MARTINA
Over the eight years’ reign of Phocas and his consort we have little
disposition, and not much occasion, to linger. The Empress Leontia
is characterized for us only by the one contemptuous phrase that she
was “as bad as Phocas.” We may trust that she equalled him neither
in brutality nor licentiousness, but the slender indications suggest
that she was some such low type of Syrian woman as a coarse and
vicious soldier would be likely to choose for his companion. A few
words must suffice to explain her exit from the imperial stage and the
introduction of a fairer woman to the throne.
As the discontent increased in Constantinople, Phocas, his brutality
fostered by indulgence and vice, turned upon his subjects with
increasing savagery. Plots were discovered or suspected, and hands and
feet and heads fell under the axes of the guards. At length Priscus
heard that an upright and distinguished commander, who governed the
African province, had cast off his allegiance to Phocas, and he invited
Heraclius to come and seize the throne. Heraclius was too old to embark
on so adventurous an enterprise, but in the spring of 609 he sent a
fleet under the command of his son Heraclius and at the same time
entrusted his nephew Nicetas with an army which was to range the coast
of Africa and occupy Egypt. The curious statement, repeated in most
historians, that whichever of the young men reached Constantinople
first was to have the crown, is shown by a recently translated
manuscript to be inaccurate, as we might suspect.[13] Heraclius
dallied in the Mediterranean until his cousin had made progress, and
it was not until 3rd October 610 that the liberating fleet, exhibiting
at the prow of its commander’s vessel a picture of the Virgin which
angels had brought from heaven, came in sight of Constantinople. At
once Phocas found a tide of desertions, and, after a feeble naval
engagement on the following day, a Sunday, he fled in despair to the
palace. So far was he abandoned that a citizen, whose wife he had
violated, penetrated the palace during the night, dragged him to the
quay, and took him on a boat to the fleet early on the Monday morning.
Nicephorus, a later patriarch of Constantinople, gives us an appalling
picture of his fate--and of Constantinople. He was at once cut to
pieces, the member by which he had notoriously sinned was carried on
a pole through the city, and his bleeding trunk was dragged through
the streets and burned. Of the Empress Leontia and her fate we have no
information.
The young Heraclius--he was in his thirty-sixth year, a robust,
broad-chested man with fine grey eyes and light curly hair--must not
be held responsible for the excesses of the Byzantine mob, though we
shall not find him a man of delicate feeling. He proceeded at once,
not only to assume the purple, but to provide Constantinople with
an Empress. Fabia, daughter of an African noble named Rogatus, was
in Constantinople with the wife of the elder Heraclius when it was
announced that the African fleet lay in the Grecian waters. Phocas
heard that the mother and the betrothed of his opponent were in the
city, and they must have had a narrow escape from death. He was
content, however, to confine them in a nunnery or penitentiary, and
from this hazardous position Fabia was released to find her lover
master of Constantinople. She was a beautiful and delicate girl, and
the biographer must feel some impatience that the few Empresses
of this more attractive character are so slenderly noticed by the
chroniclers, while they dilate, as far as their prejudice against
mere women will allow them, on the sins or audacities of the bolder
Empresses.
Heraclius does not seem to have been eager to assume the purple, and,
knowing as we do the accidents of imperial life and the degradation of
the Empire, we can believe that he was sincere in offering the crown
to Priscus, the son-in-law of Phocas. Priscus refused, and the long
ceremonies of coronation at once proceeded. After the coronation in
St Sophia he was married to Fabia, and, under the name of the Empress
Eudocia, she entered the sacred palace which Leontia had vacated. But
the story of Eudocia is brief and uninteresting, and we hardly make her
acquaintance before a premature death removes her from the scene.
Indeed, the only details recorded of Eudocia are that she bore her
husband two children in the first two years of her marriage and died
of the strain. With the birth of her first child, Epiphania Eudocia,
is connected one of those lively incidents which so well illustrate
the character of the later Roman Empire, even under its better rulers.
The patrician Priscus had refused the purple, but it came to the ears
of Heraclius that he was secretly disaffected and abusive, and the
Emperor chose a dramatic moment for disarming him. He invited Priscus
to be godfather to the little Epiphania, and, in the midst of the
ceremony, in view of the crowd of nobles and priests, charged him with
his treachery. Striking Priscus on the face with a book which lay at
hand--probably a Prayer Book--he directed that his head be shaven on
the spot, and the great noble passed from the life of camp and Court
to one of those monasteries of the Empire which harboured many such
strange inmates.
