Transcriber's Note:
Inconsistent hyphenation, spelling and use of diacritics in the
original document have been preserved. Obvious typographical
errors have been corrected.
Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
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On page 38, "Theodore of Tyrone" should possibly be "Theodore of
Tyron".
On page 97, "εἰς πήγας" should possibly be "εἰς πηγάς".
On page 215, "paying vengeance on his head" should possibly be
"praying vengeance on his head".
On page 256, the caption has been changed to agree with the text.
On page 284, "πήγη" should possibly be "πηγή".
On page 312, "Gül Kkâneh Kiosk" may be a typo.
_The Story of Constantinople_
_All rights reserved_
[Illustration: Interior of S. Sophia.
Showing the Sultan's pew and the stairs to the pulpit.]
Constantinople
_The Story of the old Capital
of the Empire by William
Holden Hutton, Fellow of
S. John Baptist College, Oxford.
Illustrated by Sydney Cooper_
_London: J. M. Dent & Co.
Aldine House, 29 and 30 Bedford Street
Covent Garden, W.C. 1900_
This superb successor
Of the earth's mistress, as thou vainly speakest,
Stands 'midst these ages as, on the wide ocean,
The last spared fragment of a spacious land,
That in some grand and awful ministration
Of mighty nature has engulfed been,
Doth lift aloft its dark and rocky cliffs
O'er the wild waste around, and sadly frowns
In lonely majesty.
* * * * *
I was the daughter of Imperial Rome,
Crowned by her Empress of the mystic east:
Most Holy Wisdom chose me for her home
Sealed me Truth's regent, and High Beauty's priest.
Lo! when fate struck with hideous flame and sword,
Far o'er the new world's life my grace was poured.
PREFACE
A word of introduction is necessary to explain the nature of this
sketch of the history of Constantinople. It is the holiday-task, very
pleasant to him, of a College don, to whom there is no city in the
world so impressive and so fascinating as the ancient home of the
Cæsars of the East.
It is not intended to supersede the indispensable Murray. For a city
so great, in which there is so much to see, a guide-book full of
practical details is absolutely necessary. For this I can refer the
reader, with entire confidence, to Murray's _Hand-book_--and to
nothing else. But I think everyone who visits Constantinople feels the
need of some sketch of its long and wonderful history. I have myself
often felt the need as I wandered about the city, or spent a long
evening, during the cold spring, in the hotel. I have endeavoured, as
best I could, to supply what I have myself wanted. I do not pretend to
have written a history of the city "from the earliest times to the
present day" from the mass of original authorities of which I know
something. I have used the works of the best modern writers freely,
and I should like here, once for all, to express my obligations. I may
venture to say that the list of books I here insert will be found
useful by anyone who wishes to go further into the history than my
little book is able to take him. The ordinary standard books are
Professor Bury's edition of Gibbon; Mr Tozer's edition of Finlay's
_History of Greece_; Professor Bury's _History of the Later Empire_;
Von Hammer's _History of the Turks_; and the Vicomte de la Jonquière's
sketch of the same subject.
The authorities, in detail, for the history and topography of the city
are admirably summed up in Herr Eugen Oberhummer's contribution to the
Pauly-Wissowas _Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft_,
band iv., which can be purchased separately as a "Sonder-Abdruck."
Among the books which I have found especially useful I must mention
first Professor van Millingen's _Byzantine Constantinople, The
Walls, etc._; the _Broken Bits of Byzantium_, by Mrs Walker and the
late Rev. C. G. Curtis, to whose kindness I owe very much, a book
which is now very rarely to be met with, and ought certainly to be
republished; Bayet, _L'Art Byzantin_; Kraus, _Geschichte der
Christlichen Kunst_; Lethaby and Swainson, _S. Sophia_; Grosvenor,
_Constantinople_; Paspates, _The Great Palace of Constantinople_.
Among histories of particular periods there are none more useful than
Pears' _Conquest of Constantinople_, and Mijatovich, _Constantine the
last Emperor of the Greeks_. Among a mass of interesting and important
articles I should like to note that on _Les Débuts du Monachisme à
Constantinople_, by M. Pargoire in the _Revue des questions
historiques_, Jan. 1899.
The texts of the original authorities may be read in the Bonn edition,
and some of them, happily, in Professor Bury's admirable collection of
Byzantine texts, of which I have found the three volumes already
published most useful. I have referred in Chapter VII. to the work of
Gyllius, to whom we owe much of our knowledge of the mediæval city.
I have referred to a great number of books of travel, as may be seen;
it is impossible here to particularise them all.
The limits of the series have compelled me to confine myself chiefly
to the story of Constantinople as a mediæval town. Thus I have been
reluctantly compelled to leave out much that I should have liked to
say about Skutari, the Bosphorus and its palaces, and the present
social life and religious observances, the Dervishes, the "Sweet
Waters," and many familiar names.
For the same reason, I have dwelt very briefly on much that is of
great interest. I would gladly, for instance, have said more about
Iconoclasm, and something about that great theologian, S. Theodore of
the Studium.
Practically, I may add that the advice of Murray's Guide is always to
be taken; personally I have always found the Hotel Bristol most
comfortable in every way, and I have no occasion to commend any other
hotel, because I have never felt tempted to leave it. It has had
varied fortunes, but it is at its best, I think, as managed by Herr H.
Güllering. I have myself found a dragoman, except for the first day,
unnecessary; but I can strongly recommend Eustathios Livathinos as a
most pleasant companion. Jacob Moses has also much experience.
I should add that in my spelling of names I have usually adopted, for
simplicity, the common use; but I fear I have not even been uniform.
I owe very much to the kind offices of Lord Currie and of Sir Nicholas
O'Connor, Her Majesty's Ambassadors in 1896 and 1899, and to several
members of the Embassy, with a very special debt of gratitude to Mr
Fitzmaurice, C.M.G. I can never forget the kindness of the late Canon
C. G. Curtis, whose death in 1896 was so great a loss to the British
community in Constantinople, to archæology, and to religion.
In several instances photographs taken by my friend, Mr J. W.
Milligan, who was in Constantinople in 1896, have been of not a little
use to my friend, the Rev. Sydney Cooper, to whose illustrations this
book will owe very much more than half its interest.
W. H. HUTTON.
THE GREAT HOUSE, BURFORD, OXON,
_S. Mark's Day, 1900_.
CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER I
_The History of the City in ancient and mediæval
times_ 1
CHAPTER II
_Constantinople under the Turks_ 154
CHAPTER III
_The Churches_ 231
CHAPTER IV
_The Walls_ 270
CHAPTER V
_The Mosques, Türbehs and Fountains_ 290
CHAPTER VI
_The Palaces_ 310
CHAPTER VII
_Antiquities_ 320
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
_Interior of S. Sophia_ _Frontispiece_
_Seraglio Point after Sunset_ 2
_Therapia_ 4
_The Hippodrome and Mosque of Ahmed_ 9
_Yeri Batan Serai (Cistern)_ 28
_The Imperial Quarter (Plan)_ 31
_The Burnt Column_ 35
_S. Sophia and the Ministry of Justice from the Sea_ 37
_The Golden Gate_ 42
_The Golden Horn from Eyûb_ 53
_The Aqueduct of Valens_ 67
_Roumeli Hissar_ 139
_In the Cemetery at Scutari_ 154
_The Golden Horn from Pera, after Sunset_ 173
_Fountain in the Court of Mosque of Valideh_ 186
_Interior of Mosque of Ahmed I._ 191
_Houses in the Phanar_ 207
_Street in Galata_ 223
_Capitals from S. Sophia_ 232
_Courtyard of the Church of the Studium_ 234
_Plan of SS. Sergius and Bacchus_ 237
_Plan of S. Sophia_ 245
_In the Gallery of S. Sophia_ 253
_Ornament on the Brazen Lintel above the Principal
Door of S. Sophia_ 257
_Bronze Door of Southern Entrance to the Narthex,
S. Sophia_ 258
_Ancient Urn in S. Sophia_ 260
_Church of the Pantokrator_ 267
_Part of the Walls of Theodosius: the Seven Towers
in the Background_ 270
_Kadikeui (Chalcedon) from Seraglio Point_ 272
_The Marble Tower at S.W. Corner of the Walls_ 277
_Walls near the Golden Gate: Roman Road in
Foreground_ 281
_Mohammed, the Apostle of God. Embroidery from
Curtain over the Door of S. Sophia_ 290
_Mosque of Mohammed II. from English Embassy_ 291
_Mosque of Suleiman from the Golden Horn_ 293
_Court of the Mosque of Ahmed I._ 299
_An Entrance to the Mosque of Ahmed_ 301
_Mural Tiles from the Mosque of Valideh_ 305
_In a Türbeh_ 306
_Entrance to the Türbeh of Selim II. at S. Sophia_ 307
_Embroidery from Curtain over Entrance to S. Sophia_ 309
_Tower of Galata from Bridge_ 311
_Approach to the Old Seraglio_ 313
_A Corner of the Old Seraglio_ 315
_Scutari Point and Leander's Isle_ 319
_S. Sophia from the Hippodrome. Obelisk in the
Foreground_ 321
_Bas-Relief from Base of the Obelisk in the
Hippodrome, showing the Imperial Box during
the Performance of a Ballet_ 324
_The Palace of the Porphyrogenitus_ 331
_Sarcophagus from the Royal Mausoleum at Sidon.
