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THE HISTORIANS’ HISTORY OF THE WORLD
[Illustration: GIBBON]
THE HISTORIANS’
HISTORY
OF THE WORLD
A comprehensive narrative of the rise and development of nations
as recorded by over two thousand of the great writers of all ages:
edited, with the assistance of a distinguished board of advisers
and contributors, by
HENRY SMITH WILLIAMS, LL.D.
[Illustration]
IN TWENTY-FIVE VOLUMES
VOLUME VII--THE LATER ROMAN EMPIRE
The Outlook Company
New York
The History Association
London
1904
COPYRIGHT, 1904,
BY HENRY SMITH WILLIAMS.
_All rights reserved._
Press of J. J. Little & Co.
New York, U. S. A.
Contributors, and Editorial Revisers.
Prof. Adolf Erman, University of Berlin.
Prof. Joseph Halévy, College of France.
Prof. Thomas K. Cheyne, Oxford University.
Prof. Andrew C. McLaughlin, University of Michigan.
Prof. David H. Müller, University of Vienna.
Prof. Alfred Rambaud, University of Paris.
Capt. F. Brinkley, Tokio.
Prof. Eduard Meyer, University of Berlin.
Dr. James T. Shotwell, Columbia University.
Prof. Theodor Nöldeke, University of Strasburg.
Prof. Albert B. Hart, Harvard University.
Dr. Paul Brönnle, Royal Asiatic Society.
Dr. James Gairdner, C.B., London.
Prof. Ulrich von Wilamowitz Möllendorff, University of Berlin.
Prof. H. Marnali, University of Budapest.
Dr. G. W. Botsford, Columbia University.
Prof. Julius Wellhausen, University of Göttingen.
Prof. Franz R. von Krones, University of Graz.
Prof. Wilhelm Soltau, Zabern University.
Prof. R. W. Rogers, Drew Theological Seminary.
Prof. A. Vambéry, University of Budapest.
Prof. Otto Hirschfeld, University of Berlin.
Dr. Frederick Robertson Jones, Bryn Mawr College.
Baron Bernardo di San Severino Quaranta, London.
Dr. John P. Peters, New York.
Dr. S. Rappoport, School of Oriental Languages, Paris.
Prof. Hermann Diels, University of Berlin.
Prof. C. W. C. Oman, Oxford University.
Prof. I. Goldziher, University of Vienna.
Prof. W. L. Fleming, University of West Virginia.
Prof. R. Koser, University of Berlin.
PART XI
THE HISTORY OF THE LATER ROMAN EMPIRE
BASED CHIEFLY UPON THE FOLLOWING AUTHORITIES
AGATHIAS, AMMIANUS, AUGUSTAN HISTORY, J. B. BURY, HENRY FYNES
CLINTON, GEORGIUS CEDRENUS, ANNA COMNENA, DION CASSIUS,
MICHAEL DUCAS, EINHARD (EGINHARD), EUTROPIUS, GEORGE
FINLAY, HEINRICH GELZER, EDWARD GIBBON,
FRIEDRICH WILHELM BENJAMIN VON
GIESEBRECHT,
FERDINAND GREGOROVIUS, G. F. HERTZBERG, THOMAS HODGKIN, JORDANES
(JORNANDES), JOANNES MALALAS, PROCOPIUS, L. VON RANKE,
STRABO, TACITUS, VELLEIUS, GEORG WEBER,
JOANNES ZONARAS, ZOSIMUS
TOGETHER WITH
A SURVEY OF THE HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGES
BY
JAMES T. SHOTWELL
WITH ADDITIONAL CITATIONS FROM
SIGURD ABEL, JOHANN CHRISTOPH ADELUNG, AGOBARD, ANASTASIUS, ANNALES
FULDENSES, ANNALES METTENSES, BARONIUS, FRIEDRICH BLUHME, HENRY
BRADLEY, HERMANN BROSIEN, JAMES BRYCE, CODEX CAROLINUS,
CASSIODORUS, CHRONICLE OF MOISSIAC, ROBERT COMYN,
CORIPPUS, C. DU F. DU CANGE, S. A. DUNHAM,
JEAN VICTOR DURUY, ERCHANBERTUS,
EVAGRIUS OF EPIPHANEIA,
ERNST WILHELM FÖRSTEMANN, FREDEGARIUS SCHOLASTICUS, E. A. FREEMAN,
GABRIEL H. GAILLARD, GEORGIUS MONACHUS, HEINRICH GERDES, AUGUST
FRIEDRICH GFÖRER, GREGORY OF TOURS, JACOB GRIMM, ALBERT
GUELDENPENNING, HENRY HALLAM, JOSEPH VON
HAMMER-PURGSTALL, JEAN BARTHÉLEMY
HAURÉAU, KARL JOSEPH VON HEFELE,
ISIDORUS HISPALENSIS,
HENRY H. HOWORTH,
JOHN OF EPHESUS, JULIAN, LAMBERT VON HERSFELD (_or_ ASCHAFFENBURG),
ERNEST LAVISSE AND ALFRED RAMBAUD, CHARLES LECOINTE, LEO DIACONUS,
CHARLTON T. LEWIS, MARIE PAULINE DE LÉZARDIÈRE, LIBANIUS,
JULIUS LIPPERT, MALCHUS PHILADELPHUS, WILHELM
MARTENS, HENRI MARTIN, WOLFGANG MENZEL,
J. F. MICHAUD, MONK OF ST. GAUL, DAVID
MÜLLER, FRIEDRICH MÜLLER,
NICEPHORUS PATRIARCHA, NICETAS ACOMINATUS, OELSNER, GEORGIUS PACHYMERES,
R. PALLMANN, PANEGYRICI VETERES, PAULUS DIACONUS, WALTER C. PERRY,
PETRUS PATRIARCHUS, GEORGIUS PHRANZES, PROSPER AQUITANICUS,
PTOLEMY, HERMANN VON REICHENAU, E. ROBERT ROESLER,
SALVIANUS OF MARSEILLES, F. J. SAULCY, K. SCHENK,
F. C. SCHLOSSER, LUDWIG SCHMIDT,
J. Y. SHEPPARD,
C. SOLLIUS APOLLINARIS SIDONIUS, JAMES SIME, M. E. THALHEIMER,
THEOPHANES, THEOPHYLACTUS SIMOCATTA, THIETMAR OF MERSEBURG,
GEOFFREY DE VILLE-HARDOUIN, WALAFRIED STRABUS, WIPO,
JOHANN G. A. WIRTH, J. K. ZEUS
CONTENTS
VOLUME VII
PAGE
BOOK I. THE LATER ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE EAST
INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. A SURVEY OF THE HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGES.
By James T. Shotwell, Ph.D. xiii
HISTORY IN OUTLINE OF THE LATER ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE EAST 1
CHAPTER I
THE REIGN OF ARCADIUS (395-408 A.D.) 25
A comparison of the two empires, 25. Greatness of
Constantinople, 28. The East and the West, 30. Alaric’s revolt,
30. Eutropius the Eunuch, 33. Tribigild the Ostrogoth; the fall
of Eutropius, 35. St. John Chrysostom, 39.
CHAPTER II
REIGN OF THEODOSIUS THE YOUNGER TO THE ELEVATION OF JUSTINIAN
(408-527 A.D.) 42
The Huns, 45. Ammianus Marcellinus describes the Huns, 47.
Attila, king of the Huns, 48. The diplomacy of Attila, 54.
Attempt to assassinate Attila, 58. Successors of Theodosius, 60.
CHAPTER III
JUSTINIAN AND THEODORA (525-548 A.D.) 66
The factions of the Circus, 69. Avarice and profession of
Justinian, 74. The building of St. Sophia, 79. Other buildings
of Justinian, 81. Fortifications, 82. Suppression of the
schools, 85. Extinction of the Roman consulship, 87. The
Vandalic War, 87. Belisarius, 89. Belisarius enters Carthage,
92. Triumph and meekness of Belisarius, 96. Solomon’s wars with
the Moors, 98. Military tactics under Justinian, 100. Decadence
of the soldiery, 103.
CHAPTER IV
THE LATER YEARS OF JUSTINIAN’S REIGN (535-565 A.D.) 106
Byzantium rids Rome of the Goths, 106. Finlay’s estimate of
Belisarius, 109. The Goths renew the war, 110. Belisarius in
Rome, 111. Gibbon’s estimate of Belisarius and his times,
113. Barbaric inroads, 114. Slavic incursions, 116. Turks and
Avars, 119. Relations of the Roman Empire with Persia, 121. The
revolt in Africa, 124. Invasion of the Cotrigur Huns, 127. End
of Belisarius, 129. Death of Justinian, 130. Justinian as a
legislator, 131. Bury’s estimate of Justinian, 136.
CHAPTER V
REIGN OF JUSTIN II TO HERACLIUS (565-629 A.D.) 137
Reign of Tiberius, 140. The Emperor Maurice, 142. The
Persian War, 143. The Avars, 147. State of the Roman armies,
150. Rebellion against Maurice, 151. Phocas emperor, 153.
Heraclius emperor, 155. Heraclius plans to remove the capital
to Carthage, 158. The awakening of Heraclius, 159. Triumph
of Heraclius, 162. The siege of Constantinople, 164. Third
expedition of Heraclius, 165. Battle of Nineveh, 166. The end
of Chosroes, 167.
CHAPTER VI
HERACLIUS AND HIS SUCCESSORS (610-717 A.D.) 170
The provinces under Heraclius, 173. Barriers against the
Northern barbarians, 176. Religious activities of Heraclius,
177. Wars with the Mohammedans, 179. The reign of Constans
II, 182. Religious feuds, 183. The growing danger from the
Saracens, 184. Reign of Constantine IV, 186. Saracen wars and
siege of Constantinople, 187. Justinian II, 189. The government
of Leontius, 192. Justinian recovers the throne, 193. Anarchy,
194.
CHAPTER VII
LEO THE ISAURIAN TO JOANNES ZIMISCES (717-969 A.D.) 197
Leo (III) the Isaurian, 201. The siege of Constantinople, 202.
Revolt against Leo, 205. The Iconoclasts, 207. Iconoclasm
after Leo, 209. The reign of Constantine (V) Copronymus, 210.
Government of Copronymus; the Saracen wars, 211. Wars with
Bulgaria, 212. Council of 754, 214. Leo IV and Constantine VI,
215. The empress Irene, 216. Irene and iconoclasm, 217. End
of Byzantine authority at Rome, 219. Nicephorus and Michael
I, 220. Leo the Armenian, 221. The Amorian dynasty (820-867
A.D.): Michael II, 222. Theophilus, 222. Theodora and Michael
the Drunkard, 223. The Basilian or Macedonian dynasty (867-1057
A.D.): Basil, 225. Leo (VI) the Philosopher, 228. Constantine
VII Porphyrogenitus, 228. Romanus Lecapenus, 229. Romanus II,
230. Nicephorus Phocas, 231. The wars of Nicephorus, 231.
CHAPTER VIII
GLORY AND DECLINE OF THE EMPIRE (969-1204 A.D.) 235
The Russian war, 237. War with the Saracens, 241. The apex of
glory, 242. Basil II and his successors, 243. Separation of
Greek and Latin churches, 250. The Comneni, 251. Romanus in
the field, 253. Captivity of the emperor, 255. The sons of
Constantine XI and Nicephorus III, 257. Anna Comnena’s history,
259. Troubles of Alexius, 259. The Norman invasion, 260.
Joannes (II) Comnenus (Calo-Joannes), 263. Manuel I, 264. The
adventures of Andronicus, 266. Alexius II, 269. Andronicus I
emperor, 270. Gibbon’s review of the emperors, 271. Isaac (II)
Angelus, 273. Intervention of the crusaders, 273. The capture
of Constantinople, 275. Second capture, and sack of the city,
278.
