took the young guardsman into the great Hall of Magnaura, which he
had not previously seen. It stood, as we have said, apart from the
Sacred Palace itself, in the gardens to the north, and it abutted on
the senate-house and Church of Mary of the copper mart, which lay
between it and the Cathedral of the Holy Wisdom. This magnificent
basilica was in the oblong form, with a semicircular apse and a
raised platform, of which examples remain to us in Rome, Pompeii, and
in Greece and Asia Minor. On each side six porphyry columns
supported the gilded cornice and formed the openings to seven lateral
exedras, or recesses. Beside the terminal apse there rose from the
platform on which stood the throne four vast monoliths of the lovely
green marble of Sparta--in groups of two each on either side. The
walls of the hall were entirely covered with panels of Proconnesian
and Phrygian streaked marbles, as we see it to-day in Aya Sophia.
The capitals were mainly of bronze gilt, in form such as we see at
St. Mark's at Venice. The central doors were also of bronze gilt.
The roof was covered with mosaic designs made of glass and gilt
tesseræ, having figures of the Saviour, Virgin, and saints, mixed
with arabesque patterns of vine leaves, acanthus, Greek crosses,
monograms, and exquisite geometric traceries.
As Eric entered and surveyed in mute awe this grand edifice, glowing
with soft radiance like a sunset, for its supreme splendor of color
was harmonized into a tone of solemnity and peace, the royal
architects were just giving the last touches to the special
adornments of the day. Gilded chains were suspended from column to
column, and from each chain was hung a huge candelabrum of silver,
each bearing twenty-five lamps. Tapestries and curtains were hung
over the doorways and lateral recesses and partly concealed the
golden organ and choir of the emperor on one side and the silver
organ and choir of the factions on the other side. Rich rugs, of the
design we now call Persian, were strewn over the marble flooring of
the hall and across the steps and the dais whereon the imperial
cortège was to stand.
That which, to the untutored but imaginative mind of the young
viking, was the most beautiful and mystic work before him was the
throne of Solomon, which served as the emperor's seat. It had been
exactly reproduced from the account of the first book of Kings,
chapter x.:
"The king made a great throne of ivory, and overlaid it with the best
gold. The throne had six steps, and the top of the throne was round
behind: and there were stays on either side on the place of the seat,
and two lions stood beside the stays. And twelve lions stood there
on the one side and on the other upon the six steps: there was not
the like made in any kingdom."
The emperors of the Romans, who claimed to be, in a sense, the
successors of the chosen people, and who are often represented in
illuminated manuscripts in royal robes as kings of Israel, had
carefully restored the throne of Solomon as their seat of high state.
The chair itself was of ivory and gold, and the lions which supported
the arms of the chair were of silver gilt, as were the smaller lions
which acted as supporters on the six steps below it. Such a throne
was taken as a pattern throughout the west; and the famous seat of
Dagobert in the Louvre is supported by lions in the same way. The
throne of Solomon, however, was not a curule chair, but a much more
solid and magnificent erection, having a high back adorned with gems
and enamel enrichments. Eric gazed in amazement and awe at the
splendid hall; but he was presently dragged by his guide to witness
the procession that was forming in the court-yard outside the
Magnaura itself.
The magistri, the patricians, and the senate in a body, with a crowd
of officials of various ranks, awaited the summons to attend the
court. A silentiary having given the signal, Eric and Symmachos were
able to enter the hall and view the approach of their Majesties.
Before they took their seats on the thrones, the imperial crowns,
with their long pendants of pearls and gems, were placed on their
heads, and the royal mantles were thrown over their state robes.
Nicephorus himself sat on the throne of Solomon, Theophano at his
left hand, and the two child-Basileis on low stools behind them.
Around them were placed the secretaries and notaries to take a report
of the words spoken, with the logothete, or finance minister, and the
chancellor. In the rear behind the throne stood a crowd of
cubiculars, silentiaries, and the lords-in-waiting and gentlemen of
the golden banqueting chamber.
When the royal party were all seated and placed, the master of the
household gave the signal for the sacramental cheer; and from the
choirs behind the curtains and from the crowd at the end of the hall
broke forth the ritual chant, "Long, long live our Basileus! Long
live our Basilissa! Many--many--happy years give them, O Lord God!"
At another signal from the master of the household, the
gold-stick-in-waiting introduced the first "curtain"--_i.e._, the
magistri, or marshals, who had been stationed in the nearest recess.