The Carving is copied from the Frieze of the
Parthenon_ 336
_Sketch Plan of the City_ _facing last page_
TABLE OF EMPERORS
Constantine I., the Great 306-337
Constantius II. 337-361
Julian 361-363
Jovian 363-364
Valens 364-378
Theodosius I., the Great 378-395
Arcadius 395-408
Theodosius II. 408-450
Marcian 450-457
Leo I. 457-474
Zeno 474-491
Anastasius I. 491-518
Justin I. 518-527
Justinian I., the Great 527-565
Justin II. 565-578
Tiberius II. 578-582
Maurice 582-602
Phocas 602-610
Heraclius 610-641
Heraclius Constantinus and Heracleonas 641-642
Constans II. 642-668
Constantine IV. 668-685
Justinian II. 685-695
Leontius 695-697
Tiberius III. Apsimarus 697-705
Justinian II. (restored) 705-711
Philippicus 711-713
Anastasius II. 713-715
Theodosius III. 715-717
Leo III., the Isaurian 717-740
Constantine V. Copronymus 740-775
Leo IV. 775-779
Constantine VI. 779-797
Irene 797-802
Nicephorus I. 802-811
Stauricius 811
Michael I. Rhangabe 811-813
Leo V., the Armenian 813-820
Michael II., the Amorian 820-829
Theophilus 829-842
Michael III. 842-867
Basil I., the Macedonian 867-886
Leo VI., the Wise 886-912
Constantine VII. Porphyrogenitus 912-958
Co-Emperors--
Alexander 912-913
Romanus I. Lecapenus 919-945
Constantine VIII. and Stephanus, sons of
Romanus I., reigned five weeks 944
Romanus II. 958-963
Basil II. Bulgaroktonos 963-1025
Co-Emperors--
Nicephorus II. Phocas 963-969
John I. Tzimisces 969-976
Constantine IX. 976-1025
Constantine IX. 1025-1028
Romanus III. Argyrus 1028-1034
Michael IV., the Paphlagonian 1034-1042
Michael V. 1042
Zoe and Theodora 1042
Constantine X. Monomachus 1042-1054
Theodora (restored) 1054-1056
Michael VI. Stratioticus 1056-1057
Isaac I. Comnenus 1057-1059
Constantine XI. Ducas 1059-1067
Michael VII. Ducas 1067-1078
Co-Emperor--
Romanus IV. Diogenes 1067-1078
Nicephorus III. Botoniates 1078-1081
Alexius I. Comnenus 1081-1118
John II. Comnenus 1118-1143
Manuel I. Comnenus 1143-1180
Alexius II. Comnenus 1180-1183
Andronicus I. Comnenus 1183-1185
Isaac II. Angelus 1185-1195
Alexius III. Angelus 1195-1203
Isaac II. (restored) }
Alexius IV. Angelus } 1203-1204
Alexius V. Ducas, Murtzuphlus 1204
_Latin Emperors_
Baldwin I. 1204-1205
Henry 1205-1216
Peter 1217-1219
Robert 1219-1228
John of Brienne 1228-1237
Baldwin II. 1237-1261
_Nicæan Emperors_
Theodore I. Lascaris 1204-1222
John III. Ducas 1222-1254
Theodore II. Ducas 1254-1259
John IV. Ducas 1259-1260
_Empire Restored_
Michael VIII. Palæologus 1260-1282
Andronicus II. Palæologus 1282-1328
Co-Emperor--
Michael IX. 1295-1320
Andronicus III. Palæologus 1328-1341
John VI. Palæologus 1341-1391
Co-Emperors--
John V. Cantacuzene 1342-1355
Andronicus IV. Palæologus (usurped
throne) 1376-1379
Manuel II. Palæologus 1391-1425
John VII. Palæologus 1425-1448
Constantine XII. Palæologus 1448-1453
_Turkish Sultans_
Mohammed II., "The Conqueror" 1451-1481
Bayezid II., "The Mystic" 1481-1512
Selim I., "The Great" 1512-1520
Suleiman I., "The Magnificent" 1520-1566
Selim II., "The Sot" 1566-1574
Murad III. 1574-1595
Mohammed III. 1595-1603
Ahmed I. 1603-1617
Mustafa I. } 1617-(1618)
Osman II. } 1623
Murad IV. 1623-1640
Ibrahim 1640-1649
Mohammed IV. 1649-1687
Suleiman II. 1687-1691
Ahmed II. 1691-1695
Mustafa II. 1695-1703
Ahmed III. 1703-1730
Mahmûd I. 1730-1754
Osman III. 1754-1757
Mustafa III. 1757-1774
Abdul Hamid I. 1774-1789
Selim III. 1789-1807
Mustafa IV. 1807-1808
Mahmûd II., "The Reformer" 1808-1839
Abdul Mejid 1839-1861
Abdul Aziz 1861-1876
Murad V. 1876
Abdul Hamid II. 1876
Constantinople
CHAPTER I
_The History of the City in ancient and mediæval times_
1. BYZANTIUM BEFORE CONSTANTINE.
It is impossible to approach Constantinople without seeing the beauty
and the wonder of its site. Whether you pass rapidly down the
Bosphorus, between banks crowned with towers and houses and mosques,
that stretch away hither and thither to distant hills, now bleak, now
crowned with dark cypress groves; or up from the Sea of Marmora,
watching the dome of S. Sophia that glitters above the closely packed
houses, till you turn the point which brings you to the Golden Horn,
crowded with shipping and bright with the flags of many nations; or
even if you come overland by the sandy wastes along the shore, looking
across the deep blue of the sea to the islands and the snow-crowned
mountains of Asia, till you break through the crumbling wall within
sight of the Golden Gate, and find yourself at a step deep in the
relics of the middle ages; you cannot fail to wonder at the splendour
of the view which meets your eyes. Sea, sunlight, the quaint houses
that stand close upon the water's edge, the white palaces, the crowded
quays, and the crowning glory of the Eastern domes and the mediæval
walls--these are the elements that combine to impress, and the
impression is never lost. Often as you may see again the approach to
the imperial city, its splendour and dignity and the exquisite beauty
of colour and light will exert their old charm, and as you put foot in
the New Rome you will feel all the glamour of the days that are gone
by.
[Illustration: SERAGLIO POINT AFTER SUNSET]
So of old the Greeks who founded the city dwelt lovingly on the
contrast of sea and land here meeting, and hymned the nymphs of wave
and spring, the garden by the shore.
"Where ocean bathes earth's footstool these sea-bowers
Bedeck its solid wavelets: wise was he
Who blended shore with deep, with seaweed flowers,
And Naiads' rivulets with Nereids' sea."
Strictly speaking the peninsula on which the city stands is of the
form of a trapezium. It juts out into the sea, beating back as it
were the fierce waves of the Bosphorus, and forcing them to turn aside
from their straight course and widen into the Sea of Marmora, which
the ancients called the Propontis, narrowing again as it forces its
way between the near banks of the Hellespont, which rise abrupt and
arid from the European side, and slope gently away in Asia to the foot
of Mount Ida. Northwards there is the little bay of the Golden Horn,
an arm as it were of the Bosphorus, into which run the streams which
the Turks call the Sweet Waters of Europe. The mouth of the harbour is
no more than five hundred yards across. The Greeks of the Empire
spanned it by a chain, supported here and there on wooden piles,
fragments of which still remain in the Armoury that was once the
church of S. Irene. Within is safe anchorage in one of the finest
harbours of the world.
South of the Golden Horn, on the narrow tongue of land--narrow it
seems as seen from the hills of the northern shore--is the city of
Constantine and his successors in empire, seated, like the old Rome,
on seven hills, and surrounded on three sides by sea, on the fourth by
the still splendid, though shattered, mediæval walls. Northwards are
the two towns, now linked together, of Pera and Galata, that look back
only to the trading settlements of the Middle Ages.
The single spot united, as Gibbon puts it, the prospects of beauty, of
safety, and of wealth: and in a masterly description that great
historian has collected the features which made the position, "formed
by Nature for the centre and capital of a great monarchy," attractive
to the first colonists, and evident to Constantine as the centre where
he could best combine and command the power of the Eastern half of his
mighty Empire.
[Illustration: THERAPIA]
"Situated in the forty-first degree of latitude, the imperial city
commanded, from her seven hills, the opposite shores of Europe and
Asia; the climate was healthy and temperate, the soil fertile, the
harbour secure and capacious, and the approach on the side of the
continent was of small extent and easy defence. The Bosphorus and
Hellespont may be considered as the two gates of Constantinople, and
the prince who possessed those important passages could always shut
them against a naval enemy and open them to the fleets of commerce.
The preservation of the eastern provinces may, in some degree, be
ascribed to the policy of Constantine, as the barbarians of the
Euxine, who in the preceding age had poured their armaments into the
heart of the Mediterranean, soon desisted from the exercise of piracy,
and despaired of forcing this insurmountable barrier. When the gates
of the Hellespont and Bosphorus were shut, the capital still enjoyed,
within their spacious enclosure, every production which would supply
the wants, or gratify the luxury, of its numerous inhabitants. The
sea-coast of Thrace and Bithynia, which languish under the weight of
the Turkish oppression, still exhibits a rich prospect of vineyards,
of gardens, and of plentiful harvests; and the Propontis has ever been
renowned for an inexhaustible store of the most exquisite fish, that
are taken in their stated seasons without skill, and almost without
labour. But when the passages of the straits were thrown open for
trade, they alternately admitted the natural and artificial riches of
the north and south, of the Euxine, and of the Mediterranean. Whatever
rude commodities were collected in the forests of Germany and Scythia,
as far as the sources of the Tanais and the Borysthenes; whatsoever
was manufactured by the skill of Europe or Asia; the corn of Egypt,
and the gems and spices of the farthest India; were brought by the
varying winds into the port of Constantinople, which for many ages
attracted the commerce of the ancient world."
There is no wonder that legend should surround the beginnings of the
imperial city of the East. Men from Argos and Megara under the
navigator Byzas founded it about 657 B.C. But mythology made the
founder the son of Neptune the sea god, and said that Io, changed into
a heifer, swam across the narrow strait that divides Europe from Asia,
and so gave it the name of Bosphorus, which means literally Oxford.
The Delphic oracle told men to settle "opposite the land of the
blind," for blind were those men of Megara who some years before had
chosen Chalcedon on the Asiatic shore instead of the matchless site on
which rose the city of Byzantium.
The early history can be briefly told. Byzantium was the first of the
cities of Europe to fall into the hands of Darius. It was burned to
the ground by the Persians, rescued and rebuilt by Pausanias, was
threatened by the Ten Thousand on their retreat, and saved by the
eloquence of Xenophon. Two years it was besieged by Philip of Macedon,
and was saved by the Athenians. When Rome first showed her power in
those lands Byzantium was her ally; but her chequered fortunes ended
their first epoch with destruction at the hands of Septimius Severus
in 196 A.D. She waited then for a century till her real founder came.
Byzantine coins go back as far as the fifth century B.C., and there
were in the early Middle Ages many surviving memorials of
pre-Christian times; of these there are now left only the striking
Corinthian column standing on a high granite base in the garden of the
old Seraglio, which almost certainly commemorates a victory of the
Emperor Claudius Gothicus, some parts of the foundations of the
Hippodrome, an inscription in the Doric dialect which formerly stood
in the Stadium, and that wonderful serpent column, which only came, it
is true, to the city after Constantine rebuilt it, but which was
centuries before in the temple of Apollo at Delphi.
2. FROM CONSTANTINE TO JUSTINIAN.
The true history of the city begins with Constantine the Great. It is
said that he hesitated at first, like the men of Megara, between
Byzantium and Chalcedon, when he came to choose a spot from which to
rule the East. But when he chose aright he founded a city which has
endured to this day, and which it is inconceivable should ever be
deserted again. The site on which he built is about four miles long,
broadening from less than a mile where it fronts the Bosphorus to four
miles from where the Marble Tower now stands to the Golden Horn. Seven
hills and six valleys diversify the ground. The seven hills as we see
them now stretch thus from east to west. First is that irregular
elevation ending at Seraglio Point, on which stand the buildings of
the old Seraglio, S. Irene, S. Sophia, the great mosque of Sultan
Ahmed, and the Hippodrome. Second, and north-west of it, is the hill
on which stands the column of Constantine himself, now burned and
broken. On the third stands the great tower by the War Office
(Seraskierat), the mosques of Bayezid and Suleiman. A valley descends
northwards to the Golden Horn; and across it runs the Aqueduct of
Valens, and on the other side is the hill marked by the mosque of
Mohammed the Conqueror. The fifth hill stretches from the fourth
almost to the Golden Horn, and on it stands the mosque of Selim. The
sixth hill, divided from the fifth by a valley ascending from the
Golden Horn, has now the ruins of the palace called by the people "the
House of Belisarius," and the seventh extends from the south of the
Adrianople Gate to the Sea of Marmora. As the old foundation, so the
new planning of Constantine has its legend. It is said that he traced
the boundary of his city himself, walking spear in hand and marking
the line of the walls; and when his courtiers asked him how far he
could go he answered, as though he saw a sacred vision, "Until He
tarries Who now goes before." He ascribed in his laws the founding to
the command of God.
