matrimonial designs. But he already had a wife, who was not of the
self-sacrificing disposition of the wife of Romanus. As soon as she
heard of the honor to which Zoe destined her husband, Constantine
Artoclinas fell ill and did not long survive. It was the general opinion
that his wife had poisoned him, either through jealousy of Zoe, or
because she felt an aversion to passing the rest of her days in a
convent. Zoe, however, was readily consoled.
She again selected an old admirer, Constantine Monomachus, whom Michael
IV. had banished to Mitylene because of his attentions to the empress,
but who had been recalled on the accession of Zoe and Theodora and
appointed to a high official position in Greece. An imperial galley was
despatched with a royal courier to notify him of the new dignity that
awaited him, and to bring him back to Constantinople. Upon his arrival
he was invested with the imperial robes. His marriage with Zoe was
performed by one of the clergy, for the patriarch Alexius declined to
officiate at the third marriage of the empress, which in this case was
doubly uncanonical, as both Zoe and Constantine had been twice married.
The choice made by Zoe is a sad commentary on the immorality of the age.
The life and character of Constantine X. show the utter lack of moral
principle which prevailed in the court circles. After he had buried two
wives, Constantine Monomachus had won the affections of a beautiful and
wealthy young widow called Sclerena, who openly became his mistress and
accompanied him in his exile to Mitylene. Yet, in the eyes of the
orthodox, her position as mistress was more respectable, as being less
uncanonical than if she had become his third wife. As Sclerena had stood
by him in the days of his adversity, Constantine insisted upon her
sharing with him his prosperity, and when he assumed the purple he
bargained with Zoe that he should retain his mistress, a condition to
which Zoe in her shamelessness agreed. Hence, "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, the other as his
mistress."
Sclerena was officially saluted with the title of Augusta, and possessed
a rank equal to that of Theodora, whose relative importance had been
reduced by the advent of the Emperor Constantine X. She held a court of
her own and was installed in apartments of the imperial palace.
Owing to her beauty and her elegant manners she gathered about her a
brilliant court circle, which in its sumptuousness and ostentation
contrasted greatly with the dull ceremony and sombre atmosphere of the
apartments of the elderly sisters, Zoe and Theodora. Sclerena's
disposition, too, was amiable and winning, and she was admired for the
constancy with which she had clung to her lover in the days of his
misfortune. Constantine, in return for her self-sacrificing devotion
when he was an impoverished exile, sought to repay her by the most
lavish expenditure of the public funds. Her apartments were made the
most elegant and luxurious in the city, and her toilettes were the envy
of all the aristocratic ladies of Constantinople.
Though Constantine showed in every way his partiality for his mistress,
it did not disturb the domestic tranquillity of the imperial household.
Zoe and Sclerena lived on the best of terms, and the utter absence of
jealousy in the aged wife is less remarkable than her utter
shamelessness.
The moral feelings of the people, however, were not so completely
corrupted as those of their superiors. They resented the lavish
expenditures of the public moneys upon the concubine of the emperor, and
they also resented the insult thus put upon their empress. They felt
that the lives of the aged sisters, the only survivors of the Macedonian
house, could not be safe in a palace where vice reigned supreme, and
where secret murders had so often occurred.
The incensed populace raised a sedition on the feast of the Forty
Martyrs, when it became the duty of the emperor to walk in solemn
procession to the church of Our Saviour in Chalke, whence he proceeded
on horseback to the church of the Martyrs. As the procession was about
to move from the palace, a cry was raised: "Down with Sclerena; we will
not have her for empress! Zoe and Theodora are our mothers--we will not
allow them to be murdered!" The mob then sought to lay hands on the
emperor to tear him in pieces, but the tumult was quieted by the sudden
appearance of Zoe and Theodora on the balcony and the people were
dispersed without serious damage being done.
