain for
twenty days. The negligence of the officers and the disobedience of the
soldiers caused several foraging parties to be cut off; the besieged burned the
engines of the besiegers in a victorious sortie, and the emperor felt the
necessity of commencing his retreat. As his army was passing the defiles of
Haemus, it was assailed by the troops Samuel had collected to watch his
operations, and completely routed. The baggage and military chest, the
emperor’s plate and tents, all fell into the hands of the Bulgarian king, and
Basil himself escaped with some difficulty to Philippopolis, where he collected
the relics of the fugitives. Leo Diaconus, who
accompanied the expedition as one of the clergy of the imperial chapel, and was
fortunate enough to escape the pursuit, has left us a short but authentic
notice of this first disastrous campaign of Basil, the slayer of the
Bulgarians.
The reorganisation of his army, the regulation
of the internal administration of the empire, the rebellion of Phokas, and the
wars in Italy and on the Asiatic frontier, prevented Basil from attacking
Samuel in person for many years. Still a part of the imperial forces carried on
this war, and Samuel soon perceived that he was unable to resist the Byzantine
generals in the plains of Bulgaria, where the heavy cavalry, military engines,
and superior discipline of the imperial armies could all be employed to
advantage. He resolved, therefore, to transfer the seat of the Bulgarian
government to a more inaccessible position. He first selected Prespa as his future capital, but he subsequently abandoned
that intention, and established the central administration of his dominions at
Achrida. The site was well adapted for rapid communications with his Slavonian
subjects in Macedonia, who furnished his armies with their best recruits. To
Achrida, therefore, he transferred the seat of the Bulgarian patriarchate, and
to this day the archbishop of that city, in virtue of the position he received
from Samuel, still holds an ecclesiastical jurisdiction over several suffragans
independent of the Patriarch of Constantinople. As a military position, also,
Achrida had many advantages: it commanded an important point in the Via Egnatia, the great commercial road connecting the Adriatic
with Bulgaria, as well as with Thessalonica and Constantinople, and afforded
many facilities for enabling Samuel to choose his points of attack on the
Byzantine themes of Macedonia, Hellas, Dyrrachium, and Nicopolis.
Here, therefore, Samuel established the capital of the Bulgaro-Sclavonian
kingdom he founded.
The dominions of Samuel soon became as extensive
as the European portion of the dominions of Basil. The possessions of the two
monarchs ran into one another in a very irregular form, and both were inhabited
by a variety of races, in different states of civilization, bound together by
few sympathies, and no common attachment to national institutions. Samuel was
master of almost the whole of ancient Bulgaria, the emperor retaining
possession of little more than the fortress of Dorystolon,
the forts at the mouth of the Danube, and the passes of Mount Haemus. But the
strength of the Bulgarian king lay in his possessions in the upper part of
Macedonia, in Epiras, and the southern part of
Illyria, in the chain of Pindus, and in mountains that overlook the northern
and western slopes of the great plains of Thessalonica and Thessaly. In all
these provinces the greater part of the rural population consisted of Sclavonians, who were hostile to the Byzantine government
and to the Greek race; and though an Albanian and Vallachian
population was scattered over some parts of the territory, they readily united
with Samuel in throwing off the Byzantine yoke, and only opposed his government
when he attempted to augment his monarchical power at the expense of their
habits of local independence. From the nature of his dominions, his only hope
of consolidating a regular system of civil government was by holding out
allurements to the local chieftains to submit voluntarily to his authority. It
was only by continual plundering expeditions into the Byzantine territory, and
especially into Greece, that this object could be attained. He was, therefore,
indefatigable in forming a large military force, and employing it constantly in
ravaging the plain of Thessaly, and attacking the Greek cities.
In the year 990, Basil visited Thessalonica, to
take measures for arresting the progress of Samuel, and left Gregory the Taronite with a strong garrison to resist the Bulgarians,
until he himself should be able to turn the whole force of the empire against
them. For several years Gregory checked the incursions of Samuel, but at last
he was slain in a skirmish, and his son Ashot was
taken prisoner. This success secured Samuel from all danger on the side of the
garrison of Thessalonica, and he resolved to avail himself of the opportunity
to complete the conquest of Greece, or at least to plunder the inhabitants,
should he meet with opposition. He marched rapidly through Thessaly, Boeotia,
and Attica, into the Peloponnesus; but the towns everywhere shut their gates,
and prepared for a long defence, so that he could effect
nothing beyond plundering and laying waste the open country. In the meantime,
the emperor, hearing of the death of Gregory and the invasion of Greece, sent
Nicephorus Ouranos with considerable reinforcements to take the command of the
garrison of Thessalonica, and march with all the force he should be able to
collect in pursuit of Samuel. Ouranos entered Thessaly, and, leaving the heavy
baggage of his army at Larissa, pushed rapidly southward to the banks of the Sperchius, where he found Samuel encamped on the other
side, hastening home with the plunder of Greece. Heavy rains on Mounts Oeta and
Korax had rendered the Sperchius
which at the end of summer is only a brook an impassable torrent at the time
Samuel had reached its banks, and Ouranos encamped for the night in the
vicinity of the Bulgarian army, without his arrival causing any alarm. But the
people of the country had observed that the river was beginning to fall, and as
they were anxious that both armies should quit their territory as fast as
possible, they were eager to bring on a battle. In the night they showed
Ouranos a ford, by which he passed the river and surprised the Bulgarians in
their camp. Samuel and his son Gabriel escaped with the greatest difficulty to
the counter-forts of Oeta, from whence they gained Tymphrestas
and the range of Pindus. The Bulgarian army was completely annihilated, and all
the plunder and slaves made during the expedition fell into the hands of
Ouranos, A.D. 996.
This great defeat paralyzed the military
operations of Samuel for some time, and it was followed by a domestic
misfortune which also weakened his resources. He had been induced to allow his
daughter to marry Ashot the Taronite,
whom he had taken prisoner at Thessalonica, and in order to attach that brave
and able young officer to his service, he had intrusted him with the government
of Dyrrachium. But Ashot was dissatisfied with his
position, and succeeded in persuading the Bulgarian princess to fly with him to
Constantinople. Before quitting Dyrrachium, however, he formed a plot with the
principal men of the place, by which that valuable fortress was subsequently
delivered up to the emperor. This was a serious political, as well as a
grievous domestic wound to Samuel; for the loss of Dyrrachium interrupted the
commercial relations of his subjects with Italy, and deprived them of the
support they might have derived from the enemies of the Byzantine empire beyond
the Adriatic.
Basil had at length arranged the external
relations of the empire in such a way that he was able to assemble a large army
for the military operations against the kingdom of Achrida, which he determined
to conduct in person. The Sclavonians now formed the
most numerous part of the population of the country between the Danube, the
Aegean, and the Adriatic, and they were in possession of the line of mountains
that runs from Dyrrachium, in a variety of chains, to the vicinity of
Constantinople. Basil saw many signs that the whole Sclavonic
race in these countries was united in opposition to the Byzantine government,
so that the existence of his empire demanded the conquest of the Bulgaro-Sclavonian kingdom which Samuel had founded. To
this arduous task he devoted himself with his usual energy. In the year 1000,
his generals were ordered to enter Bulgaria by the eastern passes of Mount
Haemus; and in this campaign they took the cities of greater and lesser Presthlava and Pliscova, the
ancient capitals of Bulgaria. In the following year, the emperor took upon
himself the direction of the army destined to act against Samuel. Fixing his
headquarters at Thessalonica, he recovered possession of the fortresses of Vodena, Berrhoea, and Servia. By
these conquests he became master of the passes leading out of the plain of
Thessalonica into the plains of Pelagonia, and over
the Cambunian mountains into Thessaly, thus opening
the way for an attack on the flank and rear of the forces of the kingdom of
Achrida. Vodena or Edessa, the ancient capital of the
Macedonian princes, had become, like all the cities of this mountainous
district, Slavonian. Its situation on a rock overhanging the river Lydias, the sublimity of the scenery around, the abundance
of water, the command of the fertile valleys below, the salubrity
of the spot, and the strength of the position closing up the direct road
between Thessalonica and Achrida all rendered the possession of Vodena an important step to the further operations of the
Byzantine arms.
In the
following campaign (1002), the emperor changed the field of operations, and,
marching from Philippopolis through the western passes of Mount Haemus,
occupied the whole line of road as far as the Danube, and cut Samuel off from
all communication with the plains of Bulgaria. He then formed the siege of
Vidin, which he kept closely invested during the spring and summer, until at
last he took that important fortress. Samuel formed a bold enterprise, which he
hoped would compel Basil to raise the siege of Vidin, or, at all events, enable
him to inflict a deep wound on the empire. Assembling an army at Skoupies, on the upper course of the Vardar, he marched
into the valley of the Stebrus, and by the celerity
of his movements surprised the inhabitants of Adrianople at a great fair which
they held annually on the 15th of August, when the Greek Church commemorates
the death of the Virgin Mary. By this long march into the heart of the empire,
Samuel rendered himself master of great booty. His success rendered it
impossible for him to return as rapidly as he had advanced, but he succeeded in
passing the garrison of Philoppopolis and crossing
the Strymon and the Vardar in safety, when Basil suddenly overtook him at the
head of the Byzantine army. Samuel was encamped under the walls of Skoupies; Basil crossed the river and stormed the Bulgarian
camp, rendering himself master of the military chest and stores, and recovering
the plunder of Adrianople. He had thus the satisfaction of avenging the defeat
he had suffered from Samuel, one and twenty years before, in the passes of
Mount Haemus. The city of Skoupies surrendered after
the victory and its commander Romanus, the younger brother of Boris, the last
king of Bulgaria of the ancient line, whose misfortune prevented his becoming a
rival to Samuel, was honourably treated by the emperor. Basil then laid siege
to Pernikon, a fortress of great strength, from which
he was repulsed by the valour of the Bulgarian governor Krakas.
He then withdrew to Philippopolis.
The conquest of Vidin having enabled Basil to
deprive Bulgaria of relief from Samuel and the Slavonians of Macedonia, the
Byzantine generals easily completed the subjection of the whole of the rich
country between Mount Haemus and the Danube. The king of Achrida finding
himself unable to encounter the troops of Basil in the field, and seeing his
territory constantly circumscribed by the capture of his fortresses, determined
to fortify all the passes in the mountains that lead into Upper Macedonia. By
stationing strong bodies of troops, and forming magazines behind these
entrenchments, he hoped to present to his assailants the difficulties of a
siege in situations where all their supplies would require to be drawn from a
great distance, and exposed to be captured or destroyed on the way by the
Bulgarian light troops and the Slavonian inhabitants of the mountains. For
several years a bloody and indecisive war was carried on, which gradually
weakened the resources of the kingdom of Achrida, without affecting the power of
the Byzantine Empire.
In the year 1014, Basil considered everything
ready for a final effort to complete the subjection of the Slavonian population
of the mountainous districts round the upper valley of the Strymon. On reaching
the pass of Demirhissar, or the Kleisura,
then called Kimbalongo, or Kleidion,
he found it strongly fortified. Samuel had placed himself at the head of the
Bulgarian army prepared to oppose his progress. The emperor found the pass too
strong to be forced; sitting down, therefore, before it, he sent Nicephorus
Xiphias, the governor of Philippopolis, with a strong detachment, to make the
circuit of a high mountain called Valathista, which
lay to the south, that he might gain the rear of the Bulgarian position. This
manoeuvre was completely successful. On the 2gth of July, Nicephorus attacked
the enemy's rear, while Basil assailed their front, and the Bulgarians, in
spite of all the exertions of Samuel, gave way on every side. It was only in
consequence of the gallant resistance of his son Gabriel that the king of
Achrida was saved from being taken prisoner, and enabled to gain Prilapos in safety. The emperor is said to have taken
fifteen thousand prisoners, and, that he might revenge the sufferings of his
subjects from the ravages of the Bulgarians and Sclavonians,
he gratified his own cruelty by an act of vengeance, which has most justly
entailed infamy on his name. His frightful inhumanity has forced history to
turn with disgust from his conduct, and almost buried the records of his military
achievements in oblivion. On this occasion he ordered the eyes of all his
prisoners to be put out, leaving a single eye to the leader of every hundred,
and in this condition he sent the wretched captives forth to seek their king or
perish on the way. When they approached Achrida, a rumour that the prisoners
had been released induced Samuel to go out to meet them. On learning the full
extent of the calamity, he fell senseless to the ground, overpowered with rage
and grief, and died two days after. He is said to have murdered his own brother
to secure possession of his throne, so that his heart was broken by the first
touch of humanity it ever felt.
After his victory, Basil occupied the fort of Matzoukion, and advanced on Strumpitza,
where he ordered Theophylaktos Botaniates, the
governor of Thessalonica, who had defeated a large body of Bulgarians, to join
him by marching northward, and clearing away the entrenchments constructed by
Samuel on the road leading from Thessaionlca directly
to Strumpitza. In this operation Theophylaktos was
surrounded by the Bulgarians and slain, with the greater part of his troops, in
the defiles. This check compelled the emperor to retire by the Zagorian mountains to Mosynopolis,
having succeeded in gaining possession of the strong fortress of Melenik by negotiation. At Mosynopolis,
on the 24th October 1014, he heard of the death of Samuel, and immediately
determined to take advantage of an event likely to prove so favourable to the
Byzantine arms. Marching with a strong body of troops through Thessalonica and Vodena, he advanced into Pelagonia,
carefully protecting that fertile district from ravage, and destroying nothing
but a palace of the Bulgarian kings at Boutelion.
From thence he sent a division of the army to occupy Prilapos
and Stobi, and, crossing the river Tzerna (Erigon) with the main
body, he returned by Vodena to Thessalonica, which he
reached on the 9th of January 1015.
The cruelty of Basil awakened an energetic
resistance on the part of the Sclavonians and Bulgarians,
and Gabriel Radomir, the brave son of Samuel, was
enabled to offer unexpected obstacles to the progress of the Byzantine armies.
(Cruelty similar to that of Basil was perpetrated on a smaller scale by Richard
Coeur-de-Lion, though of course it is not necessary to place strict reliance on
the numbers reported by the Byzantine historians. Richard, to revenge the loss
of a body of men, ordered three hundred French knights to be thrown into the
Seine, and put out the eyes of fifteen, who were sent home blind, led by one
whose right eye had been spared. Philip Augustus, nothing loath, revenged
himself by treating fifteen English knights in the same way. Putting out men's
eyes was, for several centuries, a common practice all over Europe, and not
regarded with much horror. As late as the reign of Henry IV, A.D. 1403, an Act
of Parliament was passed, making it felony for Englishmen to cut out one
another's tongues, or put out their neighbour’s eyes). Vodena
revolted, and expelled the imperial garrison, so that Basil was compelled to
open the campaign of 1015 with the siege of that place, which he reduced. The
inhabitants were transported to Beleros, to make way
for Greek colonists; and two forts, Kardia and St.
Elias, were built to command the pass to the westward. After receiving an
embassy from Gabriel, with proposals which he did not consider deserving of
attention, Basil joined a division of his army engaged in besieging Moglena under the immediate command of Nicephorus Xiphias
and Constantine Diogenes, who had succeeded Theophylaktos as governor of
Thessalonica. By turning the course of the river, the besiegers were enabled to
run a mine under the wall, which they supported on wooden props. When the mine
was completed, it was filled with combustibles, which reduced the props to
ashes, and as soon as the wall fell and opened a breach, Moglena
was taken by assault. The whole of the Slavonian population capable
of bearing arms was by the emperor’s order transported to Vasparoukan in Armenia. The fort of Notia
in the vicinity was also taken and destroyed.
Gabriel, the king of Achrida, though brave,
alienated the favour of his subjects by his imprudence, and his cousin, John Ladislas, whose life he had saved in youth, was base enough
to become his murderer, in order to gain possession of the throne. Ladislas, in order to gain time, both for strengthening
himself on the throne and resisting the Byzantine invasion, sent ambassadors to
Basil with favourable offers of peace; but the emperor, satisfied that the
struggle between the Slavonians and Greeks could only be terminated by the
conquest of one, rejected all terms but absolute submission, and pushed on his
operations with his usual vigour, laying waste the country about Ostrovos and Soskos, and marching
unopposed through the fertile plains of Pelagonia.
The defeat of a portion of the Byzantine army by Ibatzes,
one of the Bulgarian generals, compelled the emperor to march against him in
person; and when Ibatzes retreated into the
mountains, Basil returned to Thessalonica, and shortly after established
himself at Mosynopolis. The conquest of eastern
Macedonia was not yet completed : one division of the Byzantine troops was
placed under the command of David the Arianite, which
besieged and took the fortress of Thermitza on Mount Strumpitza: another, under Nicephorus Xiphias, crossing
Mount Haemus from Philippopolis, took Boion, near
Sardica.
The Emperor Basil returned to Constantinople in
the month of January 1016, in order to send an expedition to Khazaria, the operations of which had been concerted with Vladimir of Russia, his brother-in-law. He
also availed himself of the opportunity to arrange some difficulties relating
to the cession of Vasparoukan. When that part of
Armenia was annexed to the empire, and the conquest of Khazaria
terminated, he again joined the army at Sardica and laid siege to Pernikon, which repulsed his attacks, as it had done
fourteen years before. He lost eighty-eight days before the place, but was at
last compelled to retire to Mosynopolis.
In the spring of 1017, Basil again turned his
arms against Pelagonia. Kasloria,
a town situated on a rocky peninsula in a small lake, resisted his attacks, but
the booty collected in the open country was considerable; and this he divided
into three parts one he bestowed on the Russian auxiliaries who served in his
army, another he divided among the native Byzantine legions, and the third he
reserved for the imperial treasury. The operations of Basil in the west were
for a time arrested by news he received from the governor of Dorystolon, which threatened to render his presence
necessary in Bulgaria. Ladislas was concerting
measures with the Patzinaks to induce them to invade the empire; but after a
slight delay, Basil was informed the alliance had failed, and he resumed his
activity. After laying waste all the country round Ostxovos
and Moliskos that was peopled by Sclavonians,
and repairing the fortifications of Berrhosa which
had fallen to decay, he captured Setaina, where
Samuel had formed great magazines of wheat. These magazines were kept well
filled by Ladislas, so that Basil became master of so
great a store that he divided it among his troops. At last the King of Achrida
approached the emperor at the head of a considerable army, and a part of the
imperial troops were drawn into an ambuscade. The emperor happened to be
himself with the advanced division of the army. He instantly mounted his horse
and led the troops about him to the scene of action, sending orders for all the
other divisions to hasten forward to support him. His sudden appearance at the
head of a strong body of the heavy-armed lancers of the Byzantine army, the
fury of his charge, the terror his very name inspired, and the cry, “The
emperor is upon us!” soon spread confusion through the Bulgarian ranks, and
changed the fortune of the day. After this victory, Basil, finding the season
too far advanced to follow up his success, returned to Constantinople, where he
arrived in the month of January 1018.