He did not cover the whole ground of the Seven Hills. It is difficult
to trace with certainty the line of the walls, but it would seem
probable that they extended from what is now the inner bridge across
the Golden Horn to a point on the Sea of Marmora about midway between
the gate of Daoud Pasha and the Psamatia Gate. This would exclude part
of the fifth, sixth, and seventh hills; but it is improbable that they
were left entirely unprotected or completely excluded from the city of
Constantine. By the sixth at any rate already stood the Blachernae,
later to be the famous palace of the Byzantine emperors. Sycae,
across the Golden Horn, was the name of what is now Galata. It was at
one time the quarter where the Galatian mercenaries dwelt, and quite
early in history it had another division named Pera, or "across the
water." The seaward walls remained as they had been in old Byzantium,
and they were repaired, and brought forward to the point whence the
new land walls started. Of the remains of Constantine's time there are
none that are not half destroyed or wholly altered, but the Church of
S. Irene still recalls the days of its first founder, and the serpent
column from Delphi still stands in the Hippodrome where he placed it.
The divisions of Constantine's city are not easy to recover. For
municipal government it had, like Rome, fourteen regions, two of which
were outside the walls, those (xiii.) of Sycae and (xiv.) of
Blachernae. From the Golden gate, which was not far from the Marmora
end of the land walls (the name Isa Kapou Mesjidi still recalls the
Holy Name of Jesus which it bore), a road led to the Augusteum. The
Forum of Constantine stood outside where the old Byzantine walls had
been, and west of the Hippodrome. The Hippodrome extended south-west
from the Forum of the Augusteum. North-east at some distance stood the
Church of S. Irene. The Augusteum which, as Mr Bury says, we may
translate _place impériale_, had the Church of S. Sophia, begun
probably by Constantius, on the north; on the east the Senate house,
and some buildings of the Palace; on the south the great Palace
itself, built eastwards of the Hippodrome and commanding the
magnificent view over the Marmora islands to the shores of Asia and
the snows of Olympus.
[Illustration: THE HIPPODROME AND MOSQUE OF AHMED]
Of the splendour of the city of Constantine many hints of
description remain. Constantinople was enriched, says one writer, by
the spoils of all other cities: Rome and Athens, Sicily and Antioch,
were robbed of treasures. Of all these treasures the most wonderful,
almost if not quite alone, survives. For eight hundred years it had
already stood in the Sanctuary of Delphi, the serpent column with its
triple head, inscribed with the names of the Greek city states which
had triumphed on the field of Platæa. Through all the changes of the
sixteen centuries since Constantine lived the column has still
remained where he set it. Its heads are now broken off, and one may be
seen in the museum; but parts of the inscription on the coils might
still be traced fifteen years ago when rubbings were taken. The name
of the Tenians, whose trireme brought the news to the Greeks of the
Persian approach, may still be seen. "For this service," says
Herodotus, "the Tenians were inscribed in Delphi, on the tripod, among
those who had overthrown the barbarian." Thus for nearly two thousand
four hundred years this memorial has endured. Of all the wonders of
the city of Constantine there is none like it.
From Constantine to Justinian the history of the city may be rapidly
traversed, for no great builder came between them to rival their work.
It was on May 11, 330 A.D., that the city of Constantine was dedicated
and received the name of New or Second Rome. Throned in the
Hippodrome, ever after to be the centre of Byzantine life, Constantine
gave thanks to God for the birth of this fair city, the daughter (so
wrote S. Augustine), as it were, of Rome herself. Grandeur, riches,
dignity, he could give to his new city: but before he died it was
plain that he could not bequeath to her a legacy of peace.
The early history of Constantinople is largely concerned with the
defence of the true Christian faith, handed down from the Apostles,
against the errors of Arius. The Council of Nicæa (Isnik) in 325,
summoned by Constantine at a place not more than a day's journey from
Constantinople, defined the being of the Second Person of the Blessed
Trinity as Ὁμοούσιον, of one essence (substance), with that
of the Father, but centuries passed before the false teaching was
overcome. It was natural that at Constantinople, the seat of imperial
government, the strife should be concentrated. Thither the Arian
leaders went to denounce the great S. Athanasius of Alexandria to the
Emperor. It was there that Constantine gave his order to the aged
bishop Alexander that Arius should be admitted to communion. There the
bishop lay in prayer before the altar in the apse of S. Irene,
beseeching God to spare him the profanation. There that very day Arius
met his awfully sudden death.
Under the sons of Constantine the imperial city witnessed scenes of
disturbance and persecution. As soon as Constantius freed himself from
the danger of civil war, he threw himself warmly into the support of
Arianism, and "devoted the leisure of his winter quarters," says
Gibbon, "to the amusement or toils of controversy; the sword of the
magistrate, and even of the tyrant, was unsheathed to enforce the
reasons of the theologian"; and he refers to the happy passages in
which Ammianus Marcellinus records the results of his disastrous
activity, in language which loses nothing in Gibbon's English.
"The Christian religion, which in itself is plain and simple, he
confounded by the dotage of superstition. Instead of reconciling the
parties by the weight of his authority, he cherished and propagated by
verbal disputes the differences which his vain curiosity had excited.
The highways were covered with troops of bishops, galloping from
every side to the assemblies which they call synods; and, while they
laboured to reduce the whole body to their own particular opinions,
the public establishment of the posts was almost ruined by their hasty
and repeated journeys." The "opinions" indeed were far from original
to Constantius, but his support of Arianism rendered the position of
the Church in the imperial city dangerous and uncertain. Five times
was the bishop Paul banished from the city. The Catholics rose in
tumult, and the streets of Constantinople saw for the first time what
they have often since witnessed, a massacre in which not even the
churches preserved those who fled to them for refuge. Another fatal
precedent had already been set when Constantine died, by the murder of
many princes of his house. One of the few survivors ascended the
throne in 361, on the death of the last of Constantine's sons. This
new Emperor was Julian, whom later ages have named the Apostate.
Julian had been baptized and had "followed the way of the Christians"
till he was twenty. He had even, it seems, taken minor orders as a
reader. But he was greatly attracted by the old Greek ideals, and had
not patience to study the Christian religion perfectly. As Emperor he
set himself seriously to revive Paganism, which had received its
death-blow from Constantine.
The pagan Emperor was above all things a pedant and a doctrinaire. It
is impossible to study his life or his writings without a sense of his
extraordinary self-conceit. He was moral in life, sound and excellent
even to weariness in his platitudinarian sentiments; but he was
obstinate, and blind, and abnormally self-conscious, as men of his
mould always are. He was so convinced that he was right that he was
utterly blind to the good deeds of Christians and deaf to their
arguments, even from the clearest thinkers. We see in him not a trace
of intellectual progress, even on his own lines; we find him
throughout intensely superstitious and fond of dabbling in occult
arts. As a student, he somewhat hastily accepted certain conclusions,
and found himself a marked man in consequence. From that moment he
clung to his philosophy with the tenacity of a limited mind; and we
may be quite sure the story is legendary that such a man admitted on
his deathbed the triumph of a religious system which he had combated
all his life.
Julian was brought up probably in Constantinople. As Emperor he did
not a little to increase the pride and beauty of the city. Especially
interesting to him were the constitutional rules which Constantine had
set up in imitation of the old Rome, and he paid notable respect to
the office of the Consul, and enlarged the powers of the Senate. Art
and science he endeavoured to foster by endowments for teaching in the
schools of the city, and in this he was followed by his successors.
Julian died a disappointed man in 363, and his successors inclined to
the Catholic party; but still Arianism was strong, and its strength
was felt not least in Constantinople. Jovian proclaimed toleration,
Valentinian followed him, Valens professed Arianism. While religions
contended, the material prosperity of the city continued to grow. In
378, when the Goths drew near to besiege the imperial city, they
turned back, it is said, at the sight of its increased size. Already
people of every kindred and tongue poured into the great mart for
commerce and pleasure. At length, says Sozomen, it far surpassed Rome
both in population and riches, and Eunapius thus describes its
importance in his day:--"Constantinople, formerly called Byzantium,
allowed the ancient Athenians a liberty of importing corn in great
quantities; but now not all the ships of burden from Egypt, Asia,
Syria, Phœnicia, and many other nations can import a quantity
sufficient for the support of those people whom Constantine, by
unpeopling other cities, has transported thither." Already there began
the custom, which has lasted so many centuries, of building houses on
wooden piles thrust out into the sea. As the incursion of the
barbarians became more dangerous many took refuge in the capital; and
yearly the churches grew in importance, and the monasteries attracted
more religious.
"There were many structures which Constantine had only commenced; and
the completion of the fortifications of the city had been left to
Constantius; Julian found it necessary to construct a second harbour
on the side of the sea of Marmora;[1] Valens was obliged to improve
the waterworks of the city by the erection of the fine aqueduct which
spans the valley between the fourth and fifth hills. And how large a
number of hands such work required appears from the fact that when the
aqueduct was repaired, in the ninth century, 6000 labourers were
brought from the provinces to Constantinople for the purpose."[2]
But while the magnificent aqueduct of Valens (364-378) still towers
over the city, as one views it from the heights of Pera, no other
great building was added till the reign of Theodosius the Great
(378-395), which marks the triumph of Catholic Christianity and the
great increase in the splendour of the patriarchal and imperial abode.
A contemporary, Gregory of Nyssa, quaintly describes the results of
the theological interests which now surrounded the throne. Not only
did great preachers fill the churches with attentive crowds, but the
poor took up the tale. "The city is full of mechanics and slaves who
are all of them profound theologians, and preach in the shops and in
the streets. If you desire a man to change a piece of money for you he
informs you wherein the Son differs from the Father; if you ask the
price of a loaf you are told by way of reply that the Son is inferior
to the Father; and if you enquire whether the bath is ready, the
answer is that the Son was made out of nothing." This was in the time
of the Arian triumph. It was the work of great preachers, as well as
of the orthodox Emperor, to recover the Church from the blows she had
received in the house of her friends.