The magistri advanced to the throne and prostrated themselves before
the steps. A second usher introduced the second "curtain"--_i.e._,
the patricians, who stood next in rank--and so on, the senators and
each successive order in due turn drawing aside the curtain which
served to mark their place in the ceremonial.
It was now the turn of the foreign envoys, the first of whom were
from the powerful caliph of Cordova, now Hakim II., with whom
relations of amity were still maintained. The master of the
household again signalled to the gold-stick, who, with great
ceremony, introduced the mission, at the head of which was the Emir
Ghalib, supported by the learned Ibn Khaldun, the same who had
escorted Digenes and his companions in the capital of the Spanish
empire. The emir was accompanied on his right hand by the catepano,
or master of the ceremonies, on the left by the master of the horse,
and was attended by an interpreter and his secretaries. The envoy of
the mighty caliph was permitted to make his obeisance in his own
way--while the envoys of the rude tribes of the north or the east
were required to prostrate themselves at full length before the
mystic throne.
As each ambassador advanced and made his salaam, the organs pealed
forth a triumphal march, and as he rose from the ground the
kettle-drums crashed a sonorous welcome. The chancellor then
addressed the ambassador, and inquired of the health of the sovereign
or chief whom he represented, and the ceremonial compliments of
friendship and congratulation were duly recited. Then the golden
lions around the throne were made to utter sounds in imitation of a
roar of the beast by an ingenious mechanism, which was nothing but
the stop of an organ concealed beneath the floor. To Eric and to the
untutored envoys of the north the sounds issuing from the throats of
the lions seemed little less than miraculous. To the citizens of
Constantinople, with whom the wind-organ and other instruments of the
kind were familiar, the mechanical roar of the lions on the throne
and the twittering of the golden birds in the canopy above, which was
also a favorite device, had ceased to be anything but a useful toy,
that amused the groundlings and amazed the barbarians.
The envoy of the caliph was succeeded by a prelate despatched from
old Rome by the Pope (or anti-Pope) Leo VIII., who was struggling
amid horrors of every sort to dispossess the infamous Octavian
claiming to be Pope John XII. Nicephorus, whose detestation of the
degraded and servile papacy was boundless, had been persuaded with
difficulty to receive the opponent and rival of the ferocious
murderer who now desecrated the Latin see. Basil and the astute
council of the empire had warned their proud chief not to rebuff the
candidate for the chair of St. Peter, who was chosen by the
all-powerful Otto I. of Germany and Italy. Nicephorus listened to
the hollow congratulations of the Italian prelate in silence, and
directed his chancellor to reply to them with the best grace he could
assume. The Roman prelate was followed by envoys from Venice,
Amalphi, and the dukes of Beneventum and Capua, who still admitted a
shadowy bond of vassalage to the successor of Justinian at Byzantium.
The Italian envoys were succeeded by a crowd of deputies from various
nations, tribes, and princelets north of the Ister and the Euxine
Sea, or such as lay beyond the eastern frontier of the empire. They
were first Patzinaks, then Russ; then Chazars, Alans, and "Turks," or
Hungarians, as we call them to-day. All were in uncouth and
picturesque native costumes, shaggy skins, tall and pointed
head-gear, and strange ornaments. They each brought presents of
various sorts--embroidered garments, embossed arms, enamelled vases,
horses, performing bears, and white boar-hounds, which were paraded
in the court outside, then announced with much solemnity, and
received with equal curiosity and interest.
The long reception was continued for hours as the envoys were
presented from the kings of Armenia proper, the dwellers around Mount
Ararat and the plains of Lake Van; from the Abasgians and Georgians
of the Caucasus, the Lazi, and the chief of the Iberians, who had
been honored with the right to assume the Byzantine title of
curopalates. Long before the stream of introductions had ended, with
its ever-varying changes of language, costume, and manner, the young
Scandinavian had been quite lost in the babel of tongues and the
moving panorama before his eyes. The impression had been fully
driven into his open mind, which the subtle politicians of
Constantinople ever sought to extend--the impression of the
world-wide relations of the Roman empire, and its claim to be the
centre of power, culture, and Christian civilization. It was the
policy embodied by Constantine Born-in-the-Purple in the fifty-three
chapters of his work, _The Administration of the Empire_, which he so
laboriously--and so uselessly--prepared for the instruction of his
feckless son.
