while leaving the Bulgarian kingdom, with all its resources and
possible allies, planted within a few days' march of his capital. He
silently resolved to strike down the power of so dangerous a neighbor
by a sudden onslaught, of which none but two or three of his intimate
council had any warning. His unexpected rush had utterly paralyzed
the unwar-like Czar Peter, who had lived all these years in a fool's
contentment. Forts, towns, and stores fell into the hands of the
Romans, who seemed to be making a military promenade on the Bulgarian
capital. But it was no part of the policy of Nicephorus to occupy
himself in the Balkans a single day after the completion of his
eastern preparations. Accordingly, he sent a mission to the young
Czar of the Russ, son of the great Czarina Olga, and induced him, by
promises and enormous bribes, to fall upon Bulgaria from the north
across the Danube. Sviatoslav forced his way on. Crushed thus
between Romans on the south, and Russians on the north, Bulgaria lay
helpless and prostrate. Thereupon, Nicephorus had dashed back to
Constantinople in advance of his men, as suddenly and as unexpectedly
as he had begun the attack. He was now free to give himself entirely
to the great campaign beyond the Taurus the moment the fire-signal
should warn him that all was ready to march.
Theophano succeeded in throwing on the privy council the
responsibility for the arrest of Digenes, and for the opposition to
his marriage with Agatha. The unfortunate warden, tossing on a bed
of sickness, and quite delirious with fever, was unable to give any
explanations whatever. Agatha, who was occupied intently with
superintending the nursing him to life, was still ignorant of the
monstrous advances that the empress had made to Digenes. And the
persecuted princess, in her agonies of anxiety and excitement, was no
match for the daring brain of Theophano. Nicephorus peremptorily
cancelled the imperial order to marry Agatha to Sisinnios, who
narrowly escaped condign punishment for allowing himself to be made a
party to the scheme. The formal authority was given to the suffering
warden of the marches to marry the princess as soon as he could be
restored to health. On her part, the noble-minded Agatha, overjoyed
at her deliverance from the palace plot, and absorbed in saving her
beloved Digenes from death, forbore to torture the mind of the
emperor, at the moment of setting forth on his great campaign, with
all that she knew and more that she suspected of the designs and
intrigues of Theophano. And in this magnanimous resolve she was
confirmed by the sudden decision of Nicephorus as to the regency,
which struck the whole palace and its inmates with surprise, fear, or
hope, according to the party each supported.
"My beloved lord and ever-victorious hero," broke out the Basilissa,
when at last they two were alone and the immediate orders had been
given, "well wert thou named Nicephorus, thou who bringest victory
ever in thy hand! Thou returnest from a new triumph over another
enemy, who treacherously professed to be our friend. But to me, thy
wife, thy servant, thy lover, thou bringest back that which is to her
more dear than victory. Thou hast brought life and light and
joy--thou bringest back thyself!"
Nicephorus listened in silence with a clouded brow. At last he spoke.
"I do not know if my coming brings joy to this palace. I purpose
that it shall bring peace. I will do my best that it bring life at
least to one who is more dear to me than any soldier in my empire.
But, you will remember, that I do not come to stay. I hurried back
from the Balkan on news that all was on the eve of readiness on the
Taurus. Hour by hour I expect the beacon-fire to flame. And twelve
hours after that light I shall be in Asia."
"Oh, my Lord, my life, say not so soon! Am I to be widowed again in
so short an interval? Have you thought of all the anxieties I have
suffered while filling your seat at the council? Do you care nothing
for all the toils that a regent has to bear--and that regent a weak,
inexperienced woman? Cannot you imagine, dear my lord and master,
all the loneliness that a widowed wife has to suffer in her silent
chamber, in her deserted couch?"
"You will have no longer all these toils."
"What say you?" she almost shrieked. "Who can sustain the regency in
your absence, who but your wife who lifted you to this throne and who
alone knows all its cares, its resources, and its perils?"
"One who knew all this before you yourself were born--one who, for
two generations, has been a chief bulwark of Rome--one who is honored
and beloved by every honest Roman," said Nicephorus, quietly, and
with a tone of decision.
"Your father, Bardas?" she gasped; "but he is decrepit with age and
infirmity."