Ladislas, whose affairs were becoming desperate, made an
attempt to restore his credit by laying siege to Dyrrachium, which he hoped to
take before Basil could relieve it. Its possession would have enabled him to
open communications with the enemies of Basil in Italy, and even with the
Saracens of Sicily and Africa, but he was slain soon after the commencement of
the siege. He reigned two years and five months. As soon as the emperor heard
of his death, he visited Adrianople to make preparations for a campaign, which
he hoped would end in the complete subjugation of the Bulgarian and Slavonian
population of the kingdom of Achrida. The Bulgarian leaders gave up all hope of
resistance. Krakras, the brave chief of Pernikon, who had twice foiled the emperor, surrendered
that impregnable fortress and thirty-five castles in the surrounding district Dragomoutzes delivered up the fortress of Strumpitza, and both he and Krakras
were rewarded with the patrician chair. Basil marched by Mosynopolis
and Serres to Strumpitza,
where he received deputations from most of the cities in Pelagonia,
laying their keys at his feet. Even David, the Patriarch of Bulgaria, arrived,
bringing letters from the widow of Ladislas, offering
to surrender the capital. The emperor continued to advance by Skopia, Stypeia, and Prosakon, and on reaching Achrida he was received rather as
the lawful sovereign than as a foreign conqueror. He immediately took
possession of all the treasures Samuel had amassed; the gold alone amounted to
a hundred centners, and with this he
paid all the arrears due to his troops, and rewarded them with a donative for
their long and gallant service in this arduous war. Almost the whole of the
royal family of Achrida submitted, and received the most generous treatment.
Three sons of Ladislas, who escaped to Mount Truoros, and attempted to prolong the contest, were soon
captured. The noble Bulgarians hastened to make their submission, and many were
honoured with high rank at the imperial court. Nothing, indeed, proves more
decidedly the absence of all Greek nationality in the Byzantine administration
at this period, than the facility with which all foreigners obtained favour at
the court of Constantinople; nor can anything be more conclusive of the fact
that the centralization of power in the person of the emperor, as completed by
the Basilian dynasty, had now destroyed the administrative centralisation of
the old Roman imperial system, for we have proofs that a considerable Greek
population still occupied the cities of Thrace and Macedonia, though Greek
feelings had little influence on the government.
The arrangement of the civil and financial
administration of the conquered territory, which had for so many years been
separated from the Byzantine Empire, occupied the emperor’s attention during
the remainder of the year. He also ordered two fortresses to be constructed to
command the mountain passes leading to Achrida, one in the lake of Prespa, and the other on the road leading to Vodena and Thessalonica. He then visited Diavolis, in order to inspect the passage over the Macedonian
mountains that afforded the easiest communication with Northern Epirus.
Nicephorus Xiphias was sent at the same time to destroy all the mountain forts
still in the possession of Slavonian chieftains about Servia and Soskos. The taxation of the Slavonian cultivators of the
soil was arranged on the same footing on which it had been placed by Samuel.
Each pair of oxen for the plough paid annually a measure of wheat, and one of
millet, barley, or maize, and each strema of vineyard
paid a jar or barrel of wine to the fisc.
Basil now resolved to re-establish the Byzantine
influence on the coast of Dalmatia. A division of the army was sent northward
to complete the subjection of the mountainous districts of the theme of
Dyrrachium as far as the Dalmatian and Servian frontiers; and an imperial fleet
entered the Adriatic to act in co-operation with the authorities on shore. The
princes of Servia agreed to acknowledge the supremacy of the emperor, and
Constantine Diogenes, the imperial general on the Danube, gained possession of
the city of Sirmium by an act of the basest treachery.
After passing the winter in his new conquests,
Basil made a progress through Greece. At Zeitounion
he visited the field of battle where the power of Samuel had been first broken
by the victory of Nicephorus Ouranos, and found the ground still strewed with
the bones of the slain. The wall that defended the pass of Thermopylae retained
its antique name, Skelos; and its masonry, which dated from Hellenic days,
excited the emperor's admiration. At last Basil arrived within the walls of
Athens, and he was the only emperor who for several ages honoured that city
with a visit. Many magnificent structures in the town, and the whole of the
temples in the Acropolis, had then hardly suffered any rude touches from the
hand of time. If the external painting and gilding which had once adorned the
Parthenon of Pericles had faded from their original splendour, the Church of
the Virgin, into which it was transformed, had gained a new interest from the
mural paintings of saints, martyrs, emperors, and empresses that covered the
interior of the cella. The mind of Basil, though
insensible to Hellenic literature, was deeply sensible of religious
impressions, and the glorious combination of the variety of beauty in art and
nature that he saw in the Acropolis touched his stern soul. He testified his
feelings by splendid gifts to the city, and rich dedications at the shrine of
the Virgin in the Parthenon.
From Greece the emperor returned to
Constantinople, where he indulged himself in the pomp of a triumph, making his
entry into his capital by the Golden Gate, and listening with satisfaction to
the cries of the populace, who applauded his cruelty by saluting him with the
title of “The Slayer of the Bulgarians”.
I have entered into the history of the
destruction of the Bulgarian monarchy of Achrida in some detail, because the
struggle was national as well as political; and the persevering resistance
offered by the Slavonian population of Macedonia to a warlike sovereign like
Basil, proves the density and flourishing condition of that people, and the
complete annihilation of all Hellenic influence in extensive provinces, where
for ages the civilisation and the language of Greece had been predominant.
Against this national energy on the part of the united Bulgarians and
Slavonians, the government of Constantinople had nothing to oppose but a
well-disciplined army and a wellorganised
administration. The Byzantine Empire had never less of a national character
than at the present period, when its military glory had reached the highest
pitch. Its Roman traditions were a mere name, and it had not yet assumed the
Medieval Greek characteristics it adopted at a later period when it was ruled
by the family of Comnenos. No national population
followed in the rear of Basil’s victories, to colonize the lands he
systematically depopulated by his ravages and cruelty; and hence it appears
that extensive districts, instead of being repeopled by Greek settlers,
remained in a deserted condition until a nomadic Vallachian
population intruded themselves. These new colonists soon multiplied so rapidly
that about a century later they were found occupying the mountains round the
great plain of Thessaly. The changes which have taken pkce
in the numbers and places of habitation of the different races of mankind, are
really as important a branch of historical inquiry as the geographical limits
of political governments; and the social laws that regulate the increase and
decrease of the various families of the human race, at the same period, and
under the same government, are as deserving of study as the actions of princes
and the legislation of parliaments, for they exert no inconsiderable influence
on the rise and fall of states.
After the conclusion of the Bulgarian war, the
attention of Basil was directed to the affairs of Armenia. Great political
changes were beginning to take place in Asia, from the decline of the empire of
the caliphs of Bagdad; but these revolutions lie beyond the sphere of Byzantine
politics at this time, though they began already to exert an influence on the
sovereigns of Armenia. Before Basil had taken the command of his armies in the
Bulgarian war, he had made a campaign in Armenia (A.D. 991), and gained
possession of a considerable portion of Iberia or Georgia. The whole kingdom
had been left to him by the will of David, its last sovereign; but George, the
brother of the deceased monarch, advancing his claim to the succession. Basil,
in order to avoid a war, agreed to leave George in possession of the northern
part. It is not necessary to enter into any details concerning the relations of
the empire with the different dynasties that then reigned in each of the
principalities into which Armenia was divided. Basil, in order to keep some
check on the population of Iberia and Armenia, transported colonies of
Bulgarians and Slavonians into the East, while at the same time he removed
numbers of Armenians into Bulgaria.
In the year 995, Basil visited the East, in
order to re-establish the Byzantine influence in Syria, where it had fallen
into discredit in consequence of the defeat of the imperial army on the banks
of the Orontes, in the preceding year. The emperor soon succeeded in
re-establishing his authority. He took Aleppo, Hems, and Sheizar,
and laid siege to Tripolis; but that city resisted
his attacks, as it had done those of John Zimiskes; and after his return to
Constantinople, the lieutenants of the Fatimite caliphs of Egypt recovered
possession of Aleppo.
In the year 1021, the emperor was compelled to
take the field in person, to make head against a powerful combination of
enemies on the Armenian frontier. Senekarim, the
prince of Vasparoukan, had been so alarmed by the
threatening aspect of the Mohammedan population on his frontiers that he had
ceded his dominions to Basil, and received in exchange the city of Sebaste and the adjacent country as far as the Euphrates,
where he established himself with many Armenian families who quitted their
native seats. Basil undertook to defend Vasparoukan
against the Turkish tribes that began to attack it, and Senekarim
engaged to govern Sebaste as a Byzantine viceroy.
After this cession had been made, George, the sovereign of the northern part of
Iberia and Abasgia, in conjunction with Joannes Sembat, the King of Ani,
attacked the Byzantine territory, and their operations rendered the presence of
the emperor necessary. They had formed secret relations with Nicephorus
Xiphias, who, while governor of Philippopolis, had distinguished himself in the
Bulgarian war, and with Nicephorus, the son of Bardas Phokas; and these two
generals broke out into open rebellion in Cappadocia, and endeavoured to incite
all the Armenians to take up arms. Basil was obliged to suppress this rebellion
before he engaged a foreign enemy, and he availed himself of the spirit of
treachery inherent among men in power in most absolute governments to effect
his purpose. He sent letters secretly to each of the rebel chiefs, offering
pardon to him who would assassinate his colleague. Phokas, who was bold and
daring like his father, immediately communicated the emperor's letter to
Xiphias, who, concealing that he had received one of similar import, availed
himself of his friend's confidence to assassinate him at a private interview.
The rebel army then melted away, and Basil was able to turn all his forces
against the sovereign of Iberia. In the first battle the victory remained
doubtful, but in a second the Iberian and Abasgian
troops were completely defeated (11th September 1022). Liparit,
the general of the Abasgians, was slain, and the
kings of Iberia and Armenia were obliged to sue for peace. A treaty was
concluded on the banks of the lake Balagatsis, by
which Joannes the King of Armenia, who began to be
alarmed at the progress of the Turks, ceded his capital, Ani, to Basil after
his death, on condition of retaining the government in his own hands as long as
he lived. During this campaign, Basil displayed all his usual foresight and
energy: he took measures for putting the fortresses on the eastern frontier of
the empire in a state to resist the Turks, who threatened to invade the west of
Asia; and some of the military engines he ordered to be constructed were of
such power and solidity, that when the Seljouk Turks invaded
the Byzantine territory in the reign of Constantine IX Monomachos,
they found them still well suited for service.
The next object of Basil’s ambition was to expel
the Saracens from Sicily; and he was engaged in making great preparations for
reconquering that island, when he was seized with an illness, which quickly
proved fatal. He expired in December 1025, at the age of sixty-eight, after
having governed the empire with absolute power for fifty years. He extended the
limits of the Byzantine territory on every side by his conquests, and at the
end of his reign the Byzantine Empire attained its greatest extent and highest
power.
The body of Basil was interred in the Church of
the Evangelists, in the Hebdomon. Two centuries and a
half had nearly passed away. The Byzantine empire had been destroyed by the
Crusaders, the Asiatic Greeks were endeavoring to
expel the Franks from their conquest, and Michael Paleologos their emperor was
besieging Constantinople, when some Greek officers, wandering through the ruins
of the church and monastery of the Evangelists, admired the remains of its
ancient magnificence, and lamented to see that so splendid a monument of
Byzantine piety had been converted into a stable under the ruinous
administration of the Frank Caesars. In a corner of the building, a remarkable
tomb that had been recently broken open arrested their attention. A
well-embalmed body of an old man lay in the sarcophagus, and in his hand some
idle herdsman had placed a shepherd's pipe. An inscription on the wall showed
that the sarcophagus contained the mortal remains of Basil the Slayer of the
Bulgarians. The Emperor Michael VIII visited the spot, and when he found it
necessary to retire from before Constantinople for a time, he ordered the body
to be removed to Selymbria, and interred in the
monastery of our Saviour, A.D. 1260.
PERIOD OF CONSERVATISM ON THE
EVE OF DECLINE
AD 1025-1057
Sect.
I
CONSTANTINE
VIII
A.D.1025-1028
THE conquest of the Sclavonians
in the Thracian, Macedonian, and Illyrian mountains gave a degree of security
to the Eastern Empire which it had not enjoyed since the time of Justinian I.
If at this period the government had known how to adopt measures for developing
the resources of the country, or the Greek people had possessed the energy and
moral convictions necessary to force the court to respect their rights as men
and citizens, the whole of the provinces lying to the south of Mount Haemus
might have become thickly peopled by the natural increase of the Greek
race. Land of the best quality was everywhere ready to receive a better
cultivation from new colonists; but improvement was checked, on the part of the
government, by exactions similar to those which arrest the progress of society
in all arbitrary governments; and the Greeks were now destitute of the
sentiment of national patriotism; they were as selfish as their government was
rapacious. Exorbitant taxes, severe fiscal restrictions, and obstructive social
trammels, bore heavily on the agricultural classes, and left them, as their
share of the fruits of their labor, little more than
was sufficient for perpetuating their race, and supplying a due succession of
peasants to labor the lands on which their
predecessors toiled. Great part of the extensive provinces, depopulated by the
destructive system of hostilities pursued by Basil and Samuel, remained long
uncultivated, and were gradually invaded by nomadic tribes, who were allowed to
pasture their flocks and herds over the richest plains on paying tribute to the
Byzantine authorities.
The position of the empire on the death of Basil
required a judicious and economical sovereign to organise the civil
administration on such a scale, as not to absorb too large a portion of the
funds required for the maintenance of the large army with which it was
necessary to guard the extensive frontiers, and yet on a footing that would
insure an equitable and prompt administration of justice to the subjugated
Slavonians. Unfortunately, Constantine VIII, though he was averse to war and
military parade, had no taste for order, and no care for justice. In his
personal appearance he bore a strong resemblance to his brother, but any
similarity of disposition that ever showed itself was only in defects. His tall
robust figure proclaimed the same strength of body and health of constitution,
but he was destitute of the activity, fortitude, and courage of Basil. After he
assumed the government, he continued to live as he had done while his brother
kept him secluded from public business. In the interior of the palace he was
surrounded by musicians, singers, dancing girls, and parasites, and he rarely
quitted it except to indulge in the chase, or to celebrate public spectacles in
the hippodrome for his own amusement and that of the idle populace of the
capital. He left all public business to be transacted by his domestic servants,
and he shunned the military pageants in which the emperors usually took an
active part. Indeed, he appeared to dread the array of troops as more likely to
suggest the idea of internal revolutions than foreign wars. His fears rendered
him a suspicious and cruel tyrant; and his distrust of all men of talent and
influence induced him to intrust the principal offices of the state to the
eunuchs of his household: men bred up amidst scenes of dissipation, gambling,
and hunting, and utterly destitute of all experience in public business, were
suddenly charged with the most important duties in the empire.
The dignities of chamberlain, keeper of the
wardrobe, and commander of the watch, were intrusted to three eunuchs of the
domestic establishment of Constantine, and each received the title of President
of the Senate. The command of the foreign mercenaries was conferred on a
fourth. The Byzantine emperors, like other despots, preferred intrusting
strangers with the guardianship of their persons. A fifth, named Spondyles, was appointed duke of Antioch, and intrusted
with the command of the troops charged to resist the ambitious projects of the
Fatimite caliphs in Syria. The object of the nomination was to furnish the army
with a leader incapable of pretending to the throne, not to supply it with an
able general. The sixth of this domestic band, named Niketas,
became duke of Iberia. The Emperor Basil II must have beaten down the pride of
the aristocracy during the latter part of his reign and effected a great change
in the position they had held in the time of Basilios the chamberlain and the
rebellions of Skleros and Phokas, or the direction of the government would not
have been allowed to remain long in the hands of six eunuchs. The spirit of
conservatism already pervaded society to such a degree as to form a firm
support of despotism. The patience with which Constantine's measures were
endured gives us some insight into the social as well as the administrative
changes effected by the long reign of his brother. We see that his policy had
proved quite as successful in breaking the power of the great families, and in
diminishing the influence of the generals of themes, as in destroying the
Bulgarian kingdom and subjugating the Sclavonian
people. All the power the emperor had taken from others was accumulated in his
own person; nothing was done to confer any rights on the people, nor to secure
them against injustice on the part of the imperial agents. The emperor’s power
was made absolute in practice as in theory, and thus the worthless creatures of
Constantine VIII were enabled to commit acts of greater oppression than the
aristocratic officials whose power Basil had curtailed. Conservatism was now a
principle of Byzantine policy, and it is usually a factitious phrase to delude
the people from a devotion to order and justice.
Basil II is accused by the Byzantine historians
of fiscal severity. In this accusation there is reason to suspect that we learn
rather the murmurs of the nobles and populace of Constantinople than the
deliberate expression of the public opinion of the whole empire. Basil
endeavoured to levy from the rich their due proportion of the public burdens, and
to put a stop to the absorption of the estates of the poor by the aristocracy,
while at the same time he refrained from lavishing immense sums on the shows in
the hippodrome. But whatever may have been the extent of his avarice, we see
signs of true liberality in his exertions to lighten the burdens of the
industrious classes, and real humanity in his endeavors
to spare the poor. It has been already noticed that the taxes were two years in
arrear when he died. The proceedings of Constantine form a contrast to those of
his brother. On one hand, he exacted the arrears of the public taxes with the
greatest severity, while, on the other, he lavished the money thus extorted
from the provinces in wasteful expenditure in the capital. During his reign of
three years he collected and expended the revenue of five. His palace, like
that of a Saracen caliph, was filled with foreign slaves and eunuchs, whose
strange appearance and barbarous language astonished the natural-born subjects
of the empire.
Though no dangerous insurrection broke out, the
general discontent could not be mistaken, and it excited the fears of
Constantine and his creatures. Many eminent men, representatives of families
renowned in the annals of the empire, were seized, and condemned to lose their
sight, because the services of their ancestors in past generations appeared to
give them too much influence on public opinion. It is difficult to determine,
in each case, whether this was a measure of precaution, or a punishment for
political imprudence or actual conspiracy. The names of some of the sufferers
deserve a record, because they indicate the position of several distinguished
families at the time. Nicephorus Comnenos, the
governor of Media or Aspourakan, had bravely defended
his province against the incursions of the Saracens; but his troops having
given him some signs of indiscipline and timidity, he had invited them to take
an oath that they would never desert him on the field of battle. This excited
the jealousy of the emperor, who recalled Comnenos to
Constantinople, where he was condemned to lose his sight for administering
unlawful oaths to the army. Constantine, the son of Michael Burtzes,
who took Antioch, was also deprived of sight; but in his case it was notorious
that the punishment was an act of revenge, as this patrician had informed Basil
of some unseemly practices of his brother, in order that they might be
restrained. The grandsons of the rivals, Bardas Skleros and Bardas Phokas, were
united in misfortune. These two patricians lost their sight on some vague
accusations brought against them by the eunuchs of the imperial palace.
