resignation, "He has designs upon my liberty--perhaps upon my life."
"Defend yourself, madam," said Theodore; "your life, your full
freedom of action, is now the most precious thing left in Rome.
Appeal to the army, to its gallant leaders, to the senate, and the
nobles of our land."
"Our prerogatives are being torn from us day by day," groaned the
magistros Marianos; "the donations which our bounteous sovereigns
from old time distributed to the nobles at the holy festivals have
been withheld by absurd pretexts of economy. Not that we need or
value such trifles of the royal favor. But the public withholding of
them has been a slur on our honor, and has fatally diminished our
influence with the government and our authority with the people."
"A chief must be found who is able to resist this oppression," said
the patriarch.
"Say, rather," said the abbot, "one who is able to replace the
oppressor."
Marianos and the patricians smiled with a complacent and important
air.
"Remember," said Theophano, with decision, "nothing can be done but
by a soldier. No man can stem the oppression that desolates this
empire if he has not the voice of the army. None could wean them
from devotion to Nicephorus but a hero, a beloved chief, one who has
led them to victory in a hundred fights."
"Her Majesty speaks truly and wisely," said the crafty abbot, as the
conference closed. Nor did magistroi or patricians venture to say
her nay.
On Ascension Day, from early dawn, the streets were crowded with
citizens and country-folk hurrying to witness the processions to the
fanes and take part in the ceremonies of the festival. At the
Neorion port on the Golden Horn near the Strategion, where a body of
new recruits had been exercising, a riot broke out between them and
the sailors of the merchant ships. These wild fellows from the
Armenian highlands looked upon the capital as a conquered city, and
had begun to plunder the wine, fruit, and meats that were in course
of unloading on the quay. The dealers, their men, and the seamen
defended their property. Arms were drawn, and a furious mob assailed
the troopers with every missile within reach. For an hour the whole
quarter rang with cries of battle and the din of the riot. The
soldiers at last, outnumbered and surrounded, fought their way back
to their quarters, leaving many dead and dying on the ground. Nor
was order restored until the prefect arrived with a strong guard and
vainly tried to pacify the crowds of citizens who called for
punishment of the aggressors, carrying in procession the corpses of
their comrades and intending to bear them to the very gate of the
palace.
Week by week the irritation of the city had been increasing, which
Nicephorus, if he noticed it at all, treated with quiet disdain. On
that very Day of Ascension he made the official visit of ceremony to
the venerated church of Mary, outside the northern rampart, known
then and now as Pege, or the Holy Well. Leo, our young student, and
his friend, Joannes, "the geometer," had been called out to the riot
and now attended the train of the Basileus. It was towards sunset
when the imperial cortège returned over the crowded route of many
miles, and at last passed into the narrow streets, at that moment
thronged with citizens making holiday.
"Do you see how those market fellows under the portico of Theodosius
there scowl at the Basileus?" said Leo, to his friend. "He would not
be safe among them without the guard."
"Hear that yell of rage from the roof of the baker's house on the
left," said Joannes.
"Nicephorus seems the only man in the street who does not notice it.
He rides on with his eyes bent down like a man in a reverie," said
Leo.
"After the bloody street-fight we saw this morning, it would be
strange if the mob were not in a savage mood," said Joannes. "Ah!
there is a dense crowd in the forum of Constantine beyond. There
seems to be some one on the steps of the column haranguing the
people."
"I see," said Leo; "it is that mad monk from the Stoudion, Brother
Elias. He has been preaching against the Basileus again. We shall
have a pretty row in five minutes, as sure as my name is Leo."
The words were hardly out of his mouth when yells, mingled with
curses and missiles, filled the air. The guard in front of the
procession roughly forced a path through the crowd, thrusting back
the people with blows and the hoofs of their horses. The immense
mob, furious with indignation, pressed on the riders with outcries
and menaces. "Assassin, tyrant, usurper," were the names shouted
forth. Stones, garbage, and mud were flung at the imperial party as
the guard closed in a ring round the Basileus.