In the following May (612) Eudocia bore a son, Heraclius Constantinas,
and her frail constitution never recovered from the strain. She had
gone during the summer to the healthier palace at Blachernæ, to the
north of Constantinople, and there an attack of epilepsy carried her
off in the month of August. It is painful to read that the funeral
of this fine and delicate Empress was disgraced by one of the most
repulsive exhibitions of Byzantine coarseness. The body was conveyed by
water to the city, and borne solemnly through the streets to the great
church between the mourning citizens. Just as the body was passing
a certain window, a maid-servant, who was watching the procession,
carelessly spat and the wind carried the spittle to the robes of
the dead queen. The girl was burned alive on Eudocia’s tomb for the
involuntary insult, and even her mistress escaped only by concealing
herself.
Two years afterwards Heraclius married again. The new Byzantine
Empress, whose name stands at the head of this chapter, was one of
those strong and ambitious women who generally contrive, either by
their vices or their crimes, to break through the anti-feminist reserve
of the later Greek writers, but in this case the prejudice is increased
and we follow Martina with difficulty through her long and adventurous
career. She was the niece of Heraclius, and, in spite of the support
she gave to her husband in his brilliant defence of eastern Christendom
against the Persians, she remains under the shadow of the sin of incest.
Historians have devised many reasons for the audacity of Heraclius in
marrying his niece, but we need hardly assume more than that she had a
beauty and charm which the ecclesiastical writers disdain to confess.
Her father was dead, and she lived in Constantinople with her mother
Maria, sister of Heraclius, who had married a second time. Young,
spirited and ambitious, she welcomed the passion of the Emperor, and
was prepared with him to override every ecclesiastical scruple. The
archbishop Sergius, a friendly and very able counsellor of the Emperor,
tried in vain to dissuade them. Heraclius coolly observed that his
objections were quite natural from his episcopal point of view, but it
was useless to urge them, and the patriarch discreetly stood aside and
allowed another priest to marry them. According to a reliable historian
the patriarch himself afterwards crowned her in the great hall of the
palace, and no doubt his bold and politic action silenced the angry
murmurs which arose in the Hippodrome. It was only when, in the course
of time, defective children were born of the marriage--the first
son was wry-necked, the second deaf--when Heraclius himself ended a
brilliant career in pain and humiliation, and when Martina passed from
public life under a suspicion of murder, that Constantinople discovered
the action of a divine curse and darkened the memory of Martina.
So prejudiced are later historians against Martina that even Gibbon has
contracted something of their feeling, and suggested that a surrender
to the charms, if not the arts, of Martina explains that remarkable
indolence which Heraclius betrayed during the next few years, when the
advancing Persians were rending his Empire and threatening to sweep
Christianity out of Asia. We need not discuss here the problem of
the Emperor’s alleged supineness during those years of disaster. The
most recent biographer of Heraclius, Signor Pernice (“L’Imperatore
Eraclio”), emphatically denies that Heraclius was indolent, and more
authoritative historians, like Professor Bury, observe that the lack of
funds and troops, and other internal difficulties, placed a formidable
restraint on the very capable Emperor. When the war-drums beat at
length, we shall find Martina, in spite of pregnancy, accompanying the
Emperor in his long and arduous campaigns, and this gives us a right
to assume that she supported him in the long years of preparation and
organization.
At one time, three or four years after their marriage, it seemed that
they would desert the sinking vessel of the Byzantine Empire and return
to the tranquillity of Africa. Two devastating waves--the Persians
to the south and the Avars to the north--were advancing across the
impotent provinces, and it looked as though the little that was left
of the Eastern Empire must soon be swallowed up in the mighty clash
of their conflict. Egypt, Syria and Palestine were in the hands of
the Persians, who looted and desecrated the most sacred shrines of
Christendom. Famine resulted from the loss of the grain-bearing
provinces, and plague followed closely upon famine. Heraclius and
Martina put their treasures on a fleet of ships and resolved to
transfer the throne to Africa. Then, when news came that the fleet had
been destroyed in a storm, and the patriarch Sergius made the Emperor
swear not to desert the city, Heraclius turned again to face his
mountainous difficulties.
Raising the cry that the holy cross was in the hands of the pagans,
and that the very existence of Christianity was in jeopardy, Heraclius
succeeded in concentrating on a great national issue all the religious
passion which had so long been expended on distracting controversies. A
bargain was struck with the Church; its sacred vessels and incalculable
treasures were to be put at the disposal of the Empire, and the value
returned at the close of the war. By the beginning of the year 622
the preparations were completed, the young Heraclius Constantine was
appointed nominal regent of the Empire, and the real administration
was entrusted to the capable hands of the archbishop and one of the
patricians. On Easter Day the last stirring services were held; and on
the following day the gilded imperial galley, bearing the miraculous
picture of the Virgin, the brightly painted war-galleys and the
hundreds of ships which bore the last part of an army of more than a
hundred thousand men, sailed bravely toward the coast of Asia.