Basilios Skleros had quarrelled with Prusian, the son
of Ladislas, the last king of Achrida. Prusian, who held the rank of magister, and was governor of
the theme Boukellarion, fought a duel with Skleros;
for the pride of the Byzantine military aristocracy displayed itself with as
much courage, if not with as much gallantry, as was ever shown by the chivalry
of western Europe. The two duellists were exiled to different islands of the
Princes’ group; but Basilios was soon deprived of his sight, on pretext that he
was plotting to escape. Romanos Kurkuas, a member of
a distinguished Armenian family, which had supplied the empire with many able
generals, and of which the Emperor John Zimiskes was a scion, also lost his
sight, as well as several individuals who bear names not unknown in Byzantine
history, and others whose barbarous appellations prove that the Bulgarian and
Slavonian aristocracy divided with the Greeks and Armenians a competent share
of political influence at the court of Constantinople.
The extent of the disorder caused in the
provinces by the creatures sent to govern them by Constantine and his eunuchs,
is attested by the notice we possess of some occurrences at Naupactos.
The government of that province was intrusted to an officer called, from his
violence, Mad George, who, by his tyrannical conduct, drove the people to
despair; and in an insurrection which ensued, Mad George was slain, and his
palace plundered by the populace. This insurrection was soon quelled; but
Constantine took severe vengeance on the inhabitants of Naupactos.
Even the archbishop was deprived of his sight, for attempting to protect the
people against the exactions of their tyrant.
Foreign nations soon heard how Constantine
conducted the government, and hastened to profit by the disorderly state of
public affairs. In 1027, the Patzinaks made an irruption into Bulgaria, where
they laid waste everything on their line of march. A Saracen fleet cruised
among the Cyclades, visiting the islands one after another, and collecting
booty from all. But the spirit infused by Basil into the army and navy was not
extinct, though their direction had fallen into unworthy hands. Diogenes, the
governor of Sirmium, being created duke of Bulgaria, defeated the Patzinaks,
and drove them back beyond the Danube. The governors of Samos and Chios
assembled a naval force, with which they attacked the Saracen fleet, and
captured twelve of the enemy's ships with all the crews.
Constantine VIII was suddenly attacked by a
disease which was evidently mortal. When he was near his end, he fixed his eyes
on Constantine Dalassenos as his successor. The
choice was judicious; and a eunuch of the palace was despatched to summon Dalassenos from his residence in the Armeniac theme, when
Simeon, the commander of the watch, expecting to find a weaker and more docile
sovereign in Romanus Arghyros, who was connected with
the imperial family, prevailed on the emperor to recall his first order, and
transfer the empire to Romanus. The destined sovereign, on reaching the palace,
was informed by Constantine that he was selected to mount the throne, but that
he must divorce his wife, and marry one of the imperial princesses. Romanus
hesitated to become emperor on this condition; but Constantine, to quicken his
decision, informed him that he must either ascend the throne or lose his
eyesight, and gave him a few hours to reflect on the choice. The wife of
Romanus, learning the alternative, immediately ordered her head to be shaved,
and entered a monastery; thus generously relieving her husband from the odium
of sacrificing his honor to his timidity or ambition.
Constantine had destined Theodora, the youngest of his three daughters, to be
the wife of Romanus; but she refused to participate in the throne by marrying
the husband of another woman. The emperor was compelled, therefore, to make his
second daughter Zoe empress, for the eldest had retired into a monastery. The
daughters of Constantine were already of mature age. Their education had been
shamefully neglected by their father; and Zoe had taken advantage of the want
of all moral restraint in which she lived. She had attained the age of
forty-eight when she became a bride; but the posterity of Romanus II and
Theophano were all remarkable for health, vigor, and
longevity. Her marriage with Romanus III and their coronation was celebrated on
the 19th November 1028. On the 21st of the month Constantine VIII expired.
Sect.
II.
THE
REIGNS OF THE HUSBANDS OF ZOE
Romanus
III. AD 1028-1034
For twenty-nine years the empire was ruled by a
succession of princes who owed their position on the throne to the daughters of
Constantine VIII. Under such circumstances, it is natural that the affairs of
the court of Constantinople attract more than usual attention in a review of
Byzantine history. Every class of society in the empire appears during
this period to have slumbered in prosperity, consuming its revenues in a firm
conviction that no external power could disturb the internal security of the
state. In no other portion of the civilized world did the inhabitants enjoy an
equal degree of wealth and security for life and property; and the military
power and financial resources of every neighboring
government appeared far inferior to those of the Byzantine Empire.
Conservative lethargy was natural under such circumstances.
Romanus III was sixty years old when accident
made him an emperor. He was allied to several of the oldest and most
illustrious of the aristocracy, and is a type of the kind of sovereign a
respectable Byzantine noble of conservative tendencies made, during a time when
the political horizon was peculiarly tranquil in the East. He enjoyed the
reputation of possessing both accomplishments and learning; but his vanity
somewhat obscured the lustre of his talents. Feeling that his sudden elevation
would excite the ambition of many of the nobility, he adopted measures to
conciliate the favour of every class of his subjects. The church was
propitiated by bestowing on the clergy of St. Sophia’s an annual revenue
of eighty pounds’ weight of gold, secured as a permanent charge on the
imperial treasury. To gain the nobility and the higher ecclesiastical
dignitaries, he abolished the Allelengyon, or mutual
responsibility of the rich for the taxes due by the poor in their district. It
appears that this law, as established by Basil II, had been executed with such
severity that several bishops had been reduced to poverty. He also granted a
full pardon to all persons who had been persecuted by the jealousy of
Constantine VIII. He purchased popularity among the people by releasing all who
were confined in the public prisons for debt; and in order to combine justice
with charity, he paid their debts to private individuals when he remitted those
to the fisc. He redeemed the captives taken by the
Patzinaks in their recent invasion of the empire; and, in short, he endeavored
in many ways to render himself so generally popular as to deter any rival from
aspiring at the throne. These measures for securing popularity were of
themselves well chosen, but their favourable effect was greatly increased by a
coincidence beyond the emperor’s control. The year of his accession proved one
of singular fertility every species of grain was abundant in the capital, and a
rich harvest of olives supplied the people of the provinces both with oil and
money.
The piety of Romanus displayed itself in the
usual superstition of his age. Considering the failure of his Syrian campaign
as a punishment for his sins, and not a consequence of his ignorance of
military affairs, he sought to propitiate Heaven by a lavish expenditure on
ecclesiastical objects. He founded a new monastery of the Virgin called Semneion, on the church of which he laid out money with profusion.
He endowed the monastery with such enormous revenues that even Byzantine
ecclesiastics, in recording his liberality, blame the incongruity of placing
monks in the position of luxurious nobles, and complain of the emperor seeking
to acquire merit with God by exactions that ruined his subjects. Romanus also
covered the capital of the columns in the churches of St Sophia’s and Blachern with gilding, and enriched the buildings with
expensive ornaments. He is said likewise to have obtained permission from the
Fatimite caliph Daher to rebuild the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem,
which had been destroyed by Caliph Hakem in the year
1010. Subsequent disputes with the Egyptian government appear to have delayed
the commencement of the work until the reign of Michael IV, and it was not
completed until that of Constantine IX (Monomachus),
in the year 1048.
Whenever early education has failed to implant
moral feelings in the hearts of men, laws prove ineffectual to supply the want,
whether in the case of individuals or nations. The people of the Byzantine
Empire were now beginning to have the same hankering after hereditary
succession which has lately been manifested by the continental nations of
Europe for representative government; but in both cases there appears to have
been a want of those firm convictions required for attaining any desired end.
As usually happens in political matters, the fault lay with the higher and
educated classes of society, who allowed themselves to quit the line of duty to
pursue any lure held out to their prejudices or passions. Hence we find
conspiracies and rebellions continuing to occur in rapid succession in the
Byzantine Empire, where they were regarded as an unavoidable evil in the lot of
man. Conservative tendencies were the most powerless political feeling that
ever swayed the counsels of Constantinople. But we must not forget that the
Byzantine Empire was a government without a nation.
The Empress Zoe never forgave her sister
Theodora that superiority of character which had induced their father to offer
her the empire, if she would accept the husband of his choice; and Romanus III
disliked her for refusing his hand, and feared her on account of her talents.
He set a spy over her conduct by drawing from his retreat John, one of the
ministers of Basil II, who had deemed it prudent to retire into a monastery on
the accession of Constantine VIII. John was now appointed syncellus, and
intrusted with the superintendence of Theodora’s household. Prusian, the Bulgarian prince who had fought a duel with
Romanus Skleros, the brother-in-law of the Emperor Romanus III, was accused of
plotting with Theodora to seize the imperial crown. Whether true or false, the
jealousy of Zoe and the aversion of Romanus were sure to obtain for this
accusation a favourable reception. The emperor had already restored his
brother-in-law to his former rank as magistros; he
now revenged him by condemning Prusian to lose his
sight, and by banishing his mother, the late queen of Bulgaria, to the
monastery of Mantineion in the Boukellarian
theme. Subsequently, when the court was alarmed at the prospect of a Bulgarian
and Slavonian rebellion under the direction of Constantine Diogenes, Prusian was compelled to embrace the monastic life. It
seems strange that the project of transferring the sovereignty of the Byzantine
empire to a Bulgarian should be recorded by the Byzantine writers, without the
smallest notice that such an event was likely to wound either the Roman pride
of the aristocracy of Constantinople, or the national vanity of the Greek race;
but we must recollect that the founder of the Basilian dynasty was generally
considered to have been a Slavonian groom.
Another conspiracy, which was formed soon after
that of Prusian, was connected with the same interests,
and counted on the same feelings for success. Constantine Diogenes, the
governor of Sirmium and duke of Bulgaria, had married a niece of the Emperor
Romanus III, and had been appointed governor of Thessalonica. While there, it
was discovered that he was engaged in frequent communications with the leaders
of the Bulgarian and Slavonian population of the empire, and it was deemed
necessary to transfer him to the government of the Thrakesian theme before
arresting him. He was found guilty of conspiracy against the emperor, and
condemned to be incarcerated as a monk in the monastery of Studion. John the
syncellus, who seems to have been gained over by Theodora, whom he had been
appointed to watch, Eustathios Daphnomeles,
the governor of Achrida, two grandchildren of Michael Burtzes,
the conqueror of Antioch, and George and Varasvatzes,
nephews of the patrician Theudatos, were all
condemned for participating in this conspiracy. They were publicly scourged,
and then banished. Theodora, who was accused of being privy to their plots, was
driven from her palace, and imprisoned in the monastery of Petrion.
Some time after, the Empress Zoe visited her sister,
and compelled her to assume the monastic habit. Constantine Diogenes was also
accused by the archbishop of Thessalonica of plotting to escape into Illyria,
in order to assume the title of emperor. To avoid the loss of his eyesight, and
the disgrace of being scourged through the streets of the capital, he threw
himself from a window, and was killed on the spot. He was buried in the place
appropriated to those who committed suicide, A.D. 1032.
The negligence of Constantine VIII had weakened
the military force of the empire. Spondyles, the
eunuch intrusted with the government of Antioch, finding that the Saracen emirs
who had been rendered tributary by Nicephorus II and John Zimiskes refused to
pay tribute, undertook to re-establish the imperial authority. His rashness and
incapacity led to the complete defeat of the Byzantine army on the 31st of
October 1029, by which all the imperial possessions of Syria were exposed
without defence to the attacks of the emirs of Aleppo and Tripolis,
who pushed their incursions up to the walls of Antioch, and rendered themselves
masters of the fort of Menik, which had been recently
constructed in its immediate vicinity.
Romanus III resolved to redeem the honour of the
empire at the head of his armies. His brother-in-law, Constantine Karantenos, was sent forward to supersede Spondyles. When the emperor reached Philomilion
in Pisidia, he was met by an embassy from the emir of Aleppo, who offered to
recognise the supremacy of the empire, and to pay the same tribute he had paid
to Basil II. The wisest councillors of Romanus recommended him to accept these
terms, for the season was ill suited for invading Syria, where the heat and
want of water rendered great part of the country better adapted for the
operations of the light-armed cavalry of the Arabs, than for the military
tactics of the Byzantine troops, covered with heavy armour. The emperor was so
destitute of military experience, that he believed it would be a matter of
little difficulty to rival the exploits of Nicephorus, Zimiskes, and Basil, and
he marched forward to take possession of Aleppo. He had arrived at a strong
fortress called Azaz, about two days’ march from that city, when his outposts
were attacked and driven in by the Arabs, who prevented his cavalry from
collecting forage, and his troops from approaching the water in the
neighbourhood. The position of the Byzantine camp was ill chosen; an attempt to
repulse the Arabs led to an unpremeditated engagement, in which a considerable
body of troops was defeated, and the fugitives, rushing into the camp, spread
disorder far and wide. No measures were adopted for restoring order, and the
victorious Arabs advanced up to the intrenchments, and kept the imperial army
closely blockaded. The emperor was utterly helpless, and under such a commander
there was no choice but to retreat to Antioch. This operation was conducted in
the most disgraceful manner. At daylight Romanus abandoned the camp, leaving
his own tents and baggage, and the warlike machines, tents, and baggage of the
army, a prey to the enemy; and this booty fortunately detained the Arabs so
long that a great part of the flying army gained Antioch in safety, August
1030.
Romanus, cured of his passion for military fame,
hastened back to Constantinople. The generals he left in command of the army
proved as incapable as their sovereign, and Menik,
the fort in the vicinity of Antioch, remained in the hands of the Saracens. The
emperor, however, at last sent Theoktistos, the commander of the foreign
mercenaries, with a considerable reinforcement of native and foreign troops,
and this officer having formed an alliance with the emir of Tripolis,
who was alarmed at the progress of the Egyptian power in Syria, succeeded in
taking the fort of Menik. Alach,
the son of the emir of Tripolis, visited the court of
Romanus, and so lax were the political and religious ideas of the Byzantines,
in spite of their ecclesiastical bigotry, that he was honoured with the rank of
a Roman patrician.
Shortly after the defeat of the Emperor Romanus
at Azaz, an incident occurred which deserves notice, principally because it
brought into notice an officer who soon took a prominent part in the military
affairs of the empire, both in Asia and Europe. George Maniakes
was governor of the small province called Telouch.
After the flight of the army to Antioch, a body of eight hundred Arabs appeared
before the walls of the fortress in which he was residing, announcing the death
of the emperor, and the overthrow of the Byzantine power in Syria. They ordered
Maniakes to evacuate the place, or they threatened to
storm it next day, and put every person within its walls to the sword. Maniakes considered that the nature of their summons
indicated either their weakness or their determination to fall on his troops by
treachery; he therefore asked to be allowed to remain the night in the
fortress, to make preparations for his retreat. The Arab camp was supplied with
food and refreshments in abundance, and at midnight Maniakes
led out the garrison to attack the enemy, who were found plunged in sleep
without a guard. The greater part were slain, and two hundred and eighty
camels, laden with the spoil of Romanus’s camp, were recaptured. This prize was
sent as a present to the emperor, accompanied with the noses and ears of the
vanquished.
To reward the valour of Maniakes,
he was appointed governor of Lower Media, of which Samosata was the capital.
The following year the Saracens invaded Mesopotamia, and plundered the country
as far as Melitene; but in 1032, Maniakes contrived
to bribe the governor of Edessa, who was subject to the emir of Miarfekin (Martyropolis), to
deliver up the town. But as soon as the Byzantine troops got possession of
three towers in the wall, they were assailed by the Saracen inhabitants, and Maniakes was soon attacked by Apomerman,
the emir of Miarfekin, who hastened to expel him from
his position. The Saracens, finding it impossible to regain possession of the
towers, and learning that fresh troops were marching to the assistance of Maniakes, abandoned Edessa; but before quitting it they
burned most of the houses, and destroyed the great church. Though the Saracens
had time to carry off the greater part of the wealth of the city they left
behind them what was infinitely more valuable in the eyes of the Christians of
that age than the whole wealth of the caliphate. The people of Edessa had long
boasted that they possessed a letter written by our Saviour to Abgarus, king of Edessa; this precious relic was now
brought to Maniakes, and by him transmitted to
Constantinople. It is not known at what period this precious document was
fabricated. From the city and territory of Edessa a tribute of 50 Ib. of gold
was annually remitted to the Byzantine treasury.
The disorganised state of the caliphate of
Bagdad, and the power acquired by the Turkish mercenaries, induced several
Saracen emirs to solicit the protection of Romanus. The emir of Aleppo, in
spite of his victory, became ributary to the empire. Aleim, the emir of Perkrin a
fortress of great importance, on account of its position delivered up that
place to the emperor; and a body of six thousand Byzantine troops, under a
Bulgarian patrician, was stationed to defend this advanced post. Aleim was, however, dissatisfied with the reward he
received, and opened communications with the Persians, whom he contrived to
introduce into Perkrin. The Byzantine garrison was
surprised and put to the sword; but a powerful body of native troops and
Russian mercenaries soon regained possession of the place, which was taken by
assault, and Aleim was put to death.
The Saracens of Africa and Sicily were still in
the habit of sending out krge fleets to plunder the
coasts of the empire. In the year 1031, these pirates laid waste Illyria and
the island of Corfu, but they were defeated by the people of Ragusa and the
governor of Nauplia, who destroyed the greater part
of their fleet. Next year they returned with a large force, and, if we believe
the accounts of the Byzantine writers, their fleet consisted of a thousand
vessels, and transported ten thousand troops. Two divisions of this great
armament were defeated by Nicephoras Karantenos, the governor of Nauplia,
and upwards of a thousand prisoners were sent to Constantinople. In 1033, the
imperial fleet, under the command of the protospatharios
Tekneas, made a descent on the coast of Egypt, and
after collecting considerable booty, and carrying off many prisoners, the
expedition returned to Constantinople. Every government at this time found it
much easier to plunder the territories of its rivals than to defend its own,
for most sovereigns had adopted the policy of disarming the great body of their
subjects, fearing that, if they possessed arms, they would employ their
strength in delivering themselves from the fiscal exactions of their princes.
During the reign of Romanus III, several parts
of Asia Minor suffered very severely from earthquakes, locusts, famine, and
pestilence; and in a stationary condition of society these calamities often destroy
an amount of capital which is never replaced, and become, therefore, an
immediate cause of a rapid depopulation.
For two years before his death the emperor was
afflicted by a disease which gradually wasted his frame, and caused his hair
and beard to fall off. Many ascribed the disorder to the use of aphrodisiacs,
which he took to an immoderate extent, in the hope of leaving an heir to the
empire; but others believed that the disease originated in a slow poison
administered either by the Empress Zoe or by John the orphanotrophos,
who expected to raise his brother Michael to the throne.
This John was a eunuch and a monk, who had
entered the household of Romanus while he was yet in a private station, but
who, after he became emperor, received the rank of orphanotrophos,
or minister of charitable institutions, an office which proves the existence of
a high degree of civilization in the Byzantine administration. John had several
brothers, one of whom, named Michael, commenced life as a goldsmith and money-changer,
but while still young, received a place in the imperial household. The face of
Michael had the beauty of a perfect statue; his figure was full of grace, and
his manners were attractive and dignified, but the young man was liable to
sudden and violent attacks of epilepsy. Zoe, though upwards of fifty, is said
to have fallen in love with her handsome servant, and to have carried on an
intrigue with him by the assistance of his brother John. Romanus, though
informed of his wife's conduct, paid no attention to the accusations, which the
epilepsy of Michael seemed to render improbable. In the meantime, the health of
the emperor rapidly declined, and on the nth of April 1034 he was taken from
the bath in a dying state. While life yet remained, he was visited by Zoe and
some of the officers of the court, but he was already speechless, and the
empress quitted his side to take measures with the orphanotrophos
for placing her epileptic paramour on the throne.