"By St. Andrew, this is too much!" cried Leo; "the pitcher only just
missed his head," as from the third story of a tenement-house a
virago, with horrid curses, hurled a heavy stone-ware jug at the
sovereign below. And from the same window, at that moment, a girl,
in a loose dress and dishevelled hair, hurled a brass pan down on the
emperor as he rode beneath their house.
"Break into that door!" shouted the captain of police to his men;
"seize the old hag and her girl. I know them well. It is a
doss-house for the worst kind of begging monk. And the women are as
bad as the monks."
"See how Nicephorus there sits his horse and does not even look round
him!" said Leo. "He rides on as calm and unconcerned in the
hurly-burly as if he were St. George in an ikon. What coolness and
nerve the man has! He seems to see their missiles as little as he
hears their curses. He looks as steady and undisturbed as if he were
the bronze statue of Justinian on his horse."
"And that stone jug might easily have smashed him," said Joannes.
"It just grazed the plume; they might have killed him as they did
Apambas in the revolution."
The guard closed in round their emperor, who rode on quietly, without
a word and without moving a muscle, amid execrations and volleys of
mud. And night at last dispersed the mob.
The next day the prefect of the city waited on the Basileus to take
his orders as to the punishments to be awarded to the riotous quarter
and the fate of the prisoners arrested by the police.
"Let them go," said Nicephorus, "and leave the citizens alone. No
bones are broken, and I care nothing for their shouts. The times are
hard. We may have been too close-fisted with the corn, and my
Armenians are a rough lot. But, at such a crisis in the holy war, I
dare not be too hard on my brothers in arms who are giving their
lives for Christ. If we can smash the False Prophet forever, the
city mobs will begin to cheer me again as of old."
The prefect was forced to abstain from any harsh treatment of the
quarter. But he kept some of the worst of his prisoners in jail.
And as for the two women whose missiles had wounded some of the
police, and whom he knew to keep a thieves' den, Leo saw them
publicly burned in the circus of St. Mamas--a low, suburban arena--as
a warning to all rioters.
Before leaving the capital for the front, Nicephorus was urged to
give a show of chariot-races in the Hippodrome with more than usual
magnificence. His council regarded it as a mode of pacifying the
public discontent. Seated high in the cathisma, the royal gallery,
surrounded by the empress, her sons, and the court, in full gala
trim, Nicephorus submitted with the best grace he could command to
the tedious exhibitions of the arena. Before the games were over he
thought it well to give the Byzantine public a sight of the new
levies from Macedonia, whom he was about to lead into Syria. So he
ordered two "bands," or regiments, of foot-soldiers to advance into
the arena, just cleared of the horse-races, and to be paraded in
sections. For a time the citizens on their benches watched with
amusement the unwonted spectacle of military evolutions in their
Hippodrome. Warming with the sight of his men in splendid battle
array, Nicephorus now sent orders to charge in a mimic fight, with
levelled lances and the familiar war-cries of their tribes. As the
companies charged till the lances actually crashed upon the bucklers
and the vast Hippodrome rang with the shouts and clash of arms, panic
seized the spectators. The cry was raised that the Basileus had
ordered a general massacre, as in the dreadful sedition of the "Nika"
of old. With shrill yells the crowds rose from their benches, poured
down the gangways in mad confusion, and choked the doorways and
passages. Shrieks rose far and near, as the terrified crowd trampled
each other to death or were crushed by the weight of those behind
them in the agonies of fright. Before anything could be done to stem
the torrent, before the emperor, in his lofty gallery, quite
understood what was happening under his eyes, a ghastly mass of
mangled bodies and bloody limbs, jammed inextricably together, filled
the corridors and gateways of the circus, which an hour before had
been a festive scene of beauty and enjoyment.
The Basileus arose from his throne as soon as he comprehended the
cause of the disaster, and, in a voice which overpowered the shrieks
below, gave the word to the troops to halt and stand at attention.