The Persian campaigns, which have put the name of Heraclius high in the
list of imperial commanders, interest us because Martina set sail with
her husband and accompanied him throughout the war. Unfortunately, the
literary deacon of St Sophia, George of Pisidia, who tells the story
of the war, shares the ecclesiastical prejudice against Martina, and
never mentions her name. Congenial as the task would be, therefore,
to follow the Emperor through his brilliant campaigns and imagine the
spirited Martina sharing his perils and his triumphs, it is hardly a
fitting task for a biographer. George of Pisidia, addressing Heraclius
in the name of the clergy at St Sophia, had trusted that he would
redden his black military boots in the blood of the heathen. He and
Martina returned to Constantinople six months later, leaving the army
in safe winter quarters, with a great victory and a brilliant march
across Asia Minor to report. Martina sailed with her husband, in the
following year, on his second and more dangerous campaign, and it
was in the course of this campaign that she gave birth to the son
Heraclius--usually called Heraclonas, to distinguish him from the
father, apparently--whom we shall find tragically associated with her
in her later years. She seems, indeed, to have accompanied Heraclius on
all his journeys; but to what extent she kept pace with the advance of
the troops--whether she reached the banks of the Euphrates and Tigris,
and beheld the oriental luxury of the fallen camps and towns of the
Persians--the prejudice of the deacon of St Sophia prevents us from
ascertaining. She had at least the glory of accompanying her husband
on one of the most brilliant, the most daring and the most profitable
campaigns that ever illumined the Eastern Empire. Nor must her
biographer forget to add that she bore several children during her six
years’ wandering over the mountains and deserts of Asia Minor, Syria,
Persia and Mesopotamia. Nine children, four of whom died young, were
the issue of the marriage.
Martina shared, too, the splendid triumph which crowned the victories
of Heraclius. In the spring of 628 the Emperor and Empress rejoined
their family at the Hieria palace, on the Asiatic coast opposite
Constantinople, whither, with torches by night and olive-branches by
day, the citizens sailed to greet them. Heraclius would not return to
his capital until the cross was restored to his hands, and the summer
was spent by the united family in the Hieria palace. Early in September
the cross arrived, and they went to Constantinople for the triumph.
Preceded by the cross, Heraclius rode in a chariot drawn by four
elephants through the Golden Gate and along the main street of the city
(the Mese) to St Sophia, amidst scenes of such rejoicing as the Empire
had not witnessed since the days of Belisarius. A superb entertainment
in the Hippodrome followed, and then Heraclius joined his wife in the
palace.
And here ends the glory of the Emperor Heraclius; the flame that
had burst forth so splendidly in a time of dejection fell just as
swiftly, and Heraclius exhibited a lamentable spectacle in face of an
even greater peril than the Persians. The problem of the character
of Heraclius might concern us if we had any satisfactory information
about the behaviour of Martina during the next few years, but as
the chroniclers almost refuse to notice her until they come to what
they regard as her misdeeds, we have no occasion to linger over it.
Her character induces us to believe that she attempted to awaken her
husband from his lethargy until she saw that this was impossible, and
that she then devoted her thoughts to securing the succession for her
son and the virtual rule of the Empire for herself. This, in point of
fact, is suggested by the meagre indications in the chronicles.
In the spring of 629 Heraclius took the cross back to its original
shrine at Jerusalem, and from that time spent nine years in the
provinces of Palestine, Syria and Asia Minor. During those years the
Mohammedan power became a formidable menace to the Roman Empire, and
the inaction of Heraclius is a scandal to historians. His nervous
system was strained to the verge of insanity, and he retreated like one
paralysed with terror before the advance of the Mohammedans. Martina
foresaw the end, and began to prepare for the succession. There can
be no doubt that in these later years Heraclius, whose religious
fervour was now greatly increased, was troubled by the cry that his
“incestuous” marriage had brought these troubles on the Empire. When
his nephew Theodore retreated before the invincible Arabs, and came to
reproach Heraclius for his “sin,” the Emperor sent him under guard to
Constantinople and ordered that he should be disgraced. Some writers
see in this the action of Martina, but it may quite well have been due
to the broody nervousness of Heraclius himself.
It was plain that Heraclius would not stem the Mohammedan tide, and
everywhere men talked of the succession. By the year 638 he and
Martina were back in the Hieria palace, and the struggle deepened.
