young son to her brother Bardas, who became her co-regent and was
afterwards made Caesar. He brought up the young Michael in the most
reckless and unconscientious manner, teaching him his own vices of
drunkenness and debauchery. Michael was an apt pupil, and ere he reached
the age of twenty-one had become a confirmed dipsomaniac. History knows
him by the dishonourable nickname of “Michael the Drunkard.” Some years
after his majority he grew discontented with his uncle, and slew him, in
order that he might reign alone. His profligacy and intemperance became
still more unbearable after Bardas was dead, and had it not been for the
splendid organization of the Byzantine civil service the administration of
the empire must have gone to pieces. Presently Michael grew tired of
spending on state affairs any time that he could spare from his orgies,
and appointed as Caesar and colleague his boon companion Basil the
Macedonian. Basil had reached the position of grand chamberlain purely by
the Emperor’s favour; he rose from the lowest ranks and is said to have
first entered Michael’s service in the humble position of a groom. His
practical ability, combined with a head hard enough to withstand the
effect of even the longest debauch, won Michael’s admiration, and so he
came to be first chamberlain and then Caesar. Under the mask of a
roisterer Basil concealed the most devouring ambition, and when he knew
that his drunken benefactor had won the contempt of all the East-Roman
world, had the impudence and ingratitude to plan his murder. Michael was
stabbed while sleeping off the effects of one of his orgies, and his
low-born colleague seized the palace and proclaimed himself emperor.
It might have been expected that the East-Roman world would have refused
to receive as its lord a man who owed his elevation to the freak of a
drunkard, and had then become the assassin of his benefactor. But
strangely enough Basil was destined to found the longest dynasty that ever
sat upon the Constantinopolitan throne. He turned out a far better ruler
than might have been expected from his disgraceful antecedents, being one
of those fortunate men who are able to utilize the work of others when
their own powers and knowledge fall short.
Basil is mainly remembered for his codification of the laws of the empire,
which superseded the _Ecloga_ of Leo the Isaurian, even as Leo’s
compilation had superseded the more solid and thorough work of Justinian.
The _Basilika_ of Basil with the additions made by his son Leo VI. formed
the code of the Byzantine Empire down to its last days, no further
rearrangement being ever made.
Basil, being of European birth and not an Asiatic like the preceding
emperors, was naturally an orthodox image-worshipper. He showed his
bigotry by a fierce persecution of the Paulicians, an Asiatic sect of
heretics accused of Manicheanism, whom the Iconoclast emperors had been
wont to tolerate. Basil’s oppression drove many of them over the Saracen
frontier, where they took refuge with the Moslems and maintained
themselves by plundering the borders of the empire.
Among the other transactions of his nineteen years of reign [867-886], the
only one deserving notice is the final loss of Sicily. The Saracens of
Africa, who had held a footing in the island ever since the time of
Michael II., now finished their work by storming Syracuse in 878.
XVII. THE LITERARY EMPERORS AND THEIR TIME. (A.D. 886-963.)
The eighty years which followed the death of Basil the Macedonian were the
most uneventful and monotonous in the whole history of the empire. They
are entirely taken up by the two long reigns of Leo the Wise and
Constantine Porphyrogenitus,(25) the son and grandson of the founder of
the dynasty. Basil had been a mere adventurer, an ignorant and uneducated
but capable upstart. His successors—strange issue from such a stock—were a
pair of mild, easy-going, and inoffensive men of literature. They wrote no
annals with their sword, though the times were not unpropitious for
military enterprise, but devoted themselves to the pen, and have left
behind them some of the most useful and interesting works in Byzantine
literature.
If the times had been harder it is doubtful whether Leo VI. and
Constantine VII. would have been strong enough to protect their throne.
But the period 880-960 was less troubled by foreign wars than any other
corresponding period in the history of the East-Roman state. The empire of
the Caliphs was breaking up in the East—the empire of Charles the Great
had already broken up in the West—the Bulgarians and other neighbours of
the realm on the north were being converted to Christianity, and settling
down into quiet. The only troubles to which the East-Roman realm was
exposed were piratical raids of the Russians on the north and the Saracens
of Africa on the south. These were vexatious, but not dangerous. An active
and warlike emperor would probably have found the time propitious for
conquest from his neighbours, but Leo and Constantine were quiet,
unenterprising men, who dwelt contentedly in the palace, and seldom or
never took the field.