Every sword and every lance was held motionless, as the men stood
like statues in their ranks. The emperor resumed his seat in order
to recall the people from their panic and imitate his own repose.
It was too late. All the afternoon the ambulances and the surgeons
with their staff toiled at removing from the quivering mass the dying
and the dead. Nicephorus, having given all necessary orders, slowly
and sadly went back to his cabinet, feeling that some curse had
fallen on his head, if it were not that God had purposed to end his
reign in ruin and blood.
And for long years the people of Byzantium bitterly mourned over the
death and mutilation of those dear to them, which they placed to the
indifference of their sovereign, but which really was due to their
own folly, cowardice, and panic terror.
XXX
The Last Campaign
Nicephorus was now again in Asia, on his third and last great
expedition to achieve the reconquest of Syria. Night after night,
the fire-signals across the Bosphorus recorded the rapid stages of
the imperial advance over the passes of the Amanus, and day by day
couriers arrived with despatches to the regents and the council of
state. It was known that the Basileus was bent on recovering to
Christendom Antioch and Aleppo, finally driving the Moslem from
Syria, and at last planting the Cross again on the tomb of the
Saviour in the Holy City.
The capital was kept in a constant state of excitement and
expectation. Crowds gathered in the streets and forums discussing
the reports and the rumors, and decorations were hung on the
buildings and public monuments as each new success of the triumphant
army was announced. The anxiety of the official world was at last
satisfied by a meeting of the senate at which the regents undertook
to make full announcement of the state of affairs.
The nobles and all who had the right to attend or who could obtain
access to the tribunes and approaches crowded into the senate house,
which resounded with loud acclamations as Leo, the curopalate, and
his ministers took their seats. And the cheers and cries of "Long,
long life!" were redoubled when the venerable Bardas Phocas, the
father of the Basileus, was borne along into the assembly in his
carrying-chair. The old hero, shrunk to a skeleton, wrinkled and
shrivelled like a mummy--the sarcastic Bishop Luitprand declares that
he looked one hundred--with still some light in his eye, and his
snow-white beard, seemed like a ghost of the past as he was lifted,
tottering and bent, into his place. And the cries of "Long, long
life!" again renewed, seemed a cruel mockery of his exhausted frame.
When the storm of cheering had at last subsided, the regent rose and
spoke thus:
"Most noble magistroi, patricians, and illustrious senators, we have
received a series of despatches from the august autocrator to the
following effect: With a force of 157,000 men of all arms, 55,000 of
whom were mounted, he passed from Cilicia, as already reported,
across the mountains into Syria, making straight for Aleppo. His
sudden rush upon the country of the Hamdanites demoralized the enemy,
who fled in every direction, and left their cities and forts an easy
prey to our men. The terror of their approach called out such
outbursts of fanatical hate against our holy faith that it spread as
far as Jerusalem, where--it grieves us to report--the patriarch John
was savagely massacred with all his priests and many of his flock,
and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, with the other churches of
Jerusalem, was burned to ashes."
At these words groans of grief and cries of rage broke forth in the
chamber from side to side; and the tribunes and corridors burst into
yells of horror and passion. As soon as the tumult could be
appeased, Leo again resumed his speech.
"But the Basileus has amply avenged the blood of the martyrs and the
outrage on our faith. He has gained a great battle under the walls
of Aleppo. Thence he ascended the valley of the Orontes, and stormed
Maaret en Noamen, that rich city named after one of the companions of
the False Prophet. Thence he swept down upon Maaret Mouserim, on
Kafartab, and Chaizar and the city of Hamah. All these rich and
splendid cities of Chambdas have been sacked and burned and the
mosques of the False Prophet destroyed. The land has been laid
waste, and tens of thousands of captives have been carried off, with
enormous masses of booty in coin, gems, valuables, beasts, and
stores."
Loud cheers rang through the hall, with cries of "Long life to our
autocrator Nicephorus, the ever-victorious!" Leo at last resumed his
address.