"He is wise, brave, firm, and the idol of the people. But I have
named as his colleague in the office of regency, my brother Leo, the
curopalates. He has the youth, life, and force that years may have
taken from my sire. They two, as joint regents, will form a
government that all men can trust--such as I can trust when I leave
for the far east."
"And cannot you trust your own wife?" she broke out.
Nicephorus uttered not a word, nor did he make a sign.
"It cannot be. Has it come to this? Have I not saved your life from
Bringas? Have I not set you on this throne? Have I not imperilled
my all, my own life and liberty, my very soul, for an Armenian
soldier of fortune--I, the daughter of ancient kings and heroes, the
wife, the mother of emperors of Rome?" She spoke with passion,
seeking, if she might, to overwhelm him with her majestic presence.
Nicephorus spoke not a word; slowly he drew from his robe the diploma
with its vermilion seal that created Bardas the Cæsar, and Leo the
curopalates, joint regents of the empire, during his own absence from
Europe.
She strove to snatch it from his hand, with fresh reproaches and
remonstrances. "Let me tear it; listen to reason; will you show such
cruelty to your wife? Nicephorus, remember all that you owe me!"
At length, having exhausted appeals, invectives, and threats, she
returned to blandishments again, with a mind recurring to the large
opportunities for ambition and intrigue which the palace would offer
her in the absence of its imperial master.
"Cruel man, hard-hearted husband, faithless lover," she broke out
with sobs, "you little know or care for all the wretchedness of a
wife, deserted for years, it may be, abandoned to the evil arts of
her rivals, her enemies--ay, maybe of her suitors and false friends."
And she wept, with all the art and pathos of a consummate actress.
"Fear not," said Nicephorus, quietly; "you go with headquarters into
Asia yourself. All fitting preparations for your journey are already
being made."
"What?" she screamed. "Am I to be dragged across Asia in the rear of
an army, in this terrible campaign into Syria? Am I to be a follower
of the camp, a hostage, a prisoner, an exile?"
"You go with all the honors, the state, and fit appliances of an
empress of Rome. Does a Basilissa dread to face a campaign against
the enemies of Christ, when the Basileus in person leads his armies
to war?"
"Do you take me with you, do you mean?"
"The Basilissa will be at headquarters, I say, though the
commander-in-chief may not know from hour to hour whither he may be
called in the field."
"And are my poor children, the infant Basileis, to be torn from their
mother, to be left here exposed to all the machinations of their
rivals--to the humiliations and the plots that your brother may
contrive, to all the contaminations of this place--when the love and
care of their mother is far away?" And she sobbed and wept tears of
mingled wrath and fear, tears not wholly feigned. "They will
imprison them, they will mutilate them, they will murder them--my
babes, my hope, my pride, my sons of Constantines, Basils, of
Leonidas, and of Lycurgus! The Armenian conspirators will slay them
and seize their inheritance."
"Fear nothing, madam," at last said Nicephorus, coldly. "The
Basileis go with you, with ample imperial state and retinues. Your
terrors are as needless as they are unjust. Your sons shall have all
a mother's care, all a mother's love you can give them. Nor will you
suffer any loss of dignity if you cease to be regent. You are
empress in title and in act, and will be honored as reigning empress,
whether in Europe or in Asia; you and your sons will be in the eyes
of all men the true sovereigns of this empire. It is time that these
boys, who are to inherit this throne, should see with their eyes the
kingdom they will have to rule, and to hear the shouts of a Roman
army as it marches to battle against the infidel. For me, while this
war endures, so long as the caliph holds the Holy Land where Christ
the Saviour lived, taught, and died for men, it is enough for me to
be commander of the armies of Rome, of the soldiers of our crucified
Redeemer."
Long did the wily sorceress try all her arts in turn--entreaties,
invectives, tears, threats, blandishments, and pathetic reproaches.
Nicephorus remained immovable. Bewildered as he was by the
incoherent and contradictory tales he heard as to what had passed in
his absence, grieved at the long illness of his friend, overwhelmed
with cares of state and the duties of the campaign, he resolved to
postpone further inquiry into the conduct and schemes of his wife.
He insisted on carrying her with him, to be near him, and under his
watch and guard, but no longer to be at his side or to be treated
with any show of affection. Henceforth she ceased to be his wife,
though to the world she remained his empress. To passionate love and
devotion there had succeeded deep distrust and even dread. But even
distrust and dread were not strong enough to stifle love. He was no
longer her slave. He could not cease to be her lover. He could not
cease to be her lover in the silent recesses of his heart, hard as he
might strive to tear up by the roots the memory of his fatal passion.