The three great saints of the Eastern Church in the fourth century
were in different ways associated with Constantinople. S. Basil of
Cæsarea in Cappadocia, (brother of S. Gregory of Nyssa) was a
fellow-student of the Emperor Julian, and died in 379. He knew very
little directly of the seat of empire; he probably only twice passed
through it; but his writings, full in every page of lucid order and
perspicuous exposition, did much to vindicate the position which the
orthodox in Constantinople were struggling to retain. Probably it was
before his death that the great preacher, S. Gregory of Nazianzus, was
pleading in the imperial city, and vindicated by his great oration the
worship of the Holy Trinity. The site of his first preaching was
commemorated by the building of the Church of Anastasia, a name given
to denote the rising again of the Catholic faith of Nicæa. The
sixteenth century mosque of Mehmed Pacha, south-west of the
Hippodrome, preserves the position of the church, which was destroyed
in 1458. At first the mission of S. Gregory was conducted amid scenes
of the greatest disturbance and at great danger to his own life. His
church was profaned, he himself was stoned. But when Theodosius
entered the city in triumph he gave to S. Gregory the great church of
the Twelve Apostles, and himself sought to seat him upon the episcopal
throne. Humble, and weakened by suffering, it was with reluctance that
the saint entered upon the heritage of the church; but he records that
when he entered the sanctuary the light that burst forth on the chill
November day cheered him to give thanks before all the people for the
benefits which the Blessed Trinity had bestowed. After a month of
reluctance he was at length installed as bishop. In May 381 the second
General Council of the Church was assembled by the order of the
Emperor Theodosius at Constantinople. It reasserted the creed of
Nicæa, emphasised the Catholic teaching of the Divinity of the Holy
Ghost, and condemned the heresy of Apollinaris. Its claim to be
ecumenical rests on its unanimous acceptance of "all the nations and
all the churches of the Christian world."
By this council the precedence of the bishop of Constantinople in the
Church was assigned as next after that of the Roman bishop, "because
it is the new Rome."
S. Gregory, attacked by critics for his acceptance of the see, which
he had so reluctantly received, withdrew to Nazianzus. "The title of a
saint had been added to his name, but the tendencies of his heart, and
the elegance of his genius, reflect a more pleasing lustre on the
memory of Gregory of Nazianzen," says Gibbon in his inimitable way.
The consecration of his successor, a senator named Nectarius, who when
elected had not yet been baptised, is described by the same classic as
"whimsical," but it served to bring peace to the Church of
Constantinople. The conquests of Theodosius confirmed the security of
the imperial throne, and under the rule of the orthodox Emperor the
Church in the East regained her peace. By his order all churches were
given up to the orthodox, and his edict condemned all those who
taught heretical doctrines, and "who, though possessing a sound faith,
form congregations separate from the canonical bishops." Under
Theodosius the security of life and property in the imperial city
tended to a great increase of wealth and population; and with that to
a considerable extension of the area occupied.
"Should the zeal of the Emperor to adorn the city continue," said the
orator Themistius, "a wider circuit will be required, and the question
will arise whether the city added to Constantinople by Theodosius is
not more splendid than the city which Constantine added to Byzantium."
"No longer is the vacant ground in the city more extensive than that
occupied by buildings; nor are we cultivating more territory within
our walls than we inhabit; the beauty of the city is not as heretofore
scattered over it in patches, but covers the whole area like a robe
woven to the very fringe. The city gleams with gold and porphyry. It
has a [new] Forum, named after the Emperor; it owns baths, porticos,
gymnasia; and its former extremity is now its centre. Were Constantine
to see the capital he founded, he would behold a glorious and splendid
scene, not a bare and empty void; he would find it fair, not with
apparent but with real beauty."[3]
The beginning of the fifth century witnessed the great extension of
the city which the orator so grandiloquently describes in
anticipation. Anthemius, who ruled during the earlier part of the
minority of Theodosius II., built the great wall, a mile or in parts a
mile and a half to the west of Constantine's wall, which still extends
from the Sea of Marmora to the so-called "palace of Belisarius." It
was within the city now rapidly growing, that the greatest preacher of
the early Church, began at the end of the fourth century to exercise
his marvellous influence over the crowds that thronged the great
church of the capital. Arcadius, the son and successor of Theodosius
I., having heard of the splendid eloquence of John, a preacher of
Antioch, whom men came to call Chrysostom (the golden-mouthed),
nominated him to the throne of Constantinople on the death of
Nectarius in 397.
He set an example, which the clergy sadly needed, of simplicity and
asceticism; he was not only a reformer but an organiser of missions,
and above all a preacher of righteousness. The Emperor and Empress,
Arcadius and Eudocia, were among his most ardent admirers. He owed his
nomination to the imperial minister Eutropius; yet he denounced his
vices at the height of his power, and when he fell preserved him in
sanctuary from the rage of the people. But the Empress and the
courtiers soon grew restless under his searching exposure of vice and
worldliness. He was a severe disciplinarian: bishops were ready to
turn against him, and the ladies of the court were determined to
avenge themselves on their censor. When he denounced the Empress
almost openly as Jezebel, it was clear that peace could not long be
maintained even in appearance. Charges of heresy, complicated by his
charitable succour of some Eastern monks whom the bishop of Alexandria
had ill-treated and banished, led to his condemnation by a council of
his enemies at Chalcedon, across the Bosphorus. When the citizens
heard this they surrounded the palace of their beloved bishop and kept
watch all night lest he should be seized, but he gave himself up and
was banished to Hieron (now Anadoli Kavak) at the mouth of the Black
Sea on the Asiatic side. The people assembled round the imperial
palace with threats; an earthquake shook the resolution of the
Empress, and Chrysostom was brought back in triumph to his throne.
His position seemed stronger than ever. Always ready to believe the
best, he accepted the Empress's assurance of friendship and repaid it
with courtierlike expressions of respect. But it was soon apparent
that the friendship could not be continued without a sacrifice of
principle. Eudocia envied, it would seem, the divine honours of the
pagan emperors; and the dedication of her statue in September 403 was
made the occasion of blasphemous and licentious revelry. From the ambo
of the great church S. John Chrysostom denounced the wickedness of the
festival, while the sound of the disturbance could be heard as he
spoke. Men declared that he compared the Empress to Herodias--"Again
Herodias dances: again she demands the head of John on a charger."
The Empress demanded the punishment of the bold preacher. Intrigues
won over the Emperor, time-serving bishops brought up ingenious
distortions of Church rules through which Chrysostom could be
punished. It was pretended that he was not legally bishop, and at last
the timid Emperor gave the order to arrest him, an act which was
accomplished, in a scene of brutal disorder and violence, in the great
church itself on Easter Eve 404, when the sacrament of baptism was
being ministered to three thousand catechumens.
Two months later he was sent into banishment, and his adherents
underwent a bitter persecution. They appealed to the churches of the
West for aid: Chrysostom himself wrote to Rome, Milan, and Aquileia.
But the Emperor was not to be moved. In his banishment at Cucusus, on
the borders of Cilicia and Armenia, the Saint exercised as wide an
influence as on his throne. Constant letters to Constantinople cheered
the loyal clergy, comforted penitents, aroused faint hearts to devoted
service of God. But his sufferings in exile were at length made fatal
by the brutality with which he was hurried from place to place, and he
gave up his soul on September 14, 407, a martyr to his zeal for
righteousness. Thirty years afterwards in 438 his body was translated
to the city where his memory was still cherished. It came in triumphal
procession down the Bosphorus followed by crowds of boats, and was
laid in a tomb by the altar in the Church of the Holy Apostles; the
Emperor, Theodosius II., praying for the pardon of God on the sins of
his parents.
Thus briefly the tale of Chrysostom may be told. It is characteristic
of the struggles through which the Church of Constantinople had to
pass during the years of unchecked imperial power, when it was
dependent on the arbitrary authority of a sovereign who might be weak
and led by evil counsellors, or wicked and resentful of any criticism
of his deeds, but who had always at his command a body of brutal
soldiery, often pagan and retaining of the old Roman tradition only
the implicit obedience to the commands of their ruler. The name of S.
John Chrysostom, loved and honoured by the people in his life, has
remained the chief glory of the Church of Constantinople. It is said
that his tomb was rifled by the Crusaders in 1204, and his head is
shown among the relics of the Cathedral of Pisa; but in countless ways
his memory is still preserved by the Church which he ruled. At the
Cathedral Church of the Patriarchate in the Phanar they point to-day
to a pulpit and a throne (of much later date) as his; and the ancient
liturgy of the East, used from time immemorial in the Church of
Constantinople, has been given his name, as that of the most famous of
the holy prelates who used it.
The troubles of the Church, which centred round the persecution and
martyrdom of S. Chrysostom, were followed by at least outward peace
in religious matters. The chief clergy of Constantinople became the
mere officers of the Court. But the dangers of the times, when again
and again the barbarian was at the gates, turned men's minds to the
repair of the fortifications and the completion of their circuit
around the now greatly extended city.
The work of Anthemius, regent during part of the minority of
Theodosius II., was eulogised by Chrysostom himself. The office of
Prætorian Præfect of the East which he held, was honoured, said the
great preacher, by his holding it. He restored the defences of the
Empire after the weakness of Arcadius, "and to crown the system of
defence he made Constantinople a mighty citadel. The enlargement and
refortification of the city was thus part of a comprehensive and far
seeing plan to equip the Roman State in the East for the impending
desperate struggle with barbarism; and of all the services which
Anthemius rendered, the most valuable and enduring was the addition he
made to the military importance of the capital. The bounds he assigned
to the city fixed, substantially, her permanent dimensions, and behind
the bulwarks he raised--improved and often repaired indeed by his
successors--Constantinople acted her great part in the history of the
world."[4]
The two greatest interests of Constantinople have always been the
military and the ecclesiastical. The Eastern churches have always
looked, and look to-day, on the New Rome as the centre of true
religion and sound learning. The theology of the Councils is the
theology of the great Church of Constantinople and its patriarchs; and
in the days of its bitterest persecution, in the times when the
infidel has ruled, the strongest sentiment of the Greek people, who
feel that the city is still truly their own, is that of loyalty to
the unalterable faith and the immemorial liturgies of the holy
Orthodox Church preserved by the successors of S. Chrysostom. But
while the intense intellectual keenness of the East and the chivalrous
conservatism of the ancient Greek families preserves undisputed the
dominion of religion, and the thronged churches witness to a devotion
which is perhaps more conspicuous than in any city which lives on to
our day from the centuries of the Middle Ages, the great city of
Constantine can never cease to be the home of a military power, where
military science is cultivated and the soldier's life is the most
prominent before the eyes of the people. Even at the lowest point of
the Empire, the great city of the Cæsars was always a military
stronghold of the first class. The streets have never ceased to be
thronged with soldiers, and the military pageants of to-day look back
for their origin and their necessity to the days of Constantine and
Theodosius and Anthemius the wall-builder. It is said that to-day the
city is more completely defended than any other in Europe. More than
sixteen centuries ago it was the strength of the walls of Anthemius
and the size of the army and the fleet that he gathered that turned
back the army of Attila. Just as the whole city was concerned in the
doings of the Church, its buildings, its festivals, its councils, so
were all the citizens bound to take part in its military defence. The
walls, like the churches, belonged to all. Strict laws, from which no
one was exempt, and the power of levying special taxes besides the due
proportion of the city land-tax, made every man liable to contribute.