Leo’s reign of twenty-six years was only diversified by an unfortunate
invasion of Bulgaria, which failed through the mismanagement of the
generals, and for a great raid of Saracen pirates on Thessalonica in 904.
The capture of the second city of the empire by a fleet of African
adventurers was an incident disgraceful to the administration of Leo, and
caused much outcry and sensation. But it is fair to say that it was taken
almost by surprise, and stormed from the side of the sea where no attack
had been expected. The armies and fleet of the empire would have availed
to rescue the town if only its fall had been delayed a few weeks. When
they had taken it the Saracens fled with their booty, and made no attempt
to hold its walls.
Constantine Porphyrogenitus, the offspring of the fourth wife of Leo the
Wise, and the child of his old age, was only seven when his heritage fell
to him. For many years he was under the tutelage of guardians; first his
father’s brother Alexander ruled as his colleague, and became
emperor-regent. Some years after Alexander had died an ambitious admiral
named Romanus Lecapenus usurped the same position, declared himself
emperor, and administered the realm. The life of Romanus was protracted
into extreme old age, long after Constantine had reached his majority; but
the ambitious veteran held tight to the sceptre, and kept the rightful
heir in the background. Constantine consoled himself by writing books and
painting pictures; it was not till he was nearly forty that he came to his
own. Even then his success was not owing to his own energy; the sons of
the aged Romanus had resolved to succeed their parent on the throne, in
despite of the rights of Constantine. But when they declared themselves
emperors and made their old father abdicate, an outburst of popular wrath
was provoked. The mob and the guards joined to sweep away the presumptuous
Stephen Lecapenus and his brother. They were immured in monasteries, and
Constantine emerged from his seclusion to administer the empire for twenty
years. He was somewhat weak and ineffective, but neither obstinate nor
tyrannical; many abler men made worse rulers.
The chief achievements of both Leo and Constantine were their books. Those
of Leo consist of a manual on the Art of War, some theological treatises,
and a book of prophecies, a collection of political enigmas, which were
long the puzzle and admiration of the East.(26) The first-named work is
most valuable and interesting, bringing down the history of military
organization, tactics, and strategy to Leo’s own time, and giving us a
perfect picture of the Byzantine army and its tactics, as well as
incidental sketches of all the enemies with which it had to contend. The
backbone of the force was still the “themes” or “turmæ” of heavy cavalry,
of which every province had one. The number of the provinces had been much
increased since the days of the emperors of the house of Heraclius, and
this implied a corresponding increase in the troops. They were raised from
subjects of the empire and officered by the Byzantine nobility, for as Leo
observed, “There was no difficulty in obtaining officers of good birth and
private means, whose origin made them respected by the soldiery, while
their money enabled them to win the good graces of their men by many gifts
of small creature comforts, over and above their pay.” The names of some
of the great noble houses are found for generation after generation in the
imperial muster rolls, such as those of Ducas, Phocas, Comnenus,
Bryennius, Kerkuas, Diogenes, and many more. The pages of Leo’s work
breathe an entire confidence in the power of the army to deal with any
foe; against Saracen, Turk, Hungarian, and Slav, instant and decisive
action is advised; when caught, they should be fought and beaten. It is
only when dealing with the men of the West, the Franks and Lombards, that
Leo recommends caution and deprecates any rash engagement in a general
action, preferring to wear the enemy down by cutting off his supplies and
harassing his marches. We gather a very favourable impression of the
Byzantine army from Leo’s book; it was organized, armed, and supplied in a
manner that has no parallel till modern times. Each regiment possessed its
special uniform, and was equipped with regularity. There was none of that
variety in arms and organizations which was the bane of mediæval armies.
The regiments had each attached to them an elaborate military train, a
small body of engineers, and a provision of surgeons and ambulances. To
encourage the saving of wounded men, Leo tells us that the bearer company
was given a gold piece for every disabled soldier whom it brought off the
field after a lost battle. It would be hard to find any similar care shown
for the wounded till the days of our own century.