Soon after noon that very day vast crowds collected in the Middle
Street, in the forum of Constantine, and in the Augustaion, and all
round the walls of the Sacred Palace. The whole city was wild with
excitement, and the streets were decorated with banners and emblems.
Hour after hour since dawn the guards had been paraded and mustered
on barges. Long caravans of sumpter-mules, laden with the tents,
furniture, baggage, and robes of the empress, of her two sons, and of
Nicephorus, passed through the imperial gate down to the port, where
they embarked for the Asiatic shore. But the densest crowd of all
was gathered round the harbor of Boucoleon, where the imperial
cortège was to take ship. At length, amid the clang of trumpets and
cymbals, the procession was formed. Magistroi, patricians, and
prefects, selected by the emperor to form his court, among whom were
our friends Bardas Skleros, attended by young Eric, Bourtzes, and
Balantes, and other generals, chamberlains, and ushers, accompanied
Nicephorus to the imperial galley. It was gently rowed out from the
port to a short distance, where all could be easily seen, and spoken
word could be heard on shore. The walls, banks, towers, terraces,
and every available spot were crowded, while the patriarch, his
priests and acolytes, with their crosses and pictures, waited at the
point of the quay. The emperor ascended the steps to the raised
platform on the quarter-deck of the state dromon. He was in full
panoply, over which fell, in long folds, the imperial scaramangion of
his office. He turned towards the east, and, reverently raising his
right hand aloft, he thrice waved over the city the sign of the
Cross. Profound hush fell on the vast multitude. Then he clasped
his hands in the attitude of adoration, and, in a ringing voice
across the waters, poured forth the prayer prescribed in the book of
rites:
"O Lord Jesus Christ, my God, into thy hands I commend this city of
Thine. Guard her against all enemies, all disasters, that may seek
to come against her; guard her against civil war, and against
invaders from the Gentiles. Keep her safe from capture and safe from
pillage: for in Thee we place all our hopes, inasmuch as Thou art the
Lord of all mercy, the Father of all pity, the God from whom alone
cometh all consolation. Thine is all mercy, all salvation,
deliverance out of all temptations and all perils, now and forever
and evermore. Amen."
At these words the choir responded from the shore with long chants of
"Amen! Amen! Holy, Holy, Holy, One Triune God!" And the vast
crowds on the walls and terraces sent up to the sky resounding shouts
of "Amen! Amen! Long live our ever-victorious Basileus!"
The imperial fleet set forth at once with sails and oars across the
Propontis, and, amid crowds of boats, caiques, and light galleys,
passed over that lovely inland lake between the Princes Islands and
the Asian coast, marked with endless headlands, bays, woods, and
towers. It sailed on eastward into the landlocked bay of Nicomedia,
and disembarked at Pylæ (the Gates of Asia), a little north of the
famous city of Nicæa in Bithynia. This was now practically the head
of the great military road which led from the Propontis into Syria,
the road which so many armies, proconsuls, and officials of the Roman
empire had traversed for ages--along which the advancing flood of
Islam came, step by step, for seven hundred years--the road traversed
by the vast and motley host of the First Frank Crusade, one hundred
and thirty years later, on their way to Antioch and Jerusalem.
Here the imperial host was attended and watched by two young and
observant spirits, both of whom were deeply stirred by the character
and exploits of Nicephorus Phocas, both of whom have left us records
of his achievements. One of these was the young student, Leo, long
afterwards destined to become a deacon of the Church, and to transmit
to us, after a thousand years, the only contemporary history in prose
of these events. Though still but an undergraduate at college, his
historical zeal had caused him to obtain permission to follow the
imperial train, at least as far as Cæsarea; and he was already taking
ample notes of everything he saw, and was diligently inquiring into
every detail of the armament and its equipment. His companion was
one Joannes, called Kyriotes, and usually known as "the Geometer,"
from his mathematical learning. He, too, ultimately took priests'
orders, and became, late in life, Bishop of Melitene, in Cappadocia.