Heraclius had now two children by his first wife Eudocia, and five
(living) children by Martina. His eldest child, Epiphania Eudocia, had
narrowly missed a romantic career. During the Persian war Heraclius
had struck an alliance with the King of the Khazars, a wild people
akin to the Huns, and, after gorgeously entertaining and rewarding
him, had shown him a miniature of his beautiful daughter, then fifteen
years old, and offered him her hand. It was only the death of the
King in the next year that saved the delicate young girl from being
added to the rude harem of the Hunnic prince. She was still unmarried.
Her brother, Heraclius Constantinus, now twenty-six years old, was
already associated in the Empire, and was the obvious heir to supreme
power. But both Heraclius and Martina knew that the Emperor’s death
would at once set her religious enemies to work to eject her and her
children from the palace, and they were anxious to secure her position
by associating her eldest son, Heraclonas, in the Empire. There were,
besides, a natural son of Heraclius by an early concubine, named
Athalaric, and the sons of his cousin Nicetas, who had helped him to
win the Empire.
Two of these possible candidates for the purple were summarily
dismissed. Athalaric and the nephew Theodore were charged with
conspiracy at Constantinople, their hands and feet were struck off, and
they were sent into exile. It is conjectured by some writers on Martina
that she dictated this heavy punishment, and that her hand is seen in
the events which follow. Of this there is no proof; but there can be no
doubt that she was eager to secure the succession of Heraclonas, and
that Heraclius was now an almost feeble-minded patient under her care.
He persistently refused to cross the strip of water from Hieria to
the city, and they were compelled at length to make a bridge of boats
across the narrower part of the strait, and place artificial hedges of
trees along its sides, so that he could ride to Constantinople without
catching sight of the sea. The young Constantine, his eldest son, had
inherited the delicacy of his mother, and it was necessary to provide
for the event of his death. Should his sons inherit the purple, or
should it pass to “the children of incest”? The city seethed with
discussion.
In the final decision we may confidently recognize the voice of
Martina. On 4th July 638 Heraclonas, then a boy of fifteen years,[14]
was crowned in the palace by the patriarch Sergius; a younger son,
David, was raised to the same dignity shortly afterwards, and the young
daughters of Martina, Augustina and Martina, were entitled Augustæ.
On the 1st of January 639 three Emperors rode in the procession:
Heraclius, Constantine and Heraclonas. Martina had, apparently,
triumphed; but more prudent citizens must have shaken their heads in
reflecting on the struggle which would inevitably follow the death of
Heraclius.
The Emperor lingered for more than two years in his impotent condition,
and Martina meantime found a fresh and most powerful ally. The
patriarch Sergius had died soon after crowning Heraclonas, leaving
his metropolitan see to a monk, Pyrrhus, whom he had raised to the
higher rank of the clergy. Pyrrhus became an ally of the Empress,
who may possibly have assisted in his elevation, and the alliance
was the stronger because Pyrrhus secretly favoured the sect of the
Monophysites. From Constantine he would receive little encouragement,
whereas Martina, as events proved, was ready to allow him to impose
his metaphysical distinction on the Church in return for his political
support. It is even said that Martina urged her husband to send the
weakly Constantine against the Mohammedans, in the hope that he would
not return. Such things are easily said, and easily believed, but
incapable of proof.
In February 641 Heraclius died. He suffered in his last years from
dropsy, and those who are curious to know by what appalling means
the medical men of the time relieved such an affliction, and how the
theologians of the time placidly traced the operation of a divine curse
for marrying one’s niece, may read the details of his sufferings in
the patriarch Nicephorus. To the last Heraclius was faithful to his
beloved wife. He divided the government of the Empire equally between
Constantine and Heraclonas, and he entrusted to the patriarch Pyrrhus a
large sum of money to be given to Martina in the event of her enemies
succeeding in driving her from power. The struggle began at once.
Martina convoked a meeting of the citizens--presumably in the
Hippodrome--and had the will of Heraclius read to them. When the herald
had concluded, the sullen silence was broken by a cry for the Emperors.
Martina, who was evidently minded to keep the youths in the background
and govern in their name, summoned the Emperors, but continued to act
as mistress of the Empire. But Constantinople--a compound of inferior
Greek and Roman with Syrian blood--always disliked feminine rule,
and in face of the advancing Mohammedans regarded it with additional
concern. “Honour to you as mother of the Emperors,” the citizens cried,
“but to them as Emperors and lords. You, mistress, would not be able
to resist and reply to barbarians and foreigners coming against the
city. God forbid that the Roman commonwealth should fall so low.”
We may take it that the chronicler has gathered into a speech the
various murmurs which arose from the crowded benches of the Hippodrome.