The Empress Zoe died in 1050, at the age of seventy. Constantine X.
survived to the year 1055. He, before the end came, was anxious to name
his successor, but as soon as Theodora heard of the attempt of her
brother-in-law to deprive her of the throne, she hastened to the palace,
where the Senate was quickly convened, and presented herself as the
lawful empress. With universal acclamation, Theodora was proclaimed sole
sovereign of the Empire.
Though seventy-five years of age when she became sole ruler of the
destinies of the Eastern Empire, Theodora exhibited great vigor of
character and her short reign was a fortunate period for the Byzantines,
owing to her attention to public business and the freedom from external
conflicts. To preserve power in her own hands, Theodora presided in
person at the meetings of the Cabinet and the Senate, and heard appeals
as supreme judge in civil cases. Her long monastic life had developed in
her the narrow views and acrimonious passions of a recluse, but an
ascetic spirit was a relief after the sensual performances of the court
of Constantinople. Even at the advanced age of seventy-six, Theodora
felt so robust that she looked forward to a long life. The monks
flattered her with prophecies that she was to reign for many years. But
in the midst of her plans, she was suddenly attacked by an intestinal
disorder that speedily brought her to the grave. Theodora was the last
scion of a family which had upheld with glory the institutions of the
Empire for nearly two centuries, and had secured to its subjects a
degree of internal tranquillity and commercial prosperity far greater
than that enjoyed during the same period by any other portion of the
human race. "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."
[Illustration 6: _BYZANTINE INTERIOR, NINTH CENTURY From a
water-color by S. Baron, after a restoration by P. Bénard.
In this period military exigencies did not permit of numerous
apartments. We find the great room, the place of reunion, a
sumptuously decorated apartment, in which also the meals were
served and the bed was placed. The floor was of bricks, and the
apartment was warmed by hot air supplied from a_ hypocaustum,
_placed below the floor, and admitted through a painted iron
grating. The wall decorations presented an infinite variety of
beautifully executed mouldings and scroll designs of flowers and
foliage, common to the Byzantine manner. The furniture of the
room was sober in style. The bed was shaped and ornamented
somewhat like a modern sofa. A curtain on sliding rings served
to screen from draughts, as well as to separate beds. In this
room the lady received her guests._]
What a contrast is offered between the empresses of these later
centuries and the great names of the earlier period, Eudoxia and
Pulcheria and Eudocia and the great Theodora! We have fallen on evil
times; and in the general corruption, woman has degenerated. During the
remaining centuries which it falls to our lot to consider, we shall find
that the chronicles of women continue to exhibit the downward march of
womanhood, until with the utter debasement of woman, the fabric of
society gives way, and all is darkness in the history of the sex.
We have had a glimpse of the luxury with which the Empress Eudoxia
surrounded herself in her palace on the Bosporus, and our curiosity and
interest may be satisfied concerning the domestic surroundings of a
woman of rank during the period of the Byzantine decadence. The only
truly original Christian art, down to the eleventh century, was the
Byzantine; it dominated both Christian and pagan artists. In the period
to which we refer, military exigencies did not permit of numerous
apartments. We find the great room, the place of reunion, a sumptuously
decorated apartment, in which also the meals were served and the bed was
placed.
This chief room showed little constructive quality, but it was superbly
decorated. The square, heavy door was usually contrived below a
relieving arch, whose archivolt was richly charged with sculptured and
painted ornaments; the twin windows were supported by a pied-droit or on
small columns. The flat walls rarely had a real projecting entablature;
the ends of joists were simulated by cornices resting on consoles or
modillions; the architrave and the frieze were only a painted effect.
The floor was of bricks. Chimneys were not yet used, and the apartment
was warmed by hot air supplied from a hypocaustum, placed within the
walls or below the floor, and admitted through a painted iron grating.
The wall decorations presented an infinite variety of beautifully
executed mouldings and scroll designs of flowers and foliage, common to
the Byzantine style. A prominent feature of the mural decoration was the
numerous figures, in stiff attitudes, draped with garments falling in
meagre folds, and decked with abundant fringes and precious stones,
after the Oriental fashion; close to these figures were placed groups of
Greek letters.