CHAPTER IX
THE LATIN EMPIRE (1204-1261 A.D.) 282
The election of an emperor, 283. Baldwin crowned, 284. Division
of the territory, 285. The pope acknowledged, 286. Fate of the
royal fugitives, 287. Baldwin quarrels with Boniface, 288.
Other conquests, 290. The Bulgarian War, 291. Defeat of the
Latins, 292. The fate of Baldwin, 295. Henry of Hainault, 296.
Pierre de Courtenai and Robert of Namur, 298. Jean de Brienne,
299. Baldwin II, 300. The crown of thorns, 300. Progress of the
Greeks, 301. Constantinople recovered by the Greeks, 302.
CHAPTER X
THE RESTORATION OF THE GREEK EMPIRE (1204-1391 A.D.) 304
Theodore (I) Lascaris and Joannes Vatatzes, 304. Theodore
(II) Lascaris and Joannes (IV) Lascaris, 305. Michael (VIII)
Palæologus, 305. Michael Palæologus crowned emperor, 307.
Return and rule of the Greek emperor, 308. The provinces of the
empire, 311. Andronicus II, 317. The Catalan Grand Company,
320. The duchy of Athens, 322. Walter de Brienne and Cephisus,
322. Andronicus II to the restoration of the Palæologi,
323. The crusade of the fourteenth century, 329. The empire
tributary to the Turks, 330.
CHAPTER XI
MANUEL II TO THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE (1391-1453 A.D.) 331
Manuel II, 331. Reign of Joannes VII, 336. Brief union of the
Greek and Roman churches, 337. Reign of Constantine XIII, 338.
War with Muhammed, 340. Church dissensions, 341. Preparations
for defence, 342. The siege begins, 344. The final assault,
349. The sack of Constantinople, 352. End of the Comneni and
Palæologi, 356.
BRIEF REFERENCE-LIST OF AUTHORITIES BY CHAPTERS 359
BOOK II. THE LATER ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE WEST
INTRODUCTION 361
CHAPTER I
ODOACER TO THE TRIUMPH OF NARSES (476-568 A.D.) 377
The rise of Theodoric, 380. The Goths move upon Italy, 383.
Theodoric the Great, 385. Theodoric and the Church, 389.
The fate of Boethius and Symmachus, 391. The troubles of
Amalasuntha, 394. Justinian intervenes, 396. Witiges king
of the Goths, 399. Belisarius and the siege of Rome, 399.
Sufferings of the Romans, 402. The pope deposed, 403. A three
months’ truce, 404. Last efforts of the Goths, 405. Jealousy of
the Roman generals, 406. A Frankish invasion, 407. The test of
Belisarius’ fidelity, 409. The rise of Totila, 410. Belisarius
again in Italy, 412. Second siege of Rome, 413. Totila
captures Rome, 415. Belisarius remantles the deserted city,
416. Totila again takes Rome, 417. Narses returns to Italy,
418. Battle of Taginæ and death of Totila, 419. Progress of
Narses, 420. Interference of the Franks, 422. Battle of Capua,
or the Vulturnus, 423. End of Gothic sway, 424.
CHAPTER II
LOMBARD INVASION TO LIUTPRAND’S DEATH (568-744 A.D.) 426
Early history of the Lombards, 426. Their wanderings from the
Elbe to the Danube, 427. The Lombards in the region of the
Danube, 429. Wars with the Gepids, 431. Alboin annihilates
the Gepid power, 433. Alboin plans to invade Italy, 434. The
end of Narses, 435. The Lombards enter Italy, 436. The end of
Alboin, 437. Extent of Lombard sway, 440. The reign and wooing
of Authari, 442. Lombard government and law, 443. The decay
of Rome, 444. The Lombard kings, 445. Decline of the Lombard
kingdom, 446. Reign of Liutprand, 447. Liutprand and Martel,
448. Liutprand and the Italian powers, 449. Liutprand, the
pope, and Constantinople, 450. Peace with Rome, 454. Hodgkin’s
estimate of Liutprand, 455.
CHAPTER III
THE FRANKS TO THE TIME OF CHARLES MARTEL (55 B.C.-732 A.D.) 457
First conflicts with Rome, 460. Franks in the Roman army, 462.
Early kings and the Salic Laws, 463. The reign of Clovis, 466.
Clovis turns Christian, 469. Successors of Clovis to Pepin,
477. The rise of Pepin, 481. Pepin of Heristal, 482. The career
of Charles Martel, 488.
CHAPTER IV
CHARLES MARTEL TO CHARLEMAGNE (732-768 A.D.) 497
The Saracens repelled, 498. The affairs of Rome, 499. The pope
calls to Charles, 500. Carloman and Pepin the Short, 502.
Pepin sole ruler, 504. Secularisation, 506. The anointing of
Pepin, 507. Lombard affairs, 509. The pope visits Pepin, 511.
Pepin invades Italy, 513. Second war with the Lombards, 513.
Desiderius made Lombard king, 515. Pepin and the Aquitanians,
516.
CHAPTER V
CHARLEMAGNE (768-814 A.D.) 520
His biography, by a contemporary, 520. The Italian War, 523.
The Saxon War, 524. The pass of Roncesvalles, 525. Third
visit to Italy, 526. Bavarian War with Tassilo, 526. Wars in
the North and with the Avars, 527. Danish War, 528. Glory
of Charlemagne, 528. His family, 530. His personal look and
habits, 532. His imperial title, 535. His death, 535. His will
and testament, 537. Giesebrecht on Charles the Great, 539. The
final subjugation of the Saxons, 543. The imperial coronation,
544. Administration and reforms of Charles, 546. Last years of
Charles, 552. The legendary Charlemagne, 554. The Monk of St.
Gall’s story, 554. Sheppard’s summary of the legends, 555.
CHAPTER VI
CHARLEMAGNE’S SUCCESSORS TO THE TREATY OF VERDUN (814-843 A.D.) 557
Louis le Débonnaire, or Pious, 557. Humiliation of Louis, 560.
Louis returns to power, 561. Last years of Louis, 563. Quarrels
of his successors, 565. Charles the Bald and Ludwig the German
unite, 566. Lothair brought to terms, 569. Oppression of the
Saxon freemen, 570. The Treaty of Verdun, 571.
CHAPTER VII
THE BIRTH OF GERMAN NATIONALITY (843-936 A.D.) 574
The reign of Ludwig the German, 575. War with the Slavonic
tribes, 576. Ludwig turns against Charles the Bald, 577. The
end of Lothair, 578. Ludwig and Charles divide Lothair’s
possessions, 580. Last years of Ludwig the German, 580. The
sons of Ludwig the German; Charles the Fat, 582. Ludwig the
Younger, 583. Ravages of the Northmen, 586. Charles the Fat,
587. Arnulf, 589. Arnulf enters Italy, 591. The Babenberg feud,
593. The Hungarian invasions, 594. Conrad I, 595. Reign of
Henry (I) the Fowler, 598. The unification of the empire, 599.
Wars against outer enemies, 601.
CHAPTER VIII
OTTO THE GREAT AND HIS SUCCESSORS (936-1024 A.D.) 608
The coronation of Otto I, 608. The overthrow of the Stem
duchies, 609. The tenth-century renaissance, 610. The
strengthening of the marks, 613. Victory over the Magyars
and Wends, 613. The revival of the Roman Empire, 614. The
imperial coronation, 615. Wars in Italy against Byzantium, 617.
Comparison of Henry the Fowler and Otto with Charlemagne, 618.
The unforeseen evils of Otto’s reign, 620. Otto II, 621. Otto
in France and Italy, 622. Quelling of the Slavs, 622. Otto
III, 623. Otto III makes and unmakes popes, 624. Henry (II)
the Saint, 626. Henry’s policy, 627. Relation of Italy to the
empire at death of Henry II, 628.
CHAPTER IX
THE FRANCONIAN, OR SALIAN DYNASTY (1024-1125 A.D.) 630
A national assembly, 631. Conrad II increases his power, 633.
Conrad in Italy and Germany, 635. The accession of Henry III,
638. Henry’s efforts for peace, 639. The papacy subordinated
to Henry, 640. The truce of God, 644. Sorrows of Henry’s last
years, 645. Henry IV, 646. Quarrel between Henry IV and Gregory
VII, 648. “Going to Canossa”: a contemporary account, 650.
Henry’s struggle to regain power, 653. Henry and Conrad, 654.
End of Henry IV, 655. Henry V and the war of investitures, 656.
BRIEF REFERENCE-LIST OF AUTHORITIES BY CHAPTERS 660
A SURVEY OF THE HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGES
WRITTEN SPECIALLY FOR THE PRESENT WORK
BY JAMES T. SHOTWELL, PH.D.
Of Columbia University
THE TRANSITION TO THE MIDDLE AGES
The fifth century is, in a way, the beginning of the history of Europe.
Until the hordes of Goths, Vandals, and Franks came out from the
fastnesses beyond the Rhine and Danube and played their part upon the
cleared arena of the empire itself, the history of the world was antique.
The history of the later empire is still a part of the continuous but
shifting history of the Mediterranean peoples. The civilisation which the
legions of Constantine protected was not the product of Rome, it was the
work of an antiquity which even then stretched farther back, three times
farther, than all the distance which separates his time from ours. The
empire was all antiquity, fused into a gigantic unit, and protected by
the legions drawn from every quarter of the world, from Spain to Syria.
As it grew old its roots sank deeper into the past. When it had taken
all that Greece had to offer in art and literature, the tongue of Greece
gave free access to the philosophy of the orient, and as its pantheon
filled with all the gods of the world, its thought became the reflex of
that of the Hellenised east. If Rome conquered the ancient world, it was
made captive in return. The last pagan god to shine upon the standards
of the legions was Mithras, the Sun-god of the Persians, while Isis
shared with Jupiter the temple on the Capitol. This world entrenched
behind the bulwarks that stretched from Solway to Nineveh, brooding
upon its past, was quickened with but one new thought,--and that was
an un-Roman one,--the strange, unworldly, Christian faith. The peoples
that had become subjects of Rome were now to own a high allegiance to
one whom it had condemned as a Jewish criminal; on the verge of its own
destruction the empire became Christian. It is the fashion to decry the
evil influences of the environment of early Christianity, but it was the
best that human history has ever afforded. How would it have fared with
Christian doctrine if it had had to do with German barbarians instead of
with Greek philosophers, who could fit the new truths into accordance
with the teachings of their own antiquity, and Roman administrators who
could forge from the molten enthusiasm of the wandering evangelists, the
splendid structure of Catholicism. Before the storm burst which was to
test the utility of all the antique civilisation, the church was already
stronger than its protectors. And so, at the close, the empire stood for
two things, antiquity and Christianity.