Characteristically the Hippodrome had its share in directing the work.
The two factions of the Circus, the blues and the greens, were charged
with the direction; and it is said that in 447 they furnished no less
than sixteen thousand labourers for the work.
The reign of Theodosius II. was the great age of the construction of
defences. The walls of Anthemius were built in 413; in 439 the sea
walls were extended to include the part of the city now enclosed. In
447, an earthquake, always the greatest enemy of the fortifications
and responsible even now for more destruction than any other force,
overthrew much of what had been so lately built, with fifty-seven
towers. Attila was almost at the gates, and was dictating an
ignominious treaty of peace. But, as an inscription which may be read
to-day on the gate now called Yeni-Mevlevi Haneh Kapoussi tells--
"In sixty days, by order of the sceptre loving Emperor,
Konstantinos the Eparch added wall to wall."
A Latin inscription makes the same record almost in the words of the
contemporary chronicler Marcellinus Comes--
"Theodosii jussis gemino nec mense peracto
Constantinus ovans haec moenia firma locavit
Tam cito quam stabilem Pallas vix conderet arcem."
This addition was a new wall, in front of that of Anthemius, with 192
towers, and a moat without, forming tiers of defence. It was this
magnificent series of bulwarks which, in the words of the historian of
the walls, "so long as ordinary courage survived and the modes of
ancient warfare were not superseded, made Constantinople impregnable,
and behind which civilisation defied the assaults of barbarism for a
thousand years."[5]
Theodosius II. reigned till 450. The later part of his reign was
disturbed by the Nestorian controversy, in which the bishop of
Constantinople himself involved the Church. The denial by this prelate
of the title Theotokos (Mother of God) to the Blessed Virgin Mary was
no obscure attack upon the reality of the Incarnation as the Church
had always received it; and the people of the city as well as the
clergy received the new teaching with disgust. Eastern and Western
bishops united against the heresy, and in 431 the third General
Council of the Church at Ephesus condemned it and its author, and
again defined the Catholic faith. The party of Nestorius was not
suppressed, though he was himself deposed, and in the sixth century it
became the great agent of Christian missions in the East.
Hardly was this false teaching rejected before a new heresy arose.
Eutyches, a monk of Constantinople, denied the existence of two
natures in Christ, and after a dispute which shook the Church for
twenty years his teaching was at last condemned by the fourth General
Council, which met at Chalcedon, just across the Bosphorus. The
Council also emphasised the importance of the position now held by the
New Rome by enacting that it should be "magnified in ecclesiastical
matters even like the elder imperial Rome, as being next to it." This
rule was accepted by the Emperor Marcian, and the power it gave to
consecrate the metropolitans of Thrace, Asia, and Pontus was supported
by the State as a badge of supremacy. The emperors who followed
Marcian were all more or less concerned in the theological strife
which the opinions of Eutyches had raised. The Monophysites, as the
party which rejected the decisions of Chalcedon came to be called, was
constantly rising into power in the Court. The imperial crown was worn
in turn by four adventurers, who deposed prelates and attempted to
reconcile parties at their will. In 482 the Emperor Zeno, with the
advice of the patriarch Acacius, put forth the _Henoticon_ (form of
union), which was intended to reconcile the Monophysites to the
Catholic Church. The controversy was far from stilled by this inept
document; and when in 484, Felix, the pope of Rome, with other Western
bishops, wrote to the patriarch Acacius, declaring him deposed from
his office, and separated from the communion of the faithful, a schism
was caused in Constantinople itself. While the majority of the clergy
and people treated the Roman decree with contempt, some of the monks,
and especially the Akoimetai (an order which kept up perpetual worship
by succession of worshippers, and thus received the name of
"sleepless"), refused communion with their own patriarch. The
Henoticon had divided the Church. The patriarchates of Antioch and
Alexandria were Monophysite; Jerusalem and Constantinople were
orthodox.
The reign of Anastasius, the son-in-law of Leo, whose wife was the
widow of his predecessor Zeno, was regarded by the orthodox as an era
of persecution. Himself a man of piety and virtue, he was greeted by
the people in the Circus on his accession with the cry, "Reign as you
have lived!" He added to the defences of the city a great wall
stretching from the Marmora to the Euxine, some thirty-five miles from
Constantinople; but he unhappily turned to theology, and widened the
gulf which the Henoticon had made between the Emperors and the Church.
In November 512, the streets again ran with blood shed by the people
for the cause of religious truth. Amid these years stained by crime
and folly, the imperial city was again and again in danger from
external as well as internal foes. At the beginning of the reign of
Anastasius the Isaurians who had been driven from the city rebelled,
and for five years there was war, ended only when, in 498, Isaurian
captives were led in triumph through the streets. Eleven years before,
Theodoric the Goth had stood before the gates, but turned back from
the massive strength which he could not overthrow. He was now ruler of
Italy. And even in the East, Huns, Romans and Goths again and again
threatened the capital. Anastasius dabbled in theology to the end,
made overtures to Pope Hormisdas which came to nothing, and died at
the age of eighty-eight, regretted by none.
He was succeeded by an illiterate but honest Thracian soldier, Justin.
Orthodox and straightforward, he was welcomed by the people as a
saviour and a second Constantine. Under his rule peace was made with
the orthodox West, and the Church again had rest.
With the death of Justin, 527, we reach the second great epoch of the
history of the imperial city. Constantinople before the days of
Justinian, when Theodoric, about 461, was sent as a hostage to the
Imperial Court, _et quia puerulus elegans erat meruit gratiam
imperialem habere_, was the most glorious city of Europe. Jordanes,
the historian of the Goths, tells how he marvelled at the wondrous
sight. "Lo! now I behold," said he, "what I have often heard, but have
never believed, the glory of so great a city!" Then turning his eyes
this way and that, beholding the situation of the city and the
concourse of ships, how he marvels at the long perspective of lofty
walls. Then he sees the multitude of various nations like the stream
flowing forth from one fountain which has been fed by many springs;
then he beholds the soldiers in ordered ranks. "A god," said he,
"without doubt a god upon earth is the Emperor of this realm, and
whoso lifts his hand against him, that man's blood be on his own
head." Thus the barbarian may well have spoken when he had his first
sight of the majesty of the Empire and its civilization in its Eastern
home.
[Illustration: YERI BATAN SERAI (CISTERN)]
Within a few years there was a great change. Earthquakes, rebellions,
fires, compelled the rebuilding of a great part of Constantinople, and
Justinian the Great, lawyer, theologian and organiser of victory, left
monuments as enduring in architecture as in the other spheres of his
activity. With the exception of the churches of S. John of the Studium
and S. Irene, and the walls of Theodosius, there are to-day no great
works of the Christian period, save a very few of the later Emperors,
remaining in Constantinople except those which Justinian built. His
architects created the Byzantine style which reached its magnificent
completion in S. Sophia. The finest of the cisterns which astonish the
traveller to-day are the work of his age; and as we walk by the
splendid walls that extend from the Marmora to the Golden Horn, it is
along his triumphal way that we tread. The first book of the
"Aedifices" of Procopius, written to commemorate his achievements in
building, is even now a handbook in little to the glories of
Constantinople.
Leaving to our description of the city the still standing work of the
great Emperor, we must here shortly sketch the reign which was for
nine centuries the most glorious memory of the Eastern Empire. Born in
482 or 483, Justinian was the son of a Dardanian peasant, and was born
at Scupi (Üsküp), "at the crossing-point of great natural routes
across the western part of the Illyrian peninsula." When his uncle
Justin raised himself to the throne in 518 he was sent for and trained
to succeed to, if not already to exercise, supreme power. So long as
Justin lived Justinian was his chief adviser. When Vitalian, the
orthodox Goth, whose troops in the neighbourhood of the city seemed to
threaten the new dynasty, was murdered in the palace, it was
Justinian, for whose concern in the crime no valid evidence has been
produced, who rose to the highest place in military as well as civil
affairs. In 523 he married the beautiful Theodora, whose earlier life
has been covered with shame by historians whose veracity is open at
least to suspicion. She is described by the bitter Procopius as
everything that is vile; it is probably true that her youth was
disreputable; but it is certain that she made the noblest atonement
for the past by the charity and piety of her later life and by the
courage and wisdom which were of profit even to the Empire.[6] Of her
beauty there is no doubt. Small, pale as marble, but with brilliant
eyes, the bitterest of her enemies describes her; and when he uses
the language of compliment he declares of the statue erected in her
honour by the baths of Arcadius that "the face is beautiful but falls
short of the beauty of the Empress, since it is utterly impossible for
any mere human workmen to express her loveliness." Four years after
the marriage, which was one of unbroken affection till the Empress
died in 548, Justinian was associated with his uncle on the imperial
throne. On April 1, 527, he became sole Emperor, and he reigned till
565.
Constantinople under Justinian became again the centre of Christian
Europe. But before his power was fully established it was threatened
by the gravest of the great insurrections with which the populace
showed its independence and its fickle levity. The sedition arose in
the Circus, and it was long the fashion to believe that Constantinople
was ruled entirely under the sway of the factions of the Hippodrome. A
more critical investigation has shown that the demes (δῆμοι)
or parties were organised bodies intimately connected with the court
and the municipality. The demes had two parts, military under
democrats, and civil, or political, under demarchs. The heads of each
faction were officers of the court and the army, and the demes were
fully organised for military purposes. Not only were they, as we have
seen, intrusted with the building of the wall, but they provided,
under the Emperor Maurice, troops for the guarding of the long walls;
and Justinian himself, at the end of his reign, used them in a similar
way. It was to the demes, one writer seems to show, that Justin owed
his throne. But while their military and political importance is now
fully recognised, we are still without an explanation of how they
became connected with the parties and colours of the Circus.
However that may be, we find in the reign of Justinian two large
Circus parties, the Blues and the Greens, with whom were merged as
sub-divisions the Reds and the Whites, who organised the races and had
so much liberty allowed them by the laws, that they were able to defy
emperors and set public order at defiance. But the madness of their
riot was not without a method. To the demes or factions were allowed
privileges which seemed the last relics of the ancient freedom of the
Greek cities. "In the sixth century," says Professor Bury, "the
outbreaks of the demes represent a last struggle for municipal
independence, on which it is the policy of imperial absolutism to
encroach. The power of the demarchs had to give way to the control of
the præfects of the city."
