THE EASTERN EMPIRE AND THE SELJUKIAN TURKS (912–1095)[9]
The Macedonian Dynasty—Constantine VII. and his Co-regents—Condition
of the Eastern Empire in the Tenth Century—The Conversion of the
Slavs—Break-up of the Mohammedan East—Period of Conquest and
Glory—Nicephorus Phocas and John Zimisces—The Russian War—Basil II.
and the Bulgarian War—Decline of the Macedonian House—Zoe and
Theodora—Cærularius and the Schism of East and West—Rise of the
Seljukians—Contrast of Turks and Arabs—Decline of the Eastern
Empire—Manzikert—Alexius Comnenus and his House—The last phase of
the Eastern Empire.
Situated on the borderland that divided two civilisations, the
unchanging Eastern Empire represented the East to the Latins and the
West to the Arabs and Turks. During the first half of the tenth century
there was a strange contrast between the East Roman state and the rest
of the world. [Sidenote: Contrast between the Eastern Empire and the
rest of the world.] In the West the Empire of Charles the Great had
fallen, and few could yet see that a new order was gradually evolving
out of the chaos into which the world seemed plunged. In the East the
Caliphate had ceased to represent the political unity of Islam. A
process of strife and disintegration had broken up the Mohammedan no
less than the Latin world. Between these two seething and troubled
regions, the Empire of Constantinople lived on its quiet,
self-contained, stationary, orderly life. No vital dangers from without
threatened its existence. Catholics and Mohammedans were alike too busy
with their own affairs to make serious attacks upon its boundaries. The
long-lived dynasty of the Macedonians continued to rule over a state
that had little history. The inglorious calm bore witness to a standard
of civilisation, order, and prosperity that, with all its faults, could
be found nowhere else in the world.
[Sidenote: The Macedonian dynasty.]
Basil the Macedonian had founded, in 867, the ruling house, which was to
reign at Constantinople for a hundred and ninety years. The long reign
of his weak and pedantic son, Leo VI., the Philosopher (886–912), had
attested the care and stability with which Basil had laid the
foundations of the new dynasty. Under Leo’s son Constantine VII.,
Porphyrogenitus (912–959), the same quietude that had marked Leo’s time
continued with hardly a break. [Sidenote: Constantine VII., 912–959.] A
boy of seven when he was called to the throne, Constantine VII. showed,
as he grew up, such lack of firmness and practical wisdom that his whole
reign has been described as a long minority. Co-regents did most of the
work of governing. For the first year his uncle, Alexander, Leo VI.’s
brother, acted as joint-emperor. For seven years after his death
(913–919) a commission of regency ruled, not too successfully, in the
name of the little Emperor. Severe defeats from Simeon, king of the
Bulgarians, made this rule unpopular. The grand admiral Romanus
Lecapenus now became successively the prime minister, the father-in-law,
the colleague, the master of Constantine. [Sidenote: Romanus I.,
919–945.] In December 919 Romanus, already Cæsar, was crowned
joint-emperor with his son-in-law, and for twenty-five years he
practically ruled the state as he would. Though aged, weak, and
incompetent, Romanus managed to protect himself from numerous court
conspiracies, and hoped to secure the permanence of his influence by
associating three of his sons as colleagues in the Empire, and procuring
for another the patriarchate of Constantinople. But the quarrels of sons
and father gave the friends of Constantine a chance of removing them
all. The sons of Romanus drove their father into a monastery. The
outraged public opinion of the capital involved the sons in the same
fate. In 945, when already nearly forty years old, Constantine VII.
became Emperor in fact as well as in name.
[Illustration: THE EASTERN EMPIRE IN THE TENTH & ELEVENTH CENTURY]
[Sidenote: Sole rule of Constantine VII., 945–959.]
Constantine was a shy, nervous, studious man, who had amused himself,
during his long exclusion from power, by dabbling in nearly every
science and art. He painted pictures, composed music, designed churches,
and wrote books on such different subjects as agriculture, veterinary
science, history, geography, tactics, politics, and court etiquette.
Weak and hesitating though he was, his good nature, amiability, love of
justice and moderation made him a respectable ruler for quiet times.
[Sidenote: Condition of the Empire in the tenth century.] Under him the
consolidation of the imperial despotism, under the hereditary rule of
the Basilian house, was completed. The suppression of the legislative
power of the senate, and the destruction of the old municipal system by
Leo the Philosopher, had removed the last barriers to the autocracy of
the Emperor. This despotism the well-drilled administrators carried out
so well on the traditional lines, that it was no great matter that the
Emperor himself was a bookish recluse. The _Basilica_, the revised code
of law in Greek, now assumed its final form, and with the change which
its introduction involved in the language of the law courts and
statutes, the Latin tongue ceased to have any practical utility to the
East Romans. The works of Constantine give us a picture of the Empire of
his time. In his longest book he dwells with loving care on the
elaborate and pompous court etiquette which environed the majesty of the
Emperor, and struck awe into the hearts of the barbarians. In a more
summary manner he wrote ‘On the administration of the Empire,’ and ‘On
the _Themes_’ into which it was divided. In the latter book he described
not merely the actual Empire, but districts like Sicily and Crete, which
had long fallen into the hands of the Saracen, or, like the interior
provinces of the Balkan peninsula, had been absorbed by Slavs and
Bulgarians.
[Sidenote: Asia Minor.]