The Byzantine fleet, as Leo describes it, had for its chief object the
maintenance of the police of the seas in the Aegean, Levant, and South
Italian waters. Its enemies were the Saracens of the Syrian and African
coasts, and more especially the troublesome Corsairs of Crete, who were
often beaten but never subdued till Nicephorus Phocas exterminated them in
961. The empire maintained three fleets, small ones in the Black Sea and
in Western waters; but the largest in the Aegean. This was composed of
sixty “dromonds,” or war-vessels of the largest rating; their great depôt
was in the arsenal at Constantinople, but they could also be refitted at
Samos, Thessalonica, and several other ports. Owing to their superior
size, and still more to their employment of the celebrated Greek fire, the
imperial fleets generally had the better of the Saracen, but though they
checked his larger squadrons, they could never suppress the petty piracy
by isolated sea-robbers, which rendered all mediæval commerce so
dangerous.
The works of Constantine Porphyrogenitus are even more interesting than
those of his father. His treatise called “On the Themes” is invaluable to
the historian, as it gives a complete list of the Themes, their
boundaries, inhabitants, characteristics, and resources, with some other
incidental notices of value. Still more important is the book, “On the
Administration of the Empire,” which contains directions for the foreign
policy of the realm, and sketches the condition and resources of the
various nations with whom the Constantinopolitan government had dealings.
Constantine also wrote a biography of his grandfather, Basil the
Macedonian, couched in terms of respect which that hardy usurper was far
from deserving. But his longest and most ambitious work was on Court
Ceremonies, a manual of etiquette and precedence, describing the official
hierarchy of the empire, its duties and privileges, and containing
elaborate directions for the conduct of state ceremonials and the interior
economy of the royal household. On this comparatively trifling topic
Constantine spent far more pains than on the works of larger interest
which he composed. His books show him to have been a man of no great
originative faculty, but gifted with the powers of a careful and
methodical compiler, who loved details and never shirked trouble. His care
for court pageants was very characteristic of the peaceful emperor, who
had long been kept at home by his guardian, and forced to compensate
himself by ceremonial for the want of real power.
The fact that two successive emperors devoted themselves to literary work
is a sufficient sign that by the end of the ninth century the times of
intellectual dearth and destitution which had so long prevailed were now
at an end. From the death of Justinian to the end of the Heraclian dynasty
matters grew gradually worse; from the rise of Leo the Isaurian onward
they began slowly to improve. The darkest age in Byzantine literary
history was from about 600 to 750, a period in which we have hardly any
contemporary annalists, no poetry save the lost Heracliad of George of
Pisidia, and very little even of theology. Literature seemed absolutely
dead at the accession of the Isaurians, but the quickening influence of
the reforms of the great Leo seems to have been felt in that province as
in every other. By the end of the eighth century writers were far more
numerous, though many of them were only anti-Iconoclastic
controversialists, like Theodore Studita. By the ninth century we can
trace the existence of a much larger literary class, and find a few really
first-rate authors, such as the patriarch Photius (857-69), whose learning
and width of culture was astonishing, and whose library-catalogue is the
envy of modern scholars.
Perhaps the most interesting development of Byzantine literature were the
epics, or Romances of Chivalry as we feel more inclined to call them,
which were written toward the end of the times of the Macedonian dynasty.
The epic of Digenes Akritas, a work of the end of the tenth century,
celebrating the praises of a hero who lived in the reigns of Nicephorus
Phocas and John Zimisces [963-80], may serve as a type of the class. It
tells of the adventures in love and war of Basil Digenes Akritas, warden
of the Cilician Marches, or “Clissurarch of Taurus,” as his official title
would have run. He was a mighty hunter, both of bears and of Saracens, put
down the Apelates (or moss-troopers, to use a modern analogy) who infested
the border, and led many a foray into Syria. He is even credited with the
slaying of an occasional dragon by his admiring bard. But perhaps the most
interesting episode is the story of his elopement with the fair Eudocia
Ducas, daughter of the general of the Cappadocian theme, whom he carried
off in despite of her father and seven brethren. Pursued by the irate
family, he rode them down one by one at vantage points in the passes, but
spared their lives, and was reconciled to them at the intercession of his
bride. “Digenes Akritas” is the best as well as the earliest of the class
which it represents.