In structure, too, the government and society were no longer Roman in
anything but name. The administration of the empire had become a Persian
absolutism, and its society was verging towards oriental caste. If the
art, philosophy, and science of the ancients could be preserved only by
such conditions, it was well that they should pass away. The empire in
ceasing to be Roman had taken up the worst as well as the best of the
past, and as it grew respectable under Stoic or Christian teaching, it
grew indifferent to the high impulses of patriotism, cold and formal
outwardly, wearying inwardly of its burden.
The northern frontiers of this empire did not prove to be an unbroken
barrier to the Germans, however, and for two centuries before the sack
of Rome, they had been crossing, individually or in tribes, into the
peaceful stretches of the civilised world. Their tribal wars at home made
all the more alluring the attractions of the empire. For a long time the
Roman armies kept these barbarians from anything resembling conquest,
but even the vanquished who survived defeat found a home in Roman
villas or among the federated troops. The fifth century merely brought
to light what had been long preparing, and it took but few invaders to
accomplish the final overthrow. The success of these last invasions has
imposed an exaggeration of their extent upon historians. They were not
true wanderings of nations, but rather incursions of adventurers. The
barbarians we call by the name of Goths were a mixture of many nations,
while the army of Clovis was hardly more than a single Roman legion.
Yet the important fact is that the invasions of the fifth century were
successful, and with them the new age begins.
There were two movements which brought about the overthrow of the Roman
Empire; one among the barbarians, the other within the empire itself.
The Huns were pressing from the east upon the German peoples, whom long
civil wars had weakened to such a degree that they must yield or flee.
Just as the strength of the Roman frontier was to be tested, whether it
could hold back the combined impulsion of Teuton and Hun, the West Goth
within the empire struck at its heart. The capture of Rome by Alaric
did not end the empire; it does not seem to have created the universal
consternation with which we now associate it. Poets and orators still
spoke of Rome as the eternal city, and Alaric’s successor, Ataulf, sought
the service of that state which he felt unable to destroy. But the sack
of Rome was not the worst of the injuries inflicted by Alaric; it was one
of the slightest. A disaster had been wrought before he reached the walls
of Rome for which all the zeal of Ataulf could not atone. For, so the
story runs, Stilicho the last heroic defender of the old empire called
in the garrisons from along the frontiers to stay the Gothic advance.
The incursions of Alaric within the confines of Italy opened the way to
the hesitating but still eager barbarians along the Rhine. The storm
bursts at once; the Germans are across the Rhine before Alaric can reach
Rome. Instead of their German forests, they have the vineyards of the
Moselle and the olive orchards of Aquitaine. The proud nobles in Gaul,
unaccustomed to war or peril, can but stand by and watch while their
villas lend their plunder to the raiders. After all, the storm,--this one
at least,--soon passes. The Suabians and the Vandals cross the Pyrenees
and the West Goths come up from Italy, with the varnish of culture
upon them, to repress their lawless cousins, and drive them into the
fastnesses of Leon or across to Africa. Fifteen years after the invasion,
the poet Ausonius is again singing of the vine-clad hills of the Moselle,
and their rich vintage. Gaul has been only partly changed. The noble
Sidonius Apollinaris dines with the king Theodoric and is genially
interested in his Burgundian neighbours who have settled in the eastern
part. By the middle of the century, unaided by the shadow emperors in
Italy, this mixture of peoples, conscious of the value of their present
advantages, unite to defeat the invading Huns at the battle of Châlons.
But another and more barbarous people is now taking possession of the
North. The Franks are almost as different from the Visigoths as the
Iroquois from the Norman Crusaders. Continually recruited from the
forests of the lower Rhine, they do not cut themselves off from their
ancient home and lose themselves in the midst of civilisation; they
first break the Roman state north of the Loire and then crowd down the
Visigoths towards Spain. By the year 500 Gaul has become Frankland,
and the Franks have become Catholic Christians. Add to these facts the
Saxon conquest of England, the Ostrogothic kingdom in Italy, and the
overthrow of the empire in the West, and we have a survey of part of the
transformation which the fifth century wrought in Western Europe. With it
we enter upon the Middle Ages.
Such is our introduction to the new page of history. Behind us are
now the fading glories of old Rome; the antique society is outwardly
supplanted by the youthful and untutored vigour of the Teutonic peoples.
But the numbers of the invaders is comparatively few and the world they
conquered large in extent, and it had been romanising for four hundred
years. The antique element still persisted; in the East it retained its
sovereignty for another thousand years, in the West it compromised with
the Teutonic element in the creation of a Roman Empire on a German basis,
which was to last until the day of Napoleon, and in the recognition of
the authority of the Roman hierarchy. The Church and the Empire, these
two institutions of which we hear most in the Middle Ages, were both
of them Roman, but both owed their political exaltation to the German
Carolingian kings. It was Boniface the Saxon, that “proconsul of the
Papacy,” who bound the Germans to the Roman See; but Pepin lent his
strong aid, and Charlemagne doubly sealed the compact.
The coronation of the great king of the Franks as emperor of the Romans
forecasts a line of history that was not followed, however, in the way
he had in mind. The union of Teuton and Roman, or better, of Teuton and
antiquity, was not destined to proceed so simply and so peacefully.
Instead of an early revival of the great past, the world went down into
the dark age, and was forced to struggle for many centuries slowly
upward towards the day when it could again appreciate the antiquity it
had forgotten. In other words the Middle Ages intervened to divide the
renaissance of Charlemagne from that which culminated in Erasmus. How can
we explain this phenomenon? What is its significance? It is essential
that we face these questions if we would understand in the slightest the
history of Europe. And yet as we examine the phenomenon itself we may
find some reconstruction of our own ideas of it will be necessary.
THE MIDDLE AGES
Let us now turn to the Middle Ages. We shall find something of novelty in
the act, for in all the world’s history there is no other period which
ordinarily excites in us so little interest as this. Looking back across
the centuries from the heights of Modern Times, we have been taught to
train our eyes upon the far but splendid table-lands of Rome, and to
ignore the space that intervenes, as though it were nothing but a dreary
blank between the two great epochs of our history. Dark Ages and Middle
Ages are to most of us almost synonymous terms,--a thousand years filled
with a confusion, with no other sign of life than the clash of battle
or the chanting of hymns, a gruesome and unnatural world, dominated by
either martial or monastic ideals, and void of almost everything we care
for or seek after to-day.
It is strange that such a perspective has persisted so long, when it
requires but the slightest analysis of the facts to prove its utter
falsity. The merest glance along the centuries reveals the fact that this
stretch of a thousand years is no level plain, no monotonous repetition
of unprogressive generations, but is varying in character and progressive
in all the deeper and more essential elements of civilisation; in short,
is as marked by all the signs of evolution as any such sweep of years
in all the world’s history. Yet the mistake in perspective was made a
long time ago; it is a heritage of the Renaissance. When men looked back
from the attainments of the sixteenth century to the ancient world which
so fascinated them, they forgot that the very elevation upon which they
stood had been built by the patient work of their own ancestors, and that
the enlightenment which they had attained, the culture of the Renaissance
itself, would have been impossible but for the stern effort of those who
had laid the foundations of our society upon Teutonic and Christian basis
in the so-called Middle Ages. The error of the men of the Renaissance
has passed into history and lived there, clothed with all the rhetoric
of the modern literatures, and upheld with all the fire of religious
controversy. How could there be anything worth considering in an age
that on the one hand was void of a feeling for antique ideas and could
not write the periods of Cicero, and on the other hand was dominated by
a religious system which has not satisfied all classes of our modern
world? But if we condemn the Middle Ages on these grounds, we are turning
aside from the up-building of the Europe of to-day, because its æsthetic
and religious ideals were not as varied or as radical as ours. And for
this we are asked to pass by that brilliant twelfth century which gave
us universities, politics, the dawn of science, a high philosophy, civic
life, and national consciousness, or the thirteenth century that gave us
parliaments. Is there nothing in all this teeming life but the gropings
of superstition? It is clear that as we look into it, the error of the
Renaissance grows more absurd. Our perspective should rather be that of
a long slope of the ascending centuries, rising steadily but slowly from
the time of the invasions till the full modern period.
Let us look at the details. The break-up of the Roman world which
resulted in the first planting of the modern nations, did not cause that
vast calamity which we call the Dark Age. The invasion of the Teutons and
the infusion of their vigour into the effete society of southern Europe
was not a fatal blow to civilisation. Rude as they were when first they
crossed the frontiers of the empire, the German peoples, and especially
their leaders, gave promise that almost in their own day whatever was
of permanent value in the Roman world should be re-incorporated into
the new society. This series of recoveries had to be repeated with
every new people, but it finally seemed about to culminate in the wider
renaissance of Charlemagne. By the year 800 it looked as though Europe
were already on the clear path to modern times. But just as the young
Teutonic civilisation reached the light, a second wave of invasion came
dashing over it. The Vikings, whom Charlemagne’s aged eyes may have
watched stealing past the hills of Calais, not only swept the northern
seas, but harried Frankland from the Rhine to the Rhone, until progress
was at a standstill and the only thought of the ninth century was that of
defence. Then the Hungarians came raiding up the Danube valley, and the
Slavs pressed in upon the North. Along the coasts of the Mediterranean
the Moorish corsairs were stifling the weak commerce of Italian towns,
and landing they attacked such ports as Pisa and even sacked a part of
Rome. The nascent civilisation of the Teutons was forced to meet a danger
such as would call for all the legions of Augustus. No wonder the weak
Caroline kings sank under the burden and the war lords of the different
tribes grew stronger as the nerveless state fell defenceless before the
second great migration, or maintained but partial safety in the natural
strongholds of the land.
In such a situation self-defence became a system. The palisade upon some
central hill, the hedge and thicket in the plain, or the ditch in the
morass, became the shelter and the centre of life for every neighbourhood
that stood in the track of the new barbarians. The owner of the fastness
led his neighbours and his tenants to battle; they gave him their labour
for his protection, the palisades grew into stone walls and the “little
camps” (_castella_) became the feudal castles. Those grim, battlemented
towers, that rise up before us out of the dark age, were the signs of
hope for the centuries that followed. Society was saved, but it was
transformed. The protection of a time of danger became oppression in
a time of safety, and the feudal tyranny fastened upon Europe with a
strength that cities and kings could only moderate but not destroy.
From the tenth century to the present, however, the history of Europe
is that of one continuous evolution, slow, discouraging at times, with
many tragedies to record and many humiliations to be lived down. But
all in all, no century from that to this has ended without some signal
achievement in one line or another, in England, in France, in Italy,
or in Germany. By the middle of the tenth century the first unyielding
steps had been taken when the Saxon kings of Germany began to build their
walled towns along the upper Elbe, and to plant the German colonists
along the eastern frontiers, as Rome had long before shielded the
northern frontiers of civilisation. By the end of the century the Magyars
have settled in the middle Danube, under a king at once Christian and
saint, and the greatest king of the Danes is champion of Christendom.