Asia Minor was now the chief stronghold of the Eastern Empire. The
population had been recruited by Christian refugees from the
Mohammedan lands farther east, and had therefore become more decidedly
Oriental, but it was strenuous, industrious, and warlike. The whole of
the peninsula was included in the Empire, save the south-eastern
district of Cilicia between the Taurus and the sea. But the loss of
Tarsus was more than compensated for by the inclusion of a larger
portion of western Armenia within the Empire, by reason of the
Armenians, despite their obstinate adherence to the Monophysite
heresy, seeing in incorporation with the Empire their only chance of
salvation from Islam. [Sidenote: The Balkan Peninsula.] In the Balkan
peninsula the districts actually ruled by the Emperor were much less
extensive. The western and central parts were still ‘Slavonia,’ and
even the Peloponnesus was largely peopled by Slavonic tribes, at best
tributary, and often practically independent. But the settlement of
the Magyars in Pannonia (895) had pushed the Bulgarians more to the
south, and now not only were the lands between Danube and Rhodope
Bulgarian, but this nation encroached largely on the Slavs in the
lands south of the Balkans. [Sidenote: The Bulgarians.] The result
left little for the Romans save long strips of coast territory.
Nowhere in Europe did their power penetrate far inland. Adrianople was
at best the border town of the Greeks. A few miles inland from
Thessalonica the Bulgarian rule began. The Bulgarians separated the
theme of Hellas, which included Thessaly and the lands south down to
Attica, from the themes of Nicopolis and Dyrrhachium that crept along
the coast of Epirus. Scattered scraps of islands and coastlands in
Dalmatia almost connected the Empire with its Venetian dependency. The
theme of Cherson included the south coast of the Crimea, but this
outpost of Greek civilisation was hardly more directly ruled from
Constantinople than Venice itself. The lesser islands were still
Greek, but Cyprus alone of the great islands remained under the
Empire, and that was soon lost. [Sidenote: Italy.] In south Italy
there only remained the misnamed theme of Lombardy, including the heel
of the boot, of which the capital was Bari, and the theme of Calabria,
cut off from its neighbour province by the Lombard princes of Salerno,
who held the low-lying grounds at the head of the Gulf of Taranto.
Such a widely scattered dominion was hard to rule and harder to
defend. But each theme was under the government of a _strategos_, who
subordinated the civil to the military administration. A large
standing army of mercenaries—largely Norsemen—well drilled and
equipped, enabled the Greeks to cultivate their fields and carry on
their commerce in peace. The trade between east and west was still
entirely in Greek hands. Even an exhaustive fiscal system could not
cut off these sources of wealth. But if the Greek Emperors taxed
unwisely and unmercifully, they helped commerce by upholding the
integrity of the coinage. The gold _Byzants_ of the Emperors were the
common medium of exchange among merchants, and, amidst all the
vicissitudes of palace revolutions, were never seriously depreciated
in value. The manufactures of Greece still commanded the markets.
[Sidenote: Constantinople.] Constantinople was still the greatest city
in the world, and excited the astonishment of all the barbarians who
visited it. Its administration, poor-law system, and philanthropic
organisations anticipated much that we are apt to regard as
exclusively modern. Liutprand, the Lombard bishop, has left a record
of the profound impression made on him by its wonders. Even in the
twelfth century, when its splendours were somewhat decayed, it was
still unique. The Franks of the Fourth Crusade could not believe that
there was so rich a city, until they saw its high walls and strong
towers, gorgeous palaces, lofty churches, and vast extent. Though
Thessalonica was also a famous place of trade, the interests of the
capital were becoming so great as to absorb unduly those of the
provinces. This was partly counteracted by the growth of a great
landholding aristocracy, which approached the character of the feudal
noblesse of the west, save that it never attained any political
influence over the centralised despotism of the Basileus. [Sidenote:
Letters and Arts.] Nor were the arts and literature forgotten.
Constantine VII.’s example was followed by a crowd of men of letters,
and the labour of compilers like Suidas have preserved for us much of
what we know of more ancient times. A new school of romance writers
showed more original genius. Painting, architecture, and all the arts
wonderfully revived.
[Sidenote: The Conversion of the Slavs.]
Constantinople now became again a source of civilisation to ruder
peoples. The Servians and other Slavs called upon its help to protect
them from the terrible Simeon of Bulgaria. In the ninth century,
Methodius and Cyril had converted the Southern Slavs to Orthodox
Christianity. In the tenth, Greek missions, radiating from the great
monasteries on Mount Athos, secured the Christianising of Bulgaria. In
the next century, the distant Russians received their faith from the
same source. Thus Slavonic Europe became for the most part Orthodox
rather than Catholic. Never was the influence of Constantinople more
widely felt than in carrying out this great work.
The restful if inglorious age of Leo the Philosopher and Constantine
Porphyrogenitus gave the Greek Empire time to recruit its energies for
the more stirring times of their successors. From 959 to 1025 a period
of conquest and military glory followed upon the quiet times that we
have described. Before the change came over the spirit of the Eastern
Empire, the best chances of aggression in west and north had slipped
unnoticed away. During the reigns of Leo and Constantine, the Saxon
kings of the Germans were building up a great state in Germany and
Italy, and before long the growing material prosperity of Italy was to
raise up commercial rivals who ultimately tapped the very springs of
Byzantine trading supremacy. The consolidated and Christianised states
of the barbarians on the north were less likely to send out bands of
conquerors and marauders, but were harder to conquer than their heathen
and savage fathers. But the east was sinking into worse confusion than
ever. The old political and religious unity of Islam was a thing of the
past. What spirit now remained to the Mohammedan world was to be found
in North Africa under the Fatimite Caliphs of Cairoan, or in Spain under
the Ommeyad Caliphs of Cordova. [Sidenote: Changes in the Mohammedan
East.] While these rebels and schismatics still showed some remnants of
the old conquering energy of Islam, the orthodox Abbasside Caliphs of
Bagdad were sunk in indolence and decay. Their provinces successively
revolted. The Bowides, sons of a Persian fisherman, captured Bagdad in
945, and ruled Persia and lower Mesopotamia for more than a century as
the _Emirs-ul-Omra_ of the puppets that they still allowed to pretend to
act as successors of the Prophet. In Egypt and southern Syria, the
Ikshidites, a Turkish dynasty, now established themselves. But the only
Mohammedan power that now actually met the Eastern Empire on its
south-eastern frontier was that of the Hamdanides, who about 930
occupied northern Mesopotamia and afterwards conquered northern Syria
and Cilicia. This dynasty split into two and was represented by the
Ameers of Aleppo and Mosul. The new Mohammedan states were all the
precarious creations of adventurers’ swords, and were generally at war
with each other.