The moment that life was extinct in the body of
Romanus III, Zoe assembled the officers of state in the palace, and invested
Michael IV with the imperial robes. He was immediately proclaimed Emperor of
the Romans, and seated himself on the vacant throne beside Zoe. The promptitude
with which this singular step of raising a domestic to the throne was conceived
and executed prevented its encountering the slightest opposition. The Patriarch
Alexios was summoned to the palace, where he learned
the death of Romanus, and was, to his great astonishment, ordered to crown
Michael the Paphlagonian, and celebrate his marriage
with the widowed empress. The Patriarch would willingly have delayed making
this open display of contempt for decency, but he saw Michael seated on the
throne, and he was aware of the power and ability of his brother the orphanotrophos; so, admitting that reasons of state might
overrule the dictates of virtue, he celebrated the marriage to avoid greater
scandal. Thus a single night saw the aged Zoe the wife of two emperors, a widow
and a bride, and Michael a menial and a sovereign. In order to render the
sudden elevation of a domestic of the palace less strange in the distant
provinces, John, who became his brother's prime-minister, despatched letters to
all the governors, announcing that Michael had been selected by the deceased
emperor for his successor, and crowned before his death.
Michael IV, the Paphlagonian, A.D. 1034-1041
The new emperor, though he ascended the throne
in the most disgraceful manner, possessed some good qualities; and his natural
good disposition appears neither to have been corrupted by his education as a
money-changer, though calumny accused him of having been a fabricator of false
coin; nor by his menial service at a corrupt and vicious court, of which he was
a depraved member. After he mounted the throne, he soon lost the gaiety of
disposition and tranquillity of mind which had increased the beauty of his
figure and the grace of his manner. In spite of his constitutional infirmity,
he was not destitute of considerable strength of character, and with his vices
he united a strong sense of justice. The conduct of Zoe awakened in his mind
feelings of distrust for his own safety, and he had spirit enough to dismiss
from her service many of the eunuchs of her father’s household, who seemed fit
agents for new plots. His conscience was soon troubled by his treachery to his
benefactor, and during his whole reign he suffered the pangs of remorse. He
sought pardon from heaven by praying at the shrines of different saints, and he
wasted the revenues of the empire in building monasteries and chapels, and in
making lavish donations to priests and monks. But as he continued to enjoy
every advantage he had purchased by his crimes, the historians of his reign
justly observe that he seemed to trust in the blindness of God for the
forgiveness of his sins, as if divine justice could regard good deeds done at
the expense of his subjects as any atonement for his private sins, or as any
proof of sincere repentance on the part of the imperial sinner. It must be
owned that there is more truth in this observation than is agreeable either to
the Papal or the Greek Church. The anxiety produced by the cares of his
situation soon increased the emperor's malady to such a degree that he became
liable to sudden attacks; and even at public ceremonies, when he was seated on
the throne, it was necessary to have the canopy of state hung round with
curtains, which the chamberlains could let fall to hide him from the assembly
as soon as his countenance indicated the approach of the terrible convulsions
to which he was liable. When his malady seized him, his features were distorted
into hideous expressions, his eyes rolled in wild agony, and he often struck
his head against the wall until he fell exhausted on the floor. Though his
malady was known to be of old date, the people persisted in regarding it as a
judgment for his conduct to his benefactor Romanus, and appealed to it as a
visible interposition of divine power, which abandoned him from time to time to
be tormented by demons as a punishment for his treachery.
Under these circumstances, it appears strange
that Michael retained the throne with so little difficulty, and met with no
dangerous rival. It is true, he possessed an able prime minister in his
brother, the orphanotrophos, whose interests were
completely identified with his own, and who was a statesman competent to
relieve him from all the details of administrative labor.
Michael could entertain no distrust of his brother John, who could neither
supplant him on the throne nor covet it for his posterity. But though the orphanotroph was a faithful brother and an able minister,
he was rapacious and tyrannical, and his administration, though serviceable to
Michael, was injurious to the wealth and resources of the empire. He is said to
have commenced life as a travelling doctor. While Romanus III was in a private
station, he intrusted John with the direction of his household; but after he
became emperor, his intendant, with the modest title of Orphanotrophos,
and in the humble garb of a monk, directed the whole business in the imperial
cabinet. When his brother ascended the throne, he openly assumed the duties of
president of the imperial council, and though suffering under the loathsome
disease of a cancer in the mouth, the energetic eunuch humbled the aristocracy
and ruled the people with a rod of iron.
The administration of John the Orphanotrophos deserves attention, not only from forming a
principal feature in the reign of Michael IV, but also from marking the era of
a mischievous change in the financial system of the Byzantine government. The
taxes were everywhere augmented, and collected in a more arbitrary manner. An
additional charge of from four to twenty byzants was imposed on every landed
estate, according to its extent. John’s avidity compelled the collectors of the
revenue in the provinces to increase their exactions, for when they were regular
in their remittances to the treasury, and liberal in their presents to the orphanotrophos, their oppressive conduct to the provincials
was easily overlooked. This system of extortion caused several serious
insurrections during the reign of Michael IV. At its commencement the people of
Antioch murdered the collector of taxes in that city, and, alarmed at the
vengeance John was likely to take for such an offence, shut their gates against
his brother Niketas, whom he sent to be their duke. Niketas succeeded in entering the city, where his first act
was to put to death a hundred of the inhabitants, and confiscate the wealth of
eleven of the richest families. The people of Aleppo also expelled the imperial
commissioner sent to reside among them for fiscal purposes, and their position
secured them from the vengeance of the Byzantine minister. When Maria, the
emperor’s sister, and mother of the future emperor, Michael V, visited the city
of Ephesus on a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. John the Evangelist, she was
struck with compassion at the sight of the excessive misery she beheld in all
the country on her road. When she returned to Constantinople, she urged her
brother, the orphanotrophos, by every feeling of
humanity and religion, to moderate the financial exactions which were rapidly
depopulating the empire. The orphanotrophos replied
with a smile “You reason like a woman, ignorant of the necessities of the
imperial treasury”. His conduct, however, proved in the end unprofitable as a
financial operation, for it caused an extensive insurrection of the Bulgarian
and Slavonian population, which cost more to suppress than had been wrung from
them. Even the Greeks found their fiscal sufferings so great that they seemed
disposed to join the Slavonians in an attempt to throw off the Byzantine yoke.
The collector of the revenues of the theme of Nicopolis
was torn in pieces by the people, and the western parts of Greece welcomed the
Bulgarian troops.
A government so unpopular as that of
Constantinople at this time required not only great talents to direct the
central administration, but also a numerous body of firm supporters dispersed
through all the provinces, interested to defend the system with all its abuses.
This was effected by filling every office with men dependent on the family of
Michael IV, and crowding the senate with creatures of the orphanotrophos.
On the death of Niketas, Constantine, who was almost
as able and active as his brother John, was appointed duke of Antioch, and
became afterwards grand domestikos. George was
appointed protovestiarios, their brother-in-law
Stephen was intrusted with the command of the fleet, and subsequently named
commander-in-chief in Sicily; while his son Michael, called, from his father's
early profession, Kalaphates, or the Caulker, was
appointed by his uncle Caesar, which was almost tantamount to proclaiming him
heir-apparent to the Byzantine empire.
John even carried his ambition so far as to make
an attempt to place himself at the head of the church as well as the state. Having
gained over a party among the bishops to object to the appointment of the
Patriarch Alexios as uncanonical, on the ground that
he had been intruded on the church by the nomination of Basil II, John proposed
to depose Alexios. The Patriarch, however, encountered
the attack with courage. He openly discussed the question, and asked what
measures were to be taken if all the ordinations which he had made, during the
twelve years he had governed the church, were now unexpectedly declared void;
and he boldly reminded John, that even the coronation and marriage of the
reigning emperor would thus be pronounced null. This boldness alarmed the
emperor: and John was compelled to lay aside the hope of becoming Patriarch
during the life of Alexios.
Avarice was always a pervading fault of
Byzantine society; and the rapacity of the clergy at this period often rivalled
the extortions of the fiscal agents of the imperial administration. Two
anecdotes, that contrast the moral feelings of a Greek bishop with those of a troop
of Varangian soldiers, deserve notice.
Theophanes, the metropolitan of Thessalonica,
carried his avarice so far that he held back the payment of the salaries due to
the clergy of his chapter; and even during a year of famine refused to pay them
their arrears. The Emperor Michael happened to visit Thessalonica, and the
starving priests complained to him of the conduct of their bishop; but even the
reproof of the emperor failed to obtain justice to the claims of the clergy.
Michael then determined to punish the bishop; but, in order to expose his
avarice and meanness in a public manner, he sent one of his household to borrow
a hundred pounds' weight of gold, promising to repay the money immediately on
his arrival at Constantinople. The bishop excused himself on the score of
poverty, declaring, with the most solemn oaths, that he had only thirty pounds'
weight of gold in his palace. The emperor immediately sent a commission to
search the palace, and the sum of three thousand three hundred pounds' weight
of gold was found. Theophanes was banished to a country farm, and Prometheos named his successor.
The Varangian guard was dispersed in
winter-quarters in the Thrakesian theme, where one of the soldiers, attempting
to use violence on the person of a country-woman, she drew his sword and
stabbed him. The man died on the spot; but as soon as the foreign troops heard
the true history of the affair, instead of insisting on revenge, they applauded
the woman's conduct, put her in possession of all the property her assailant
had left in his quarters, and exposed his body without burial, as if he had
committed suicide.
The only noble whose great wealth and high
character excited the fears of Michael IV, and the jealousy of the orphanotrophos, was Constantine Dalassenos,
the man who had been first selected as the husband of Zoe. Dalassenos
was residing on his immense estates in the Armeniac theme when he heard of the
election and marriage of Michael. The contemptuous words he was said to have
uttered sank deep in the mind of the new emperor; and Dalassenos
soon received an invitation from the orphanotrophos
to visit Constantinople. He, however, declined trusting his person in the
capital until he received a solemn assurance of his safety from the emperor.
The guarantees he ventured to demand, and which Michael consented to give,
afford a curious picture of the proud position of the great nobles, and a sad
evidence of the prevalence of falsehood and treachery in the highest ranks of
society. A member of the emperor's household, in high office, was sent to Dalassenos with a piece of the holy cross, with the napkin
on which the figure of Christ was miraculously imprinted, with the autograph
letter of Christ, and with the portrait of the Virgin Mary, painted by the hand
of St. Luke; and on these sacred relics this officer swore that he had
witnessed the Emperor Michael IV take an oath that Constantine Dalassenos should suffer no injury if he visited the
capital. On this assurance Dalassenos repaired to
Constantinople, where he was well received by the emperor, and received the
title of Proconsul. But shortly after, Niketas, the
emperor’s brother, who was duke of Antioch, accused him of being privy to the
insurrection in which the imperial tax-gatherers had been slain; and on this improbable
charge Dalassenos was confined in the island of
Plate. His son-in-law Dukas was thrown into prison,
and three nobles of great wealth had their estates confiscated, for complaining
that this proceeding was a violation of the emperor's oath.
During the Bulgarian rebellion in 1040, a
conspiracy was formed to dethrone Michael. Many of the chief men in
Constantinople were accused of being privy to the plot; and though they escaped
with their lives, the fortunes of the wealthy were confiscated. Among the
conspirators was Michael Ceroularios, whose guilt
compelled him to protect his person by becoming a monk. He afterwards attained
the dignity of Patriarch, and displayed the same unquiet intriguing spirit at
the head of the church as he had done in a private station.
Some seditious proceedings in the Asiatic army
were suppressed by the emperor's brother, Constantine, who put out the eyes of
several officers; and not venturing to punish their chief, Gregory the Taronite, who was a patrician, by a local tribunal, sent
that dignitary to Constantinople, sewed up in the hide of a newly-slain ox,
with only holes cut in it for his eyes, and for breathing.
The military power of the empire was not
tarnished by the conduct of Michael IV, though he was sneered at by the
aristocracy as a Paphlagonian money-changer. The
Saracens vainly endeavored to recover the possessions which had been conquered
by the Christians in Syria and Mesopotamia. The emperor’s brother, Constantine,
while governor of Antioch, displayed some military talents. He relieved Edessa
when attacked by a Saracen army. The possession of Edessa by the Byzantine
emperors was a source of continual annoyance to the Mohammedans, and their
endeavours to regain it were incessant. In the year 1038, two years after it
had been relieved by Constantine, they made use of a stratagem which has
obtained immortality as an Eastern tale, though, as a fact, it remains buried
in the dulness of Byzantine history. Varasvatzes, a Georgian, commanded in Edessa when twelve
Arabians of rank presented themselves before the gates, attended by an escort
of five hundred horse, and followed by a train of five hundred camels,
declaring that they were going on an embassy to the emperor with rich presents
from the caliph. The wary Georgian, however, distrusted their numerous escort;
and though he gave the chiefs a hospitable reception, and prepared for them a
sumptuous entertainment in his palace, he ordered the escort and the train of
camels to be encamped without the walls, and sharply watched. While the banquet
was proceeding in the city, a poor Armenian, well versed in the Arabic
language, offered his services to the travelers, and
was permitted to wander about the encampment. While standing near the wicker
baskets with which the camels had been laden, he overheard a man conversing
with another, and perceived that a band of armed men, for the purpose of
surprising Edessa, was the only present for the emperor which the camels
carried. Hastening to the palace of the governor, he succeeded in revealing the
secret to the watchful Georgian, who found an excuse for quitting his guests. A
body of the garrison was sent to overpower the cavalry, while Varasvatzes, proceeding in person to the encampment,
ordered the wicker baskets with the presents for the emperor to be opened, and
slew the concealed soldiers as they were found. He then returned to his palace,
where he ordered his guests to be seized, and informed them of the issue of
their treachery. Eleven were put to death, and the chief, mutilated by the loss
of his hands, ears, and nose, was sent to announce the result of the adventure
to the court of Bagdad.
The ravages of the Saracen fleets from Africa
and Sicily were now more destructive than the incursions of their armies in
Asia. Myra in Lycia, and many towns in the Cyclades, were plundered in
1034; but in the following year, when two separate fleets returned to renew
these devastations, they were both defeated by the governors of the Thrakesian
and Kibyrraiot themes, and the prisoners were treated as pirates, and impaled
along the Asiatic coast from Adramytium to Strobilos.
To prevent the recurrence of these plundering
expeditions, it was resolved to carry the war into Sicily with the greatest
vigour. Maniakes, who had distinguished himself as
governor of Vaspourakan, was charged with the task of
expelling the Saracens from the island. Abulaphar,
the emir of Sicily, having formed an alliance with the empire, received the
title of Magistros; but his authority was contested
by his brother Abucab, and Sicily was involved in a
civil war. In the meantime, the independence of the Sicilian chiefs was so
great, that many continued their piratical expeditions against the Christians,
in spite of the friendly relations established with the emirs. The civil war,
however, enabled the Byzantine troops to enter Sicily as allies of Abulaphar, and they met with such success that the two
brothers became alarmed, and, forgetting their differences, united to get rid
of allies who promised soon to become masters. The moment appeared favorable for expelling the Saracens from the island; and
Michael ordered Maniakes, who commanded the Byzantine
forces in Italy, to cross the straits of Messina, and sent a powerful fleet,
under his brother-in-law Stephen, to assist the operations of the army. Among
the troops that Maniakes had assembled in Calabria
were three hundred Norman mercenaries, whose skill in arms had already obtained
for them the highest military reputation, A.D. 1038.
Messina was taken by storm, and though a large
army of Saracens arrived from Africa to defend their countrymen, the Sicilians
were completely defeated by Maniakes at a place
called Remata. This victory enabled the Byzantine
general to subdue the greater part of the island, and he employed the winter in
constructing citadels in the towns he had conquered, in order to keep the
inhabitants in check; for the number of Saracen proprietors settled in the
island, and their spirit of local independence, combined with the financial
exigencies of the Byzantine administration, threatened the Byzantine government
with a violent opposition. The importance of the exploits of Maniakes, and the solidity of his buildings, are attested
by the renown of his name and the relics of his works. The thick walls and
massive round towers of the citadel he constructed at Syracuse still bear the
name of the Castle of Maniakes, and show us how much
of the strength and stability of Roman architecture survived in the Byzantine
system of fortification in the eleventh century. The site of another of his
works retains his name, situated on the roots of Mount Etna; but all the
remains have disappeared in constructing the modern town of Bronte.
In the spring of 1040, another African army
arrived in Sicily, to support the Mohammedan domination. Maniakes
made his dispositions for a battle with his usual talent, and, confident of
success, he ordered Stephen, the admiral of the fleet, to make dispositions for
cutting off the retreat of the Africans. The Byzantine army was worthy of its
general, and the invaders were completely routed at a place called Draginas; but the incapacity and misconduct of Stephen
allowed the beaten troops to escape on board their fleet, and put to sea. Maniakes was indignant at this proof of negligence or
cowardice. On meeting Stephen, he lost all command over his temper, and
reproached the emperor’s brother-in-law with his unfitness for his station; and
when the admiral ventured to reply in an insolent manner, the proud Maniakes, recollecting the caulker, and forgetting the
prince, struck him on the head with the seiromast (a
kind of javelin) in his hand. This outbreak of passion caused the loss of
Sicily. Stephen complained to the orphanotroph of the
aristocratic insolence of Maniakes, and accused him
of a design to rebel; which appeared no improbable accusation, when brought
against a man who dared to strike the emperor’s brother-in-law in the presence
of many officers of the army. Maniakes was arrested,
and sent prisoner to Constantinople, and Stephen was appointed his successor in
the government of Sicily. Under a leader so incompetent, the affairs of the
Christians soon fell into confusion. Fresh bands of Saracens arrived from
Africa; the Byzantine authorities were driven from the towns conquered by Maniakes; the army under the command of Stephen was
everywhere worsted; and in a short time Messina alone preserved its allegiance
to the government at Constantinople, being preserved by the valor
of its governor Katakalon.
The Patzinaks renewed their invasions of the
European provinces in the year 1034, when they extended their ravages almost to
the walls of Thessalonica. Two years after, they again invaded the empire and
wasted Thrace with unusual barbarity, carrying off five imperial officers of
high rank as prisoners.
In the year 1040, Servia, which had submitted to
the Emperor Basil II, became so discontented with the fiscal measures of the orphanotrophos, that the people rose in rebellion and shook
off the Byzantine yoke. Stephen Bogislav placed
himself at the head of his countrymen and expelled the imperial authorities.