In another fifty years the restless Normans are off on their conquests
again, but now they carry with them to England and to Italy the
invigorating touch of a youthful race who are in the front of their time,
and not its enemies.
This new movement of the old Viking stock did good rather than harm in
its own day, but it has done immeasurable harm to history. For writers
and readers alike have turned at this point from the solid story of
progress to follow the banners of these wandering knights, to live in the
unreal world of chivalry at the hour when the whole society of Europe
was forming itself into the nations of to-day, when the renaissance of
commerce was building cities along all the highways of Europe, and the
schools were crowded with the students of law and philosophy. From such
a broad field of vital interests we are turned aside to follow the trail
of some brutal noble who wins useless victories that decide nothing,
or besieges cities to no discoverable purpose, and leaves a transient
princedom for the spoil of his neighbours. These are the common paths of
history through the Middle Ages, and what wonder if they are barren, in
the track of such men.
But the age of chivalry was also the age of the universities. Turn from
the knight-errant to the wandering scholar if we would find the true key
to the age, but still must leave it in the realm of romance. Few have
ever guessed that the true Renaissance was not in the Florence of Lorenzo
nor the Rome of Nicholas V, but rather in that earlier century when
the great jurists of Bologna restored for all future time the code of
Justinian. The greatest heritage of Rome was not its literature nor its
philosophy, but its law. The best principles that had been evolved in all
the ancient world, on justice, the rights of man, and property,--whose
security is the basis of all progress,--all these invaluable truths
were brought to light again through the revival of the Roman law, and
incorporated again by mediæval legists into the structure of society two
centuries before the literary Renaissance of the Italian cities. The
crowds of students who flocked to Bologna to study law, and who formed
their guild or university on so strange a basis, mark the dawn of modern
times fully as well as the academy at Florence or the foundation of a
Vatican library. Already the science of politics was revived and the
problems of government given practical and scientific test.
Then came the gigantic tragedy of the Hundred Years’ War, retarding for
more than a century that growth of industry and commerce upon which even
the political structure rests. But while English and French alike are
laying waste the fairest provinces of France, the University of Paris is
able to dictate the policy of the universal church and for a generation
to reduce the greatest absolutism of the age, that of the papacy, to
the restrictions of parliamentary government. The Council of Constance
was in session in the year of the battle of Agincourt. And, meanwhile,
there is another development, far more important than the battles of the
Black Prince or the marches of Du Guesclin. Commerce thrives along the
shores of Italy, and in spite of their countless feuds and petty wars,
the cities of Tuscany and Lombardy grow ready for the great artistic
awakening. The story of the Middle Ages, like that of our own times,
comes less from the camp fire than from the city square. And even there,
how much is omitted! The caravans that line the rude bazaar could never
reach it but for the suppression of the robbers by the way, largely the
work of royalty. The wealth of the people is the opportunity for culture,
but without the security of law and order, neither the one nor the other
can be attained. In the last analysis, therefore, the protection of
society while it developed is the great political theme of the Middle
Ages. And now it is time to confess that we have touched upon but one
half of that theme. It was not alone feudalism that saved Europe, nor
royalty alone that gave it form. Besides the castle there was another
asylum of refuge, the church. However loath men have been in recent
years to confess it, the mediæval church was a gigantic factor in the
preservation and furthering of our civilisation.
The church was the only potent state in Europe for centuries,--an
institution vastly different from our idea of it to-day. It was not only
the religious monitor and the guardian of the salvation of mankind, it
took up the duty of governing when the Roman Empire was gone. It helped
to preserve the best things of antiquity; for when the barbarians were
led to destroy what was of no use to them, it was the church, as Rashdall
says, that widened the sphere of utility. It, more than the sword of
Charlemagne tamed the barbarian Germans, and through its codes of penance
with punishments almost as severe as the laws of Draco, it curbed the
instincts of savagery, and taught our ancestors the ethics of Moses
while promising them the salvation of Christ. It assumed much of the
administration of justice in a lawless age, gave an inviolate asylum to
the persecuted, and took in hand the education of the people. Its monks
were not only the pioneer farmers in the fastnesses of the wilderness,
but their entertainment of travellers made commerce possible. Its parish
church furnished a nursery for democracy in the gatherings at the church
door for counsel and deliberation. It opened to the sons of peasants
a career that promised equality with the haughtiest seigneur, or even
the dictation over kings. There was hardly a detail of daily life which
did not come under the cognisance or control of the church,--questions
of marriage and legitimacy, wills, oaths, even warfare, came under its
surveillance.
But in depicting this wonderful system which so dominated Europe in the
early Middle Ages, when kings were but shadows or military dictators over
uncertain realms, we must be careful not to give too much of an air of
religiosity to the whole Middle Age. The men of the Middle Ages did not
all live in a cowl. Symonds in his brilliant history of the Renaissance
in Italy likens the whole mediæval attitude to that of St. Bernard, the
greatest of its ascetics. St. Bernard would walk by the blue waters of
Lake Geneva intent only upon his rosary and prayer. Across the lake gleam
the snows of Mont Blanc,--a sight no traveller forgets when once he has
seen it; but the saint, with his cowl drawn over his eyes, sees only his
own sin and the vision of the last judgment. So, says Symonds, humanity
walked along its way, a careful pilgrim unheeding the beauty or delight
of the world around. Now this is very striking, but is it true? First of
all, the Middle Ages, as ordinarily reckoned, include a stretch of ten
centuries. We have already seen how unlike these centuries were, how they
differed from each other as much as any centuries before or since. The
nineteenth is hardly more different from the eighteenth than the twelfth
was different from the eleventh. So much for the universalisation as we
go up and down the centuries; it can hardly apply to all. Some gave us
the Chansons des Gestes, the _Song of Roland_, the legends of Charlemagne
and his paladins. Others gave us the delicious lyrics of the minnesingers
and troubadours, of Walter von der Vogelweide and Bertran de Born. And as
for their variety, we must again recall that the same century that gave
us St. Francis of Assisi--that jongleur of God--and the _Divine Comedy_,
gave us also Magna Charta and representative government.
But even if we concede that the monks dominated mediæval society as
Symonds paints it, we must not imagine that they were all St. Bernards.
Few indeed--the sainted few--were alone able to abstract themselves so
completely from this life as to be unconscious of their surroundings.
The successive reforms, Clugny, Carthusians, Cistercians, beginning in
poverty and ending in wealth and worldly influence, show what sort of
men wore the cowl. The monks were not all alike; some were worldly, some
were religious, some were scholars, and some were merely indolent. The
monastery was a home for the scholar, a refuge for the disconsolate,
and an asylum for the disgraced. And a monk might often be a man whose
sensibilities, instead of being dull, were more sharply awake than our
own to-day. His faith kindled an imagination that brought the next world
down into his daily life, and one who is in communion with eternity is
an unconscious poet as well as a devotee. Dante’s great poem is just the
essence of a thousand years of such visions. Those phases of the Middle
Ages farthest removed from our times and our habits of thought are not
necessarily sombre. They are gilded with the most alluring light that
ever brightened humanity--the hope and vision of immortality.
It has seemed necessary to say this much at least about the
ecclesiasticism of the Middle Ages so that we may get a new or at least
a more sympathetic point of view as we study its details. Humanity was
not in a comatose condition for a thousand years, to wake up one fine
day and discover itself again in a Renaissance. Such an idea gives false
conceptions of both the Middle Ages and that slow change by which men
acquired new interests,--the Renaissance.
What then was the Italian Renaissance? What was its significance and
its result? First of all no new birth of the human spirit, as we have
been commonly taught, could come after that wonderful twelfth and busy
thirteenth centuries. It would sound strange to the wandering jongleur
or the vagabond student, whose satirical and jovial songs of the twelfth
century we still sing in our student societies, to be told that he had
no joy in the world, no insight into its varying moods, no temperament
capable of the comprehension of beauty. If any man ever “discovered
himself,” surely that keen-witted, freedom-loving scholar, the goliard,
was the man, and yet between him and the fall of Constantinople, that
commonest date for the Renaissance, there are two hundred years or more.
A little study of preceding centuries shows a world brimming with life
and great with the promise of modern times. Lawyers were governing in
the name of kings; universities were growing in numbers and influence.
It has been said, and perhaps it is not far wrong, that there were three
great powers in Europe in the Middle Ages--the Church, the Empire, and
the University of Paris. And not all the men at the universities of Paris
or Oxford or Bologna were busy counting how many angels could dance on
the point of a needle, as we are apt to think when we read Lord Bacon’s
denunciation of the scholastics. If half of them,--and that is a generous
estimate,--were busied over theology, not all that half were examining
it for their religious edification. Their interests were scientific. In
a way they were scientists,--scientists of the world to come,--not of
this transient life. They were analysing theology with about the same
attitude of mind as that of the physicist of to-day in spite of all that
has been said against their method. When one examines a world which he
cannot yet reach, or a providence whose ways are not as the ways of
man, he naturally will accept the authority of those whom he believes
to be inspired, if he is to make even a little headway into the great
unknown. The scholastics stretched the meaning of the word inspired,
and accepted authority too easily. But they faced their problem with
what seems something like a scientific spirit even if they had not yet
attained a scientific method. And I may add in passing that to my mind
the greatest tragedy of the human intellect is just here,--in this story
of the abused scholastics. Starting out confident that all God’s ways can
be comprehended and reduced to definite data, relying in calm security
upon the power of the human intellect to comprehend the ways of Divine
governance, they were forced point by point, through irreconcilable
conclusions and inexplicable points of controversy, to admit that this
doctrine and that, this fact and that one, lie outside the realms of
reason and must be accepted on faith. Baffled in its vast endeavour to
build up a science of things divine the reason of man turned from the
task and grappled with the closer problems of the present world. If the
work of the scholastics was futile, as so many claim, it was a grand
futility that reaches to tragedy. But out of its very futility grew the
science of to-day.
And now with all this intellectual activity of which scholasticism is
only a part, where did the so-called Renaissance come in? By the year
1300 the problem of the scholastics was finished. In the works of Thomas
Aquinas lay codified and systematised the whole positive product of their
work. Not until after that was their work empty and frivolous, but when
scholasticism turned back upon itself, even the genius of the great
Duns Scotus but discovered more and more its futility. Men of culture
began to find it distasteful; they did not care to study law,--the
other main interest. It was time for a new element in the intellectual
realm. The need was no sooner felt than supplied. The study of the
antique pagan world afforded scholars and men of leisure the desired
change. The discovery of this antique world was not a new process; but
the features that had been ignored before, the art and literature of
the pagan world, now absorbed all attention. The “humanities” gradually
crowded their way into university curricula, especially in Germany and
England, and from the sixteenth century to the present day the humanities
have been the dominant study at the universities. Looking over the era
of the Renaissance, we commonly begin it in the fourteenth century,
just where our previous sketch of the other intellectual conditions
stopped. The age of Petrarch was its dawn. France and England, where most
progress had been made before, were now to be absorbed in the barbarism
of international and civil wars; and so the last stage of that long
Renaissance which we call the Middle Ages became the task and the glory
of Italy.