[Sidenote: Romanus II., 959–963.]
The divisions of the east gave the Emperors at Constantinople the
opportunity which their predecessors had neglected in the west. Under
the son and successor of Constantine VII., Romanus II. (959–963), the
work of reconquest began. Crete since the ninth century had been
occupied by Spanish Moors, and had been the centre of piratical attacks
on Greek commerce, that had threatened the prosperity of the islands of
the Ægean and the regularity of the food-supply of the capital.
[Sidenote: Conquest of Crete.] Even Leo and Constantine had made feeble
efforts to subdue the corsairs, but their expeditions against Crete had
been utter failures. In 960 Romanus II. sent Nicephorus Phocas with a
strong force to atone for the blunders of his predecessors. Within a
year the capture of the Saracen stronghold of Chandax brought about the
complete conquest of the island. The Saracens were enslaved or expelled,
and missionary monks soon succeeded in winning back the Greek population
to the faith of their fathers, which many had been forced to reject for
the religion of their conquerors. Nicephorus followed up this great
triumph by attacking the Hamdanid Ameer of Aleppo. He crossed the Taurus
into Cilicia, and in another spirited campaign restored many strong
places to the Empire.
[Sidenote: Basil II., 963–1025, and Constantine VIII., 963–1028.]
In 963 Romanus II. was cut off prematurely, leaving his young widow
Theophano to act as regent for the two infant sons, Basil II. (963–1025)
and Constantine VIII. (963–1028) who now became joint-emperors. But the
triumphs of Nicephorus Phocas had won him such a position that in a few
months he associated himself with them in the Empire and married their
mother Theophano. By this ingenious combination of hereditary succession
with the rule of the successful soldier, the quiet transmission of power
was combined with the government of the fittest. [Sidenote: Nicephorus
Phocas, 963–969.] For six years Nicephorus Phocas (963–969) ruled the
Empire in the name of his two step-sons and soon procured for them new
triumphs. His first measure was to improve the condition of the army,
and with this object he piled up new taxes, and, almost alone among
Greek Emperors, stooped to debase the coinage. A fierce soldier in a
nation of monks and merchants, Nicephorus soon got into conflict with
the Church, as well as the trading class. He issued a sort of law of
mortmain to check the foundation of new monasteries, and kept important
sees vacant to enjoy their revenues. [Sidenote: Nicephorus’ military
reforms and quarrel with the Church.] At last in his zeal for war
against Islam, Nicephorus wished the Church to declare that all
Christians who died in war against the infidel were martyrs to the
Christian religion. The Patriarch replied that all war was unchristian,
and that a Christian who killed even an infidel enemy in war, deserved
to be denied the sacraments. The Emperor made himself hated by the mob
of the capital by suppressing the costly shows and amusements which the
court had hitherto provided for their diversion, while the officials
were scandalised at his disgust for the childish ceremonies that hedged
about his domestic life. Conscious of his unpopularity, he fortified his
palace and lived as much as he could in the camp, where he enjoyed
unbounded popularity with the soldiers.
[Sidenote: His conquests.]
In a series of vigorous campaigns against the Ameer of Aleppo, the
Emperor sought to consolidate his former efforts as general by winning
back all Cilicia and north Syria to the Empire. In 964 and 965 he
completed the conquest of Cilicia, sending the brazen gates of Tarsus
and Mopsuestia to adorn the imperial palace at Constantinople. In 965
Nicetas, one of his generals, reconquered Cyprus. In 968 Nicephorus
again took the field and overran northern Syria. Aleppo, the residence
of the Ameer, was easily captured; the Ikshidite realm, now on the verge
of dissolution, was overrun; Damascus paid tribute to avoid destruction;
and Antioch was captured by assault on a snowy night in winter.
[Sidenote: His western policy.]
While thus occupied with the east, Nicephorus did not neglect the west.
He projected the famous marriage between the future Emperor, Otto II.
and Theophano, the daughter of Romanus II. and his own step-daughter
[see page 34], hoping thus to strengthen the Byzantine power in south
Italy. But the terms of the alliance were hard to settle, and no
agreement could be arrived at during Nicephorus’ lifetime. Liutprand,
Bishop of Cremona, sent to negotiate the match, left Constantinople in
disgust, and vented his spleen in the famous, but not very flattering,
account of Constantinople and its court to which we have already
referred. Soon hostilities broke out between Otto the Great and
Nicephorus in southern Italy, without any very permanent results.
Nicetas, the conqueror of Cyprus, failed signally in an attempt to win
Sicily from the Saracens. There were wars with the northern barbarians
that produced equally little effect.