[Illustration: THE IMPERIAL QUARTER]
On January 13, 532, there began an insurrection called ever after the
"Nika" (conquer), from the watchwords of the insurgents, which
threatened the imperial throne, and went nigh to destroy the whole
city. The præfect of the city led to execution some criminals
belonging to both parties, three days before. The Greens, during the
celebration of public games in the Hippodrome on Sunday, January 11,
appealed to the Emperor against Calapodius, the imperial minister, and
the most extraordinary dialogue occurred. "Be silent, Jews, Samaritans
and Manichæans," cried Justinian's _mandator_, uttering imperial
commands, but they renewed their complaints, and finally passed into
insults, calling the Emperor tyrant and murderer. Justinian determined
to show his indifference to the mob by the execution that night of
criminals of both factions. Two were rescued, and the two factions
determined to procure their pardon, and on the 13th, when the great
games took place, they appealed to Justinian, but in vain. The two
demes then declared themselves united, and having no answer from the
præfect whose house they surrounded, they set fire to the prætorium,
and then in the night spread the fire over the imperial quarter. The
portico of the Palace, the Baths of Xeuxippus, the Senate-house, and
the wooden church of S. Sophia were set on fire. Next morning they
marched to the Palace and demanded the dismissal of the unpopular
ministers. Justinian was about to yield, and indeed had given the
order, when the insurgents determined to depose him. Anastasius had
left three nephews, Probus, Hypatius and Pompeius. Failing to find the
first the mob burned his house. The two other brothers remained in
safety in the palace. Next day the greatest general of the age,
Belisarius, who had but recently returned from a victorious campaign
against the Persians, sallied forth from the palace with a body of
barbarian troops, Goths and Heruls--for the garrison of the city could
not be trusted--and fierce fighting occurred for two days in the
streets. The clergy did their utmost to restore peace, but were
utterly unheeded, and in the evening of the 16th the Church of S.
Irene, built by Constantine, was burnt, though not to the ground, and
the Hospice of Samson, which stood between it and S. Sophia, were also
destroyed. On the 17th, Saturday, the fire spread still further, and
almost all the centre of the city was reduced to ashes. At night
Justinian determined to give up Hypatius and Pompeius to the mob,
hoping no doubt that if they were conspiring against him they would be
less dangerous outside than within the palace. In spite of their
reluctance he drove them forth to their own houses. Next day, early on
the Sunday morning, the Emperor himself went down to the Hippodrome
and made what was little better than an abject submission. He swore on
the gospels to forgive all that had been done, if order were now
restored. "The blame is not yours but all mine. For the punishment of
my sins I did not grant your requests when first you spoke to me in
this place." Some cried out that he swore falsely, and no heed was
taken of his words. A few hours later Hypatius was proclaimed Emperor,
and as the mob surrounded the palace it seemed that there was nothing
for the Emperor but flight. It was then, when Justinian was ready to
yield and cross the Bosphorus to the safety of Chalcedon, that
Theodora showed herself worthy of the purple. "No time is this," she
cried, "to ask whether a woman should be bold before men or valiant
when men are afraid. They who are in extremest peril must think of
nothing but how best to meet what lies before them. To fly, if ever it
be expedient, would now not be so, I declare, even if it preserved us.
For a man born into this light not to die is impossible; but for one
who has been Emperor to become an exile is not to be endured. Let me
never come to be without this purple robe nor live that day when men
shall cease to call me their sovereign Lady. If you, Emperor, wish to
escape, it is no hard matter. Here is the sea, and there lie the
ships. But consider whether you may not one day wish that you had
exchanged your mean safety for a glorious death. For me I love the
ancient saying, 'How brave a sepulchre a kingdom is!'"
Thus Theodora proved herself fit mate for a Cæsar, and worthy of her
crown; and those who had counselled flight now found courage to
resist. While Justinian's men planned an attack, the followers of
Hypatius agreed upon delay, and he himself sent, it would seem, to
make peace with the Emperor. As his messenger went, he was told that
the Cæsar had fled, and then the unhappy pretender took upon him the
dignity of Emperor. In a few hours Belisarius led his troops upon the
multitude assembled in the Hippodrome, and before nightfall they
forced their way in with fire and sword, and of all the citizens
gathered in the Circus not one left it alive. Justinian was not told
till too late that Hypatius had been willing to submit. The two
brothers were dragged out with contumely, and the next morning before
daylight they fell under the swords of the barbarian soldiers. The
Emperor, it is said, would have spared them, but Theodora, "swearing
by God and by him, urged him to have them killed." Zachariah of
Mitylene says that more than 80,000 persons perished in the riot.
At midday on Monday, January 19, Constantinople was at peace; but it
was in ruins. Three distinct conflagrations had reduced the grandest
monuments of the city of Constantine to ashes. On the first two days
of the riot all the buildings of the Augusteum were destroyed, and
with them S. Sophia, the "Great Church," only its baptistery, it
would seem, being saved. Two days later the buildings north-west of S.
Sophia were in flames, and among them the Hospice for poor and sick
folk, "founded in ancient times by a holy man whose name was Samson,"
and Constantine's Church of S. Irene. On the 17th the buildings round
the Mesê, the street which connected the forum of Constantine with the
Augusteum, and the "great porticoes leading up to the agora named from
Constantine, and many houses of rich men, and large property, were
burned." Thus, a great part of what had been the first Byzantium,
which was adorned with the finest buildings of Constantine, was
utterly destroyed. To one who saw the blackened ruins, they seemed
like the masses of molten lava round the crater of a volcano. To
Justinian, already a great law-giver, came the task of building anew
the imperial city.
[Illustration: THE BURNT COLUMN]
The Emperor began at once with the rebuilding of the Great Church of
the Divine Wisdom. On the 23rd of February the work was begun: on
December 26, 537, the new church was dedicated. "The procession," says
Theophanes, who wrote from older materials in the eighth century,
"started from the church of the Anastasia," where S. Gregory of
Nazianzus had long preached to the men of Byzantium, "Menas, the
patriarch, sitting in the royal chariot, and the King walking with the
people." In 558 the eastern part of the dome with the apse was
destroyed by an earthquake and was rebuilt. Agathias, a contemporary
historian, thus describes the building and the restoration:
"Now the former church having been burnt by the angry mob, Justinian
built it up again from the foundations, as great, and more beautiful
and wonderful, and this most beautiful design was adorned with much
precious metal. He built it in a round form, with burnt brick and
lime. It was bound together here and there with iron; but they avoided
the use of wood, so that it should no more be easily burnt. Now
Anthemius was the man who devised and worked at every part. And when
by the earthquake the middle part of the roof and the higher parts had
been destroyed, the Emperor made it stronger, and raised it to a great
height. Anthemius was then dead, but the young man Isidorus and the
other craftsmen, turning over in their minds the earlier design, and
comparing what had fallen with what remained, estimated where the
error lay, and of what kind it was. They determined to leave the
eastern and western arches as they were. But of the northern and
southern they brought towards the inside that portion of the building
which was upon the curve. And they made these arches wider, so as to
be more in harmony with the others, thus making the equilateral
symmetry more perfect. In this way they were able to cover the
measurelessness of the empty space, and to take off some of its extent
to form an oblong design. And again, they wrought that which rose up
above it in the middle, whether cycle or hemisphere or whatever other
name it may be called. And this also became more straightforward and
of a better curve, in every part agreeing with the line; and at the
same time not so wide but higher, so that it did not affright the
spectators as before, but was set much more strong and safe."
[Illustration: S. SOPHIA AND THE MINISTRY OF JUSTICE FROM THE SEA]
A more minute account of the work must be reserved till we pass from
history to description. Here we have only to summarise and
characterise the work of the great architects whom Justinian employed
to rebuild his city. The opportunity was a great one. Constantinople
was now the centre of the civilised world. Thither came in the sixth
century a crowd as motley as those gathered together on the day of
Pentecost, or as may be seen now on the bridge of Galata. Men of
Mesopotamia and Syria, Persians, Greeks from the islands and the
Peloponnese, men of Sicily and Africa, Alexandrines and Palestinian
Jews, met with the Roman and with the barbarian subjects of the now
again undivided empire.
Of this vast gathering of the nations Byzantine art was the result and
the reflexion. But adaptive as it was of every influence that came
before the eyes of its great masters, it was, above all, like the city
where it reached its highest glory, pre-eminently religious and
Christian. The new style has been called "historical-dogmatic," and
indeed it combined in a marvellous manner the traditions of different
races under the uniting power of the Catholic faith.
The genius which gave to the Byzantine architecture its completed
glory was that of Anthemius of Tralles, of whose skill contemporary
writers write in enthusiastic applause. His works, says Agathias,
"even if nothing were said about them, would suffice of themselves to
win for him an everlasting glory in the memory of man as long as they
stand and endure."
The characteristics of the art of Anthemius at its highest development
may be seen to-day in Constantinople. There are few churches earlier
than his time still standing. Among these may be the semi-basilican S.
Thekla and S. Theodore of Tyrone, and certainly are S. John of the
Studium and S. Irene. The last was rebuilt by Justinian immediately
after the Nika insurrection in 532, but it belongs to the earlier
style. Similar to it was the church of S. Peter and S. Paul, now
destroyed, but of which some beautiful marble capitals lie in the sea
close to the palace of Hormisdas. Later came the still standing church
of S. Sergius and S. Bacchus, called by the people "little S. Sophia,"
built about 527 by Justinian himself. This prepares the way for
almost every feature which appears developed and completed in the
great S. Sophia itself. The two most striking characteristics of the
new style are the impost capital and the merging of subsidiary spaces
in one central building.
The impost capital is probably first seen in the great cistern, also
of Justinian's day. I may here repeat what I have said elsewhere.[7]
"Strygowski[8] regards this impost-capital as the work of the builder
of the great cistern, who he thinks may have been Anthemius, here
proving his fitness for the great work of S. Sophia. It was, he shows,
an architectural revolution. The capital, with undercut volutes, was
suitable for a straight architrave, but not for the arch. Hence a
piece was inserted to transfer the weight from the angles to the
centre. The Theodosian age used an inserted impost. The constructive
activity of the age of Justinian produced the impost-capital.
As to design, the capitals lying neglected about the city, together
with those _in situ_ in the churches and cisterns, furnish a perfect
museum of the types with which others, dispersed over the whole area
of the empire, agree in the minutest particulars of design and
workmanship. The acanthus leaves, so familiar through all the work of
the centuries--from the Golden Gate (388) onward, and the portico to
S. John of the Studium a century later--assume the beautiful
"windblown" design in the ruins near the "Rose Mosque."[9]
The second feature is the arrangement which unites the longitudinal
with the central building and makes the whole effect of the interior
of one piece by relating every piece of work, pillar, arch, semi-dome,
to the one vast central dome which crowns the whole. From without, but
more clearly from within, the architecture of S. Sophia is seen to
form one entire and perfect whole. It is impossible to conceive it
deprived of a single feature without the sacrifice of the whole. To
mutilate would be to destroy.