It may seem at first as if, in exalting the achievements of the Middle
Ages, we have undervalued the work of the humanists. It would not be in
accord with the attempted scientific judicial attitude which it is now
our ambition to attain, if this charge were to be admitted. We must give
full credit to the influence of that new knowledge, that new criterion,
and especially to that new and healthy criticism which came with the
Italian Renaissance. Its work in the world was absolutely necessary if
modern society was to take up properly its heritage of all those splendid
ages which adorned the Parthenon and made the Forum the centre of the
world. All the intellectual energy which had gone into antique society
must be made over into our own. But after all, the roots of our society
are Teutonic and Christian even more than they are Roman or antique. We
must learn to date our modern times not merely from the literary revival
which witnessed the recovery of a long-lost pagan past; but from the
real and splendid youth of Europe when it grappled with the earnest
problems of law and order and put between itself and the Viking days the
barriers of the national state,--king and people guarding the highways
of the world for the protection of the caravans that made the cities.
It is as essential for us to watch those boats that ascended the Rhone
and the Rhine, and the merchants whose tents were pitched at the fairs
of Champagne, as it is to know who discovered the proper derivation of
_agnus_.
BOOK I
THE LATER ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE EAST
_INTRODUCTION_
THE SCOPE, THE SOURCES, AND THE CHRONOLOGY OF LATER ROMAN HISTORY IN THE
EAST
The period upon which we are now entering presents peculiar difficulties
for the historian. The body politic under consideration is in some
respects unique. Historians are not even agreed as to the name by which
it should properly be designated. It is an empire having its capital
at Constantinople; an empire not come suddenly into being in the year
395, at which point, for the sake of convenience, we are now taking up
this history; but which is in reality nothing more or less than the
continuation of that Roman Empire in the East, the affairs of which we
left with the death of Theodosius. That emperor, as we have seen, held
sway over an undivided Roman commonwealth. On his death the power that he
had wielded passed to his two sons, one of whom nominally held sway in
the East, the other in the West. The affairs of the Western division of
the empire under Honorius and his successors have claimed our attention
up to the time of the final overthrow of Rome in the year 476. We are
now returning to follow the fortunes of Arcadius, the other heir of
Theodosius, and his successors.
But whether this Eastern principality should properly be spoken of as
the Later Roman Empire, or as the Eastern, Byzantine, or Greek Empire,
is, as has been suggested, a moot point among historians. The difficulty
is perhaps met to the best advantage if we disregard the controversial
aspects of the question and make free use of each and all of these
names; indeed, in so doing, convenience joins hands with logicality. The
empire of Arcadius and his immediate successors was certainly entitled
to be called the Roman Empire quite as fully as, for example, were the
dominions of Diocletian and Constantine. There was no sudden breach of
continuity, no thought of entrance upon a new epoch with the accession
of Arcadius. It was no new thing that power was divided, and that there
should be two capitals, one in the East and one in the West. On the
contrary, as we have seen, there had been not merely a twofold but a
fourfold division of power most of the time since the day of Diocletian.
No contemporary could have predicted that after the death of Theodosius
the Roman dominions in the East and in the West would never again be
firmly united under a single head. Nor indeed is it quite true that the
division was complete and permanent; for, as we shall see, there were
to be rulers like Justinian and Zeno who had a dominating influence
over the Western territories, and who regarded themselves as masters of
the entire Roman domain. And even when the division became complete and
permanent, as it scarcely did before the time of Charlemagne, it could
still be fairly held that the Roman Empire continued to exist with its
sole capital at Constantinople, whither Constantine had transferred the
seat of power, regardless of the fact that the Western dominion had been
severed from the empire. The fact that this Western dominion included
the city of Rome itself, which had given its name to the empire, and
hence seemed indissoluble from it, is the chief reason for the seeming
incongruity of applying the term Later Roman Empire to the dominion of
the East.
It must not be overlooked, however, that there were other reasons for
withholding the unqualified title of Roman Empire from the Eastern
dominions. The chief of these is that the court of Constantinople
departed very radically from the traditions of the West, taking on
oriental manners and customs, and, what is most remarkable, gradually
relinquishing the Latin speech and substituting for it the language
of Greece. We have seen in our studies of earlier Roman history the
marked tendency to the Hellenisation of Rome through the introduction of
Greek culture from the time when the Roman Republic effected the final
overthrow of Greece. It will be recalled that some of the most important
histories of Rome, notably those of Polybius and Appian and Dionysius and
Dion Cassius, were written in Greek. The emperor Marcus Aurelius wrote
his _Meditations_ in the same language. But this merely represented the
tendency of the learned world. There was no propensity to substitute
Greek for Latin as the language of everyday life so long as the seat of
empire remained in the West. Now, however, as has been intimated, this
strange substitution was effected; the writers of this Later Roman Empire
in the East looked exclusively to classical Greece for their models, and
in due course the language of court and of common people alike came to be
Greek also, somewhat modified from the ancient idiom with the sweep of
time, but in its essentials the same language which was spoken at Athens
in the time of Pericles. Obviously there is a certain propriety in this
use of the term Greek Empire as applied to a principality whose territory
included the ancient realms of Athens, and whose customs and habits and
speech thus preserved the traditions of ancient Hellas.
The use of the terms Eastern Empire and Byzantine Empire requires no
elucidation, having an obvious propriety. As has been said, we shall
find it convenient here to employ one or another of the four terms
indiscriminately; giving preference perhaps, if a choice must be made, to
the simplest and most non-committal form, Eastern Empire.
By whatever name designated, the principality whose fortunes we are to
follow will hold our interest throughout a period of more than a thousand
years, from the death of Theodosius in 395 to the final overthrow of
Constantinople in 1456. This period is almost exactly coincident with the
epoch pretty generally designated by historians as the Middle Ages, and
usually estimated as a time of intellectual decadence.
As a general proposition this estimate is doubtless just. It must be
born in mind, however, that the characterisation applies with far less
force to the conditions of the Eastern Empire than to the conditions
of Western Europe. The age of Justinian was certainly not a dark age
in any proper acceptance of that term. If no subsequent period quite
equalled this in brilliancy, yet there were epochs when the Eastern
Empire showed something of its old-time vitality. Indeed, there was an
almost incessant intellectual output which served at least to sustain
reminiscences of ancient culture, though it could not hope to rival
the golden ages of the past. In point of fact, the chief defect of the
literature of the time was that it did attempt to rival the classical
literature. We have just pointed out that the later Byzantine Empire was
essentially Greek in language and thought. Unfortunately the writers
of the time failed to realise that in a thousand years of normal
development the language--always a plastic, mobile thing, never a fixed
structure--changes, grows, evolves.
Instead of contenting themselves with the use of the language with which
they were familiar in everyday speech as the medium of their written
thoughts, they insisted on harking back to the earlier classical period,
consciously modelling their phraseology and style upon authors who had
lived and died a thousand years earlier. No great art was ever produced
by such conscious imitation. Great art is essentially spontaneous, never
consciously imitative; the epoch-making works are done in the vernacular
by artists whose first thought is to give expression to their spontaneous
feelings and emotions, unhampered by tradition. It was thus that Homer,
Sophocles, Euripides, Herodotus, and Aristophanes wrote; and if Virgil,
Horace, Ovid, Livy, and Tacitus were more conscious craftsmen, somewhat
in the same measure were they less great as artists.
But the Byzantine writers were rather to be compared with the
Alexandrians of the age of the Ptolemies. They were far more scientific
than their predecessors and proportionately less artistic. As grammarians
they analysed and criticised the language, insisting on the retention
of those chance forms of speech which the masters of the earlier day
had used spontaneously. The critical spirit of the grammarian found
its counterpart everywhere in the prevalence of the analytical rather
than the synthetic cast of thought. As the masters of the past were the
models, so were their stores of knowledge the chief sources on which
to draw. What Aristotle had said must be considered the last word as
regards physical knowledge. What the classical poets and historians
had written must needs be copied, analysed, and praised as the final
expression of human thought. Men who under different auspices and in
a different atmosphere might perhaps have produced original works of
some significance, contented themselves with elaborating anthologies,
compiling dictionaries and encyclopædias, and epitomising chronicles of
world history from the ancient sources. It is equally characteristic of
the time that writers who did attempt creative work found prose romance
the most congenial medium for the expression of their ideals. Even this
measure of creative enthusiasm chiefly marked the earliest period of the
Byzantine era and was stifled by the conservatism of the later epoch.
A BRIEF SURVEY OF THE SOURCES
But if the reminiscent culture of the Byzantine Empire failed to
produce an Herodotus, a Thucydides, or a Livy, it gave to the world,
nevertheless, a line of historians and chronologists of the humbler
class, beginning with Procopius the secretary of Justinian’s general,
Belisarius, and ending with Ducas, Phrantzes, Laonicus Chalcocondyles,
and Critobulus, the depicters of the final overthrow of Constantinople,
who have left us a tolerably complete record of almost the entire life
of the Eastern Empire. A list of these historians--numbering about half
a hundred names--has been given in our general bibliography of Rome in
Volume VI.
Here we shall add only a very brief résumé of the subject, naming the
more important authors. For the later period of the undivided Roman
Empire and the earlier Byzantine epoch we have, among others, the
following works: the history of the war with Attila, bringing the
story of the empire to the year 474, by Priscus, a Thracian, and the
continuation of his history to the year 480 by Malchus of Philadelphia;
the important history of Zosimus, which we have had occasion to quote in
an earlier volume; and, most important of all, the historical works of
Procopius of Cæsarea in Palestine. The last-named author was, as already
mentioned, the secretary of Justinian’s famous general, Belisarius. He
accompanied that general on many of his campaigns and apparently was
associated with him on very intimate terms. This association, together
with the character of his writings, has caused Procopius to be spoken of
rather generally in later times as the Polybius of the Eastern Empire,--a
compliment not altogether unmerited.
His works are by far the most important of the Byzantine histories,
partly because of their intrinsic merit and partly because of the
character of the epoch with which they deal. The more pretentious of his
works has two books on the Persian War, two on the war with the Vandals,
and four on the Gothic war. Curiously enough, another work ascribed to
Procopius, and now generally admitted to be his, deals with the lives
of Justinian and Theodora and to some extent with that of Belisarius
himself, in a very different manner from that employed in the other
history just mentioned. This so-called secret history was apparently
intended for publication after the author’s death; it therefore gives
vent to the expression of what are probably the true sentiments of the
author, showing up the character of his patrons in a very different
and much less complimentary light from that in which they are depicted
in the earlier work. As an illustration of the difference between the
diplomatic and the candid depiction of events this discrepancy of
accounts coming from the same pen is of the highest interest. The moral
for the historian--vividly illustrative of Sainte-Beuve’s famous saying
that history is a tradition agreed upon--need hardly be emphasised.