The furniture of the room was sober in style. The bed was shaped and
ornamented somewhat like a modern sofa. The occupant reclined rather
than lay on it, for the cushions were heaped up increasingly toward the
head of the bed. It was customary to sleep without garments, the only
covering being an ample sheet. A curtain on sliding rings was
indispensable; it served to screen from draughts, as well as to separate
beds; moreover, it supplemented the scanty furniture of the room.
Over the bed was a lighted lamp. This was invariably used, for darkness
was dreaded, and it was believed that the light kept off evil spirits
and prevented baleful apparitions. In this room the great lady of our
period received her guests; here intrigues were plotted; here she
partook of her repasts, waited upon by her many serving-maids; here she
passed, indeed, most of her life.
XIV
THE PRINCESSES OF THE COMNENI
With the end of the Macedonian house in 1057, all the elements of
discord in the Byzantine Empire seemed to have been loosed. Civil war
and foreign invasions rapidly succeeded one another, and the empire
hastened to its doom. But the downward progress was for a time checked
by the rise of the Comneni, a prominent family, who controlled the
destinies and exerted a paramount influence over the career of the
Byzantine government for over a century, in fact, until its overthrow by
the Latin Crusaders in 1204. In the chronicles of the Comneni, its
princesses played a notable though not always creditable role; and the
undercurrent of Byzantine history for a century and a half was
determined largely by woman's influence and woman's artifice.
Of the great families whose names appear on every page of the Byzantine
history of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, that of the Comneni is by
far the most illustrious. The hypothesis that the Comneni were an
ancient Roman house which followed Constantine from Old Rome to New Rome
must be given up: so important an item in the family glories of the
house would not have been passed over in silence by Anna Comnena and her
husband in their historical works. We must accept the testimony of a
contemporary, Psellus, that the family was of Greek or Thracian origin,
and derived its name from the ancestral seat, the village of Comne in
the valley of the Torniga, near the site of the city of Adrianople.
The first of the line prominent in Byzantine annals was the illustrious
Manuel Comnenus, who, under Basil II., aided in settling the troubled
condition of the East and in reestablishing the Empire on a firm
footing. As a result of his labors for the state, Manuel acquired vast
estates in Cappadocia, and, from this time, his family ranked as one of
the wealthiest and most aristocratic houses of the Byzantine nobility.
Manuel, upon his deathbed, left his two sons, Isaac and John, to the
care and the gratitude of his sovereign. The two lads were carefully
educated in all the learning and trained in all the manly
accomplishments of the day; and their brotherly love became the subject
of comment in an age when self-seeking was the most salient
characteristic of the aristocratic class. When they attained manhood,
both made brilliant marriages which greatly increased the lustre of
their family name: Isaac married a captive princess of Bulgaria, and
John wedded Anna Dalassena, the daughter of the patrician Dalassenus,
nicknamed Charon from the number of enemies he had sent to the infernal
regions. Isaac was fated to die childless and his wife is unknown to
fame, but Anna, the wife of John, was destined to be the most remarkable
woman of her house.
The Empress Theodora, in her last days, had nominated Michael
VI.,--Stratioticus,--an aged and decrepit veteran, as her successor; but
his elevation was resented by the soldiers, who plotted and successfully
carried through a conspiracy by which Michael was dispossessed and Isaac
Comnenus, at that time the most popular general of the East, was
elevated to the throne. But the usurpation was not attended with the
blessings of heaven: Isaac was stricken with disease before he had
reigned a full year, and retired to a monastery to die, abdicating the
throne and selecting his brother John as his successor. For some
unaccountable reason, and much to the chagrin of his wife Anna, whose
ambitions were distinctly imperial, John declined the honor, and
persisted in his refusal in spite of the entreaties of his wife and
relatives, and with a seeming blindness to the welfare of the state.