Nicephorus was a brave soldier, sprung from a stock of warlike
Cappadocian landowners, who changed few of his habits even on the
throne. He was cultured enough to write a book on the art of war, but he
had neither the policy or pliancy for the intrigues of a despotic
Oriental court. The uprightness he showed in preserving intact his
step-sons’ position as Emperors met with an evil requital from their
mother. Theophano hated and feared her stern, uncouth, unsympathetic
husband. She conspired with her lover, John Zimisces, nephew of
Nicephorus, a dashing cavalry soldier and the most capable of his
captains. On the night of 10th December 969 the Empress’s woman admitted
Zimisces and a select band of confederates into the castle. [Sidenote:
Conspiracy of Theophano.] They found the Emperor sleeping on the floor
after his soldier’s fashion, and promptly stabbed him to death. The
murderers at once proclaimed John Zimisces Emperor, and court and city
alike accepted the results of the despicable intrigue that had robbed
the Empire of its strongest man. [Sidenote: John I. Zimisces, 969–976.]
John I. Zimisces reigned from 969 to 976. The brutal treachery which
gained him the throne was somewhat atoned for by the energy and vigour
he displayed in the possession of power. He was mean enough to make
Theophano the scapegoat of his crime, and, instead of marrying her, shut
her up in a monastery. After this he did little that was not
commendable. By way of penance he devoted half his private fortune to
the poor peasantry round Constantinople, and to building a great
hospital for lepers. Like Nicephorus, he studiously respected the rights
of his young colleagues, the sons of Romanus II., and legitimatised his
rule by wedding their sister Theodora. The negotiations for the marriage
of the other sister, Theophano, with Otto the Saxon were now resumed and
completed in 972, Theophano taking with her to Germany Byzantine art and
the temporary friendship of east and west. [Sidenote: The Russian war.]
John abandoned the civil administration to the dexterous chamberlain
Basilius, and soon found in the Russian war an opportunity to revive the
exploits of his uncle. The valour of Rurik and his Vikings had, before
this, united the Slavs of the east into a single Russian state, of which
the centre was Kiev, and which, though constantly threatening the
Byzantine frontiers, had since the conversion of Olga, baptized at
Constantinople in the days of Constantine VII., began slowly to
assimilate Byzantine Christianity and civilisation. But Olga’s son
Sviatoslav (964–972) had refused to incur the ridicule of his soldiers
by accepting his mother’s religion. He was a mighty warrior who, in
alliance with the Hungarians, overran and conquered Bulgaria, and in 970
crossed the Balkans and threatened Adrianople. In 971 John Zimisces took
the field against him, and a desperate campaign was fought in the lands
between the Danube and the Balkans. Like true sons of the Vikings, the
Russians fought on foot in columns, clad in mail shirts and armed with
axe and spear. John’s army was largely composed of heavy cavalry, and
its most efficient footmen were slingers and bowmen. In two great
battles at Presthlava and Dorystolum (Silistria), Russians and Greeks
fought under conditions that almost anticipate the battle of Hastings,
and in both cases the result was the same. After long resisting the
fierce charges of the Greek horsemen, the close array of the Russians
was broken up by a hail of arrows and stones, and the lancers, returning
to the charge, rushed in and completed the discomfiture of the enemy.
After the second battle, Sviatoslav and the remnants of his host stood a
siege within Silistria, until a treaty was drawn up by which they
promised to go home, on being supplied with enough corn to prevent them
plundering by the way. For the future, they were to renew the old
commercial treaties and leave the Empire in peace. Intercourse between
Russia and Constantinople was quickly renewed, and henceforth Russian or
Norse mercenaries, the famous Varangians, began to form an important
part of the imperial armies. Thus the Empire was relieved from the
pressure of her most dangerous foe in the north, and again acquired the
command of the interior of the Balkan peninsula. Bulgaria, already
conquered by Sviatoslav, was reduced to obedience, while its titular
king lived as a pensioner at Constantinople. Flushed with these
brilliant successes, John again turned his arms against the Saracens of
Syria, who had won back many of Nicephoros’ conquests, including
Antioch. He reconquered Antioch, though only with great difficulty; his
capture of Edessa prepared the way for the occupation of the upper
valley of the Euphrates; and many holy relics passed from Moslem to
Orthodox custody. In the midst of his triumphs John died suddenly in
976, poisoned, it was said, by the crafty eunuch Basilius, who feared
that his wealth had excited the Emperor’s jealousy.
[Sidenote: Basil II.’s personal rule, 976–1025.]
Basil II. (976–1025), the elder of Constantine VII.’s sons, was now
twenty years of age when, under the guidance of Basilius he proceeded,
after his brother-in-law’s death, to govern as well as reign. But the
over-wealthy minister soon fell from power. Basil soon showed the same
austere Roman type of character as Nicephorus Phocas, and became a brave
soldier, a skilful general, and a capable administrator. His chief
object of internal policy was the repression of the great landholding
families of Asia, which were the only barrier left against the imperial
despotism; and, after a long struggle, he succeeded in accomplishing
their ruin. Under the legitimate Basilian Emperor, the military glories
of the fortunate adventurers were fully continued. [Sidenote: The
Bulgarian War.] The great event of his long reign is the Bulgarian war.