[Illustration]
A Warrior-Saint (St. Leontius). (_From a Byzantine Fresco._) (_From "L’Art
Byzantin." Par Charles Bayet. Paris, Quantin. 1883._)
Art followed much the same course as literature in the period 600-900. It
was in a state of decay for the first century and a half, and the
surviving works of that time are often grotesquely rude. For sheer bad
drawing and bad execution nothing can be worse than a coin of Constans II.
or Constantine V.; a Frankish or Visigoth piece could not be much more
unsightly. The few manuscripts which survive from that period display a
corresponding, though not an equally great, decline in art. Mosaic work
perhaps showed less decline than other branches of the decoration, but
even here seventh and eighth century work is very rare.
In the ninth century everything improves wonderfully. It is most
astonishing to see how the old classical tradition of painting revive in
the best manuscript illumination of the period; many of them might have
been executed in the fifth or even the fourth century, so closely do they
reproduce the old Roman style. It seems that the Iconoclastic controversy
stimulated painting; persecuted by the emperors, the art of sacred
portraiture became respected above all others by the multitude. Several of
the most prominent “Iconodule” martyrs were painters, of whom it is
recorded that their works were no less beautiful than edifying: those of
Lazarus, whom the Emperor Theophilus tortured, are especially cited as
triumphs of art as well as sanctity.
Though a persecutor of painters, Theophilus deserves a word of mention as
the first great builder since Justinian, and as a patron of the minor arts
of jewellery, silver work, and mosaic. There is good evidence that these
were all in a very flourishing condition in his time. [829-42.]
There is one more point in the history of the empire in the ninth century
to which attention must be called. This is the unique commercial
importance of Constantinople during this and the two succeeding centuries.
All other commerce than that of the empire had been swept off the seas by
the Saracen pirates in the preceding hundred years, and the only touch
between Eastern and Western Christendom was kept up under the protection
of the imperial navy. The Eastern products which found their way to Italy
or France were all passed through the warehouses of the Bosphorus. It was
East-Roman ships that carried all the trade; save a few Italian ports,
such as Amalphi and the new city of Venice, no place seems even to have
possessed merchant ships. This monopoly of the commerce of Europe was one
of the greatest elements in the strength of the empire. So much money and
goods passed through it that a rather harsh and unwise system of taxation
did no permanent harm.
XVIII. MILITARY GLORY.
While Constantine Porphyrogenitus had been dragging out the monotonous
years of his long reign, events which completely changed the aspect of
affairs in the Moslem East had been following each other in quick
succession on the Asiatic frontier of his realm. Ever since it first came
into existence the Byzantine Empire had been faced in Asia by a single
powerful enemy; first by the Sassanian kingdom of Persia, then by the
Caliphate under the two dynasties of the Ommeyades and the Abbasides. Now,
however, the Caliphate had at last broken up, and the descendants of
Abdallah-es-Saffah and Haroun-al-Raschid had become the vassals of a
rebellious subject, and preserved a mere nominal sovereignty which did not
extend beyond the walls of their palace in Bagdad.
The crisis had come in 951 A.D., when the armies of the Buhawid prince
Imad-ud-din, who had seized on the sovereignty of Persia, broke into
Bagdad and made the Caliph a prisoner in his own royal residence. For the
future the Caliphs were no more than puppets, and the Buhawid rulers used
their names as a mere form and pretence. But the conquerors did not gain
possession of the whole of the Caliphate; only Persia and the Lower
Euphrates Valley obeyed them. Other dynasties rose and fought for the more
western provinces of the old Moslem realm. The Emirs of Aleppo and Mosul,
who ruled respectively in North Syria and in Mesopotamia, became the
immediate neighbours of the East-Roman Empire, while the lands beyond
them, Egypt and South Syria, formed the dominions of the house of the
Ikshides.
Thus the Byzantines found on their eastern frontier no longer one great
centralized power, but the comparatively weak Emirates of Aleppo and
Mosul, with the Buhawid and Ikshidite kingdoms in their rear. The four
Moslem states were all new and precarious creations of the sword, and were
generally at war with each other. An unparalleled opportunity had arrived
for the empire to take its revenge on its ancient enemies and to move back
the Mahometan boundaries from the line along the Taurus where they had so
long been fixed.