Among the later Byzantine historians the names of John Zonaras, of
Nicetas Acominatus, of Nicephorus Gregoras, occur as depicters of
the events of somewhat comprehensive periods; Agathias, Simocatta,
Epiphaneia, Anna Comnena, and George Phrantzes as biographers or writers
on more limited epochs. Of these Anna Comnena in particular is noteworthy
because her life of her father Alexius I has been spoken of as the only
really artistic historical production of the period. It is popularly
known as having supplied Sir Walter Scott with the subject and some of
the materials for his last romance, _Count Robert of Paris_. But most
noteworthy of all is the fact that this is the first important historical
production, so far as is known, that ever came from the pen of a female
writer.
The list of chronologies or epitomes of world history includes the
_Chronicon Paschale_, and the works of Georgius Syncellus, Malalas,
Cedrenus, Michael Glycas, and Constantine Manasses. In some respects more
important than any of these were the collections of excerpts from ancient
authors which were made by Stobæus, by Photius, and by Suidas. These have
preserved many fragments of the writings of historians of antiquity that
would otherwise have been altogether lost. A very noteworthy collection
of excerpts, comprising in the aggregate a comprehensive history of
the world made up from the writings of the Greek historians, forms
one portion of the encyclopædia which the emperor Constantine (VII)
Porphyrogenitus--himself a writer of some distinction--caused to be
compiled in the tenth century. This work contained extracts, often very
extensive, from the writings of most of the Greek classical historians.
It was apparently very popular in the Middle Ages, and has been supposed
to be responsible for the loss of many of the works from which it made
excerpts. Unfortunately, the encyclopædia itself has come down to us
only in fragments; but, even so, it gives us excerpts from such writers
as Polybius, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Diodorus, Nicholas of Damascus,
Appian, and Dion Cassius, and of numerous Byzantine histories that are
not otherwise preserved.
Taken together, even the extant portions of the Byzantine histories make
up a very bulky literature. Being produced in this relatively recent
time, a correspondingly large proportion of it has been preserved.
Not, indeed, that many of the original manuscripts of the Byzantine
historians have come down to us, but they appear to have been copied very
extensively by the monks of western Europe, who found in them an interest
which the classical writings often failed to arouse. The very fact that
so many of these writings epitomise ancient history furnishes, perhaps,
the explanation of this popularity. In the day when the reproduction of
books was so laborious a process, condensation was naturally a merit that
appealed to the bookmaker. Hence, as has been suggested, the epitome was
often made to do service for the more elaborate original work, which
latter was allowed to drop altogether out of view. But the modern world
has not looked upon the Byzantine writings with the same interest.
For the most part they had never been translated into modern European
languages, and the original texts have been collated, edited, and printed
in comparatively recent times.
On the other hand, these writings were almost the first to be subjected
to the critical analysis of the historian, working with what we speak
of as the modern spirit. Tillemont began the laborious process of
reconstructing in detail the chronology of later Roman history, with
the aid of these materials, and the work was taken up a little later by
Edward Gibbon, and carried to completion in what is incontestably the
greatest historical work of modern times,--if not, indeed, the greatest
of any age,--_The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_. In this work,
Gibbon not only set an epochal standard for future historians, but he
so exhaustively covered the ground as to leave almost nothing for a
successor in the same field. His work is the more remarkable because
it was produced at a time when the general tendency was to accept the
writings of the ancients in a much less critical spirit than that to
which they have been more recently subjected. Gibbon, however, vaulted
at once to the critical heights. Indeed, he went a step beyond most
critics of more recent generations, in that he insisted on applying to
the traditions and superstitions of all ancient nations the same critical
standards. Most of Gibbon’s contemporaries and a large proportion of
his successors, until very recent times, while looking askance at the
traditions of Greece and Rome, have wished to adjudge Hebrew traditions
by a different standard. It has been a curious illustration of the
illogicality of even critical minds, that the very critics who have
inveighed against the credulity of the ages which could accept the myths
of Greece and Rome as historical, should have inveighed also against
the mind which had the breadth of view to see that all ancient myths
and traditions must be weighed in the same historical balance. Only in
our own day have considerable numbers of critics attained the plane of
historical impartiality which Gibbon had reached a century and a quarter
ago, but in most other regards his example found a readier following.
THE CHRONOLOGY OF LATER ROMAN HISTORY IN THE EAST
EARLY DAYS OF THE EASTERN EMPIRE (395-565 A.D.)
The Roman Empire, permanently divided at the death of
Theodosius (395) into an eastern and a western section does
not, nevertheless, lose its unity as an organisation. The
period of disintegration has set in, and the extinction of
the western section in 476 is an event in this disintegration
rather than the “fall” of an empire. It was not until 800, the
year of Charlemagne’s accession, that there were really two
empires, and that the term “Eastern Empire” may properly be
applied. But for convenience we call the history of Arcadius
and his successors that of the Eastern Roman Empire.
395 A.D. =Arcadius=, co-regent, and elder son of Theodosius,
continues to reign at Constantinople. The Huns ravage Asia
Minor, and the Visigoths, under Alaric, rise in Mœsia and
Thrace. At the death of Rufinus, the eunuch Eutropius becomes
chief adviser of the emperor, supported by Gainas.
398 Alaric becomes governor of Eastern Illyricum.
399 Death of Eutropius.
401 Death of Gainas. The emperor comes entirely under the
influence of his dissolute wife, Eudoxia.
408 =Theodosius II= succeeds his father. He is but seven years
of age and is controlled by his sister Pulcheria. Alaric moves
upon Rome.
410 Death of Alaric.
421 Theodosius marries Athenais (Eudocia). War breaks out with
Persia.
425 Organisation of the University of Constantinople.
438 Publication of the Theodosian Code.
439 Genseric takes Carthage.
441 War with Persia. War with the Huns and Vandals continues.
442 Invasion of Thrace and Macedonia by Attila.
447 Peace of Anatolius made with the Huns.
450 Death of Theodosius. =Marcian= is raised to the throne by
Pulcheria, whom he marries. He makes a wise ruler and resists
payment of tribute to the Huns.
457 The Theodosian dynasty comes to an end with Marcian. The
choice of the emperor rests with the army, and the general
Aspar brings about the election of =Leo I=, a native of Thrace.
465 Great fire at Constantinople.
468 With the co-operation of Anthemius, Leo plans a great
expedition against Genseric in Africa, but it fails through
treachery of Aspar, who is executed, 469.
474 Leo I dies, leaving empire to his grandson =Leo II=. The
latter dies the same year and =Zeno=, his father, reigns,
but =Basiliscus= at once drives him out and rules for twenty
months, when Zeno recovers the throne.
476 With the resignation of Romulus Augustulus the western
division is definitely detached from the empire.
478-481 The Ostrogoths invade the Balkan peninsula.
483 Promulgation of the _Henoticon_.
488 Zeno induces Theodoric and the Ostrogoths to leave
Illyricum and attack Rome.
491 At death of Zeno, =Anastasius I= is proclaimed emperor,
through influence of the empress Ariadne, who marries him.
491-496 The Isaurian War instigated by the supporters of
Longinus results favourably for Anastasius.
499 The Bulgarians invade Thrace.
502-505 Unsuccessful war with Persians, who take several
provinces.
507 The “Long Wall” of Thrace is built to keep out the Goths.
514 Revolt of Vitalianus.
518 Death of Anastasius; =Justin I=, an illiterate Illyrian
peasant, obtains the emperorship through the army. With
him the empire enters on a new era. He prepares his nephew
Justinian to succeed him..
527 Justinian created augustus.
528 Justin dies; =Justinian I=, “the great,” sole monarch.
He is the chief figure of his time. His wife is the empress
Theodora. He begins active warfare at once against the Arians,
Jews, and pagans. Belisarius appointed commander-in-chief in
the East.
529 First edition of the Justinian _Code_ published.
530 Belisarius defeats the Persians at Dara.
531 Chosroes ascends the Persian throne.
532 Peace made with Persia. Insurrections break out in
Constantinople. St. Sophia burned. Belisarius quells the riots.
533 Belisarius begins a campaign against the Vandals in
Africa. The _Pandects_ published.
534 Belisarius captures the Vandal king Gelimer and destroys
his kingdom, and for this is made sole consul.
535-540 Belisarius in Italy and Sicily against the Ostrogoths.
He makes himself master of Rome and other cities.
540 Recall of Belisarius. Persian invasion of Syria.
542 Repulse of the Persians. Belisarius degraded by Theodora
on his return from the campaign. The great plague.
543 Totila, king of the Goths, captures Naples.
544 Belisarius proceeds to Italy against Totila.
545 Five years’ peace with Persia. Totila besieges Rome.
Belisarius has not sufficient forces to resist him.
546 Capture of Rome by Totila.
547 Romans recover Rome.
548 Totila retakes Rome. Belisarius returns to Constantinople.
Death of Theodora. Conspiracy against Justinian.
549 The imperial armies occupy the lands of the Lazi.
550 Slavonians and Huns invade the empire.
551 Battle of Sinigaglia. The Goths lose Sicily.
552 The eunuch Narses arrives in Italy as commander-in-chief.
Recovers Rome. Defeat and death of Totila.
553 End of the Ostrogothic War.
554-557 Terrible earthquakes visit Constantinople and other
cities.
558 Belisarius repels the invading Huns under Zabergan.
562 Fifty years’ peace with Persia. Narses continues his
victorious career in Italy.
565 Death of Justinian.
FROM JUSTIN II TO THE DEPOSITION OF JUSTINIAN II (565-695 A.D.)
565 =Justin II= succeeds Justinian I. He determines to change
Justinian’s unpopular system and refuses payment to an embassy
of Avars, which is the cause of serious depredations in the
provinces.
567 The Gepid kingdom overthrown by Lombards and Avars.
568 Lombard invasion of Italy.
571 Birth of Mohammed.
572 War breaks out with the Persians. They make several
important conquests, and
574 Justin, realising his inability to govern, makes Tiberius,
the captain of the guard, cæsar.
575 Peace with Persia.
576 Battle of Melitene. The Romans reach the Caspian Sea.
578 Justin dies. =Tiberius= emperor.
581 The imperial army led by Maurice defeats the Persians at
Constantina.
582 =Maurice= elected emperor. Death of Tiberius.
584 Treaty with the Avars, whose depredations have become very
serious.
586 Roman victory at Solachon.
589 Persian victory at Martyropolis. Slavonic colonies begin
to settle in the Peloponnesus.
590 Maurice crowns his son Theodosius at Easter. Rebellion of
Vaharan of Persia, who deposes Hormisdas or Hormuz.
591 Maurice puts Chosroes II on the Persian throne. He
proceeds against the Avar invasion of Thrace.
602 Rebellion in the army. =Phocas=, the centurion, made
emperor. Maurice put to death.
603 War with Persia breaks out.
604 Treaty of peace with the Avars.
606-608 Disastrous invasion of Asia Minor by the Persians.
They advance to Chalcedon.
609 Revolts in Africa and Alexandria.
610 =Heraclius=, son of the governor of Africa, accomplishes
the overthrow and death of Phocas.
614 The Persian War continues. Damascus captured.
615 Jerusalem taken by the Persians.
616 Persian invasion of Egypt.
617 Occupation of Chalcedon by the Persians. Heraclius
contemplates moving to Carthage.
620 Peace made with Avars who have attempted to seize the
emperor.