Seen then in its grandeur at S. Sophia the work of Justinian changed
the appearance of the whole city. Procopius in his _Aedifices_ records
what was when he wrote in 558, a complete list of what had been built
in the reign. Everywhere there were arising, as though by an
enchanter's wand, palaces, churches, baths, aqueducts, great cisterns
supported on exquisitely carved columns, new markets, houses for the
great nobles, barracks, hospitals, convents. The splendour and beauty
of the new city, its richness of decoration, marbles, statuary,
mosaics, struck all beholders with amaze. The chroniclers, who in
other times would have been satisfied to tell of military successes
and court intrigues, now tell of measurements and designs, and collect
lists of gems and splendours of decoration. The reign of Justinian, in
spite of many foreign dangers, and oppression at home, is the most
magnificent period of early Byzantine history; and the magnificence
seemed to be expressed in the buildings of Constantinople.
When Procopius in his _Ædifices_ has told of the glories of S. Sophia,
he goes on to speak of the Augusteum and its statues. Chiefest among
them, one of Justinian himself as Achilles. Then S. Irene, then the
churches of the Blessed Virgin at the Blachernae and at Balukli beyond
the triumphal way. Church after church follows in his tale, and chief
among them those which the mariner sees as he sails up the Golden
Horn. "As to the other buildings, it would be hard to name them all."
The Hospice of Samson rose again from its ruins, probably close by
where the gate of the old Seraglio now stands. The baths of Xeuxippus,
which lasted down to the time of Mohammed the Conqueror, with the
other buildings near the Augusteum and the forum of Constantine, were
restored. "In addition to this he rebuilt and added great magnificence
to the house named after Hormisdas, which stands close to the palace,
to which he joined it,"--that pathetic ruin whose broken wall hangs
over the Marmora to-day. When the eulogist comes to the palace itself,
words fail him to repeat its glories, the pictures, mosaics, marbles,
that combine to make the walls glitter as with life. After works of
beauty come those of use, and the cisterns receive as much praise as
works more brilliant yet hardly more beautiful.
It is buildings such as these that enable us to see what Justinian was
to the capital of his Empire. Every year it seemed that new victories
and new conversions were increasing the power of the Empire and the
Church. While Belisarius reconquered Italy and made the name of the
Cæsar again honoured at Rome and Ravenna, ended the cruel rule of the
Vandals in Africa and Sicily, crushed the Goths of Spain, and kept the
strong Persian prince at bay on the eastern frontier of the empire,
Christian missions spread the faith of the orthodox Church to the
Caucasus and the Sudan. Again and again did processions of returning
warriors pass along the triumphal way, but the Emperor alone entered
by the Golden Gate. It was in the Hippodrome that Belisarius
celebrated his triumph over the Vandals. It was nigh six hundred
years, Procopius thought, since any had had the same. But Belisarius
walked with a proud humility from his own house to the Hippodrome,
and thence from his own tent to the imperial throne. The rich spoils
that were spread out were the treasures of all the years of Vandal
conquest, and among them some of the vessels that Titus had brought
from the temple at Jerusalem and Generic the Vandal conqueror had
taken from Rome. These Justinian gave to churches in the Holy City. As
the captives were led up to the imperial throne all eyes were fixed on
the Vandal chief, Gelimer, wearing the purple, as in mockery, with his
kindred about him, "himself the tallest and most beautiful of the
Vandals." As he walked up to the throne he looked up, and uttering no
lament for his fallen state, said with the poet's simple feeling,
"Vanity of vanities." They stripped him of his robe and made him fall
on his face before the Emperor. Beside him knelt his conqueror, and
supplicated for his pardon, and the day was crowned by generosity such
as the Emperor loved to show and the people to applaud.
[Illustration: THE GOLDEN GATE]
Such scenes became familiar to the people as the years of victory
rolled on. They saw, too, Belisarius, drawn through the streets in his
chariot by the captives of his wars, when he received the dignity of
Patrician. The empire of Justinian, based upon the old laws which he
collected and enlarged, cherishing the traditions of old Rome, was
eager to revive every glory of former days. "And then," says
Procopius, who himself the bitterest of satirists of the present,
looked not unkindly on the past, "men saw things long forgotten thus
renewed by time." But the picture, brilliant though it was, was not
unclouded. The city of the Cæsars was again and again threatened by
barbarians and struck by the visitation of God. In 542 Constantinople
was devastated by a terrible pestilence, the bubonic plague, that has
lost none of its terrors in fifteen hundred years. For four months it
raged, and at its height Procopius declares that as many as ten
thousand perished in a day. It spared no constitution and no age, and
God alone could be the cause of it. Justinian, who was one of the few
who recovered, was assiduous in charitable aid; but the loss to the
city could hardly be conceived--no trades, no shops, says the recorder
of many horrors, remained, and "many for fear leaving their bad
courses, consecrated themselves to God, and many when the danger was
passed fell to their old despising of God again."
After plagues came famines and earthquakes, and in the last year of
the reign, the dread army of the Huns, under Zabergan, drew nigh even
to the walls of Constantinople, murdering and ravaging as they came.
Hastily the treasures of the church northwards of the city were
brought for safety within the walls, and Belisarius in old age again
came forward to save the empire. It was his last victory, and seven
years later he passed away, honoured and beloved. The Emperor himself
died but a few weeks later in November 565. The glories of the reign
had passed away before the aged ruler laid down his power; but he left
a reconquered Empire and a capital that was the wonder of the world.
He left too a memory as a theologian, which the church for some
centuries continued specially to honour in her most solemn service.
Justinian, the legislator, the builder and the organizer of victory,
seemed to the vision of Dante to dwell like the sun in perpetual
light.
_Sì come'l sol, che si cela egli stessi
Per troppa luce, quando il caldo ha rose
Le temperanze de' vapori spessi;
Per più letizia sì mi si nascose
Dento al suo raggio la figura santa._
To this aspect of his life we can give here but little attention; but
it is not to be doubted that it was as a theologian that the men of
his Constantinople heard most of their ruler's doings. Far into the
dark hours, says the chronicler of his reign, he sat writing the
theological treatises which expressed the teaching of the Church;
night after night he would study in his library the writings of the
Fathers, and the Sacred Scriptures, with some learned prelates or
monks at hand, that he might discuss with them the questions as they
rose before his mind. From the time of his predecessor he had been
engaged in corresponding with Popes on theological points, and when he
became sole ruler he determined once for all to settle the side issues
which depended on the great Monophysite contest. Edict after edict,
letter after letter, treatises closely argued and tightly packed with
patristic and scriptural learning, and even hymns, showed the restless
activity of the imperial theologian. When in 535 Anthemius of
Trebizond was made Patriarch of Constantinople, and when Pope Agapetus
came on a mission from the Gothic King Theodahad, the discussion of
articles of the faith brought the deposition of the patriarch as a
monophysite, and the succession of Mennas, head of the hospice of
Samson. Then came the conflict with the Origenists, which led
indirectly to the controversy of "the Three Chapters" and the session
of the Fifth General Council. Of this it were here a weariness to
tell. Let it suffice to say that on May 5, 553, the Council met in the
southern gallery of the great Church of the Divine Wisdom. The Pope
himself was at Constantinople but he would not attend the sessions. He
was lodged at first in the royal palace of Placidia at the eastern end
of the promontory, beyond S. Irene, looking over the sea to Asia and
the churches of Chalcedon. Then he fled by night to cross the
Bosphorus and took refuge in the Church of S. Euphemia at Chalcedon
where a hundred years before the council had sat. Embassies crossed
and recrossed the sea; even the great general Belisarius was an envoy,
but Vigilius, when the Council met, refused to join it, to speak, or
to vote: and the Council made short work of the foolish, bombastic,
hesitating pontiff. It condemned those who refused to receive its
decisions and struck Vigilius out of the diptychs on which were
inscribed the names of those prayed for at the Eucharist.
But if there was no Roman patriarch present, there was the new
patriarch of Constantinople, Eutychius, and the patriarchs of
Alexandria and Antioch, while he of Jerusalem sent proxies. To the
decisions of the council a hundred and sixty-four signatures were
affixed. Theologians still contest as to whether it was a free and
open council; but it was accepted beyond question, though after some
years, by the whole Church. It did its work: it safeguarded the
Catholic faith by stripping bare the meaning of statements which
indirectly attacked the Divine and Human Natures of the Incarnate
Son. It condemned these subtle suggestions, and it preserved to the
Church the real Christ of Whom she had learned.
These theological questions stand out, it may seem to some to-day, too
boldly in the history of the New Rome: but they know little of the
capital of the East who do not know how close to its life lie these
matters of dogma and definition. The very tradesmen at their work
talked of them, as they talked in the time of Gregory; and there was
nothing which the crowds who thronged the markets and the basilicas in
the days of Justinian more readily or more constantly discussed.
Constantinople in these first centuries of her life had the
theological interest closest to her heart; as the years went on the
needs of defence brought the military interest to the top.
The city in Justinian's days was rich and full of bread. All the glory
of the world seemed there to be gathered together, and with it the
vice, which stern laws and the charitable institutions, founded by the
imperial sovereigns, endeavoured as best they could to conquer or to
heal. The thronged markets sold every kind of goods, for commerce or
luxury. The monks who brought the silkworm from China to the Emperor's
court enabled him to found an industry which added greatly to
resources of his empire and the prosperity of his people. The mosaics,
which glittered on the walls of the churches, were made by skilled
artists in the city itself--carved work, images (the icons which the
Greek Church has never ceased to love), jewellery, beautifully
wrought, were among the manufactures of the great trading centre of
the East; and the military engines for which the Eastern army was
renowned were made within the walls of the capital itself. The pages
of Procopius and Agathias, of Lydus and John of Ephesus, show a busy
hurrying life, elaborate administrative arrangements, official
classes greedy and exclusive, popular agitations hasty and fickle, an
accumulating luxury with all its accompaniments of oppression,
avarice, and vulgar show. The millionaires of the sixth century, with
their gout, their costly equipages, and their summer palaces on the
Bosphorus or at Chalcedon, were a prominent feature in the life of the
great city. Beside them were the dusky traders from the far East, the
hordes of bearded monks ever ready to join in the logical squabbles or
take part in popular riots, and the silent barbarian soldiers, opening
wondering eyes on the disputes and the splendours of the imperial
city, and prompt at the word of command to dethrone emperors or
massacre their foes. In such a city it would have been strange if
there were order or peace; and indeed the constant complaint of the
chroniclers is of nobles, clerics and artizans, whom it was impossible
to restrain. Yet amid this scene of confusion at any moment the
imperial power might show itself with arbitrary and brutal abruptness.
When a servant maid by mischance spat on the robe of the dead Empress
Eudocia as it was carried to the tomb she was executed immediately and
without protest.