"But we have a still more glorious triumph to announce. The ancient
city of Emesa, which the Hagarenes call Homs, has been captured and
destroyed. The Basileus and his staff worshipped Christ in the
hallowed and famous Church of St. John the Baptist, and there they
recovered that most venerable relic, the head of the divine
forerunner and herald of the Saviour. This inestimable prize is now
on its way to our city, and will be offered to the adoration of the
faithful in the Temple of the Holy Wisdom."
At these words there broke forth a storm of shouts of triumph and
joy. The sitting was suspended till the excitement could be calmed,
while the patriarch offered up an invocation of thanksgiving to God
for the mercy that He had extended to His people.
Day after day fresh successes were made known by the regents. The
Basileus and his victorious troops had now crossed the Lebanon
Mountains and were descending the coast of Phœnicia. They were
again on the shores of the sea, and in touch with the fleet at hand
to supply all they needed. Swift dromons now brought round the Asian
coast the reports of the chief. Gabala fell to the conquerors, then
Cæsarea; and next Tripoli was invested. After that Laodicea was made
a subject city of the empire, and the Saracen emir was transformed
into an imperial commander. With Tortosa and Marakieh the whole
Phœnician coast from Tripoli to Antioch was in the power of the
Basileus. By the end of the autumn the official report informed the
people of the empire "that eighteen cities, each having large mosques
of the Prophet, had been taken by storm or surrendered; together with
at least one hundred forts, and lesser places which the Basileus has
ordered to be levelled to the ground. Vast numbers of the enemy have
been removed and taken as prisoners. In other cases, both along
Syria and the coast, the inhabitants have renounced the Prophet, and
have accepted baptism and our holy faith. The victorious Basileus
has now closely invested Antioch, the 'City of God,' as it was once
called, and is about to complete the annihilation of the race of
Chambdas and the recovery of the Holy Land and the sepulchre of
Christ."
This last and memorable campaign of Nicephorus did finally effect
nearly all that its author had designed. The power of Islam in Syria
and the valleys of the Orontes was broken for two generations. The
progress of the Saracen towards the west was stayed, and the safety
of the empire guaranteed until the fatal arrival of the Turk. The
Frank crusades had been anticipated by more than one hundred years.
Antioch, "the third city of the world," as Nicephorus himself called
it, was ultimately stormed and captured by his arms, and Aleppo was
taken by his nephew, and became a tributary state; but Nicephorus
himself was not present at either capture. In the midst of this
series of overwhelming triumphs, the most brilliant and effective of
his whole career, he suddenly again returned to Byzantium for reasons
which his people could not fathom, and which his historians have
never explained. The cause was one that touched his honor and his
life.
He was completing the investment of Antioch, and building, to
blockade it, the vast rock fort of Bagras, carrying the stones, in
order to lay the foundations, on his own shoulder, to encourage his
men in the work, when he received from his brother Leo a most
momentous despatch. "Great and dangerous intrigues had been
discovered in the palace itself. The empress has been in constant
communication with John Tzimisces, who, in spite of the imperial
order to remain in the Cappadocian theme, had secretly visited
Nicomedia, if not Byzantium itself. John was furiously inveighing
against the Basileus for having kept him in the background, as he
declared, in inglorious and shameful retirement. In spite of the
triumphs of the imperial arms, the monks of the Stoudion were
exciting the rabble of the city and the mendicant hermits and
hedge-priests to rebellion and riot. Theophano was the soul of this
conspiracy; and, although they had failed as yet to trace any
criminal intercourse between her and John, there were ominous signs
that she was plotting a revolution which would place Tzimisces on the
throne."
This terrible missive aroused all the indignation and suspicion in
the soul of Nicephorus which he had struggled to smother and dismiss.
He felt the need of instant action to save his government, his honor,
and his life. With bitter feelings he postponed all his projects to
recover Antioch, Aleppo, and even Jerusalem and the sepulchre of
Christ. He placed the army of Antioch under the command of General
Michael Bourtzes, a patrician; and he despatched another army to
Aleppo under command of his own nephew, Petros Phocas, son of Leo.