The success of his rebellion was promoted by the seizure of a vessel, with
a thousand pounds’ weight of gold belonging to the imperial treasury,
which was driven on the coast of Illyria. The emperor demanded the restitution
of this sum, and when it was refused, sent George Provatas
with a large army to reduce Stephen to obedience. The Byzantine troops were
defeated through the incapacity of their general, and the independence of
Servia firmly established and tacitly recognised.
The fiscal exactions of John the Orphanotrophos produced another rebellion, which threatened
to deprive the empire of the fruits of the long campaigns of Basil II. The
land-tax or tribute of the Slavonian population had been left, by their
conqueror, on the footing it had been established by Samuel when he founded the
kingdom of Achrida, and consisted of a moderate payment in kind annually for
each yoke of oxen and each strema of vineyard.
Michael IV, at the advice of his brother, ordered a tax to be levied in money
in lieu of the established payments, and the discontent caused by the measure
prepared the population for revolt. While everything proclaimed an approaching
rebellion, a Bulgarian slave, named Peter Deleanos,
fled from his master at Constantinople, and, on reaching Belgrade on the
Danube, announced himself to be the grandson of Samuel, king of Achrida. He was
soon joined by numbers of discontented Bulgarians, and was proclaimed king. His
hopes of being able to resist the power of the Byzantine government lay in the
Slavonian population of Macedonia and Epirus, not in the Bulgarians of the
plains between the Danube and Mount Haemus. He succeeded in making himself
master of many strong places in the theme of Dyrrachium, and he commenced the
revolution by murdering all the Greeks who fell into his hands. Basil Synnadenos, the governor of Dyrrachium, advanced against
him, hoping to extinguish the revolt in its birth; but some intrigues at
Constantinople caused him to lose his place, and one of his officers, who was
named his successor, proved incapable of executing the plan of operations
already traced out. The new governor threw everything into confusion; and a
large body of troops in the province consisting of Slavonians, they cast off
their allegiance to the emperor, and proclaimed one of their own officers, Teichomeros, king of Bulgaria. Deleanos
and Teichomeros agreed to act as allies, and divide
the territory from which they might be able to expel the Byzantine officers;
but when the two Slavonian armies formed a junction, Deleanos
succeeded in persuading the soldiers to put Teichomeros
to death in order to preserve the unity of the kingdom.
The rebels were now sufficiently powerful to
advance against Thessalonica, where the Emperor Michael had fixed his
residence, in order to pay his devotions at the celebrated shrine of St.
Demetrius. Alarmed at the threatening aspect of the revolution, and the
unprepared state of the central authorities in Macedonia and Greece, he hastened
to Constantinople to expedite warlike preparations, leaving a Bulgarian named Ibatzes in charge of his baggage, with orders to follow him
to the capital. Ibatzes fied
to Deleanos, and delivered all the treasure intrusted
to his care to the new monarch. In the mean time, Alusianos, the younger brother of Ladislas,
the last king of Achrida, witnessing the rapid progress of the rebellion, and
disgusted with the avarice and injustice of the orphanotrophos,
quitted Theodosiopolis, of which he was governor, and
joined Deleanos in his camp at Ostrovos.
He was intrusted with the command of a division of the Bulgarian army, and
ordered to undertake the siege of Thessalonica, where he conducted his military
operations so ill, that he was very soon defeated by the imperial troops, and
lost about 15,000 men. The splendour of the victory was of course attributed to
St. Demetrius, who was reported to have taken the command of the Greeks in
person. The failure before Thessalonica was in some degree compensated by the
capture of Dyrrachium, which had already fallen into the hands of Kaukanos, one of the Bulgarian generals. While these
operations were going on in the north, a Sclavonian
army under Anthimos invaded Greece, and endeavored to rouse their countrymen in
the Peloponnesus to take up arms. The inhabitants of Thebes, which was then a
wealthy and populous manufacturing city, boldly took the field to defend the
cause of the Greek population, but were defeated with great loss.
The oppressive conduct of the Byzantine fiscal
agents had been so general, that the Greeks were in some places more inclined
to favour the Bulgarian revolution than to support the central government of
Constantinople. The people in the theme of Nicopolis
murdered Koutzomytes, the taxcollector
of the province, and invited the Bulgarians to their assistance, who easily
rendered themselves masters of all western Greece. The city of Naupaktos (Lepanto) was alone preserved in its allegiance
by the presence of its garrison.
It was fortunate for the Byzantine empire that
the political government of the rebels was directed by men destitute of talent
and honesty, for the minds of the Greek population were in general so
alienated, and the amount of the imperial forces in Greece was so trifling,
that it would not have been a difficult matter to have subdued the whole
country. But in place of attending to the public cause, Deleanos
and Alusianos turned all their attention to intrigue.
The first felt that, if he could not destroy his rival, he should lose his
throne; and the other feared that his royal blood and his recent defeat would
cost him his life. At last Alusianos found an
opportunity of seizing the king by treachery, and, putting out his sovereign’s
eyes, he assumed the vacant crown. But bred up amidst the luxuries of Byzantine
civilization, and caring little for Slavonian nationality, he preferred
enduring the insolence of the orphanotrophos to
encountering the hardships of a revolutionary war. He deserted his countrymen,
resigned the title of king, and made his peace with the court of
Constantinople.
The Emperor Michael IV was now suffering under a
severe attack of dropsy, in addition to repeated paroxysms of his old malady;
but he displayed the greatest energy from the moment that the Bulgarian rebellion
broke out. He was well aware that he could not hope to survive for any length
of time, but his mind seemed to gain vigour from his anxiety to transmit the scepter he held without degradation to his successor. He
assembled an army at Thessalonica, and accompanied its movements, though his
disease had made such progress that he was lifted from his horse every evening
utterly exhausted. The Bulgarian army, left without a leader by the treachery
of Alusianos, was defeated and destroyed. The blind Deleanos and the deserter Ibatzes
were both taken prisoners, and in one campaign the dying emperor reduced all
the Bulgarians and Sclavonians who had taken arms to
submission, and restored tranquillity in Macedonia, Epirus, and Greece. This
vigorous and noble conduct closed the reign of Michael. He returned to
Constantinople to die.
The
people, who looked on his original malady as a divine judgment, were confirmed
in this superstition by the prodigies they witnessed during his reign.
Hailstones fell which killed men at their work; earthquakes followed one
another with fearful rapidity; meteors blazed in the sky so bright, that the
stars were rendered invisible at midnight; and a pestilence visited various
parts of the empire with such terrible mortality that the living found it
difficult to bury the dead. Taxation
also began to press with increasing severity on a stationary society, so that,
in spite of Michael’s charitable works his building churches, monasteries, and
hospitals his death was awaited with impatience by his subjects, in the hope
that it would deliver the empire from the effects of divine wrath. Michael
himself participated in the superstition of the people, and when he felt his
end approaching, he retired from the imperial palace to the monastery of St. Anarghyros, where he assumed the habit of a monk. He died a
few days after, on the 10th of December 1041, having reigned seven years and
eight months.
Reign of Michael V Kalaphates, or the Caulker, A.D. 1042
The Empress Zoe now assumed the direction of the
administration as the lawful heiress of the empire, and in virtue of the will
of her deceased husband, and she attempted to carry on her government with the
assistance of the eunuchs of her household. But a few days' experience of
the toils which were imposed on the sovereign by the Byzantine system of
administration soon showed her both the inconveniences and dangers of her
position. Though the Athenian Irene had ruled the empire as absolute mistress
for some years, and several female regents had presided over the government at
different times, still the traditional aversion of the Roman state to female
sway was not entirely extinct. Zoe, therefore, immediately perceived the
necessity of giving the empire a male sovereign, and she took only three days
to choose between adopting a son or marrying a husband. Michael the son of
Stephen, the unlucky governor of Sicily, had been raised to the rank of Caesar
by his uncle Michael IV, and he had the reputation of being a man of capacity
and energy; but his uncle, who seems to have formed a more correct judgment of
his disposition than the world at large, had seen so much to distrust in his
character that he had excluded him from all share of public business, and given
him no hope of mounting the throne as his successor. Zoe, too, displayed more
confidence in his talents than in his principles; for before placing the crown
on his head, she required him to swear in the most solemn manner that he would
ever regard her as his benefactress, and treat her as his mother. She also
required him to banish the orphanotrophos,
Constantine the domestikos, and George the protovestiarios. Michael promised everything and obtained
the crown.
But as soon as he felt himself firmly
established in power, he revealed his meanness of soul, and treated his
benefactress with insolence as well as ingratitude. He recalled the orphanotrophos to his counsels, and conferred on him the
high dignity of despot; but he soon neglected his advice, and placed all his
confidence in Constantine, whom he honored with the
rank of nobilissimus. He then began to intrigue against
the Patriarch Alexios. After receiving the Patriarch
with honor, and bestowing on him a donation of four
lb. of gold, he appointed a meeting with him at a monastery on the Bosphorus,
intending to exclude him from the city, and get a new Patriarch elected during
his absence. At last he carried his presumption so far as to send the
Empress Zoe to Prince’s Island, and compel her to adopt the monastic habit. But
when the people heard of this last instance of his ingratitude, which he had
the insolence to announce in a public proclamation, their fury burst through
every restraint. They assailed the imperial heralds and paraded the city,
exclaiming that “the caulker” had ceased to reign, and that they
would scatter his bones abroad like dust. An assembly was held in the Church of
St. Sophia, to which Theodora was brought from the monastery of Petrion, and proclaimed empress with her sister. In the
meantime the emperor, alarmed at the progress of the sedition, brought Zoe back
to the palace, and attempted to pacify the people by persuading her to appear
at a balcony overlooking the hippodrome. The sight of Michael, however, who
endeavoured to address the assembly, revived the popular fury, and preparations
were made to storm the palace. The emperor now showed himself a coward as well
as a tyrant, and wished to fly to the monastery of Studion. His uncle
Constantine, however, made him understand that his only hope of life was in
preserving the throne, and roused him to take measures for defending the
palace.
The attack was made on the following day, and
after a long defence the people, who assaulted it in three divisions from the
hippodrome, the court of guard, and the tchukanisterion,
stormed the palace. Katakalon, who saved Messina, had
just returned from Sicily, and happening to be at the palace, directed the
defensive arrangements, while Constantine the nobilissimus,
assembling all his household in arms, added to the strength of the guards. The
fury of the people overcame all resistance; but it is said that three thousand
were slain before they forced their entrance into the interior of the building.
Everything was then plundered, and the public registers were destroyed. Michael
V and his uncle Constantine succeeded in escaping to the monastery of Studion
during the confusion. Zoe immediately assumed the ensigns of the imperial
power, and endeavoured to force her sister Theodora back into retirement, but
the senate and people insisted that the two sisters should reign conjointly.
Though Zoe was eager to tyrannize over her sister, she showed a disposition to
spare her own tyrant Michael. She was, however, compelled by Theodora and the
senate to join in his condemnation, for the populace shouted incessantly,
“Let him be impaled, let him be crucified, let his eyes be put out!” Officers
were therefore sent to drag him from his asylum and put out his eyes. When
placed beside his uncle in the Sigma to suffer his sentence, he meanly
entreated the executioners to put out the eyes of Constantine first; and that
daring eunuch submitted to the punishment with the greatest firmness, while the
dethroned emperor excited the contempt of the people by his cries and moans.
They were then sent to pass the remainder of their lives as monks in the
monastery of Elegmos. Michael the Caulker sate on the
imperial throne four months and five days.
The joint government of Zoe and Theodora lasted
less than two months. We need not wonder, therefore, that it is praised by all
historians, for the salutary effects of a violent display of popular indignation
were sure to extend over the whole period. Byzantine officials moderated their
exactions in alarm, and the two empresses were reminded by the empty chambers
of their palace that public opinion was not always to be despised with
impunity. In order to secure the support of the imperial council of state, and
of the municipality of Constantinople or of the Roman senate and people, as
these bodies proudly styled themselves numerous promotions were made and large
donations lavished. An ordinance was published prohibiting the sale of official
situations, for this species of traffic had been rendered an ordinary source of
revenue by the eunuchs of the imperial household, who had possessed themselves
of most of the highest offices of the state. At the same time strict orders
were issued to enforce the administration of justice with impartiality, and to
restrain oppressive conduct on the part of the fiscal agents of government.
The unprincipled manner in which the adventurers
and eunuchs, who had been introduced into the public service since the death of
Basil II, appropriated the funds in the imperial treasury to their own use,
deserves particular notice. Great deficiencies were detected in the accounts of
the short financial administration of the nobilissimus
Constantine; and the ministers of Zoe and Theodora found it necessary to
examine him personally, in order to discover how the money had been employed.
The blind monk, knowing that he had no chance of ever quitting the monastery in
which he was confined, candidly informed the new ministers that he had
abstracted the sum of 5300 lb. of gold from the treasury for his own use, and
deposited it in a vaulted cistern attached to his palace, near the Church of
the Holy Apostles.
The two sisters appeared always together at the
meetings of the senate, and when they held courts of justice, or gave public
audiences; but it was evident their union would not prove of long duration. Zoe
was jealous of her sister, and though she was eager to be relieved of the
burden of public business, she was determined not to allow Theodora to conduct
it alone probably the more so, because Theodora showed great aptitude in state
affairs, and took great pleasure in performing her administrative duties. Zoe,
therefore, bethought herself of looking out for a third husband, to whom she
might resign the throne, and thus deprive her sister of the influence she was
rapidly acquiring. Zoe was now sixty-two years old, and, the age of passion
having passed away, her memory reverted to the merits of Constantine Dalassenos, who had been destined by her father to be her
first husband. She invited that proud noble to an interview in the imperial
palace, in order to judge of his character before revealing her purpose. But in
place of the splendid and gallant nobleman of her imagination, she met a stern
old man, who expressed strongly his disapprobation of the whole system of the
imperial administration since the death of Basil II; who openly blamed the
vices of the court, and hardly concealed his contempt for her own conduct. Such
a husband might have infused new vigour into the lethargic system of
government, but Zoe was not inclined to submit her actions to the control of so
severe a master.
She turned, therefore, to one of her former
lovers, Constantine Artoklinas; but when his wife
heard of the honor to which he was destined, she
displayed none of the meekness of the wife of Romanus III. Artoklinas
suddenly sickened and died, and his wife was supposed to have poisoned him,
either from jealousy, or from her aversion to be immured in a convent Zoe was
easily consoled. She again selected an old admirer, Constantine Monomachos, who had been banished to Mitylene
by the jealousy of Michael IV, but recalled on the accession of Zoe and
Theodora, and named Judge of Greece. A swift-rowing galley was despatched to
convey him to the capital, where, on his arrival, he was invested with the
Imperial robes. His marriage with Zoe was celebrated by one of the clergy, for
the Patriarch Alexios declined officiating at a third
marriage of the empress, which was doubly uncanonical, since both the
bridegroom and the bride had been twice married. Nevertheless, on the day after
the marriage ceremony, the Patriarch crowned the emperor with the usual
solemnities.
Constantine IX Monomachus. A.D. 1042-1054
The reign of Constantine IX demands more
attention from the historian of the Byzantine Empire than the worthless
character of the man or the feeble policy of his cabinet appears at first
glance to require. It typifies the moral degradation into which Byzantine
society had fallen, for his vices were tolerated, if not approved of, by a
large portion of his subjects. His open profligacy expresses the immorality of
the age; his profusion indicated the general manner of living among all classes
of his subjects; and while he destroyed the civil organisation of the
government, and undermined the discipline of the Roman armies, they wasted the
national capital and diminished the resources of the empire.
The domestic profligacy of Zoe had been
concealed from the public by the household of eunuchs that surrounded her, and
by whom the inhabitants of the palace were kept completely separated from the
world without its walls. But her third husband, Constantine Monomachos,
was so indifferent to all feelings of self-respect as to make an open parade of
his vices at the public ceremonies of the court. After he had buried two wives,
he obtained the favour of a beautiful young widow belonging to the powerful and
wealthy family of Skleros. She was the granddaughter of that celebrated Bardas,
who had disputed the empire with Basil II, and the daughter of Romanes Skleros,
the brother-in-law of the Emperor Romanus III. The eminence of her family
eclipsed the name of her husband, and she was called Skleraina.
Infatuated by love for Constantine Monomachos, she
openly assumed the position of his mistress, and shared his banishment at Mitylene. It is, however, only justice to the character of
the fair Skleraina to observe that, in the opinion of
the bigoted members of the Greek church, her position of mistress, as being
less uncanonical,was more respectable than it would
have been had she become the third wife of her lover. When Zoe raised
Constantine to the throne, he bargained to retain his mistress, and the people
of Constantinople were treated to the singular spectacle of an emperor of the
Romans making his public appearance with two female companions dignified with
the title of empress, one as his wife and the other as his mistress. Skleraina was regularly saluted with the title of Augusta,
and installed in apartments in the palace, with a separate court as empress,
and a rank equal to that held by Theodora. Zoe and she lived together on the
best terms, and the want of jealousy of the aged wife is less surprising than
her want of self-respect. The disposition of the beautiful Skleraina
was extremely amiable, and she was respected to a certain degree for the
constancy of her attachment to her lover in his misfortunes, which contrasted
with the behaviour of Zoe, who had never allowed any passion, however violent,
to retain permanent hold of her heart. She soon lost whatever popularity she
enjoyed with the people, on account of the lavish expenditure of the emperor.
She had possessed an ample fortune when Constantine was an impoverished exile,
and her wealth had been consumed to gratify her lover’s luxurious habits. The
good-natured sensualist now strove to repay Skleraina
with unbounded liberality. Her apartments were rendered more splendid than any
Constantinople had yet seen, her elegant manners created round her a graceful
court, which seemed more brilliant from its contrast with the dull ceremony
that reigned in the apartments of Zoe and Theodora. As the populace can rarely
be so completely corrupted in their moral feelings as their superiors, the
extravagant expenditure of the emperor on his concubine awakened the public
indignation. They felt the financial oppression more grievous when they saw
their money employed to insult their feelings, and they began to fancy that the
lives of Zoe and Theodora might be in danger in a palace where vice was honored, and where secret murder was supposed to be an
ordinary occurrence.
Constantine IX had pursued his career of
voluptuous extravagance for two years, without a thought of his duties either
to God or to his subjects, when he was suddenly awakened to a sense of the
danger of his situation by a furious sedition of the people. On the feast of
the Forty Martyrs it was usual for the emperor to walk in solemn procession to
the Church of our Saviour in Chalke, from whence he proceeded on horseback to
the Church of the Martyrs. But as the procession was about to move from the
palace, a cry was raised, “Down with Skleraina; we
will not have her for empress! Zoe and Theodora are our mothers we will not
allow them to be murdered!”. The fury of the populace was ungovernable, and
they made an attempt to lay hands on the emperor, to tear him to pieces. Many
persons were trodden to death in the tumult, and Constantine was in imminent
danger of his life, when the sudden appearance of Zoe and Theodora at a balcony
drew off the attention of the crowd, and allowed the emperor to escape. The
sisters assured the people that they were not in the smallest danger, and as no
leaders stepped forward to direct the populace, tranquillity was easily
restored; but the emperor did not accompany the procession to the Church of the
Forty Martyrs in the year 1044.