Fortunately it was not only the hour that had arrived, but also the man.
The empire had at its disposal at this moment the best soldier that it had
possessed since the death of Leo the Isaurian. Nicephorus Phocas was the
head of one of those great landholding families of Asia Minor who formed
the flower of the Byzantine aristocracy; he owned broad lands in
Cappadocia, along the Mahometan frontier. His father and grandfather
before him had been distinguished officers, for the whole race lived by
the sword, but Nicephorus far surpassed them. He was not only a practical
soldier, but a military author: his book, Περὶ Παραδρόμης πολέμου, dealing
with the organization of armies, still survives to testify to his
capacity.
It was on Nicephorus then that Romanus II., the son and heir of
Constantine VII., fixed his choice, when he resolved to commence an attack
on the Mahometan powers. The point selected for assault was the island of
Crete, the dangerous haunt of Corsairs which lay across the mouth of the
Aegean, and sheltered the pestilent galleys that preyed on the trade of
the empire with the West. Several expeditions against it had failed during
the last half-century, but this one was fitted out on the largest scale.
The vessels are said to have been numbered by the thousand, and the land
force was chosen from the flower of the Asiatic “themes.” Complete success
followed the arms of Nicephorus. He drove the Saracens into their chief
town Chandax (Candia), stormed that city, and took an enormous booty—the
hoarded wealth of a century of piracy. The whole island then submitted,
and Nicephorus sailed back to Constantinople to present to his sovereign,
in bonds, Kurup the captive Emir of Crete, and all the best of the booty
of the island [961 A.D.].
Nicephorus was duly honoured for his feat of arms, and given command of an
army destined to open a campaign in the next year against the great
frontier strongholds of the Saracens in Asia Minor. Descending by the
passes of the Central Taurus into Cilicia, Phocas stormed Anazarbus, and
then forced Mount Amanus, and marched into Northern Syria. There he took
the great town of Hierapolis, and laid siege to Aleppo, the capital of the
Emir Seyf-ud-dowleh, who ruled from Mount Lebanon to the Euphrates. The
Emir was routed, the walls of his capital were stormed, and Aleppo, with
all its wealth, fell into the hands of the Byzantine general. But the
citadel still held out, and its protracted resistance gave time for the
Moslems of South Syria and Mesopotamia to combine for the relief of their
northern compatriots. So great an army appeared before the walls of Aleppo
that Phocas determined not to risk a battle, and retreated with his booty
and his numerous prisoners into the defiles of Taurus [962 A.D.]. Sixty
captured forts and castles in Cilicia and North Syria were the permanent
fruits of his campaign.
The next year the emperor Romanus II. died, very unexpectedly, ere he had
reached his twenty-sixth year. He left a young wife, and two little boys,
Basil, aged seven, and Constantine, who was only two. There followed the
form of regency that custom had made usual. Nicephorus, the most powerful
and popular subject of the empire, claimed the guardianship of the two
young Caesars, and had himself crowned as their colleague. To secure his
place he married their mother, the young and beautiful empress-dowager
Theophano.
The joint reign of Nicephorus Phocas and his wards, Basil II. and
Constantine VIII. lasted six years, 963-969. The regent behaved with
scrupulous loyalty to the young princes, and made no attempt to encroach
on their rights, or to supplant them by any of his numerous nephews, who
had looked forward to his accession as likely to lead to their own
promotion to imperial power.
Nicephorus was an indefatigable soldier, and spent more of his reign in
the field than in the palace. His end in life was to complete, as emperor,
the conquest of Cilicia and North Syria, which he had commenced as
general. The years 964 and 965 were spent in achieving the former object:
three long sieges made him master of the great Cilician frontier
fortresses, Adana, Mopsuestia, and Tarsus. Their rich bronze gates were
sent as trophies to Constantinople, and set up again in the archways of
the imperial palace. A few months later the tale of victories was
completed by the news that Cyprus also had fallen back into Byzantine
hands, after having passed seventy-seven years in the power of the
Saracens.