There is a pathos to-day as we read the dedication and preface to
this work, recalling, as it does, so much profound state policy and
such wasted hopes. "_Constantine by grace of Christ the King
Everlasting, Emperor of the Romans, these to his only son, Romanus,
crowned of God and Born-in-the-Purple, Emperor._" He begins: "A wise
son rejoices the heart of his father, and an affectionate father has
delight in a thoughtful son. Now, therefore, my son, listen to my
words; and if you take to heart these lessons you will be counted as
wise among the thoughtful and as thoughtful among the wise. The
people will bless thee, and many nations shall call thee fortunate.
Take to heart that which it behooves thee to understand, so shalt
thou wield the helm of this empire like a wise ruler. And do Thou, O
Lord my God, whose heavenly kingdom is indestructible and
everlasting, vouchsafe to guide in the right way this son whom I have
begotten by Thy grace." Alas! the bright youth, so beloved and so
promising, was guided rather in the wrong way by Theophano, by
Bringas, by Chærina, and many devils like unto them, into the
bottomless pit where he lay the scorn of after ages.
At the very end of the audience a scene of extraordinary violence
roused the whole hall to a state of wild excitement. The envoys of
the sovereign of Bulgaria, the Czar Peter, had the right, as the Czar
was allowed the title of Basileus, to be presented before all other
foreign ambassadors. To-day they had been purposely kept to the
last, in spite of their remonstrances and indignation. Peter, when
nearly forty years before he had succeeded to the throne of his
father, the powerful Symeon, had made a treaty of amity with the
Byzantine kingdom, and had married a granddaughter of the Emperor
Lecapenus, a cousin of Romanus II. By this treaty the Bulgarian
sovereign was entitled to receive a yearly subsidy in consideration
of his protecting the empire from the incursions of the Magyars on
the other side of the Danube. The Bulgarian kingdom now extended
from Belgrade to Adrianople, which under Symeon had been a terrible
incubus to Constantinople, had become weak and peaceful under Peter,
and a docile imitator of the arts and manners of Byzantium. The
subsidy was regularly paid; but the Bulgarian monarchy had been
little able to restrain the incursions of the Danubian raiders. To
all the remonstrances of the empire, they alleged their own weakness.
Nicephorus in council had resolved to refuse any further payment;
and, indeed, he had secretly decided on a policy which should bring
the Bulgarian kingdom to its knees by force of arms.
When at last admitted to the hall of audience, the Bulgarian envoys
committed the imprudence of adding to the formal compliments to the
new Basileus the exasperating demand for payment of the annual
subsidy, which they spoke of as "the tribute they had been sent to
claim." Nicephorus, who wanted but a pretext of the kind to justify
a rupture with the kingdom, rose from his throne, and in a tone of
indignation, which he had no need to feign, for the very word
"tribute" had roused him to ungovernable passion, he broke out thus:
"Foul shame would it be to us Romans, to us who in arms have driven
before us every enemy who has dared to meet us, if we consent to pay
'tribute' as if we were slaves buying their freedom by coin--ay, pay
tribute to a horde of Scythians, this miserable and unclean tribe of
barbarians."
This extraordinary outburst, so unusual in a man as taciturn and as
self-controlled as Nicephorus, electrified the audience; for only the
privy-councillors, and but few of them, knew of the emperor's settled
purpose to bring on a war with the Czar Peter.
Then the emperor, kindling with his own passion, in a voice of
thunder that he never used in public councils, turned to his aged
father, Bardas, as if to recall some by-gone incident of the
Lecapenian usurpers, and said: "What on earth do these Mœsians
mean, my father, by talking about tribute as due to them from
Rome?--'tribute,' do they say? What, sir, am I not your own
true-born son? Am I, the august emperor of the Romans, to be a
tributary--the tributary, forsooth--of a pitiful and ungodly tribe?"
The audience held their breath in awe. The Bulgarian envoys cowered.
"Here!" roared Nicephorus. "Ushers, bring your rods and drive these
fellows from our presence!"
Nicephorus was now choking with rage, and attempted no longer to
restrain himself.
"Be off with you!" he cried, hoarsely. "Go tell your master, whose
food is the leather and whose garments are the hides of his own
cattle, they say--go back and tell him that the mighty and
irresistible Basileus of the Romans is now about to march from his
own country into his, and he will himself bring the tribute that is
demanded of him--tribute that your people will little care to have.