The occupation of Bulgaria by John I. was too rapid to be permanent,
and, except in the lands between the Danube and Balkans, had been merely
nominal. Under a new Bulgarian king, named Samuel, the unconquered
regions of the west made a long and determined effort for freedom. Even
the Slavs—the chief inhabitants of these regions—followed Samuel to the
field; and by fixing his capital first at Prespa and afterwards at
Ochrida, in the highlands bordering on Albania and Macedonia, he
threatened alike Dyrrhachium and Thessalonica. Year after year, Samuel’s
motley following plundered and devastated the rich plains of Thessaly
and Macedonia. Even in the north all the Greeks could do was to hold
Silistria, and a few fortresses, and keep a tight hold of the Balkan
passes. In 981 Basil first took the field in person, but his early
campaigns were but little successful. Samuel at last invaded southern
Greece; but though he devastated the Peloponnesus from end to end, he
failed to capture any of the larger cities (996). On his way back, he
was surprised by the Greek general Uranus, and escaped with infinite
difficulty and the complete destruction of his army. Basil now took the
offensive. In 1002 he captured Vidin, a triumph that resulted in the
gradual reconquest of Bulgaria proper. But Samuel still held out long in
the fastnesses of Mount Pindus. Bit by bit Basil won back the hill
castles that were the centres of the Slavo-Bulgarian power. At last, in
1014, Basil gained a decisive victory, taking prisoner some 15,000
Bulgarians. The grim Emperor put out the eyes of all his captives, save
that he spared one eye to every hundredth man, and sent the mutilated
wretches back to their king at Ochrida under the guidance of their
one-eyed leaders. Samuel, on seeing his subjects’ plight, fell senseless
to the ground, and died two days later. His brave son Gabriel continued
the contest, but was soon murdered by his cousin Ladislas, who usurped
the throne. In despair Ladislas took the bold step of besieging
Dyrrhachium, hoping thus to open communications with Basil’s enemies
beyond sea; but he perished in the siege, and with him fell the last
hopes of the kingdom of Ochrida. In 1018 the work of conquest was
completed, and Basil celebrated his victory by a splendid triumph at
Constantinople. The populace greeted the relentless conqueror with the
surname of ‘Slayer of the Bulgarians’ [βουλγαροκτόνος]. Basil then
turned his arms against the Armenians, but his success in pushing
forward his eastern frontier at the expense of a Christian kingdom did
not atone for the impolicy of weakening a natural ally against the
Mohammedans. Conscious perhaps of this, he prepared to divert his arms
against the infidel by a new expedition to Sicily. Death overtook him in
the midst of his preparations, when he was sixty-eight years old, and
had reigned for sixty-two years. No Emperor since Justinian had
succeeded so well in enlarging the bounds of the Empire. But with him
expired all the glories of the Macedonian dynasty.
[Sidenote: Sole rule of Constantine VIII., 1025–1028.]
Basil II. left no son, and his brother Constantine VIII. (1025–1028)
therefore became sole Emperor. Though nominal Emperor since 963,
Constantine had never taken any real part in political affairs, and he
was now too old and careless to change his habits. He lived like an
Oriental despot, secluded in his palace, amusing himself with musicians
and dancing-girls, while six favourite eunuchs of the household relieved
him from all cares of state. Great indignation was excited among the
nobles, but Basil II. had humbled them too thoroughly for them to take
any effective action. However, Constantine died in 1028, before he could
do much harm. He was the last man of the Macedonian house, and his only
heirs were his daughters Zoe and Theodora, under whose weak and
contemptible rule the Basilian dynasty came to an end.
[Sidenote: Zoe and her husbands. Romanus III., 1028–1034.]
From 1028 to 1054 the husbands and dependants of Zoe governed the
Byzantine Empire. First came Romanus III. (1028–1034), to whom she had
been married at her father’s death-bed. But Zoe was hard, greedy, and
self-seeking, and allowed her husband little real share of power. On his
death she married a handsome young courtier, Michael IV. the
Paphlagonian (1034–1041), who, though an epileptic invalid, did good
work against the Saracens before his early death in 1041. [Sidenote:
Michael IV., 1034–1041.] His brother John the Orphanotrophos [minister
of charitable institutions], a monk and a eunuch, who had procured
Michael’s marriage, conducted the internal government with great
dexterity and cunning, but the time of his rule marks an epoch of
deterioration in Byzantine finance. By constantly increasing the taxes,
and devising more arbitrary and oppressive methods for their collection,
he did much to sap the foundations of the industrial supremacy of the
Empire.
[Sidenote: Michael V., 1041–1042.]
It was thought necessary always to have a male Emperor. When Michael IV.
died, Zoe, already more than sixty years of age, took three days to
decide whether she should wed a third husband or adopt a son. She chose
the latter course; but Michael V. (1041–1042), nephew of Michael IV.,
whom she raised to this great position, speedily proved ungrateful and
unworthy, and was deposed, blinded, and shut up in a monastery.
[Sidenote: Constantine IX., 1042–1054.] Having failed with her son, Zoe
chose as her third husband Constantine Monomachus (an hereditary
surname), who was soon crowned as Constantine IX. (1042–1054). The new
Emperor was an elderly profligate, who had only consented to wed Zoe on
condition that his mistress should be associated with her in the Empire.
Their rule was most disastrous. It saw the expulsion of the Greeks from
Italy by the Norman conquest of Apulia and Calabria. It saw the
consummation of the fatal policy of weakening Armenia, at a moment when
the rise of the Seljukian Turks was again making Islam aggressive. It
witnessed the impolitic imposition of taxes on the eastern subjects and
vassals, who had hitherto defended the frontiers with their swords, but
who henceforth were discontented or mutinous. It saw the final
consummation of the schism of Eastern and Western Churches.
The Synod of Constantinople in 867 [see Period I., pp. 453–4], following
upon the quarrel of Pope Nicholas I. and the Patriarch Photius, had
already brought about the open breach of the Orthodox East and the
Catholic West. [Sidenote: The Schism of the Eastern and Western
Churches.] Despite new rivalries between the Greek and Latin missions to
the Slavs and Bulgarians, efforts had been made from time to time to
heal the schism, and Basil II. negotiated with Rome, hoping to persuade
the Pope to allow ‘that the Church of Constantinople was œcumenical
within its own sphere, just as the Church of Rome was œcumenical
throughout Christendom.’ But in 1053 Michael Cærularius, the Patriarch
of Constantinople, foolishly shut up the Latin churches and convents and
wrote to the Latin bishops, bitterly reproaching them with their
schismatic practices, and taking new offence in the Latin use of
unleavened bread in the Eucharist. Mutual excommunications followed,
and, at the very moment when Christendom had most need of union, the
schism of East and West became inveterate.