There are some articles in the expenditure of
Constantine IX which indicate that he lived in an enlightened age, and reigned
over a civilized people. To solace his conscience, he constructed houses of
refuge for the aged and hospitals for the poor, as well as monasteries and
churches for the clergy. He also raised the most distinguished literary men of
his time to high offices. He completed the rebuilding the Church of the Holy
Sepulchre at Jerusalem, and augmented the endowments of the clergy of St.
Sophia’s, in order that service might be performed with due pomp every day.
In order to fill the treasury, when he had
drained it by his lavish expenditure, he adopted a measure which proved ruinous
to the empire, and was an immediate cause of the success of the Seljouk Turks in Asia Minor. The frontier provinces of the
East had been exempted from the payment of direct taxes to the central
government, and the dependent states in alliance with the empire in that
quarter had been relieved from tribute, on the condition of maintaining bodies
of regular militia constantly under arms, to defend their territories.
Constantine IX consented to relieve them from these obligations, on their
paying a sum of money into his exhausted treasury. By this impolitic
proceeding, an army of fifty thousand men on the Iberian and Armenian frontiers
was disbanded, and the Asiatic provinces left open to the invasion of the Seljouk Turks, whose power was rapidly increasing. The
money remitted to Constantinople was quickly despatched in luxury and vice.
The death of the Patriarch Alexios,
who died in the year 1043, after having ruled the Byzantine Church upwards of
seventeen years with some reputation, afforded a sad confirmation of the
depraved state of society, and the frightful extent to which avarice had
corrupted the Eastern clergy. The emperor, who knew that the Patriarch had
heaped up considerable sums of money in a monastery he had constructed, sent
and seized this treasure, which was found to amount to the sum of 2500 lb. of
gold. Michael Keroularios, who had been compelled to
enter a monastery on account of the part he had taken in a conspiracy against
Michael IV, was appointed Patriarch, and distinguished himself by his violent
proceedings in the disagreement between the sees of
Rome and Constantinople.
Theodora, though by her sister’s marriage she
was deprived of all direct influence over the administration, still possessed
the power of violating the law with impunity. John the orphanotrophos
was seized by her order while living tranquilly in banishment at Marykatos, and deprived of sight. It was said by some that
this cruel deed was executed without the emperor’s permission, but others
attributed it to revenge on the part of Constantine, who ascribed his long
exile at Mitylene to the malice of the orphanotrophos. We must recollect, however, that Theodora
was of a sterner and more unforgiving temper than her brother-in-law, and that
she had probably good reason for complaining of the conduct of the orphanotrophos, even when he was minister of Romanus III.
In any case, it is a sufficient proof of the disorganization of the
administration that the act is ascribed to Theodora by Zonaras, who was himself
a minister, and that it was inflicted without even the formality of a legal
sentence.
A weak and lavish court, surrounded by a proud
and wealthy aristocracy, under the government of an absolute sovereign, is the
hotbed of rebellion. Constantine IX had ascended the throne, without any merit
of his own, by the shameless preference of a worthless old woman. It is not
surprising, therefore, that many nobles should have attempted to wrench the
sceptre from his hand; but it is a strong proof of the original excellence of
the organization of the Byzantine system of administration that all these
attempts proved unsuccessful. The conservative tendencies of society, which had
grown out of the system of government, presented a passive resistance to all
revolutionary endeavours to disturb the established order of things. A sedition
in Cyprus, however, occurred even before Constantine IX, mounted the throne. No
sooner was it known throughout the empire that Michael V had been dethroned by
a popular insurrection, and that the government of Zoe and Theodora was not
likely to prove of long duration, than Theophilos Erotikos, the governor of Cyprus, formed the project of
gaining possession of that rich island for himself during the threatened
confusion. Theophilos was a turbulent and
presumptuous man, of ability far inferior to his ambition. Two years previous
to his rebellion in Cyprus he had been driven from Servia, which he then
governed, by Stephen Bogislav; he now incited the
people to attack Theophylaktos, the intendant of finance, on the ground that
this officer collected the taxes with undue rigor. Theophylaktos was slain, and
the governor expected that, in removing a check on his plot, he had succeeded
in compromising the inhabitants so far as to secure their support to his
ambitious project. Constantine IX, however, immediately on assuming the
government, despatched a force to suppress the revolt, and as the Cypriots had
no idea of waging war against the central government at Constantinople, or of
aiding Theophilos to assume the imperial crown, they
offered no resistance, and the governor was arrested and sent a prisoner to the
capital. The insurrection was considered so contemptible that Theophilos was exhibited to the people at the public games
in a female dress, and escaped with the confiscation of his estates.
The rebellion of Maniakes,
which occurred in the first year of the reign of Constantine IX, would in all
probability have deprived him of the throne, had it not been suddenly
terminated by one of those strokes of fortune by which Heaven deranges the
wisest plans and destroys the most powerful expeditions. Maniakes
was released from confinement at the death of Michael IV, and reappointed to
the command of the Byzantine possessions in Italy. He found the Italians
everywhere in rebellion, and the chief military power in the hands of the
Norman mercenaries, who had formed themselves into an independent community:
the cities of Bari, Brindisi, Otranto, and Tarento
were alone occupied by Byzantine garrisons. The moment Maniakes
landed, he commenced his military operations with the vigor
and skill for which he was so remarkable. He defeated the Normans in a
well-contested battle between Monopoli and Matera;
and as these two towns had shown a hostile disposition, he allowed them to be
plundered by his troops, and even ordered two hundred of the principal
inhabitants of the latter to be decapitated for favouring the Normans. The
animosity between the Greeks and Italians was now so violent that the success
of the Normans and the separation of the two churches were produced rather by
the hatred of the parties than by the superior valour of the Normans, or by any
religious arguments of the clergy. Though the Italians were destitute of the
virtue and endurance necessary to gain their independence, they possessed at
this time an able and active leader, Arghyros, the
son of Mel, and it was in moral far more than in military qualities that they
were inferior to the northern mercenaries.
The progress of Maniakes
was suddenly arrested by the news that Constantine Monomachos,
the lover of Skleraina, was named emperor, for Maniakes was engaged in violent contests with her brother,
Romanes Skleros, concerning the limits of their hereditary estates in Asia
Minor. Romanes, who had the courage to contend personally with the fiery Maniakes, as his father had contended with Prusianos, the Bulgarian prince, had received some deep
insults, for which he now avenged himself by seducing his enemy's wife and
seizing the disputed property. Maniakes knew that
there was no hope of obtaining justice from the emperor, over whom Skleraina exercised unbounded influence; he resolved,
therefore, to administer justice in his own cause. He immediately recruited his
army with all the Norman and other mercenaries he was able to collect in Italy,
and proclaimed himself emperor. Constantine IX, the moment he heard of the
rebellion, sent an officer with a body of troops to arrest Maniakes,
expecting that it would be as easy to do so on this occasion as it had proved
in Sicily. But Maniakes fell on the Byzantine troops
at the moment of their arrival, routed them, and, gaining possession of the
treasure they had brought, embarked his own army at Otranto, and landed at
Dyrrachium, in the month of February, 1043. The emperor sent an army, under the
command of one of Zoe’s eunuchs, named Stephen, to arrest the progress of the
rebel. Maniakes, despising the unwarlike character of
his opponent, attacked the imperial army near Ostrovos.
His charge bore down everything, and victory seemed assured to his standard,
when an arrow from an unknown hand pierced him to the heart. His death left his
followers without a cause, as well as without a leader, and they instantly
retired from the field of battle. The Norman, Frank, and Italian mercenaries in
the rebel army entered the Byzantine service, and continued for many years to
make a prominent figure in the wars of the empire. The victorious eunuch made
his public entry into Constantinople mounted on a white charger, with the head
of Maniakes borne before him on a lance.
Stephen’s accidental success awakened his
ambition, and when he found, on his return to the capital, that the emperor did
not estimate his services as highly as he considered was their due, he began to
plot against him. He selected Leo, the governor of Melitene, as the future
emperor, but his intrigues were discovered. Leo and his son Lampros
were deprived of sight, but Stephen was only immured in a monastery after his
estates were confiscated.
In the year 1047, Constantine IX was again in
danger of losing his throne by the rebellion of his own relation, Leo
Tornikios. The character of Leo rendered him extremely popular at Adrianople,
where he resided. To remove him from the seat of his influence, the emperor
named him governor of Iberia, where he was soon accused of aspiring to the
throne. Constantine IX, jealous of his talents and popularity, ordered him to
resign his governorship and adopt the monastic life; but the friends of
Tornikios put him on his guard in time to enable him to escape to Adrianople,
where he was immediately proclaimed emperor. At the head of the garrison of
that city, and such motley forces as he could assemble on the spur of the
occasion, he marched to Constantinople. He hoped to render himself master of
the capital by the favour of the citizens, counting more on their aversion to
the emperor's conduct than on the military force under his own orders. But the
inhabitants feared a military revolution far more than they hated their
sovereign. Constantine also, on receiving the first information of the revolt,
despatched orders to a Saracen eunuch, who commanded a corps of Byzantine
troops in Iberia, to march rapidly to the capital, with all the forces he could
concentrate on the way.
Tornikios encamped before the walls in the month
of September, and being unable to invest the line of the fortifications from
the port to the Sea of Marmora, established himself before the gate of Blachern. The emperor, who, in spite of his warlike
surname, was utterly ignorant of military affairs, ordered a party of a
thousand men to intrench themselves outside this gate. The operation was
undertaken against the advice of his military counsellors; and, to see the
result of his own tactics, the emperor pkced himself
in a balcony overhanging the walls, in mil view of the position of his
advanced, guard. Tornikios immediately took advantage of the imperial folly; he
stormed the intrenchment, and the rebel archers, sending a flight of arrows at
the balcony, compelled the emperor and his court to abandon their position with
ludicrous celerity, amidst the derisive cheers of the citizens as well as of
the enemy. But Tornikios, proud of the day’s exploit, and trusting always to
the delusive hope that the inhabitants would open the gates, delayed pressing
the assault as the fugitives were entering within the walls. Next day, when he
found the people would hold no communication with him, he ordered a general
assault. The garrison had employed the whole night in making preparations to
meet it; and as the defence was intrusted to experienced officers, and the
citizens supported the regular troops, to save their property from the danger
to which it would be exposed if a victorious enemy entered the city, Tornikios
was defeated with considerable loss. He now found it necessary to raise the
siege and retire to Arcadiopolis. Shortly after, he
attacked the city of Rhedestos, and the bishop
keeping the inhabitants firm in their allegiance, he was again defeated. His
cause now became desperate; for the news reaching his camp that the Asiatic
troops had arrived at Constantinople, his followers quitted his standard, and
he was forced to seek refuge in a church, from which he was taken by force, and
sent to the emperor in chains. On Christmas Eve he was deprived of his sight.
In the year 1050, several nobles of distinction
were accused of conspiring to dethrone the emperor. The accusation may have
been nothing more than a court intrigue or a fiscal measure, for only one was
punished by the confiscation of his estates.
Another plot shows the contemptible condition to
which the imperial power had fallen in the estimation of the courtiers. Boilas, a man of low birth, had gained the favour of
Constantine IX by his talents for buffoonery and his capacity for business. He
amused the emperor by his wit, and relieved him from much embarrassment by his
application. Boilas being utterly destitute of all
principle, and possessing little judgment with a daring character, conceived
the preposterous idea of making himself emperor. He knew that he was fitter to
fill the throne than the reigning emperor, and he thought the court so
worthless that he expected to succeed in his design. He applied to several
persons in high office to secure their assistance, and found intriguers and
malcontents who were willing to make him an instrument in their hands, while he
believed he was using them as the servants of his own ambition. The conspiracy
was revealed on the very night it had been resolved to assassinate Constantine;
but it seems the emperor was never persuaded that his favorite
was really guilty, for he soon restored him to his office, in order to enjoy
his buffoonery.
The reign of Basil II marks the summit of the
military power of the Byzantine Empire. In the reign of Constantine IX the
first traces of decay are visible in the military system, which, for three
centuries and a half, had upheld a standing army equal to the Saracen forces in
the East, and superior to any troops the nations of Europe had been able to
maintain permanently in the field. The alliance of the Servians
and Armenians was now lost; the Normans were allowed to acquire an independent
existence in Italy; and though the Russians and Patzinaks were defeated, the Seljouk Turks began to undermine the whole fabric of the
Byzantine power in Asia.
The disorders which attended the dethronement of
Michael V induced Stephen Bogislav, the sovereign of
Servia, to invade Illyria and Macedonia, from which he carried off immense
booty, ravaging the country like a wild beast rather than a man. Constantine IX,
in order to prevent his repeating his depredations, ordered the governor of
Dyrrachium to march into Servia with a large body of troops the garrisons of
all the neighbouring themes that could be immediately concentrated; and it was
pretended that the army consisted of sixty thousand men. The general, ignorant
of military science, trusted entirely to his numbers, which the Servians were unable to resist in the open field. He pushed
carelessll forward into the heart of the country,
ravaging everything around, and collecting booty, until he involved himself in
the mountainous district, full of narrow defiles and rugged roads. As no enemy
was to be found, he here gave the order to return to Dyrrachium; but no sooner
was the retreat commenced than the Servians resumed
their activity, and Stephen suddenly beset the passes with his army. The head
and rear of the Byzantine columns were assailed at the same time, the march was
delayed, and the booty lost. The Byzantine general, incapable of combining the
movements of his different divisions for their mutual support, and his
lieutenants, ignorant of one another's movements, were thrown into inextricable
confusion. A general attack of the Servians in one of
the mountain passes completed the rout of the army, and, if we believe the
Byzantine writers, seven generals and forty thousand men perished in this
expedition.
We have already seen that the social condition
of the inhabitants of Russia in the preceding century was considerably more
advanced than that of the people in Western Europe. Their commerce with the
Byzantine Empire, which had been one of the causes of their progress in wealth
and civilization, was greatly extended during the present century; and after
the conquest of Cherson, and the decay of that flourishing city, a considerable
number of Russian merchants established themselves at Constantinople. The
influence of these traders soon became very great, for, besides the regular
trade they carried on between the north and south, they also acted as bankers
for the Varangian and Russian mercenaries in the Byzantine service, and as
agents for many Bulgarian and Slavonian landed proprietors, whose produce they
purchased. About the commencement of the year 1043, it happened that a Russian
of rank was slain in a tumult, and the sovereign of Kief, Yaroslaf,
deemed it a favorable occasion for making conquests
in the Byzantine territory, as the Normans had done in France, and the Danes in
England. The Emperor Constantine in vain offered all reasonable satisfaction;
the Northmen and the Russians were determined to try the fortune of war, for
they wanted to obtain something very different from indemnity for the
consequences of a tumult in the streets of Constantinople. An expedition,
composed of Varangians and Russians, under the command of Vladimir, son of Yaroslaf, who had been elected prince of Novgorod by his
father’s influence, and Viuchata, as his counsellor
and lieutenant general, crossed the Black Sea. The commerce of Russia was a
matter of so much importance to the capital, the Varangians and Russian
mercenaries formed so valuable a part of the imperial land-forces, and the
indolent Constantine was so averse to war, that he made a sacrifice of the
punctilio of Byzantine diplomacy, and again demanded peace when the hostile
armament appeared off the entrance of the Bosphorus. But the Russians, bent on
plunder and conquest, rejected peace, unless the emperor would engage to pay
three pounds weight of gold to each soldier in the expedition.
Constantine now made active preparations for
repulsing the attack on his capital. He had already arrested all the Russian
merchants and soldiers in the empire, and sent them into distant themes, to be
guarded as prisoners until the war should be terminated. The greater part of
the Byzantine fleet was either absent in the Archipelago or employed on the
coast of Italy, but the ships in the port of Constantinople were prepared for
sea; and their size, as well as the use of Greek fire, gave them such a
superiority over the boats of the Russians that the sailors were eager for a
battle. The first naval engagement proved indecisive, and the Russians
contrived to destroy a part of the Greek fleet which separated from the main
squadron; but in another action the Russians suffered great loss, and a storm
shortly after completed the ruin of their enterprise. In landing to plunder,
their troops were also defeated. On their retreat, a second storm overtook them
in passing Varna, and their losses were so great that, according to the
accounts of their own historians, fifteen thousand men perished. Three years
elapsed before peace was re-established, but a treaty was then concluded, and
the trade at Constantinople placed on the old footing. From this period the
alliance of the Russians with the Byzantine empire was long uninterrupted; and
as the Greeks became more deeply imbued with ecclesiastical prejudices, and
more hostile to the Latin nations, the Eastern church became, in their eyes,
the symbol of their nationality, and the bigoted attachment of the Russians to
the same religious formalities obtained for them from the Byzantine Greeks the
appellation of the most Christian nation.
The Patzinaks, who still occupied the whole
country from the Dnieper to the Danube, had not repeated the ravages they
committed in the year 1036. They were occupied by wars with the Russians and
with the Uzes, a nomadic nation of Turkish race like
themselves, but who proved their irreconcilable enemies. Tyrach
was at this time king of the Patzinaks, and Keghenes,
a man whose merits as a soldier had raised him to rank, commanded the army. The
fame of the general excited the envy of the king, and Keghenes
was forced to seek shelter in the Byzantine Empire, to which he retired with a
numerous body of followers. From an island in the Danube, near Dorystolon, in which he had intrenched himself, the Patzinak general solicited permission to enter the empire,
and Constantine IX, well pleased to gain the services of so distinguished a
warrior, gave orders that he should be honorably
received. Keghenes embraced the Christian religion,
and received the title of a Roman patrician. His followers were established in
forts on the banks of the Danube, where they employed themselves in plundering
the country they had quitted. Tyrach called on the emperor
to restrain these forays, but, finding his reclamations neglected, he took
advantage of the severe winter of 1048 to cross the Danube on the ice, and
invade the empire with a numerous army. Bulgaria was ravaged, but the sudden
changes of plenty and privation to which the invaders were compelled to submit
spread disease through their ranks. The followers of Keghenes
and the Byzantine troops concentrated round them, their numbers were thinned by
disease, famine, and incessant attacks, until Tyrach
and his whole surviving army were compelled to surrender at discretion. Keghenes urged the Byzantine generals to put all their
prisoners to death, observing that it was wise to kill the viper when he was
benumbed, lest the returning warmth of the sun should enable him to escape and
use his venom; but the Byzantine empire was too civilised for such an act of
wholesale inhumanity, and the captive soldiers were established as agricultural
colonists on waste lands near Bardica and Naissos. It had always been one of the problems in the
Roman empire how to find the means of filling up the drain of the native
population that time seemed perpetually to sweep away with unsparing activity.
The king and many of the Patzinak nobles were sent to
Constantinople, where they embraced Christianity, and were well treated by the
emperor.