622 Heraclius takes command in person of the Persian War.
622-628 The war is vigorously conducted. Campaigns in
Cappadocia, Pontus, Armenia, Cilicia, and Assyria, ending
628 with treaty of peace with Siroes.
629 Heraclius restores the holy cross to Jerusalem.
632 Death of Mohammed.
633 The Mohammedan conquests begin. The imperial cities fall
before them in the following order: Bosra (634), Damascus
(635), Emesa, Heliopolis, Antioch, Chalcis, Berœa, Edessa
(636), Jerusalem (637).
638 Constantine, the king’s son, fails in an attempt to
recover Syria. Mesopotamia lost to the Mohammedans.
639 Amru invades Egypt.
641 Death of Heraclius. Death of =Constantine III=, after
three months’ reign. Another son of Heraclius, by Martina,
=Heracleonas=, whom Heraclius appointed to reign conjointly
with Constantine, reigns alone for five months and then is
banished. His brother David is appointed emperor under the
name of Tiberius. His fate is unknown. =Constans II=, son
of Constantine, becomes emperor. Alexandria taken by the
Mohammedans.
647 Mohammedans drive the Romans out of Africa.
648 The _Type_ of Constans published.
649 Mohammedans invade Cyprus.
650 They take Aradus.
652 Armenia falls into their hands.
654 They capture Rhodes.
655 They defeat Constans in the great naval battle off Mount
Phœnix in Lycia. Pope Martin is banished to the Chersonesus.
658 Campaign of Constans against the Slavs. Peace made with
the Mohammedans.
661 Constans leaves Constantinople and spends winter at Athens.
662-663 Great Mohammedan invasion of Asia Minor.
663 Constans in Rome.
668 Mohammedans advance to Chalcedon and hold Amorium for a
short time. Assassination of Constans at Syracuse. His son
=Constantine (IV) Pogonatus= succeeds.
669 Mohammedans invade Sicily and carry off 180,000 prisoners
from Africa.
670 Foundation of Kairwan, near Carthage.
673-677 Mohammedans besiege Constantinople. The Romans use the
newly invented Greek fire against them.
678 Peace concluded with the Mohammedans.
679 Bulgarian War and foundation of the Bulgarian kingdom.
681 Constantine deprives his brothers Heraclius and Tiberius
of the imperial title. The troops of the Orient had demanded
that they, too, should receive the crown, and thus the Trinity
in heaven might be represented on earth.
685 =Justinian II= succeeds his father. The caliph and emperor
make peace.
687 Transference of the Mardaites from Lebanon to Thrace and
Asia Minor.
689-690 Successful expedition of Justinian against the
Bulgarians and Slavs. The Greeks are forced to emigrate from
Cyprus; two hundred thousand Slavs transported to Asia Minor.
692 Battle of Sebastopolis. Symbatius revolts. Mohammedan
subjection of Armenia.
THE TWENTY YEARS’ ANARCHY (695-716 A.D.)
695 In consequence of his cruelties the general Leontius
deposes Justinian, cuts off his nose, and banishes him to the
Chersonesus. =Leontius= emperor.
697 Revolt of Lazica. Great Mohammedan invasion of Asia Minor.
Hassan proceeds against Africa with success. Carthage taken.
698 The Mohammedans retake Carthage. Leontius dethroned.
Aspimar becomes emperor as =Tiberius III=. The Mohammedans
continue to ravage the empire.
705 =Justinian II=, now named =Rhinotmetus=, from his nasal
mutilation, recovers the throne.
709 Tyana falls before the Mohammedans in their ravages on the
Bosporus.
710 Great cruelty shown to Ravenna and the Chersonesus by the
emperor.
711 Justinian overthrown by Bardanes, who becomes emperor
under the name of =Philippicus=. In his reign the Mohammedans
invade Spain (711) and the Bulgarians ravage Thrace (712). The
Mohammedans take Antioch in Pisidia.
713 Philippicus dethroned and his eyes put out. Artemius his
secretary is raised to the emperorship as =Anastasius II=. He
tries honestly to bring about reforms, and sends an embassy to
Damascus to arrange a peace with the Mohammedans.
715 The army determines to depose Anastasius, and chooses an
obscure person, =Theodosius III=, who unwillingly assumes the
purple.
716 The Mohammedans again invade Asia Minor and besiege
Amorium. =Leo III the Isaurian= relieves the town, makes a
truce with the besiegers, and is proclaimed emperor by the
army.
THE ISAURIAN DYNASTY AND SUCCEEDING KINGS (716-820 A.D.)
717 Mohammedans besiege Pergamus. They begin the siege of
Constantinople, which is raised the following year.
726 The dispute over image-worship arises. Publication of the
first iconoclastic decree. The great iconoclastic schism
begins, immersing the empire in many calamities and revolts,
leading to the final separation of the Greek and Latin
churches.
The Mohammedans invade Cappadocia.
727-728 Revolts in Italy and Greece.
734 Mohammedan invasion of Asia Minor.
739 Battle of Acronum.
740 =Constantine (V) Copronymus= succeeds his father.
742 Defeat of the rebel Artavasdes, who has obtained
possession of Constantinople.
744-747 The Great Plague devastates the empire.
746 Mohammedan invasion of Cyprus.
750 Fall of the Omayyad dynasty. Two rival Saracen powers are
formed. Ravenna taken by the Lombards.
751 Capture of Melitene and Theodosipolis by Constantine.
753 Invasion of Italy by Pepin. Council of Constantinople
favours iconoclasm.
755 Invasion of Thrace by the Bulgarians. Pepin continues
invasion of Italy.
757 The Bulgarians driven back to their own territory with
great slaughter.
760-765 Constantine invades Bulgaria. Victory of Anchialus,
762.
766 Wreck of the Roman fleet at the mouth of the Danube.
Edicts against image-worship extended and vigorously enforced.
773-774 Campaigns against the Bulgarians. Victory of
Lithosoria. Peace made with the Bulgarian monarch, which
Constantine breaks.
775 =Leo IV=, son of Constantine, succeeds him. He is a
zealous iconoclast. He marries the empress Irene.
778 Successful campaign against the Bulgarians.
780 Capture of Semaluos by Harun-ar-Rashid. Death of Leo.
=Irene= becomes regent for the ten-year-old =Constantine VI=.
781 Revolt of Elpidius in Sicily.
782 The Mohammedans under Harun-ar-Rashid invade Asia Minor.
787 Council of Nicæa sanctions image-worship.
788 The Bulgarians gain a victory at the Strymon.
789 The Arabs invade Rumania.
790 Constantine assumes control of the government. Irene is
unwilling to relinquish power and a struggle between the two
begins.
791 The emperor conducts a campaign against the Bulgarians.
792 A conspiracy formed against Constantine by his uncles is
suppressed and severely punished. Irene’s dignity restored.
Second campaign against the Bulgarians.
795 Constantine divorces his wife Maria and marries Theodota.
796 Third Bulgarian campaign of Constantine.
797 Irene, taking advantage of Constantine’s unpopularity on
account of his treatment of Maria, imprisons him and has his
eyes put out. She now reigns alone. Conspiracy to place one of
Constantine V’s sons on the throne.
798 Peace made with the Mohammedans.
800 Revival of the western division of the empire by the
coronation of Charlemagne. There are now two distinct empires.
802 Conspiracy against and deposition of Irene. =Nicephorus
I=, the treasurer, chosen emperor. He maintains political
order but is a hard fiscal oppressor.
803 Death of Irene in exile. Bardanes, the general, proclaims
himself emperor, but receiving no support, negotiates for his
own pardon. Treaty with Charlemagne, regulating confines of
the two empires.
806 Humiliating peace with Harun-ar-Rashid.
808 Unsuccessful attempt of Arsaber to obtain throne.
809 Death of Harun-ar-Rashid reopens the struggle with the
Mohammedans.
810 Treaty of peace with Charlemagne, who unsuccessfully tries
to make the Venetians and their allies tributary to him.
811 The emperor at war with the Mohammedans and Bulgarians.
Death of Nicephorus in an attack by the Bulgarians. His son
=Stauracius= succeeds. He is unable to hold out against the
unpopularity of his father’s fiscal severity. After two
months’ reign, a revolution places =Michael (I) Rhangabe= on
the throne. The Mohammedans, owing to civil strife, do not
trouble the empire, but the Bulgarians continue their attacks,
with such success that
813 Michael is deposed, and the general =Leo (V) the Armenian=
is saluted as emperor. Michael retires to a monastery. The
Bulgarians approach the walls of Constantinople.
814 Annihilation of the Bulgarian army by Leo, at Mesembria.
Thirty years’ truce concluded. Leo pursues a variable policy
in regard to image-worship.
820 Leo assassinated in a conspiracy in favour of =Michael
(II) the Stammerer=, who takes the throne.
THE AMORIAN DYNASTY (820-867 A.D.)
821 Rebellion of Thomas, a claimant of the throne. He is
crowned at Antioch, and lays siege to Constantinople.
822 The Bulgarians, taking advantage of civil discord, invade
the empire. Thomas delivered up to Michael, and hanged.
823 The Mohammedans capture Crete.
827 Mohammedan conquest of Sicily begun. It is not completed
until 878.
829 =Theophilus= succeeds his father. He is a zealous
iconoclast.
831 A Mohammedan invasion of long duration begins.
832 Brilliant victory of Theophilus in Charsiana. The
Mohammedans capture Heraclea.
836 Theophilus destroys Zapetra.
838 Mohammedan victory at Dasymon. Amorium is captured.
842 Death of Theophilus, due to chagrin at Mohammedan
successes. His son =Michael (III) Porphyrogenitus=, or =the
Drunkard=, succeeds at the age of four, with his mother
=Theodora= as regent. Image-worship restored at Council of
Constantinople. End of the Iconoclastic controversy. Slavonic
insurrection in the Peloponnesus suppressed. Failure of an
attempt to conquer the Abasges, and to recover Crete. War with
the Mohammedans continues.
845 Truce with the Mohammedans.
847 Conversion of the Khazars to Christianity. The Bulgarians
follow their example a few years later.
848 Revolt of the Paulicians, who join the Arabs.
854 Theodora retires to private life.
856 Bardas, her brother, becomes cæsar. Photius elected
patriarch in place of the deposed Ignatius.
858 A great war with the Arabs begins. Omar lays Pontus waste.
Successful campaign of Leo, the commander-in-chief, who is
finally captured by the Mohammedans.
860 Michael badly defeated near Melitene.
862 Omar invades Cappadocia, Pontus, and Cilicia.
863 Battle of Amasia. Great victory of Petronas, the emperor’s
uncle. Death of Omar. The end of trouble with the Mohammedans
for some years.
865 First appearance of the Russians in the empire. They
attack Constantinople, but are driven off.
866 Michael kills Bardas with the aid of Basil the Macedonian,
who becomes cæsar.
867 Assassination of Michael at the instigation of =Basil=,
who takes the throne. Basil removes Photius and restores
Ignatius.
THE BASILIAN DYNASTY (867-1057 A.D.)
871 The Paulicians attacked and reduced to obedience.
872 Basil takes the field against the Mohammedans.
875-876 Victories of Basil in Cilicia.