[Sidenote: Theodora, 1054–1057.]
Zoe died in 1050, and Constantine IX. in 1054. On his death, Zoe’s
sister Theodora, the last of the Macedonians, became Empress. Though
old, she was strong and vigorous, and her long incarceration in a
cloister gave her monastic virtues that contrasted strangely with the
dissolute habits of Zoe. During her reign of three years the Empire
enjoyed at least peace and repose. Her death in 1057 ended not
ingloriously the famous dynasty that had since the days of Basil I. held
the imperial throne. A new period of trouble now sprang from disputed
successions and weak Emperors, at a time when the growth of the
Seljukian power threatened the very existence of the Empire.
[Sidenote: Rise of the Seljukian Turks.]
The Turkish or Mongol tribes of Central Asia had long troubled from time
to time the tranquillity of Europe. Among them were Attila and his Huns,
but these fierce marauders passed away without leaving any permanent
traces of their influence. Of the same stock were the Magyars, who, in
895, finally settled in Pannonia, and the Bulgarians, who, as we have
seen, had even earlier taken possession of a large part of the Balkan
peninsula. But the Magyars and Bulgarians by accepting Christianity made
themselves permanent members of the European commonwealth. While
Mongolian invasions such as these disturbed from time to time the peace
of eastern Europe, similar invasions had terrified all the civilised
nations of Asia as far as the Chinese frontier. But it was the Caliphate
in its decline that began to stand in the most intimate relations with
the Turks. The growing anarchy of the Arab Empire offered to the Turks a
career as mercenaries, and a field for plunder and devastation. As the
reward of their services, the Caliphs gave them what they could conquer
from the Christians on the eastern frontiers of the Empire. A large
Turkish immigration soon peopled the marches of the Caliphate with the
fierce warriors from the north. As the Caliphs declined in power, the
Turkish condottieri chieftains grew discontented with their pay, and set
up military despotisms on their own account. Many of the petty states
that grew out of the dissolution of the Caliphate had, like the
Ikshidites in Syria, Turkish lords, and were kept together by Turkish
arms. Early in the eleventh century the period of transition was over.
The Turks became converts to Islam, and religious enthusiasm bound
together their scattered tribes and directed their aims. A great Turkish
invasion plunged all Asia in terror. In the extreme east Turks or
Tartars established at Peking a Manchurian kingdom for northern China
(1004). In the very same year, Mahmoud of Ghazni set up a great Turkish
state in Afghanistan and India. A generation later, the Turks of the
house of Seljuk began to threaten the thrones of western Asia.
The fame of Seljuk, the founder of a united Turkish state in Central
Asia, is almost mythical. Under his son, the Seljukian house became
great by crossing the Oxus and effecting the conquest of Khorassan.
Under his grandson Togrul Beg, the Seljukians became the greatest power
in Asia. Togrul first broke up the power of the descendants of Mahmoud
of Ghazni, and then attacked the Bowides, and conquered Persia. In 1055
he crowned his career by the occupation of Bagdad, where he was welcomed
as the deliverer of the phantom Caliphs from the tyranny of their Bowide
Ameers, and was solemnly invested by them with their temporal power.
Henceforth Togrul, the Sultan of East and West, posed as the defender of
the faith, and the protector of the successor of Mohammed.
After the conquest of Bagdad, Togrul Beg attacked Armenia and threatened
the Byzantine frontiers. He died in 1063, and in the very next year Alp
Arslan, his nephew and successor (1063–1072), completed, by the capture
of Ani, the capital, the subjugation of the unhappy Armenians. The
Georgians were next enslaved; and, master of the Christian outposts of
the East Roman realm, Alp Arslan turned his arms against the Empire
itself.
The occupation of the rich plains of Asia in no wise changed the
character of the Turks. They remained as they had ever been, soldiers
and nothing more. Their old religions had died away as they came into
contact with Islam, and in embracing the Mohammedan faith they obtained
religious sanction for their ferocity and greed. But they never, like
the Arabs, entered into the spiritual side of the faith. They rather
received and retained the new religion, as a faithful soldier keeps the
word of command of his general. They had no eyes for the brilliant
fascination of Arab civilisation, such as was at that very time
attaining its highest perfection in Mohammedan Spain. They appropriated
what had gone before, but they never assimilated it or added anything of
their own. The statecraft of the Arabs had no more attraction for them
than the poetry, the romance, the lawgiving, the architecture, or the
busy commercial life of Semitic Asia. [Sidenote: Contrast between Turks
and Arabs.] When they had conquered they carelessly stood aside, and
contemptuously allowed their vassals to live on their old life, save
when, in occasional fits of fury, they taught that they were masters by
hideous violence or promiscuous massacres. But their hardiness won an
easy triumph over the soft and effeminate Arabs, and was soon to win
fresh laurels at the expense of the lax and corrupt Christians of the
East. It was a day of ill omen for East and West alike when the capture
of Bagdad made the Turkish soldier the type of Mohammedan conquest. In
the centuries when the Arab was the typical representative of Islam, the
desolation of Africa and Syria showed how great were the evils that
followed in the wake of Mohammedan conquest of Christian lands. But in
East and West alike the triumphs of the Turk were unmixed evils, and the
strife of East and West assumed a new aspect when a barbarous and
unteachable soldier, mighty only in destruction, became the chief agent
of Eastern advance. It was no longer the continuance of the struggle
between Eastern and Western civilisation that was as old as Marathon.