Possibly he felt that a curse rested upon a dynasty which had usurped
the throne. Constantine Ducas, another Cappadocian patrician, was then
selected; during his reign of seven troubled years he proved himself to
be a sorry administrator. His empress, Eudocia Makremvolitissa, and Anna
Dalassena are the two dominating personalities who determined the tenor
of court intrigue and largely influenced the course of the events of
this period. Anna most intensely hated Ducas and all his house, for they
were occupying a throne which she thought should have been retained in
her own family; and her relations with the empress were those of rivalry
or of friendship, in proportion as Eudocia was acting in sympathy with
or in opposition to her husband's family.
Constantine XI.--Ducas--was as intensely partisan as Anna; and when he
found his end approaching, he wished above all things to assure the
elevation of his three children, Michael, Andronicus, and Constantine.
Constantine was well aware of the dangers which his dynasty would incur
should the empress marry a second time; before conferring upon her the
regency of the Empire, he therefore exacted from her a most solemnly
attested promise that under no circumstances would she take a second
husband. This important document was deposited in the hands of the
patriarch, John Xiphilinus. Constantine made the Senate, also, take an
oath never to acknowledge any other emperor than one of his own
children. Feeling that he had bound his wife by irretrievable bonds, and
that every precaution had been taken to assure the implicit fulfilment
of his wishes, Constantine breathed his last with a contented mind.
But Eudocia soon discovered the need of a strong arm for the protection
of her own rights and those of her sons. A woman of executive gifts, she
was also devoted to literary pursuits, and her knowledge of history had
taught her with how much reluctance the Byzantines submitted to the
sovereignty of a woman. She recalled, too, the experience of the Empress
Theophano, who had found prudent guardians for her sons, Basil II. and
Constantine IX., in the persons of the soldiers Nicephorus II. and John
I., though she was appalled by the vices of this empress, who had
married and murdered the first and been scorned by the second guardian.
Furthermore, threatening invasions and domestic unrest proved the need
of a soldier as her colleague in the Empire. Love came to the assistance
of reason, and Eudocia determined to break her vows and to take a second
husband.
Romanus Diogenes, the most daring and popular general of the Empire, had
been convicted of treason for participation in a conspiracy against her
children's throne, and was then in prison awaiting sentence of death
from Eudocia as regent. The latter, however, became enamored of her
distinguished captive, and his beauty and valor convinced her that he
was destined to share with her the throne. The army was clamoring for
his release; and when he received a full pardon from the empress-regent,
it at first created no suspicion of her romantic designs. The Seljukian
Turks were at that time overrunning Cappadocia and it was necessary that
the army should be under the control of an able and a daring general.
Romanus was therefore raised from the scaffold to the headship of the
army.
Before the empress could take any further step toward carrying out her
matrimonial intentions, it was necessary to secure possession of the
document which evidenced her pledge to her husband that she never would
contract a second marriage. Feminine diplomacy enabled her to accomplish
this delicate task; and the lack of principle and high moral character
in the patriarch caused him to fall readily into the net laid for him by
Eudocia.
Xiphilinus at first urged upon her emissary the sanctity of the oath the
empress had taken, and the sacred nature of the trust he had assumed;
but when it was whispered in his presence that his own brother was
destined for the high honor, the patriarch's scruples were relaxed, and
he yielded--out of proper regard, as he alleged, for the welfare of the
state. He resigned the important paper into the empress's hand, and at
her solicitation proposed and carried through a measure in the Senate,
favoring her second marriage, and in addition released the senators from
their vow never to recognize as emperor any other than a son of
Constantine. Great was the confusion of the credulous patriarch when he
realized that he had been outwitted by the clever woman, who, when her
plans were fully matured, made an official proclamation that she had
selected Romanus IV.,--Diogenes,--the most brilliant general of the
Empire, to share with her the throne and to act as guardian to her sons.