Having made all his dispositions for completing the campaign,
Nicephorus took ship and rapidly returned to the capital by sea.
The return of the Basileus was so sudden and unexpected that no signs
of welcome had been prepared to greet him. It was the sour evening
of a dull day when he made his way back to the palace, with a very
small and quiet retinue, almost unnoticed. Even as he passed
hurriedly through the streets, he had noticed monks and demagogues
haranguing small knots of citizens on their distresses and the
cruelty of the government. Leo came down to the port to meet his
brother. "The city," he said, "is seething with suppressed
resentment and discontent. In spite of all his efforts and the
rigors of the police, disaffection was being nursed in the
monasteries and churches, and their privileges made it too dangerous
to prosecute and punish the disturbers of the peace. Daily the
chapels and courts of the clergy resounded with incendiary sermons.
The official signs of public rejoicing had hardly concealed the
apathy of the public over the successes of the army in the east.
Every triumph was regarded as the occasion of a new tax. And the bad
season and the tempests with which they had been afflicted made the
collection of the revenue a constant source of trouble and disorder."
Nicephorus listened to his brother's report in silence, patient,
unmoved, and resolute. He pondered it without a word, with no sign
of anger or of fear. At last he said, slowly, forcing his lips to
utter the words to which he dreaded the answer, "Brother, tell me of
her."
Leo grasped his brother's hand, and he bent over it as he replied in
a whisper: "Sire, I obey, though I shrink from the task. She is
conspiring against you. We seized a secret messenger of hers to
John. We found on him a document urging Tzimisces to come to the
palace to confer with herself and her privy council. Our officers
wrung from the messenger at last that he was charged with verbal
assurances of a new marriage and promises of a lavish kind."
Nicephorus writhed silently, but said no word for a space. Then he
asked, "What, then, of Tzimisces himself?"
"We have not been able to obtain any evidence that John has listened
to these overtures; nor can it be proved that they have yet reached
him. But Tzimisces is a traitor, your enemy, your supplanter. Seize
him, blind or execute him. Seize and deport her. They will be your
ruin, if not your death."
Nicephorus took no such action. He who had swept Islam before him
from the Phœnician coast to the Euphrates, he who was the idol of
the most powerful army of that age, he who had found the civil and
military organization of all Asia work in his hand like a perfect
machine, cared little for the discontent of the luxurious nobles of
the capital, and still less for the idle mobs of the forum. And,
conscious of his burning zeal in the cause of Christendom, and his
vast services to the people of God, he cared little for the intrigues
and anger of the churchmen. Patriarch and abbot might be unjust.
But Christ and His Mother would intercede for him at the mercy-seat
of the Almighty.
Even now he could not bring himself to believe in the treason of
John, and he shrank from condemning him without convincing proof. He
even suffered Theophano to justify herself, and to refute all the
accusations of her enemies. She burst into the privy chamber of her
husband, as he strode up and down in thought, swayed with contending
emotions and racked with doubts. She dragged in her little Basil,
and made him prostrate himself before the Basileus, and kiss his
father's hand, and, rising in an attitude of superb majesty, with a
voice that the greatest actress would envy, she broke forth:
"You will not believe, my lord, my lover, my glory, that I who raised
you to this throne, and saved your life when the masters of this
palace were thirsting for your blood--that I could be seeking to
injure you at the highest hour of your triumph. Who could protect my
boys, and secure them the throne of their ancestors, if you were cast
out before they were old enough to act for themselves? Their
inheritance, their liberty--nay, their lives, are in jeopardy if you
their father were gone. What would become of me if they put you
away? Could you bear, my Nicephorus, to see me in prison, in a cell,
in the veil and garb of a nun? Could you bear to think of me growing
old in misery and want? Have you ceased to love me, to feel for me?
Do you hate me?"
Nicephorus looked steadily at Theophano with profound sorrow and
reproach, gazing at her as if he was searching the depths of her
soul. But he spoke not a word. The woman shrank down before him and
clasped his hand.