Now learn, slaves as you are, with slaves for your fathers and your
grandsires--learn to address the sovereign of the Romans as your lord
and master, and never dare in this palace to talk to him about
tribute, as if he were a caitiff and a serf."
The emperor closed the audience, and the hall was forthwith emptied.
Excited groups gathered outside to discuss the meaning of it all. No
one was more amazed than Eric, and meeting the general Bardas Skleros
in the throng, he ventured to ask him what it portended.
"It portends," said Bardas, quietly, "that war will be declared
against the Bulgarian kingdom this very day. Rome, in her hour of
victory, will not suffer those savages to threaten our very existence
from the passes of the Hasmus. We will crush this Bulgarian kingdom.
The emperor crosses their frontier to-morrow at the head of the
advanced army. In ten days we shall reach their so-called capital on
the northern side of the mountains. I am to command a brigade, and
you shall be on my staff."
So Eric began his service in the long, secular duel between the
Bulgarian and Byzantine kingdoms--a duel wherein he himself was
destined to play so heroic a part, a duel wherein the child-Basil who
had witnessed the rebuff of the envoys of King Peter was destined to
earn his title of "Slayer of the Bulgarians."
XXI
Islam and Cross
The sun was high over the Asian Olympus, bathing in its glow the calm
waters of the Propontis, and the rocky islets that we now call the
Islands of the Princes. The islet nearest to Byzantium, and within a
few miles of it, still bears the name of Prote, or "the first," from
the capital. It commands a glorious panorama of that superb scene,
crowded with hills, rocks, bays, cities, and towers, as it fronts the
lower opening of the Bosphorus, and the southern side of the city
with its battlements, palaces, and domes.
High on a headland of the islet stood a large edifice of stone, which
had once been a monastery--but for many years had served as an
imperial summer lodge, and of late was used as a ceremonial retreat
for state prisoners and fallen princes. There the deposed emperor,
Romanus Lecapenus, had passed in peace the last years of his
checkered career; and, since the capture of Chandax, it had served as
the palace and the prison of the defeated kouropas, or governor of
Crete, the aged Abd-el-Aziz, and his family. As he had duly gone
through the abject forms of prostration before the emperor in the
triumph at the Hippodrome, and had fully submitted himself to the
conquerors, Romanus and his politic advisers had given the old hero
an adequate estate, offered him senatorial rank, and the honors of a
princely retreat. His submission was real and final; he had suffered
his son Anemas to accept rank in the imperial guard, and his daughter
Sophia to enter as a pupil into a nunnery, where she had acquired a
perfect Greek education. Both had been baptized, and followed
Christian rituals. But the old man himself, a Syed of the blood of
the Prophet, stoutly refused to abandon the faith of his race, and
patiently accepted the position of a state prisoner, under an
honorary seclusion and military guard.
To-day he sat alone on the covered terrace of his mansion, looking
down upon the garden below, across the rippling waters, where he
could see the proud towers of his conqueror, now Basileus of Rome.
All was a scene of perfect peace and beauty. Trellised roses
clustered in profusion round the arcades of his terrace, filling the
air with perfume; violets, lilies, hyacinths, narcissi, and oleanders
nestled in recesses beneath it. As the slopes, ornamented with
balustrades, vases, and statues, fell downward to the sea, they were
shaded with fruit-trees, pomegranates, acacias, cedars, and ilex.
And at the bottom, where lounged on formal sentry a huge Varangian
guardsman, an avenue of cypresses half concealed the garden wall.
The old kouropas mused in silence, his white beard flowing down over
his embroidered khaftan, for he retained his Saracen dress and
habits. His work was done, and he waited in peace for the summons of
Allah; pondering on the inscrutable decrees which seemed to be
confounding on all sides the hopes of Islam since the fortunes of
Rome had passed to the hand of the invincible Nicephorus Phocas. As
he mused, his daughter stole gently in upon her father to see if he
were sleeping in a siesta, or had any need of her help. She was a
sweet girl of seventeen, tall, elegant, of olive tint, with the full,
dark eyes of her race. Sophia, for she adopted the Greek spelling of
her name with her change of habits, after five or six years of
training in the capital, was now in every sense a Byzantine, and wore
the embroidered silk robes of a lady of the court.