Henceforth it was a strife between the only possible civilisation and
the most brutal and hopeless barbarism. Yet the superior military
efficiency of the Turk put an irresistible weapon into his hands. Since
the days of Leo the Isaurian and Charles Martel, the relations of the
Eastern and Western worlds had been almost stationary. A new wave of
Eastern aggression now set in, to be followed in its turn by a period of
Western retaliation. The Seljukian attacks on Armenia and the Empire
brought about the Nemesis of the Crusades and the Latin kingdoms of the
East.
[Sidenote: Decline of the Eastern Empire.]
The period of revolution and confusion that had followed the extinction
of the Basilian dynasty made the Empire little able to resist the
Turkish assault. It is as wearisome as unprofitable to tell in any
detail of the purposeless palace intrigues and provincial revolts, that
set up and pulled down Emperors in the dreary years that followed the
death of Theodora. The first successor of the last of the Macedonians
was of her own designation. [Sidenote: Michael VI., 1057.] Michael VI.,
surnamed Stratioticus (1057), was an aged and incompetent soldier, who
within a year succumbed to a revolt of the Asiatic nobles, who seated on
the throne one of the most powerful of their number, Isaac I., Comnenus
(1057–1059), but the hopes excited by him were rudely dispelled by a
disease that drove him into a monastery to die. [Sidenote: Isaac I.,
Comnenus, 1057–1059.] Another great Cappadocian magnate, Constantine X.,
Ducas (1059–1067), was now made Emperor. [Sidenote: Constantine X.,
Ducas, 1059–1067.] He was a pettifogging financier, who disbanded part
of his troops and disheartened the rest by miserable and disastrous
economies. In his reign the Seljukian assaults first became formidable.
On his death in 1067, his widow Eudocia acted as regent for their son,
the boy Emperor Michael VII. (1067–1078). [Sidenote: Michael VII.,
1067–1078.] Eudocia chose a second husband and co-regent in Romanus
Diogenes (1068–1071), a Cappadocian noble, who had won a high reputation
for brilliancy as a soldier, but lacked the prudence and policy
necessary to a general. [Sidenote: Romanus IV., Diogenes, 1068–1071.]
Romanus at once took the field against the Seljukian hordes, who were
now devastating Cappadocia with fiendish cruelty, and had just captured
Cæsarea and plundered the shrine of St. Basil. But the heavy Greek
cavalry, with their formal drill and slow traditional tactics, were only
a poor match for the daring valour and rapid movements of the swift
light horse that constituted the chief strength of the Turkish army. At
first Romanus won easy triumphs as the scattered bands of marauders
retreated before his troops, without risking a battle. Alp Arslan
changed his plans and lured Romanus into the Armenian mountains, where
he was suddenly attacked by the whole Seljukian power.
[Sidenote: Battle of Manzikert, 1071.]
The decisive battle was fought in 1071 at Manzikert, an Armenian town,
to the north of Lake Van, which the Sultan had captured in 1070, and
which Romanus now sought to reconquer. The Emperor had already many
difficulties from the mixed army of mercenaries, that had no heart for
the cause and a strong dislike to discipline. With great impolicy he
divided his army, and marched with but a fraction of it against
Manzikert. The city was soon retaken, but by this time the whole force
of the Seljuks had drawn near. It was the first pitched battle between
Turks and Greeks, and, having misgivings of the result, Alp Arslan
showed some willingness to treat. But Romanus impatiently prepared for
battle. The fight was long and fierce, until at last the bad tactics of
the Emperor and the treachery of some of his generals gave the Turks a
hardly won victory. The Greek army was destroyed, and Romanus was
wounded and made prisoner. The defeat is the turning-point of Byzantine
history. The hardy mountaineers of Cappadocia were unable to hold out
much longer. With the loss of the land which had given birth to
Nicephorus and Zimisces, to the Comneni, the Ducasii, and to Romanus
himself, the best part of the Empire surrendered to barbarism. Within a
few years all the interior of Asia Minor had become Turkish. In the very
year of Manzikert, the capture of Bari by the Normans cut off the last
town that had been faithful to the East Romans in Italy.
Alp Arslan magnanimously allowed Romanus Diogenes to ransom himself from
captivity, but the discredited soldier only returned to Constantinople
to be dethroned and imprisoned by John Ducas, uncle of Michael VII. His
eyes were put out so roughly that he died a few days later. With him
perished the last of the heroes of the Eastern Empire. Confusion and
weak rule at Constantinople facilitated the Turkish advance. Many
provinces revolted, and famine followed in the train of war. What
revenue still flowed in was spent upon court luxuries and popular games.
The Turks burnt the Asiatic suburbs of the capital, and in 1074 Michael
VII. made a treaty with Suleiman, the general of Malek Shah, who had now
succeeded Alp Arslan, by which he conferred on him the government of all
the imperial provinces which were actually in his possession. Suleiman
established himself at Nicæa, the most westerly of his conquests, and
soon assumed the state of an independent prince. In 1078 Michael was
dethroned, and meekly abandoned the Empire for the bishopric of Ephesus.
[Sidenote: Nicephorus III., 1078–1081.] His supplanter, Nicephorus III.
(1078–1081), was the most brutal, lustful, and helpless of all the
Emperors of this miserable time. Rebellions burst out on every side. At
last Alexius Comnenus, a shrewd and wily soldier, whose sword had long
protected the Emperor from other rebels, became a rebel himself. The
army declared for him and chose him Emperor, and the treachery of some
German mercenaries admitted him and his troops into the capital, which
was brutally sacked. Nicephorus was driven into a monastery, and Alexius
reigned in his stead.
[Sidenote: Alexius Comnenus, 1081–1118.]