We still have verses of his in the form of epitaphs on Nicephorus,
his uncle Malemos the Hermit, and the Patriarch Polyeuctus. At the
date of this journey he was a young courtier--a protospathaire, in
fact, unattached--and his father, Theodore, a great official, had
procured for his son, John, and his young friend, Leo, permission to
join the imperial suite and to follow all the movements of the host.
It is by the keen eyes and active brains of these two literary
enthusiasts that we propose now to follow the crusade of the tenth
century.
As soon as the immense convoy of baggage and camp furniture was fully
landed on the main-land, the emperor in person held a review of the
train of sumpter beasts, their drivers, and their packs, under the
superintendence of the prefect of the stables. Leo and Joannes
followed in the emperor's staff, John as the elder, and already an
experienced official, pointing out and explaining each section of the
equipment.
"The first inspection is to register the proper number of the sumpter
beasts sent in to the rendezvous," said John. "The prefect of the
stables and his lieutenants and subalterns are responsible. Every
official, from the captain of a theme to the lowest grade of the
vestiaries, is charged to produce so many horses, so many mules. The
counts of the guard, scholares, excubitors, immortals, and the
obsequians, are all assessed, and so on throughout."
"Is the number of each requisition fixed by law, and always the same?"
"Certainly, it is all noted in the appendix to our first _Book of
Ceremonies_."
"There are no imperial sumpter animals then?" asked Leo.
"Certainly there are. The emperor is now inspecting the contingent.
Two hundred horses and two hundred mules from the imperial stables of
Asia and Phrygia. The great stables and paddocks are over there at
Malagina, under Mount Olympus. The bishops and archbishops have to
send another hundred, and the great monasteries another hundred.
Altogether we have here nearly one thousand beasts."
"That is not enough for the army?" asked Leo.
"Oh no! the army is already well on its march, or in the intermediate
camps along the line, ready to fall in. Their baggage animals are by
this time well ahead towards Cæsarea. These we see are for the
imperial retinue, staff, and service. The whole have been mustered
at the state paddocks, where they have been gelded, branded with the
state cipher, and passed by the surgeons. They must be above five
and under seven years, shod, bitted, and furnished with saddles or
packs, halters, and tethers. Those that are sick or sorry have been
rejected, and are left in the paddocks in the veterinary hospital."
"What is the emperor stopping for now in that group?" asked Leo.
"He notices, perhaps, that the beast is short of proper clothing, or
has a sore back, and that his harness has not been properly stamped.
No! I see now, he has noticed a mule with a load too heavy. See, he
has it taken off and weighed!"
"Why so?" asked the curious Leo.
"No horse or mule can have laid on his back a weight exceeding eighty
measures of corn. Yes! They find it is exceeded. The Basileus has
called for the driver's check, which is forfeited, and he is ordering
the fellow two dozen lashes."
"He is rather more tender to his mules than to his men," said Leo.
"Not he," said John. "Nicephorus is a man of iron to himself first
and to others next. To himself, his soldiers, his beasts, he is the
same. In discipline he is as sharp and as severe in punishing as any
emir of the Hagarenes or czar of the Bulgars."
"Inexorable as Rhadamanthus or Achilles," said Leo, whose mind ran on
his Hellenic classics.
"Well, do you not see," said John, "it is not a matter of tenderness
at all. Tender is a word not known in the vocabulary of the Sacred
Palace nor of the Roman army. But a mule with a sore back, a cracked
heel, or with an excessive load, will soon drop. With it goes its
pack, and when this failure spreads, the expedition is delayed or
weakened. Hence our administration for centuries had prescribed the
exact harness, clothes, condition, age, of every baggage-beast, and
the weight he has to carry, and provides good stables, clothes,
drugs, and veterinary surgeons. And Nicephorus Phocas, let me tell
you, is the man in all this service the most keen to mark any case of
default, and the most inexorable to have it exposed and punished. I
have heard him say that the feet of a soldier are just as essential
as his hands, and the legs of his mount may decide a battle quite as
much as his lance or bow."
The huge caravan passed on with sure and rapid steps from one camp to
another, the troops in each camp joining up on the march, through the
plain round Nicasa, to the station at Dorylæum, a district the scene
of so many desperate combats--and after a hundred and thirty years
the scene of the triumphs of a Godfrey and a Tancred. The empress
and her sons were conveyed with speed and without fatigue in horse
litters, and they had their tents, guards, and retinue distinct from
that of the emperor.