Plausible as the cry was, it was a grave blunder. The ailing, probably
consumptive, Constantine had not the manliness of a ruler, and the
palace became the theatre of the struggles of rival courtiers.
On the side of Constantine was the imperial treasurer Philagrius, and
this man embittered the situation by informing the young Emperor of the
money which Heraclius had left in charge of the archbishop and forcing
him to pay it into the treasury. In order further to strengthen his
position Philagrius represented to Constantine that his children would
be in danger from Martina if he died. It is important to notice that
the death of Constantine was plainly expected by all parties. Nothing
is clearer than that he had inherited the delicacy of his mother,
and was either epileptic or consumptive--more probably consumptive.
The patriarch Nicephorus tells us that he was “chronically ill” and
lived in a palace he had built at Chalcedon for the sake of his
health. His Empress, Gregoria Anastasia, was a daughter of Nicetas,
the young cousin who had set out from Africa with Heraclius, but we
have no further information about her. For her sake and that of the
children Constantine was persuaded by his intriguing courtiers to send
an officer, Valentine, to the troops when he felt that his end was
near. Valentine had not only a letter urging the troops to protect
Constantine’s children from Martina, but a large sum of money to
distribute amongst them. It is strange that historians have overlooked
this very obvious intrigue and so easily accepted the clerical
prejudice against Martina. If Martina were unable to meet “barbarians
and foreigners”--a point which might be disputed--assuredly infants
could not be trusted to do so.
Constantine died about three months after the death of his father.
There is no serious ground whatever for the charge that he was poisoned
by agents of Martina and Pyrrhus. The patriarch Nicephorus, the best
authority, knows nothing of the rumour, and the very chroniclers, of a
later date, who attach importance to it admit that Constantine suffered
from a chronic malady. Indeed, when we find a contemporary (and
recently published) ecclesiastical writer, the Bishop of Nikin, saying
that Constantine after three months’ illness “vomited blood, and when
he had lost all his blood he died,” we may confidently acquit Martina,
and conclude that the young Emperor died of consumption. The statement
of Constantine’s son, a boy of eleven, when he came to the throne, that
Pyrrhus and Martina had been justly punished, is a mere echo of the
pretext of those who deposed her. The poisoning of a consumptive youth
would be a new and superfluous crime, and we have no reason to think
that Martina was even normally criminal.
Martina at once assumed the government in the name of her son and
expelled the hostile faction from the Court. Philagrius was visited
with the most humane punishment of the time--he was forced to become a
priest--and his friends were dispersed. But his emissary Valentine was
in a strong position and he determined to put it to account. The large
sum of money entrusted to him enabled him to purchase the devotion of
an army, and he settled at Chalcedon with the ostentatious design of
seeing that no evil was done to the young son of the late Emperor.
Martina cleverly foiled his first move. She directed Heraclonas to
become godfather to the boy, who was carefully kept in the palace at
Constantinople, and to swear, with his hand on the cross, that no harm
should be done to the child. Valentine then brought his troops nearer
and began to ravage the suburbs and neighbourhood of the city, while
his friends in Constantinople lit the flame of religious antagonism
to Pyrrhus, who was unfortunately pressing his Monophysite tenets on
the Church. Exasperated at the inconveniences of the siege and the
heresy of the patriarch, the citizens now became restive. A mob invaded
and pillaged the great church of St Sophia, and Pyrrhus was forced to
abdicate. The power of Martina was now dangerously enfeebled, and she
came to terms with Valentine. The ambitious officer was to be appointed
“Count of the Excubitors,” or commander of the heavier guards, and to
be excused from rendering an account of the money entrusted to him.
The further course of the intrigue is scantily known to us, as there is
here a mysterious gap of thirty years in the narrative of Nicephorus.
From later chronicles we learn that, before the end of 642, the Senate
deposed Martina and Heraclonas. In spite of the notorious malady of
Constantine, they were found guilty of having poisoned him, with the
connivance of the archbishop, and were barbarously punished. The
tongue of Martina and the nose of Heraclonas were slit--the text
does not imply that they were cut off--and they were expelled from
Constantinople. Valentine also is said to have been expelled, so
that he must have changed sides. The further course of the spirited
and unfortunate Empress and her son is told in the bare phrase that
they “lived a private life and were buried together in the monastery
of the Lord.” We do not know the place of exile, or the year of
Martina’s death. That her punishment was unjust and barbaric seems
now to be beyond question, and there is no excuse, beyond the amiable
indiscretion of her marriage, for the evil repute which chroniclers
have attached to the name of the Empress Martina. She seems to have
been one of the best of the Byzantine Empresses.