With the new Emperor the worst troubles were over. Some sort of
hereditary succession reappeared, and the Comnenian dynasty long
occupied the throne of the Eastern Empire. But the Empire was reformed
on a narrower and less heroic mould. The ability of Alexius was partly
seen in his energy; but subtlety and deceit, which often took the shape
of self-defeating cunning, were his favourite weapons, and in his
dexterous pursuit of personal and family aims, he often lost sight of
broader issues. [Sidenote: The Comnenian dynasty and the transition to
the last phase of the East Roman Empire.] It was characteristic of the
later age of the Byzantine Empire that the founder of the new house
should have the dissimilar characteristics of courage and craft, and
that Alexius’ literary daughter, Anna Comnena, in eulogising her
father’s exploits, regards his courage and craft as equally laudable.
With him we enter that latest stage of East Roman history to which the
term ‘Byzantine’ may not unreasonably be applied as a term of reproach,
and which perhaps justifies the contempt with which Gibbon and the older
writers regarded all stages of East Roman history. The Empire became
more ‘Greek’ in the narrower sense, and with its restricted limits
became in a sense stronger by being more national and less cosmopolitan.
But it lived a smaller, meaner life. Henceforth it stood on the
defensive, equally afraid of the Turk in the east and the Frank in the
west. Its territory gradually fell away, its civilisation became as
stereotyped as that of China, its Church more superstitious and
ignorant, its people more slavish and degraded. It is no small praise to
Alexius and his successors that they had the skill to keep some sluggish
life in the inert mass, and, amidst the greatest difficulties, offer a
brave and constant resistance for two more centuries to the greatest
foes of civilisation that the world has seen in modern days.
[Sidenote: Alexius and the East.]
At home, the first years of Alexius’ reign were occupied in putting down
the nobles and restoring the centralised despotism of the Macedonians. A
whole series of rebellions was successfully suppressed, and order was
restored even to the finances, though at the price of an unwonted
depreciation of the currency that further imperilled the declining trade
of the Greeks. Another trouble was found in the growth of the fantastic
heresies of the Paulicians and Bogomilians, which Alexius stamped out
with the rigour of a monk. Meanwhile, Alexius fought hard against the
Seljukian Turks, and for the time prevented their further advance. But
the death of Malek Shah in 1092, and the struggles of his children for
the succession, did more to remove the terror of Turkish conquest than
the arms and diplomacy of Alexius. Alexius had also to fight against the
Slavs, and the Patzinaks of the north, and to face grave trouble from
the west. With the conquest of Bari in 1071, Robert Guiscard and his
Normans had absorbed the last of the Byzantine dominions in Italy.
[Sidenote: Alexius and Robert Guiscard.] Robert now resolved to cross
the Straits of Otranto and win fresh booty and dominions from a foe
that, since Manzikert and Bari, seemed predestined to speedy
destruction. Only fifteen years before, William the Norman had crossed
the English Channel and won a great kingdom from a warlike usurper. In
1081 another Norman duke crossed another narrow strait, and sought to
win the crown and kingdom of another successful soldier-prince. Robert
laid siege to Dyrrhachium [Durazzo], the chief centre of the Byzantine
power on the Adriatic, and Alexius hastened to its succour. The bad
generalship of the Greeks made easy the victory of the invaders. The
Varangian heavy-armed infantry of the imperial guard vigorously
withstood for a time the charge of the feudal cavalry from the west. But
as at Hastings the Norman archers broke up the enemy’s ranks, so that
the best troops of Alexius were defeated before the rest of the Greek
army could take the field. These latter were soon put to flight, and
Alexius rode off from the scene of his defeat. Dyrrhachium surrendered,
and the Normans crossed the mountains into Macedonia and Thessaly.
Italian politics [see pages 135–136] took Robert back to Italy, but his
son Bohemund efficiently filled his place. Alexius now called upon his
cunning to remedy the disasters that had arisen from his courage. By
avoiding general engagements and carrying on a destructive petty
warfare, he managed to wear out the Normans. In 1084 he brilliantly
raised the siege of Larissa, and Bohemund returned to Italy. In 1085 the
death of Robert Guiscard relieved Alexius of any immediate fear of
Norman aggression.
[Sidenote: The appeal for Western help.]
The war with the Normans had taught the Eastern Empire to know and to
fear the warriors of the West. Within ten years of the end of the
struggle with the Guiscards, Alexius sent envoys to the West imploring
Latin help against the Turks, and in 1095 his ambassadors appeared
before Urban II. Before long, East and West seemed likely to unite to
urge a holy war against the Turks. With the preaching of the First
Crusade a new epoch set in for the Byzantine Empire.
GENEALOGY OF THE MACEDONIAN DYNASTY.
BASIL I., the Macedonian.
(867–886).
|
+------------+--------------------+
| |
ROMANUS Lecapenus, _m._ 2. Zoe=1. _m._ LEO VI., the Philosopher ALEXANDER
(919–945). | (886–913). (912–913).
|
CONSTANTINE VII., Porphyrogenitus
(912–959).
|
ROMANUS II., _m._ 1. Theophano 2. _m._ NICEPHORUS Phocas
(959–963). | (963–969).
|
+-------------+-------------+-+-------------------+
| | | |
Theophano BASIL II. CONSTANTINE VIII. Theodora
_m._ Otto II. (963–1025). (963–1028). _m._ JOHN Zimisces
| (969–976).
+-----------------+----------+
| |
ZOE(d. 1050). THEODORA
_m._ (1) ROMANUS III. (1054–1056).
(1028–1034).
(2) MICHAEL IV.
(1034–1041).
(3) CONSTANTINE IX.
(1042–1054).