In the meantime fifteen thousand of the ablest
soldiers were selected from among the prisoners, enrolled in the Byzantine
army, and sent to join the troops on the Armenian frontier, where an army was
preparing to encounter a threatened attack of the Seljouk
Turks under Togrulbeg. This body of Patzinaks was
placed under the command of the patrician Constantine Artovalan,
but was formed into four divisions under native officers. On reaching Damatrys, Kataleim, one of the Patzinak generals, persuaded his countrymen to attempt
forcing their way home. A rapid march enabled them to reach the Bosphorus, but
when they arrived at the monastery of St. Taraslos,
on the narrowest part of the straits, they found no boats to cross into Europe.
Kataleim immediately arranged a body of cavalry in
order, and plunged into the stream at their head. A sufficiency of boats was
easily secured on the European side, and the whole army transported over.
Without any delay they pushed on to Sardica and Naissos,
where they were joined by their countrymen, who had been established in that
country as agricultural colonists, and then, hastening to the banks of the
Danube, they occupied a strong position near the mouth of the river Osmos. They also formed a second camp at a place called the
Hundred Hills, and from these stations plundered the districts in their
vicinity.
On hearing of this daring movement, the emperor
summoned Keghenes and his followers to
Constantinople. As these troops lay encamped without the walls waiting for
orders, three Patzinaks attempted to assassinate Keghenes,
but were secured after inflicting on him some severe wounds.When
brought before the emperor, they accused Keghenes of
treasonable correspondence with the fugitives, and Constantine, with suspicious
timidity, gave credit to their improbable story, and ordered Keghenes to be put under arrest. The immediate consequence
of this false step was, that the followers of the arrested general fled and
joined their countrymen, who had advanced to the neighborhood
of Adrianople. The emperor in his alarm released Tyrach,
the Patzmak king, on receiving his oath to reduce his
countrymen to obedience; but that monarch, on regaining his liberty, laid aside
his Christianity, repudiated his promises, and pkced
himself at the head of a powerful army, eager to avenge his former defeat. Two
Byzantine armies were routed with great slaughter.
Great exertions were used to assemble another
army in order to repress the ravages of the Patzinaks, who were devastating all
the country between the Danube and Adrianople. Nicephorus Bryennios took the
command at the head of the Frank and Varangian mercenaries, and the Asiatic
cavalry from Telouch, Cilicia, and Mesopotamia. Keghenes was restored to favor,
and sent to negotiate terms of peace with his countrymen. The military
operations circumscribed the forays of the enemy, and the Byzantine army
surprised and destroyed a number of the Patzinaks at Chariopolis;
but Keghenes, trusting himself among his countrymen,
was treacherously murdered. After many vicissitudes, the Patzinaks were
forced to retreat, and concluded a truce for thirty years.
In Italy the affairs of the empire went to ruin
after the departure of Maniakes. Constantine IX favored Arghyros because he had
opposed Maniakes, and that chief rendered himself
virtually independent, and assumed the title of Prince of Bari and Duke of
Apulia. The Normans, taking advantage of the intrigues and dissensions that
prevailed, quitted their profession of mercenaries for that of feudal
chieftains, and by taking such a part in the wars between Arghyros
and Guaimar, prince of Salerno, as their own
interests dictated, they succeeded in forming their captains into a
confederation of territorial barons, under a leader, who became count of
Apulia. Their progress excited the alarm of the emperor of Constantinople, the
emperor of Germany, and the Pope; but their services were so often in
requisition by powerful rivals, and their conduct was so prudent, that they
prevented any coalition of their enemies which might have crushed them in their
early career. The Byzantine troops were defeated, the intrigues of the emperor
of Germany were baffled, Pope Leo IX, who ventured to appeal to arms, was
beaten and taken prisoner, while the victors, as pious as politic, purchased
the support of the See of Rome from their captive by offering to hold all theit conquests as a fief of St. Peter’s chair. The schism
of the Greek and Latin churches, which broke out with great animosity about
this time, increased the aversion of the Italians to Byzantine domination, and
tended quite as much as the military superiority of the Norman troops to give
stability to their government.
The capture of Otranto by the Normans under
Robert Guiscard, in the year 1055, maybe considered as the termination of the
Greek power in Italy.
While the Byzantine Empire was beginning to
exhibit symptoms of decline in the West, Constantine IX added to its
territories in the East by destroying the Armenian kingdom of the Bagratians, which had long acted a brilliant part in the
military history of Asia. No act, however, could have been more unnecessary or
imprudent than the annexation of the city of Ani, the last capital of Armenian
independence, to the empire, for the whole of the Byzantine frontier was thus
thrown open to the invasion of the Seljouk Turks,
without the barrier of independent Christian mountaineers that had hung on the
flank of previous invaders. It has been mentioned that the Emperor Basil II,
during his campaign against the Iberians in 1022, compelled Joannes
Sembat to sign a treaty ceding, at his death, Ani and
his whole kingdom to the emperor. Constantine IX considered the moment
favourable for calling on Gagik, the nephew of Joannes,
to fulfill the obligations of this treaty; and when
the Armenian objected, he formed an alliance with Aboulsewar,
the Saracen emir of Tibium (Tovin),
and sent a Byzantine army to attack Ani. The treachery of the Armenian nobles
aided the progress of the Byzantine and Saracen arms. Gagik, a prince of some
ability, finding it useless to struggle with so powerful a combination,
consulted the interests of his subjects by submitting to the Christians. On
receiving a safe-conduct for his person, he repaired to plead his cause before the emperor at Constantinople, and the city of
Ani surrendered to the Byzantine troops, A.D. 1045. Gagik, finding there was no
hope of preserving his ancestral kingdom, accepted the rank of magistros, and received extensive estates in Cappadocia.
Thus the oldest Christian kingdom was erased from the list of independent
states by a Christian emperor. The only Armenian district which continued to
preserve its independence between the Byzantines and Saracens was Kars, where
Gagik Abas, a member of the family of the Bagratians,
ruled as prince. The Byzantine government carried its jealousy of the Armenians
so far as to compel their Patriarch, Peter, to quit the city of Ani and take up
his residence at Arzen, from whence they subsequently
transferred him to Constantinople.
In the year 1048 the Seljouk
Turks attacked the empire. They were one of the hordes which formed itself out
of the fragments of that great Turkish Empire, whose commercial connection with
Constantinople occupied the attention of Roman statesmen in the time of
Justinian. Togrulbeg, called by the Byzantine
historians Tangrolipix, was its chief. The Turkish
tribes of central Asia were now acting the part, in the empire of the caliphs
of Bagdad, which the Goths formerly acted in the Roman Empire. Under Mahmoud
the Gaznevid, the Turkish hordes which furnished
mercenaries to the caliphs founded for themselves an empire, but the son of the
Gasnevid was defeated by new hordes, who elected Togrulbeg as their chief. This new sovereign, after destroying
the dynasty of the Bowides, became sultan of Persia,
and the limits of his dominions touched the frontiers of the Byzantine
conquests in Armenia. Togrulbeg visited Bagdad,
assumed the title of Defender of the Faith and Protector of the Caliph; and
when he had rendered himself completely master of the temporal power at Bagdad,
he compelled the haughty caliph to receive him as a son-in-law, by showing the
representative of the Prophet that he possessed the power of starving him on
his sacred throne.
Eight years before Togrulbeg
succeeded in establishing himself as a sovereign in Bagdat,
he sent his cousin Koutoulmish to attack the emir of Diarbekir. Koutoulmish was
defeated, and compelled to retreat to the Armenian frontier of Vasparoukan, where he solicited permission to pass through
the Byzantine territory, promising to maintain the strictest discipline in his
march. The governor of Vasparoukan refused the
request of the defeated general, and prepared to oppose the Turks, should they
venture to pass the frontier. Koutoulmish, who saw
that only prompt and vigorous measures could save him from being surrounded,
attacked the Byzantine governor, routed his army, and, carrying him away as a
prisoner, sold him as a slave in Tabreez. On his
return, he vaunted so loudly the fertility of Vasparoukan,
and spoke with such contempt of the Byzantine troops, that Togrulbeg
determined to invade the empire. Hassan the Deaf was intrusted with the
vanguard, amounting to twenty thousand men, but was completely defeated near
the river Stragna by Aaron the son of Ladislas, the last king of Bulgaria, who was governor of Vasparoukan, and Katakalon the
governor of Ani. The main body of the Turkish army, however, under Ibrahim Inal, the nephew of Togrulbeg,
avenged the defeat. It was composed of Turks, Kaberoi,
and Limnites. Katakalon, an
experienced general, wished to meet this army in the field, as it was composed
chiefly of infantry, or cavalry whose horses were unshod; but his Bulgarian
colleague appealed to the emperor’s instructions, which ordered his army to
await the arrival of Liparites the prince of Abasgia. The Turkish general, finding the greater part of
the wealth of the country secured in strong fortresses, advanced to attack the
populous city of Arzen, which was unfortified. The
inhabitants, trusting to their numbers and valor, had
neglected to convey their valuable effects into the impregnable fortress of Theodosiopolis, in their neighbourhood. Arzen
was at this time one of the principal centres of Asiatic commerce, and was
filled with warehouses belonging to Syrian and Armenian merchants. The
inhabitants defended themselves against the Turks with courage for six days, by
barricading the streets and assailing the enemy from the roofs of the houses. Katakalon in vain urged his colleague to march to the
relief of the place. Ibrahim, however, felt the danger of an attack on his
rear, and, abandoning the hope of securing booty by the taking of the place,
thought only of destroying the resources it furnished to the Byzantine
government. He set fire to the place and reduced the whole of this great
commercial city to ashes. Never was so great a conflagration witnessed before,
and it has only since been rivalled by the burning of Moscow. One hundred and
forty thousand persons are said to have perished by fire and sword, yet the
Turks captured so many prisoners that the slave-markets of Asia were filled
with ladies and children from Arzen. The Armenian
historians dwell with deep feeling on this terrible calamity, for it commenced
a long series of woes which gradually destroyed all the capital accumulated by
ages of industry in the mountains of Armenia, rendering them one of the richest
and most populous districts in the East Indeed, the rain of Arzen
was the first step to the dispersion of the Armenian Christians and the
desolation of Asia Minor.
As soon as Liparites
effected the junction of the Iberian and Abasgian
troops with the Byzantine army, a battle was fought with the Turks near Kapetron, on the 18th September 1048. The loss on both
sides was great and the results indecisive, but Liparites
was taken prisoner, and the Byzantine troops retired. Ibrahim, however, found
himself unable to continue the campaign, and returned to Rey. Togrulbeg released Liparites
without ransom, or rather he bestowed the ransom sent by the Byzantine emperor
on the Abasgian prince, recommending him to be always
a friend to the Turks. It is said by Arabian historians that Constantine IX, in
order to equal the generosity of Togrul, repaired the
Mohammedan mosque at Constantinople.
Negotiations were commenced between Constantine
and Togrul, but they led to no result, and Togrul invaded the Byzantine Empire in person. His first
attack was directed against the independent principality of Kars, and the Armenians
were defeated in battle, and their general, Thatoul,
taken prisoner. Thatoul was said to have wounded Arsouran, the son of the favorite
minister of Togrul, and when the captive general was
led before his conqueror, the sultan told him that if the young man died he
should be put to death. To this Thatoul calmly
replied, “Sultan, if the wound was inflicted by my hand, your warrior will
certainly die”. This proved true, and Togrul had the
barbarity to execute the brave Armenian, and send his head to the minister
whose son had died, as a proof that it could not slay another.
Togrul then directed his forces against the city of
Manzikert, employing in the siege an immense ballista which had been
constructed by the Emperor Basil II, which he had taken in the town of Bitlis. This immense engine required four hundred men to
drag it along, yet it proved of little use to the Turks, for a Gaul in the
Byzantine service destroyed it by breaking over it three bottles of an
inflammable mixture, while he was approaching the camp of the besiegers as the
bearer of a letter to the sultan. The loss of this engine, however, did not
abate the courage of the troops, and Alkan, the
general of the Khorasmians, promised the sultan to
carry the place by assault. The governor of Manzikert made preparations for
giving the storming party a desperate reception. The walls were garnished with
engines, and the artillery was well supplied with ponderous stones, gigantic
arrows, and beams shod with iron, to launch on the assailants. The defenders
were ordered to remain carefully concealed behind the battlements, and Alkan, after commencing the attack with volleys of
missiles, advanced to the foot of the wall, satisfied that he had silenced the
enemy. But when his men began to plant their ladders, a tempest of stones,
arrows, beams, boiling pitch, and smokeballs overwhelmed the bravest, and the
rest shrunk back. Their hesitation was the signal for a furious sally, in which
Alkan was taken prisoner, and immediately beheaded on
the city walls, in sight of the sultan. Togrul,
finding that he could not take Manzikert, gave up all hope of breaking through
the barrier of fortresses that defended the frontier of the empire, and retired
into Persia, AD 1050.
He again invaded the empire in 1052, but the
Byzantine army having received a strong reinforcement of Frank and Varangian
mercenaries, showed itself so superior to that of theSeljouk
sultan in military discipline, that Togrul thought it
prudent to retire without hazarding a battle. The military system established
by Leo III and Constantine V, and perfected by Nicephorus II, John I, and Basil
II, still upheld the glory of the Byzantine arms.
In looking back from modern times at the history
of the Byzantine empire, the separation of the Greek and Latin churches appears
the most important event in the reign of Constantine IX; but its prominency is owing, on the one hand, to the circumstance
that a closer connection began shortly after to exist between the Eastern and
Western nations; and, on the other, to the decline in the power of the
Byzantine Empire, which gave ecclesiastical affairs greater importance than
they would otherwise have merited. Had the successors of Constantine IX
continued to possess the power and resources of the successors of Leo III or
Basil I, the schism would never have acquired the political importance it
actually attained; for as it related to points of opinion on secondary
questions, and details of ecclesiastical practice, the people would have
abandoned the subject to the clergy and the church, as one not affecting the
welfare of Christians, nor the interests of Christianity. The Emperor Basil II,
who was bigoted as well as pious, had still good sense to view the question as
a political rather than a religious one. He knew that it would be impossible to
reunite the two churches; he saw the disposition of the Greek clergy to
commence a quarrel, to avoid which he endeavoured to negotiate the amicable
separation of the Byzantine ecclesiastical establishment from the papal supremacy.
He proposed that the Pope should be honoured as the first Christian bishop in
rank, but that he should receive a pecuniary indemnity, and admit the right of
the Eastern Church to govern its own affairs according to its own constitution
and local usages, and acknowledge the Patriarch of Constantinople as its head.
This plan, reasonable as it might appear to statesmen, had little chance of
success. The claim of the Bishop of Rome to be the agent of the theocracy which
ruled the Christian church was too generally admitted to allow any limits to be
put to his authority. The propositions of Basil II were rejected, but the open
rupture with Rome did not take place until 1053, when it was caused by the
violent and unjust conduct of the Greek patriarch, Michael Keroularios.
He ordered all the Latin churches in the Byzantine empire, in which mass was
celebrated according to the rites of the Western church, to be closed; and, in
conjunction with Leo, bishop of Achrida, the Patriarch of Bulgaria addressed a
controversial letter to the bishop of Trani, which
revived all the old disputes with the papal church, adding the question about
the use of unleavened bread in the holy communion. The people on both sides,
who understood little of the points contested by the clergy, adopted the simple
rule that it was their duty to hate the members of the other church; and the
Greeks, having their nationality condensed in their ecclesiastical
establishment, far exceeded the Western nations in ecclesiastical bigotry, for
the people in the western nations of Europe were often not very friendly to
papal pretensions. The extreme bigotry of the Greeks soon tended to make the
people of the Byzantine Empire averse to all intercourse with the Latins, as
equals, and they assumed a superiority over nations rapidly advancing in
activity, wealth, power, and intelligence, merely because they deemed them
heretics. The separation of the two churches proved, consequently, more
injurious to the Greeks, in their stationary condition of society, than to the
Western Christians, who were eagerly pressing forward in many paths of social
improvement.
The Empress Zoe died in the year 1050, at the
age of seventy. Constantine IX survived to the year 1054. When the emperor felt
his end approaching, he ordered himself, according to the superstitious fashion
of the time, to be transported to the monastery of Mangana,
which he had constructed. His ministers, and especially his prime-minister,
John the logothetes, and president of the senate, urged him to name Nicephorus
Bryennios, who commanded the Macedonian troops, his successor. The forms of the
imperial constitution rendered it necessary that the sovereign should be
crowned in Constantinople, and a courier was despatched to summon Bryennios to
the capital. But as soon as Theodora heard of this attempt of her
brother-in-law to deprive her of the throne she had been compelled to cede to
him, she hastened to the imperial palace, convoked the senate, ordered the
guards to be drawn out, and, presenting herself as the lawful empress, was
proclaimed sovereign of the empire with universal acclamations. The news of
this event embittered the last moments of the dying voluptuary, who hated
Theodora for the respect her conduct inspired.
Sect.
III
REIGNS
OF THEODORA AND MICHAEL VI STRATIOTIKOS, OR
THE WARLIKE, A.D. 1054-1057
Theodora, with a good deal of masculine vigour
of character, possessed the confined views and acrimonious passions of a
recluse. Her first act was to revenge on Bryennios the attempt which her
brother-in-law had made to deprive her of the throne. He and his partisans were
banished, and his estates confiscated. Her personal attention to the duties of
a sovereign, and the strictness with which she overlooked the general
administration, proved that, unlike her predecessor, she acted according to the
dictates of her own conscience in public affairs, and not as the passive
instrument of those who were willing, for their own ends, to relieve her from
exertion. Yet she followed the system by which the members of her family, in
establishing their despotic power, had undermined the fabric of the Byzantine
administration. Instead of selecting the ablest native senators to act as
ministers and judges, she intrusted the direction of every department of
government to eunuchs of her household, and her primeminister
was Leo Strabospondyles, an ecclesiastic, synkellos of the Patriarch of Constantinople. She even sent
one of her eunuchs to supersede Isaac Comnenos as
commander-in-chief of the army placed on the frontier to watch the movements of
the Turks. Isaac belonged to one of those great aristocratic families in Asia
Minor whose wealth and power had long excited the jealousy of the emperors; and
Theodora now displayed much too openly the distrust with which they were
regarded by the central administration. To preserve all power as much as
possible in her own hands, she presided in person in the cabinet and the
senate, and even heard appeals as supreme judge in civil cases. The performance
of this last duty, though little in harmony with the executive power, was in
her age looked upon by her subjects as a most laudable act.
Fortune favoured Theodora in the circumstances
of her short reign, and her popularity was in a great measure derived from
events over which she exercised no control. She was the last scion of a family
which had upheld with glory the institutions of the empire for nearly two
centuries, which had secured to its subjects a degree of internal tranquillity
and commercial prosperity far greater than had been enjoyed during the same
period by any equal portion of the human race, and the memory of which in
succeeding years excited deep regret in the breasts of the Greeks themselves,
though the Greeks were the body of their subjects treated with greatest neglect.
During her reign, the empire was disturbed by no civil war, nor desolated by
any foreign Invasion. The seasons were temperate, the fertility of the earth
enabled the people to enjoy the blessings of peace, and a pestilence which had
previously ravaged the principal cities of the empire suddenly ceased.