3. FROM JUSTIN II. TO THE LATIN CONQUEST.
In 565 Justinian died, and the glory of his reign set in a dull glow
that heralded storms. Justin II., his nephew, was a tyrant and a
madman, but it was power which brought out his tyranny and his
madness. When he came to the throne he spoke mildly and well. He made
profession of orthodoxy in S. Sophia; he was raised on the imperial
shield in the palace; he promised in the Hippodrome to pay the debts
of the dead Emperor. They were strange scenes, such as the people of
Byzantium often saw, and strangest of all to our minds is that which
shows the citizens in the place of public games clamouring before the
imperial throne for the payment of debts of Justinian.
Constantinople is still the same. Even when it looks cowed, it has
still its impudence and its determination to criticise. Justin's
doings were watched and mocked at, as if he had been the humblest
tradesman, by the city jesters. He built a golden chamber in the
palace by the sea: he set up a pillar to record his virtues, and then
some one affixed a tablet on it:
Build, build aloft thy pillar,
And raise it vast and high;
Then mount and stand upon it,
Soar proudly in the sky;
East, south and north, and westward,
Wherever thou shalt gaze,
Nought shalt thou see but ruins,
The work of thine own days.
Meanwhile the barbarians were coming nearer to the Empire. The Avars
demanded tribute, and the Turks, a name that was so soon to be a
familiar terror, sent envoys to the Cæsar's court. The enemies, it
might seem, were already closing in when Justin became a lunatic,
bursting into mad fits of rage, and drawn about the palace in a toy
cart, while the "whole senate and city" knew of the sad fate of their
Emperor. Sophia, his wife, had all the masterful genius of her aunt
Theodora. It was she who gave the rule to Tiberius II., under whom the
empire steadily decayed. Maurice, his successor, was a severe ruler,
whom the people learned to hate. When at last his reign ended in a
revolution and a flight, it was the people of Constantinople, the
demes and the factions of the Circus, who gave him to death, and
placed the imperial crown on the head of Phocas, his successor.
While Constantinople thus dethroned and set up the civil rulers of the
Empire, it was claiming for its patriarch the highest position in the
Church. When at the beginning of the sixth century the patriarch John
had signed the formula drawn up by Pope Hormisdas, he repudiated any
claim to superiority on the part of the old Rome: the two cities and
the two Sees he declared were one. As early as 518 the patriarch of
Constantinople called himself "universal bishop": in 595 the great
Pope Gregory, who had himself, as a papal envoy, seen the greatness of
the Eastern See, vigorously protested, to the Emperor Maurice, against
the assumption to the title. But while the patriarchs used the title
in no exclusive sense, they were determined, as they are determined
to-day, to assert the independence of their See and its equality with
that of Rome.
Ecclesiastical independence did not preserve the Empire from political
weakness. Phocas was soon seen to be worse than Maurice, and one
conspiracy after another was begun in the Hippodrome and ended by a
massacre in the streets. The Green faction in the Circus called the
Emperor a drunkard and a madman to his face. Famine and pestilence
ravaged the crowded city, and when Heraclius, already a renowned
general, brought his fleet up the Hellespont and anchored at the
Golden Horn the collapse of the power of Phocas was immediate, and a
new Emperor was crowned in the great church of the "Capital of the
World." The reign of Heraclius, gallant man though he was, began in
almost unbroken disaster, and when in 615 Jerusalem fell into the
hands of the Persians it seemed that the end was at hand. In the next
year, as had already happened under Phocas, a Persian army encamped at
Chalcedon. When negotiations were in vain, when Heraclius had even
formed the idea of transferring the seat of Empire from Constantinople
to Carthage, and had only abandoned it after his preparations were
far advanced, when the terror and indignation of the people forced him
to take oath before the patriarch in S. Sophia that he would never
leave "the Queen of Cities," at length the courage of the empire
awoke, the nobles sacrificed their wealth and the churches their
treasures, the fleet utterly destroyed that of the Persians, and
Heraclius delivered the city and the empire by a march as brilliant as
it was daring. Leading five thousand veterans across Asia Minor and
through the mountains he "penetrated into the heart of Persia and
recalled the armies of the great king to the defence of their bleeding
country." After three campaigns he returned in triumph and entered, as
no Emperor since Theodosius the Great had done, by the Golden Gate.
In his absence thirty thousand Avars, who had swept over the Balkan
provinces like a devouring flame, broke through the great wall and
encamped under the very walls of the city itself. Churches in the
suburbs were burnt to the ground and the famous Church of the
Theotokos in Blachernae was on the point of being destroyed, when some
panic caused the Avar horsemen to retire. The danger was too obvious
for the warning to be neglected, and the Senate, which had refused
with contumely the offers of the barbarian leaders, allies of the
Persian King, drove back the enemy and immediately increased the
fortifications by a new wall. This splendid barrier, magnificent
to-day in its ruins, stretched from the enclosure outside the palace
of Blachernae, at the foot of the sixth hill, to the Golden Horn. It
is flanked by three hexagonal towers.
A year later, in 627, the Emperor, who dreaded even the sight of the
sea, crossed the Bosphorus by a bridge of boats, decked with branches
of trees to imitate a forest. Landing north of the city he marched
inland and crossed the valley at the head of the Golden Horn--below
the "Sweet Waters of Europe"--by a bridge made by Justinian nearly
opposite the end of the walls. So along the triumphal way he went,
past the new walls that have ever since borne his name, and entered by
the Golden Gate, the Emperor who had vanquished the Persians, saved
his empire, and brought back the greatest of all relics, the sacred
wood of the true Cross, which S. Helena, the mother of Constantine,
had found on Calvary.
But Heraclius was not to triumph unchecked. The fatal temptation of
theological strife conquered even the conqueror of the Persians, and
the beginning of the Monothelite controversy dates from the _Ekthesis_
of Sergius the patriarch, a document which, if it were intended to
make peace, certainly provoked, war that was not ended, though its
area was defined, by the decision of the Fourth General Council, which
met at Constantinople in 680, and condemned those who denied that
Christ had two wills, human and divine.
The dreary years of the latter half of the seventh century may be
rapidly summarised. Constantinople saw the settlement of barbarians,
Slaves and Balgars, almost at its gates. Emperor succeeded emperor
without anyone appearing who was worthy to be the heir of Heraclius.
At length in 672 the Saracens, who had long devastated Asia, brought a
fleet up the Hellespont and besieged the city. Their total defeat by
Constantine IV., whom his people nicknamed Pogonatus (the bearded),
was the greatest triumph of the Christian powers against the infidel;
it was won, it is said, by the newly-discovered "Greek fire," so long
to be the terror of the foes of the Empire. Constantinople proved
herself the bulwark of Europe against the infidel. The nations of the
West sent their envoys to applaud. Six hundred years later another
Constantine was to fall, when his city was at length captured by the
followers of Mohammed.
Justinian II., the son of Constantine Pogonatus, was a great builder
like his namesake, whom probably he sought to imitate; but in
character he was far from resembling the builder of S. Sophia. In the
inimitable phrases of Gibbon, "The name of a triumphant law-giver was
dishonoured by the vices of a boy.... His passions were strong; his
understanding was feeble; and he was intoxicated with a foolish pride
that his birth had given him the command of millions, of whom the
smallest community would not have chosen him for their local
magistrate. His favourite ministers were two beings the least
susceptible of human sympathy, an eunuch and a monk; to the one he
abandoned a palace, to the other the finances; the former corrected
the Emperor's mother with a scourge, the latter suspended the
insolvent tributaries, with their heads downwards, over a slow and
smoky fire. Since the days of Commodus and Caracalla, the cruelty of
the Roman princes had most commonly been the effect of their fear; but
Justinian, who possessed some vigour of character, enjoyed the
sufferings and braved the revenge of his subjects about ten years,
till the measure was full of his crimes and of their patience."
The attempt to banish a popular general whom he had long imprisoned
was the occasion of a revolt which cast the Emperor from the throne;
and the hippodrome saw again an act of tragic vengeance, when the
tongue and nose of the fallen Cæsar were slit in the presence of the
people who had borne with him too long.
[Illustration: THE GOLDEN HORN FROM EYÛB]
Let Professor Bury's summary continue the tale:--"The twenty years
which intervened between the banishment of Justinian in 695 and the
accession of Leo the Isaurian in 717 witnessed a rapid succession of
monarchs, all of whom were violently deposed. Isaurian Leontius was
succeeded by Apsimar, who adopted the name Tiberius, and these two
reigns occupied the first ten years. Then Justinian returned from
exile, recovered the throne, and 'furiously raged' for six years
(705-711). He was overthrown by Bardanes, who called himself
Philippicus; then came Artemius, whose imperial name was Anastasius;
and finally the years 716 and 717 saw the fall of Anastasius, the
reign and fall of Theodosius, and the accession of Isaurian Leo, whose
strong arm guided the Empire from ways of anarchy into a new
path."[10]
In the tragedies of these years Constantinople bore its full share,
and no more strange contrast to the scene of his barbarous mutilation
could be imagined than that when Justinian II. sat again, ten years
later (705) in the hippodrome, with his feet on the necks of the two
monarchs who had filled his throne in the meantime. As the fickle
people saw the "slit-nose," as they called him, triumphant over
Leontius and Apsimar they called out in the words of the psalms, which
came so readily to their lips, "Thou hast trodden upon the _lion_ and
the _asp_: the young lion and the dragon hast thou trodden under thy
feet."
Six years later (711) there was a more terrible tragedy. Justinian was
justly dethroned and slain, and his little boy Tiberius, the child of
his exile, was torn from the church of the Theotokos at Blachernae and
cruelly butchered outside the palace wall. The next years were stained
by crimes and follies hardly less revolting than those that had gone
before; there could be no more bitter irony than the single word which
the humble tax-gatherer, who was elevated against his will to the
imperial throne under the name of Theodosius II., inscribed upon his
tomb--ὑγίεια--health was to be found nowhere for the empire in his
day.
His successor, Leo the Isaurian, whom the Senate and the patriarch of
Constantinople chose in 718 to be their lord, had seen an adventurous
life, and was already the general and imperator of the great eastern
army.
His first task was to defend the city against the Saracens. The great
siege of 718, lasting twelve months, failed chiefly through his skill
and patience. The invaders encamped before the city in August 717; the
name of their Suleiman was one which was later to be very familiar to
the Byzantines. When winter came it was one of those bitter seasons to
which Constantinople is often subject. For many weeks snow lay on the
ground, and the besiegers suffered far more than the garrison. Leo
defended the city with extraordinary skill, and at length, at the
right moment, by a well planned sortie he scattered the infidels, and
of the great host of a hundred and eighty thousand men the Mohammedan
historians say that only thirty thousand escaped back to the East. No
greater feat was ever performed by the great empire, the bulwark of
Christendom, than this heroic defence and splendid repulse.