"What can I do for you, my dearest father?" she asked, in the musical
tones natural to an Arab maiden.
"Nay, come and sit below my divan here, my child," he said, "and tell
me of all you have seen and heard in the great city and their Sacred
Palace."
The girl softly nestled down beside her father, and, looking up into
his eyes, she poured out the tale of all she had seen in her recent
visit to the court. She had just returned from admission to the
suite of the Princess Agatha, who had taken her to the imperial dais,
at a reception of the foreign ambassadors. Since she left her home
in Crete, at the age of twelve, she had seen little beyond the
cloister of the nuns of St. Basil, who had brought her up; and her
girlish imagination had been profoundly impressed by all she had seen
and heard. "Never could I have believed any city was so vast," she
said: "such endless crowds in the street, such magnificent halls,
corridors, terraces, and gardens, to which those of Prote were a mere
toy. And the long lines of soldiers in splendid uniforms, father,
and the Danubian cavalry on their chargers, lining the streets--tens
of thousands of mailed giants, all as big and fierce as that
fair-haired Varangian there below in the garden--and the organs and
choirs in the hall--and the magnificent robes of the emperor and his
court, and his imperial guard--the Immortals--in gilt mail--and
Anemas was there, on duty, and looked the most like a soldier of them
all."
"Ah!" said the old emir, with a soft, sad smile, "it is natural that
you young ones should be dazzled with the power and splendor of Roum.
Allah has sorely chastened the rebellious people of Islam, whose
quarrels and treasons reach upward to the throne of grace. In his
mercy and his wisdom he has decreed to give victory to the
Nazarene--victory for a time--his will be done. I submit to it for
me and mine. His inscrutable purposes may bring together all his
children in the end."
"Father!" said the girl, with a solemnity beyond her years, "if you
could only enter into the great church of the Holy Wisdom, and, while
the choir chant their 'Holy, Holy, Holy!' look up to the figures of
Christ the Saviour, and the Mother of God, you would feel that it is
not false when they say that the faith of the Cross is a spirit of
love, mercy, and reconciliation, and that it offers a new heaven to
us poor women, and makes us in religion the true peers and helpmates
of men!"
Struck by a tone so strange in a Saracen girl, by the earnestness of
his daughter's appeal, the old chief turned to his child with a
searching look, and said, "But you have no thought, my best beloved
one, of remaining for life in that convent, of becoming what they
call a bride of Christ?"
"Never will I take the veil. I am not worthy. I should never be at
peace there," she replied, with deep emphasis, but in broken
sentences, "Never!" And as the old man searched her look, a soft
blush seemed to show itself in her olive cheek. Silence followed,
and both of them thought.
"But, oh, how sweet and good and wise is the Lady Agatha!" the girl
suddenly resumed; "she has taught me so much, helped me in all
things, and made me feel as if I were a sister, one of her own faith
and race. She knows by heart the Greek poems of Homer, both those
about Troy and about Ithaca, of Achilles and Priam, and of Odysseus
and Penelope, and Hector and Andromache; and yesterday she recited
part of the tragedy of 'Œdipus at Colonus.' She is so sweet and
thoughtful and brave, after all she had to bear. And, father, I am
to be one of her bridesmaids when she is married next month, if the
empress will consent."
"And whom is she about to marry?" asked the chief, carelessly.
"Why, don't you know, father, it is the Lord Basil Digenes, the
warden of the marches, the favorite lieutenant and friend of the
emperor!"
"What! the son of the emir of Edessa, he who struck us so hard at
Chandax," said the old chief, with a groan. "Yes, yes; he who was
saved by the daughter of Ben Senoussi in prison, and who saved her in
the great defeat. So, the blood of the Prophet of Mecca, after all,
is to be mingled with the blood of the Constantines of Roum. It is
the will of Allah! Let us bow to it with reverence and submission."
The old emir rose, and, going to his prayer-carpet, turned towards
the tomb of the Prophet, devoutly prostrated himself, and performed
his mid-day devotions.
The girl meanwhile drew aside in silence, crossing herself, and
fingering her own chain and cross, she uttered fervent prayers to the
Mother of God.
When Abd-el-Aziz returned to his divan she took his hand, kissed it,
and said, "Father, does it give you a pang to think that one of our
people, if truly converted to the faith of the Cross, should mate
with a follower of Christ? What would you say if my brother Anemas
took him a wife from the Byzantine court?"