At the
advanced age of seventy-six, Theodora felt herself so robust that she looked
forward to a long life; and the monks who swarmed in her palace, observing her
infatuated confidence in the vigor of her frame,
flattered her with prophecies that she was destined to reign for many years.
The superstitious feelings of the time, as well as the personal vanity of
Theodora, caused her to place implicit confidence in these ecclesiastical
soothsayers; but in the midst of her projects she was suddenly attacked by an
intestine disorder that brought her to the grave. To prevent the government
falling into the hands of the territorial aristocracy, she, with her dying
breath, named Michael Stratiotikos as her successor.
He had been a general of some reputation, and an efficient member of the
official establishment; but advanced age had converted him into a decrepit
general and doting senator. The prime-minister and the eunuchs of Theodora had
nevertheless suggested his nomination, as it promised to place on the throne one
who could not avoid being an instrument in their hands. Theodora, hoping to
recover her health, compelled the new emperor to swear with the most tremendous
imprecations that he would always remain obedient to her orders, but she
survived his nomination only a few hours; and with her expired the race of
Basil the Slavonian groom, and the administrative glory of the Byzantine
Empire, on the 30th of August, 1057.
The accession of Michael VI was no sooner known
than the president of the senate, Theodosios Monomachos, nephew of Constantine IX, attempted to mount
the throne, pretending a hereditary claim to the imperial succession. To
enforce his ridiculous pretension, he armed his household slaves, who formed a
numerous body, collected assistance from his friends, assembled a mob, and,
proceeding through the streets of Constantinople at the head of this band,
broke open the public prisons and talked of revolution. His plan was to storm
the palace; but the moment his movements were made known to the officers of the
native and Varangian companies of guards on duty, they marched against him, and
he was immediately abandoned by all his followers. When he sought an asylum in
St. Sophia's, he found the doors of the church closed against him and was taken
with his son sitting on the steps. This sedition was so contemptible that the
people ridiculed the affair in a lampoon, and the emperor only banished its
leader to Pergamus.
Michael VI was a man of a limited capacity, and
his faculties were now dulled by age; yet accident intrusted him with the
direction of the government at a delicate crisis. He was called upon to
maintain the integrity of the Roman administrative system against the assaults
of a territorial aristocracy, on whom the manners of the age and the altered relations
of society had conferred powers at variance with the strict centralization of
the empire. Yet the incapacity of Michael must be regarded as having only
accelerated a change which it would have required the genius and energy of a
great administrative reformer like Leo III to avert, and which could only have
been averted by remodelling the constitution of the empire.
The administrative vigor
of the government was diminished; its legal supremacy had vanished; the
connection between the provinces and the capital was weakened; the people at a
distance no longer respected the emperor as the centre of social order and the
fountain of impartial justice; ruined roads had broken up the administrative
unity of empire; great nobles governed their immense estates as sovereign
princes; and frontier communities, being often compelled to defend themselves
against foreign invaders by their own resources, began to consider how far
those resources could be rendered available to lessen the fiscal extortions of
the central government. The territorial aristocracy of the Byzantine Empire had
also at this time become warriors like the barons of the feudal states, and as
they joined learning to their military qualities, they were able to perform the
duties of judges and magistrates on their estates. Jealousy of their power, and
the corruption of society in the capital, had led the emperors to intrust not
only the direction of the civil administration, but even the highest military
commands, to eunuchs of the imperial household, and a gradual hostility had
grown up between this class and the territorial aristocracy. This employment of
slaves and domestics as generals and statesmen seems strange to those who judge
of the past by the actual condition of society; but no feature in Eastern
manners has been more permanent than the high social position acquired by
slaves in their masters' families. Their education was often as carefully
attended to, their character and abilities more impartially estimated, and
their faults more judiciously eradicated, than those of the children of the
house. The oldest records of society show us the slave as superior to the hired
servant; and the administration of the Ottoman Empire, even in modern times,
has been of easier access to the slave than to the citizen. Despotism is also
compelled to seek rather for personal devotion than systematic service, and no
stronger proof can be adduced of the progress which the Byzantine government
had made towards pure despotism, than the power the emperors had acquired of
ruling their subjects by the members of their household.
Michael VI was not blind to the hostile feelings
of a powerful class of his subjects, but he relied on the permanence of the
established order of things. The support of the senate, the obedience of the
municipality of Constantinople, the conservative feelings of the clubs of the
hippodrome, and of the corporations of the traders, seemed a complete guarantee
against the success of any revolution; and the emperor treated all these
classes with liberality. He felt, likewise, so confident in the attachment of
the soldiers to their military organization, that he imprudently wounded the
pride and self-interest of the principal officers of the army and the official
nobility, by holding back from them the promotions and donatives they were
accustomed to receive at Easter. Other measures, equally ill-judged, were
adopted about the same time. Katakalon, the most
popular general in the empire, was deprived of the command at Antioch on a
charge of fraudulently enriching himself by diminishing the number of soldiers
in his government, and extorting money from the inhabitants. The justice of the
act was, however, suspected, as he was replaced by Michael Ouranos, a nephew of
the emperor. Michael VI, likewise, on reestablishing
Nicephorus Bryennios to the rank of which he had been deprived by Theodora,
refused to restore his private fortune, which had been unjustly sequestrated;
and when Bryennios urged his claim in person, the old emperor cut short his
solicitations by saying, “Finished work alone merits wages”. He had
already ordered the restored general to load a division of three thousand men
to reinforce the army in Cappadocia, and Bryennios now left the capital
inflamed with anger. Several of the most powerful nobles of Asia Minor had
already formed a plot to overthrow the existing government, and they availed
themselves of the offence given to Katakalon and
Bryennios to establish secret communications with these officers and engage
them in the conspiracy. Isaac Comnenus, Romanes Skleros, Michael Burtzes, and Nicephoras Botaneiates, who resided at Constantinople in princely
state, directed the plot and arranged the plan of rebellion.
The attention of government was diverted from
these conspirators by the conduct of an officer with whom they had no
connection. Hervé, a Norman general, who had
distinguished himself under Maniakes, had
subsequently served the empire with zeal and fidelity. On soliciting the rank
of magistros, his claim was treated by the emperor in
a way which irritated the pride of the Norman to such a degree that he quitted
Constantinople, and hastened to an estate he possessed at Dabarme
in Armenia. Collecting three hundred of his countrymen from the garrisons in
the neighbourhood, he deserted to the Turks. He found, however, that the
Infidels were less inclined to tolerate the proud spirit of independence that
characterised the Normans than the Byzantines, and, separating from Samouch, the Seljouk leader, with
whom he quarrelled, heled his little band to the city of Aklat,
where he was surprised and made prisoner by the emir Aponasar.
The rashness of Bryennios was even greater than
that of Hervé; and as he was one of the conspirators,
his conduct might have ruined their enterprise. The chiefs at Constantinople,
having settled their plans, decided that Isaac Comnenus was to be the future
emperor; and after plighting their mutual faith, with all the religious
ceremonies and horrid imprecations which were then considered necessary to bind
the conscience, retired to their estates to collect troops. Bryennios had, in
the mean time, reached Cappadocia, where he ordered
the paymaster of the army to make an advance of pay to the soldiers under his
command. This was refused, as being at variance with the emperor's orders. John
Opsaras, who held the office of paymaster, was a
patrician; yet, when he visited Bryennios in his tent, that officer so
completely lost all command over his temper, that he struck him on the face,
pulled his beard, threw him on the ground, and then ordered him to be dragged
to prison. Another patrician, Lykanthos, who
commanded the troops of Pisidia and Lycaonia in a separate camp, convinced that
the conduct of Bryennios announced an intention to rebel, hastened with his
guards to the spot, delivered Opsaras from
confinement, and arrested Bryennios, whose eyes Opsaras
ordered to be put out, and then sent him a prisoner to Constantinople.
The principal conspirators, fearing that their
plot was discovered, repaired to Kastamona in
Paphlagonia, where Isaac Comnenus was waiting, at his family seat, until the
preparations for the rebellion were completed. The assembly of the conspirators
having put an end to concealment, Isaac Comnenus was conducted by his partisans
to the plain of Gounavia, and proclaimed emperor, on
the 8th June 1057. Katakalon, finding some difficulty
in joining his companions, forged an imperial order, giving him the command of
five legions, which he concentrated in the plain of Nicopolis,
pretending that he was to lead them against Samouch,
a Turkish chief who had invaded the empire. By promises and threats, he
succeeded in engaging the officers of this force to join the rebellion; and,
effecting a junction with the troops Isaac had already assembled, the rebels
crossed the Sangarius, and gained possession of Nice.
The Emperor Michael placed the imperial army
under the command of Theodore, a eunuch whom he had raised to the rank of Domestikos of the East, and the Bulgarian prince, Aaron,
who, though a brother-in-law of Isaac, was his personal enemy. The
imperial generals broke down the bridges over the Sangarius,
in order to cut off the communications of the rebels with the provinces in
which their family influence lay, and then approached Nicaea. Isaac Comnenus
was encamped about twelve stades to the north of the
city, and the foragers of the two armies were soon in constant communication;
the leaders on both sides overlooking the intercourse, in the expectation of
gaining deserters. The imperialists urged their opponents not to sacrifice
their lives for an ambitious rebel, who exposed their lives and fortunes for
his own profit; while the rebels laughed at the idea of serving an old dotard,
who intrusted the command of his armies to eunuchs. Isaac, seeing that nothing
was to be gained by these conversations, gave strict orders to break off all
communication; and Theodore, attributing the measure to fear, advanced to Petroa, only fifteen stades from
the rebel camp.
A battle
was thus inevitable. Isaac Comnenus drew out his army, which was composed of
veteran troops, at a place called Hades. Katakalon
commanded the left wing, and was opposed to Basil Tarchaniotes,
the general of the European troops, the ablest and most distinguished of the
Macedonian nobility. Romanos Skleros, at the head of
the right wing, was opposed to Aaron, who had under his orders the patrician Lykanthos and the Norman Randolph. Isaac and Theodore
directed their respective centres. The battle was not severely contested. Aaron
routed the right wing of the rebels, but his success led to no result; for Katakalon, having defeated the Macedonian troops, stormed
the imperial camp, while Isaac overthrew their centre. The aristocratic
constitution of society displays itself in the incidents of this battle. The
superior temper of the arms of the chiefs gave their exploits as much
importance as in the Homeric battles. When the victorious troops of Isaac and Katakalon assailed the troops of Aaron, Randolph found
himself borne away among a crowd of fugitives. Disengaging himself, he
perceived Nicephorus Botaneiates leading the
pursuers. Shouting his war-cry, the Norman knight met the Asiatic noble; but
his sword was broken on the well-tempered helmet of his enemy, and he was led a
prisoner to the rebel camp. Several officers of rank were slain in the imperial
army, and many made prisoners. The victors lost only one man of rank. Isaac
Comnenus advanced to Nicomedia, where he was met by envoys from the Emperor
Michael, who offered him the title of Caesar for himself, and a general amnesty
for his partisans, if they would lay aside their arms. Isaac knew that he had
no safety but as emperor, and Katakalon boldly
opposed all terms of arrangement. Michael Psellos,
called the Prince of Philosophers, was one of the envoys, and seeing how
matters were likely to end, he deserted the cause of his old master with more
promptitude than might have been expected from a learned pedant. The emperor,
finding he had nothing to expect from negotiation, attempted to fortify himself
in Constantinople. He compelled the senators to take an oath, and subscribe a
declaration, that they would never acknowledge Isaac Comnenus as emperor; and
he lavished money, places, promotions, and privileges, on the people and the
municipality. Yet the moment the victors reached the palace of Damatrys, the senators rushed to St. Sophia’s, and begged
the Patriarch to absolve them from the oath they had just taken. The
stern Patriarch, Michael Keroularios, affected
to resist, but consented to be himself the medium of communication with the new
emperor. The cause of Michael VI was now hopeless; Isaac was proclaimed
emperor, and his predecessor was ordered to quit the imperial palace, that it
might be prepared for the reception of the new sovereign. It is said the old man,
before departing, sent to ask the Patriarch what he would give him for his
resignation; the intriguing pontiff replied, with sarcastic humility, “The
kingdom of heaven”. On the 31st of August, Michael VI returned as a private
individual to his own house, where he lived undisturbed, dying two years after.
On the 2nd of September, Isaac I received the imperial crown in the Church of
St. Sophia.
To contemporaries, this revolution presented
nothing to distinguish it from the changes of sovereign, which had been an
ordinary event in the Byzantine empire, and which were ascribed by the wisest
statesmen of the time to the decree of Heaven, and not to the working of
political and moral causes, which the will of God allows the intelligence of
man to employ for effecting the improvement or decline of human affairs. It
would be an error to ascribe the success of this rebellion to the weakness of
the reigning emperor, and to the defects of his administration, or to the
ability of bold and rapacious conspirators, without taking into account the
apathy of the inhabitants of the empire to a mere change in the name of their
emperor. Perhaps no man then living perceived that this event was destined to
change the whole system of government, destroy the fabric of the central administration,
deliver up the provinces of Asia an easy conquest to the Seljouk
Turks, and the capital a prey to a band of crusaders.
General Observations
We have now traced the progress of the Eastern
Roman Empire through an eventful period of three centuries and a half. We
have contemplated the rare spectacle of a great empire reviving from a state of
political anarchy and social disorganisation; we have seen it reinvigorated by
the establishment of a high degree of order and security for life and property;
and we have recorded its progress to the attainment of great military power. We
have endeavoured to trace the causes that led to this change, as well as to
record the events which accompanied it. It would now be an instructive task to
compare the condition of the population living under this reformed Roman Empire
with that of the inhabitants of the countries which had once constituted the
Empire of the West; but scholars have not yet performed the preliminary work
necessary for such an inquiry, so that even a superficial examination of the
subject would run into discussions on vague details. Each student of history,
therefore, who may happen to turn over the pages of this volume, must institute
the comparison for himself in that branch of historical or antiquarian
research with which he is most familiar. Unfortunately the records of the
Eastern Empire are deprived of one great source of historical interest they
tell us very little concerning the condition of the mass of the population; and
while they enable us to study the actions and the policy of the emperors, and
even to observe the political consequences of their respective administrations,
they leave us in ignorance concerning many important questions relating to the
composition of the mass of society; they supply few facts for discriminating
its separate elements, or for forming a classification of its social ranks. We
know that freemen, serfs, and slaves were mingled together in every city and
province; and over the whole surface of the Byzantine dominions, heterogeneous
races of mankind were compressed into apparent unity by the powerful government
that ruled at Constantinople. But we are without the means of assigning to each
class of society, and to each discordant nationality, its exact share and
influence in the mass that composed the empire. We perceive that there was
no real unity among the people, and yet the unity created by the government was
so imposing, that both contemporary and modern historians have treated the
history of the Byzantine empire as if it represented the feelings and interests
of a Byzantine nation, and almost overlooked the indelible distinctions of the
Greek, Armenian, and Sclavonian races, which, while
forced into simultaneous action by the great administrative power that ruled
them, constantly retained their own national peculiarities.
Two grand social distinctions illuminate the
obscurities of Byzantine history during the period comprised in this volume. A
regular administration of justice, that secured a high degree of security for
life and property, gave the people an immeasurable superiority over the
subjects of all contemporary governments, and bound the various nations within
the limits of the Eastern Empire in willing submission to the central power.
Through all the darkness of the Byzantine
annals, we perceive that a middle class exerted some influence on society, and
that it formed an element of the population, independent of the heterogeneous
national races from which it was composed. But the nature of its composition
explains sufficiently why its political influence proved extremely
insignificant when compared with its numbers, wealth, and social
importance. Local institutions were reduced to such a state of subordination to
the central authority, that they wanted the power to train the different
nations of which the middle class was composed to similar political sentiments.
All attempts of the people to reform their own condition proved fruitless, and
demands for redress of public grievances could only prove successful by a
revolution. Perhaps this evil may be inherent in the nature of all governments
which carry centralization so far as to suppress the expression of public
opinion in municipal bodies. In such governments, whether monarchical or
republican, the central authority becomes so powerful, that public opinion is
rendered inefficacious to effect reform, and the people soon learn to regard
revolutions as the only chance of improvement
The middle class through the Byzantine Empire
was a remnant of ancient society an element that had survived from the days of
municipal liberty and national independence. Many free citizens still continued
to till their lands many were occupied in manufactures and commerce. It was the
existence of this class which filled the treasury of the emperors (taxation
yields comparatively little in a state peopled by great nobles and impoverished
serfs); and it was the wealth of the Byzantine government which gave it an
ultimate superiority over all its contemporaries for several centuries.
Military excellence was at that time as much the
effect of individual strength and activity in the soldier, as of discipline in
the army or talent in the general. The wealth of the Byzantine emperors enabled
them to fill their armies with the best soldiers in Europe; in their mercenary
legions, knights and nobles fought in the ranks, and the captains of their
guards were kings and princes. Nor were the native troops inferior to the
foreign mercenaries. The lance of the Byzantine officer was famous in personal
encounters long before the aristocracy of Western Europe sought military renown
by imitating an exercise in which sleighf-of-hand
rather than valour secured the victory.
It is not difficult to point out generally the
causes which supplied the Byzantine treasury with large revenues, at a period
when the precious metals were extremely rare in the west of Europe. A curious
comparison might be made between the riches and luxury of the court of
Constantinople during the reign of Theophilus, and the poverty and rudeness
that prevailed at the court of Winchester under his contemporary, Egbert. The
difference of the value of the precious metals is peculiarly striking.
Theophilus gave two pounds’ weight of gold, or a hundred and forty-four
byzants, for a fine horse, of which the market value appears to have been a
hundred byzants; yet, among the Saxons, about the same time, the price of a
common horse was two-thirds of a pound weight of silver. It is difficult to
explain the rarity of the precious metals in the West, when we remember that
the tin of Egbert’s dominions found its way to Constantinople, and that the
byzants of the Eastern emperors were the current gold coin throughout England.
The subjects of fee Byzantine empire supplied the greater part of western and
the whole of northern Europe with Indian produce, spices, precious stones,
silk, fine woollen cloth, carpets, cotton, what we now call morocco
leather, dye-stuffs, gums, oil, wine, and fruits; besides most manufactured
articles, and all luxuries. Yet, from the poverty of the Western nations, their
consumption must have been comparatively small. The profits of the trade,
however exorbitant they might have been on particular transactions, would not
have formed an important article of national wealth, unless a constant profit
had been realized by the difference of value of the precious metals in the
various countries with which dealings were carried on. Few of the Western
nations worked any mines, and yet they were constantly consuming a considerable
amount of gold and silver; the Byzantine Empire possessed considerable mines of
silver and we know that gold was always abundant in the treasury. Gold and
silver coin and slaves were consequently commodities on which a sure profit was
always realised. But in the eleventh century a great change took place in
society in Western Europe, coincident with the stationary condition of the
Byzantine Empire. In the West, the spirit of social reform infused a sentiment
of justice into the counsels of kings; in the East, a spirit of conservation,
pervading the imperial administration, withered the energies of society.
VOLUME III
A.D. 1057-1453