Her choice was the occasion of much satisfaction to the army and the
people, but caused jealousy and dissension in the imperial household.
John Ducas, the late emperor's brother, held the rank of Cæsar and was
the natural guardian of his nephews; he at once began to conspire for
the overthrow of Romanus and the retirement of Eudocia.
The new emperor at once assumed his duties of warding off the enemies of
the Empire, and engaged in a deadly conflict with the Seljukian Turks.
Though at first successful, his army was finally routed and almost
annihilated, and Romanus himself was taken captive, on the fatal field
of Manzikert, 1071,--a decisive battle that marked the beginning of the
end of Byzantine history and presaged the final conquest of
Constantinople by the Turks. Romanus's capture produced a revolution at
court. John Ducas seized the reins of government, ostensibly in the
interests of Michael VII., son of Constantine; and when Romanus, having
been released by his gallant foe, returned to Constantinople, Ducas had
him seized and blinded and left to die through neglect. Eudocia was
forced to retire to a monastery and take the veil; there she devoted
herself to literary labors. She is reputed to be the author of a learned
work, still extant, entitled Ionia, a species of historical and
mythological dictionary. The last public appearance of the hapless
Eudocia was on the occasion of the funeral of the valiant Romanus, which
she was permitted to celebrate in an imposing manner.
A period of anarchy followed the cruel death of Romanus, and there were
at one time no less than six pretenders to the throne. Throughout this
trying period John Ducas maintained his power as regent, relinquishing
his regency only when his ward, Michael VII., became of age and asserted
his rights. Michael was fortunate in the choice of his empress, Princess
Maria, daughter of the King of Iberia, whose beauty and grace are
celebrated by the historian Anna Comnena. When her husband was
overthrown and slain by the rebel Nicephorus Botaniates, Maria married
the latter, with the hope of securing the throne for her child and the
regency for herself. And from this time on her story is closely
interwoven with that of the Comneni princesses, to whom we now return.
John Comnenus died soon after Constantine Ducas, leaving to the widowed
Anna the task of bringing up a large family of eight children,--Manuel,
Isaac, Alexius, Adrian, Nicephorus, Maria, Eudocia, and Theodora. But
Anna was equal to the task, and deserves to be ranked among the great
mothers of the world. She gave herself up to the proper education of her
sons and daughters, and to the promotion of their political advancement.
She could never console herself for the loss of an imperial crown
through the weakness of her husband, and all her tireless energy was
directed toward recovering her lost opportunity and reaching the throne
through the elevation of one of her sons. What is recounted of her shows
that she was a woman of extraordinary intelligence, inexhaustible
energy, remarkable political astuteness, and inordinate ambition.
After performing political services of great merit, Manuel, the eldest,
died at an early age. The mother sought to make her sons Isaac and
Alexius men who could show themselves capable of performing every task
imposed upon them in the high station they were destined to acquire; and
the proof of the influence she exerted in the formation of their
characters is seen not only in their high attainments, but also in the
ascendency she retained over Alexius when he had reached the throne.
Owing to her undying hatred of the house of Ducas, Anna attached herself
to the party of the Empress Eudocia and Romanus, and, being then in high
favor at court, she married her daughter Theodora to Romanus's son
Constantine. The revolution made by John Ducas to the advantage of
himself and his ward, Michael VII., upset all the well-laid plans of
Anna Dalassena; and the fall of Romanus marked for a time the end of the
favor of the Comneni. Anna showed her firmness of character by remaining
faithful to the cause of the dethroned emperor. Her correspondence with
him was detected, and she was exiled, with her children, to one of the
Prince's Isles. Her exile did not last long, however, for she was
recalled and restored to favor; and Michael VII. brought about the
marriage of Isaac, the eldest son since the death of Manuel, to Irene,
daughter of an Alanian prince, and cousin-german to the Empress Maria.