It was at Dorylæum, after a severe day's march, that Leo and Joannes
were permitted to visit the tents of the emperor himself. Two were
pitched and ready furnished at each station, awaiting his
arrival--one for his meals, the other for the night. They were of
purple, lined with silk, and supported on stout tent-poles with
gilded knobs. Within they were already filled with couches,
folding-tables, cushions, rugs, and furs, with all the utensils
needed for the table and service--stamped with the imperial
cipher--baths, books, maps, almanacs, prayer-books, reliquaries, even
cases of medicines, and surgical instruments. Nor was there wanting
immense chests of robes, of state armor, silk and linen garments,
even unguents and pastils, lamps, parchment, writing-materials,
seals, and stamps. All this vast apparatus was strictly required by
the laws and custom of the Sacred Palace. Nicephorus, who despised
it, and rejected its use, suffered it to be taken as far as Cæsarea.
When the campaign began in earnest, he left it behind him, and fared
as simply as any regimental officer in his army.
Just as they had been admitted to view the imperial tents and
fittings, the guard for the night was being posted. The commander of
the vigils, or watch, ordered out a detachment of one hundred guards,
who patrolled the external circuit of the imperial tents. The inner
circuit, from the cords of the tent-poles, was guarded by a hundred
men from the corps of the hetæri, or body-guard. From the moment
when the emperor had withdrawn within, no man could pass the barrier,
which was indicated by the shields hung outside the tents.
"From the day that the Basileus enters the enemies' ground," said
Joannes, "these guards are doubled, and a more rigid surveillance is
enforced. An emperor of Rome is not to be caught napping in his tent
like a madcap king of the Franks, or a rough-and-ready czar of the
Russ."
And now the Basileus approached, passing through the lines of men
already halted round their quarters. The brigadiers, colonels, and
officers dismounted and joined his staff. The infantry fell on their
knees and prostrated themselves before their august autocrator; the
cavalry sat motionless on their chargers at the salute. Nicephorus
would halt and address each detachment. "Soldiers, I trust all goes
well with you! How fare ye, my sons? How fares it with your wives,
my daughters-in-law, how fares it with your children?"
And the men answered in the appointed words, "In the light of thy
majesty, if all goes well with thee, all goes well with us, thy
servants." And the Basileus replied, "Thanks be to God Almighty, who
preserves you in health!"
With these words he passed into his tent. The captain of the watch
asked him for the password. That night it was "St. Michael the
Archangel."
At night he summoned his principal officers and staff to sup with
him. The young Joannes and Leo were even admitted to attend at the
repast. Nicephorus was now hastening to take command of a great
army, which he knew was worthy of its task--to make head against the
swarms of Islam which now reached from the Indus and the Caspian to
the Taurus, and from Morocco to the Holy Land. He had thrown off all
the cares and vexations of the capital, all the miserable ceremony of
the Sacred Palace. He was again a soldier, about to complete the
mission of his life; and the young students rejoiced to observe in
all his words and his looks a spirit of hope and confidence that for
two years had never lighted up the countenance of the hermit
sovereign.
As the two students left the tents of the Basileus, they passed over
to those of the Basilissa, who had just arrived in her litter from
the day's march with a long train of guards, pack-horses, attendants,
and baggage servants, and her two sons, with a like retinue. As she
was in the act of descending from her litter to pass into her tent, a
strange, wild figure pressed forward against the guards with loud
outcries and appeals to the empress to suffer him to approach and
address her. It was an old man, gaunt and haggard, with long white
hair, the upper part of his body was almost bare, and showed
emaciated and torn limbs, while he was girt with a coarse and ragged
garment from the waist downward; but his legs and feet, like his
arms, were naked, and presented the look of a skeleton exposed to the
winds of heaven. His cries and wild appearance, much like that of an
India fakir, caused Theophano to halt and ask who he was and what did
he seek. He was said to be the famous eremite, Daniel, of Mount
Olympus, who had lived in solitary caves or huts for forty-three
years, had once had a great reputation for sanctity, but was now
believed to have been driven crazy by his austerities. He had lived
in a desecrated tomb by the side of the road, and was afflicted with
dreadful fits of epilepsy. He claimed to possess the gift of
prophecy, which was vouchsafed to him by the Jewish prophet whose
name he bore.