877 Death of Ignatius. Photius regains the patriarchate.
881 Basil plans to drive the Mohammedans out of Sicily and
Italy. Cyprus recovered and held for eleven years.
885 Nicephorus Phocas expels the Mohammedans from Italy. They
still hold Sicily. Accusation against Leo, the emperor’s son,
by Santabaren, in which the former narrowly escapes death.
886 Death of Basil, who is wounded while hunting. His son,
=Leo (VI) the Philosopher=, succeeds. He has Santabaren’s eyes
put out, and banishes him. Photius deposed.
887-888 Arabs invade Asia Minor, and attempt to regain Italy.
They give up the attempt on the latter country in 891.
Stylianus, Leo’s father-in-law and prime minister, by his
treatment of Bulgarian merchants, precipitates a war with
Bulgaria. This country wins several victories, and
893 Leo makes a treaty of peace.
895 Conspiracy of Samonas against the emperor. Further Arab
invasions of Sicily.
904 The Arabs capture Thessalonica with a fleet. The last
remains of the senate’s authority destroyed by a constitution
of Leo. Second Russian expedition to Constantinople.
911 Mohammedan naval victory off Samos. Death of Leo. His
infant son, =Constantine (VII) Porphyrogenitus=, and his
brother =Alexander= rule together.
912 Death of Alexander. He nominates, before dying, a regency
of six members, exclusive of the patriarch, to act during
Constantine’s minority. Attempt of Constantine Ducas to gain
the throne suppressed by John Eladas, one of the regents. =Zoe
Carbonopsina=, mother of Constantine, admitted to supreme
power by the regency.
913-914 Simeon, king of Bulgaria, invades the empire with no
positive results.
917 The Patzinaks defeat Leo Phocas at Achelous, which causes
Romanus Lecapenus to intrigue for the throne.
919 Constantine marries Romanus’ daughter Helena. =Romanus (I)
Lecapenus= crowned emperor as colleague to Constantine.
920 =Christopher=, son of Romanus, is raised to the imperial
dignity.
921 The war with the Bulgarians assumes serious proportions;
further increased
923 by an alliance between King Simeon of Bulgaria and the
Mohammedans.
926 A temporary end is put to the troubles with the Bulgarians
and Arabs by an interview between Romanus and Simeon.
927 Peter, Simeon’s successor, enters Byzantine territory,
demanding war or the hand of the emperor’s granddaughter.
Romanus agrees to the latter alternative.
928 Romanus makes his sons, =Stephanus= and =Constantine
VIII=, associate emperors. There are now five emperors.
931 Death of Christopher.
934-940 Period of complete peace in the empire, except for
petty warfare with Lombard princes. Constantine VII plans to
regain the sole power.
941 A Russian fleet of ten thousand galleys appears before
Constantinople. Romans drive them off with small force.
944 Stephanus and Constantine VIII at instigation of
Constantine VII banish their father to Prota. Constantine
VII then regains full power, and banishes Stephanus and
Constantine VIII likewise to Prota, 945.
During the remainder of Constantine’s reign the war with the
Mohammedans is prosecuted with great vigour, especially when
Nicephorus Phocas succeeds in assembling a large army. Many
conspiracies against Constantine by the deposed emperors.
959 Death of Constantine, the result of poison administered by
his son =Romanus II=, who becomes emperor.
961 Brilliant conquest of Crete by Nicephorus. The Mohammedans
expelled after occupation of 150 years.
962 Nicephorus attacks Aleppo, but is unable to take the
citadel.
963 Death of Romanus, which has been attributed to poison
administered by the empress Theophano. =Nicephorus (II)
Phocas= marries Theophano and obtains the throne. His chief
aim is to break the Mohammedan power.
964-965 Conquest of Tarsus by the Byzantines. Nicephorus
recalled to Constantinople by troubles with Bulgarians and
Hungarians. To repel them he makes alliance with Sviatoslaff,
prince of Kieff, which causes a bloody war with the Russians.
965 Embassy of Liutprand to Constantinople. The emperor
imprisons him.
968 Nicephorus returns to Asia Minor and recovers Antioch, 328
years in the Mohammedan power. He prepares to attack Baghdad.
969 Joannes Zimisces, the general, and Theophano conspire
against Nicephorus, who is assassinated. =Joannes (I)
Zimisces= takes the throne. He associates with him the young
sons of Romanus II, =Basil II=, and =Constantine IX=, who were
nominal rulers during reign of Nicephorus. The brother of
Nicephorus, Leo, and his son Bardas Phocas make unsuccessful
attempts to invite rebellion and regain the throne. They are
banished.
970 Sviatoslaff conquers Bulgaria and invades Thrace.
Philippopolis taken and inhabitants massacred.
971 Joannes proceeds against the Russians. Capture of
Presthlava and King Boris of Bulgaria. Siege and capture of
Dorystolon. Peace with the Russians. Bulgaria again a part of
the empire and Boris a pensioner of the Byzantine court. The
Mohammedan wars carried on.
972 Marriage of Otto the Great and Theophano, daughter of
Romanus II.
973 Imperial victory at Nisibis. Defeat at Amida.
974 Joannes takes command of the Mohammedan War.
975 Many victories but futile siege of Tripolis. Antioch shuts
out the imperial force.
976 Death of Joannes Zimisces, probably by poison. =Basil II=
head of affairs with his brother for colleague. He is one of
the greatest of the Eastern emperors.
_Beginning of Period of Greatest Splendour of the Empire_
979 Defeat of Sclerus by Bardas Phocas, the general, after a
desperate revolt to capture the throne. The Bulgarians begin a
long struggle to regain their independence.
982 On death of Otto, Basil consolidates his authority in
southern Italy.
989 Death of Bardas Phocas, who for two years has been in
revolt against the emperor. Sclerus, conspiring for the second
time against the throne, dies.
991 Southern Iberia ceded to the empire by King David.
995 Campaign of Basil in Syria. Aleppo taken. Unsuccessful
attack on Tripolis.
996 Great defeat of King Samuel of Bulgaria at the Sperchius.
1002 Samuel invades Thrace, takes Hadrianopolis, but is driven
off. The war now proceeds for some years in desultory fashion.
1014 Basil resumes the Bulgarian War in earnest. Great victory
under Nicephorus Xiphias at Zetunium. Basil puts out the eyes
of 15,000 prisoners. Death of Samuel. The emperor’s cruelty
engenders a last effort in the Bulgarians, but by 1018 the
destruction of the kingdom is complete. Gibbon calls this
the most important triumph of Roman arms since the time of
Belisarius.
1022 Victory of Basil over a coalition of Armenian princes.
They sue for peace.
1025 Basil prepares to expel Mohammedans from Sicily, but
dies. His brother =Constantine IX= becomes sole emperor.
1027 Attack by the Patzinaks and Mohammedans repulsed.
1028 Constantine on his death-bed appoints =Romanus (III)
Argyrus= his successor, makes him divorce his wife, and marry
his daughter Zoe.
1030 Romanus defeated by the Mohammedans at Azaz and takes
refuge in Antioch. He becomes the prey of melancholy, and Zoe
takes the reins of government.
1031 Mohammedan pirates ravage Illyricum and Corfu. They are
driven off by the people of Ragusa.
1032 Conspiracy and death of Constantine Diogenes.
1033 Capture of Edessa by the imperial fleet.
1034 Death of Romanus, probably by slow poison administered
by Zoe, who now causes her paramour, =Michael (IV) the
Paphlagonian=, to be proclaimed emperor, and marries him the
day of her husband’s death. Earthquake at Jerusalem lasting
forty days. Great famine throughout the empire.
1037 The Mohammedans attack the empire on all sides. They
capture Edessa. The Patzinaks invade Thrace.
1038 The Mohammedans regain Edessa, by a stratagem that is the
origin of the Tale of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.
1039 The imperial force and the Normans attack the Mohammedans
in Sicily. Messina (Messana) and Syracuse taken.
1040 A fresh Mohammedan army from Africa utterly defeated in
Sicily. The Norman power begins to get the control in the
island. The Bulgarians attempt to recover independence. They
invade Thrace and Macedonia.
1041 Michael drives them back and brings the country again
to Byzantine rule. Death of Michael. =Zoe= attempts to rule
alone, but finds herself unequal to the task. She adopts her
husband’s nephew, =Michael (V) Calaphates=, and makes him
emperor. He expels Zoe. At his imprudent acts the people rise
in rebellion.
1042 After a fierce battle between the people of
Constantinople and the adherents of Michael, the latter and
his uncle flee. =Zoe= and her sister =Theodora= are proclaimed
co-empresses. Zoe has the eyes of Michael and his uncle put
out. Jealous of her sister, Zoe marries =Constantine (X)
Monomachus=. Rebellion of Maniaces, brother of Constantine’s
mistress Sclerena. He is murdered in the midst of his camp.
1043 Invasion of the Russians; driven back after a defeat by
Catacalon.
1045 Successful war with Cacicus, vassal king of Armenia and
Iberia, ending in destruction of his kingdom.
1047 Rebellion of Tornicius.
1048 The Patzinaks invade the empire with a large army. Attack
of the Seljuk Turks under Toghril. Indecisive battle of
Capetron.
1050 Toghril retires to Persia. Death of Zoe.
1052 Second invasion of Toghril.
1053 The Patzinaks driven back to their own territory.
1054 The great schism between the Greek and Roman churches
begins. Death of Michael. =Theodora= reigns alone.
1056 Death of Theodora, after appointing =Michael (VI)
Stratioticus= her successor. Attempt of Theodosius Monomachus
to seize throne.
1057 Battle of Hades. Defeat of Michael by Isaac Comnenus and
Catacalon.
DECLINE AND FALL OF THE BYZANTINE GOVERNMENT (1057-1204 A.D.)
1057 =Isaac (I) Comnenus= proclaimed emperor. Michael retires
to a monastery. The emperor introduces a system of great
economy into all branches of the government.
1059 Invasion of the northern frontier by Hungarians and
Patzinaks. Treaty of peace concluded. Isaac, after a severe
illness, resigns crown into the hands of =Constantine (XI)
Ducas=. Through motives of economy the latter materially
reduces the size of the army.
1060-1064 Toghril Beg and Alp Arslan invade the empire from
Mesopotamia. Ani captured, 1064.
1064 The Uzes, a nomad Turkish tribe, invade from the north.
They are driven back by outbreak of the plague.
1067 Death of Constantine. The imperial title conferred on his
young sons, =Michael (VII) Ducas Parapinaces Andronicus=, and
=Constantine (XII) Ducas=. The empress =Eudocia= is regent.
She marries =Romanus (IV) Diogenes=, who is proclaimed as
emperor. Great ravage of the Turks. Massacre of Cæsarea.
1068-1069 Successful campaign of Romanus against the Turks.
1070 Manuel Comnenus takes command against the Turks. Alp
Arslan captures Manzicert. Romanus returns to the command.
1071 Byzantine expedition to Sicily defeated by Normans.
Surrender of Bari. End of the imperial authority in Italy.
Romanus taken prisoner by Alp Arslan at Manzicert. Restored
to liberty and makes a treaty of peace. Refused admittance to
Constantinople. Michael VII regains power reigning conjointly
with Constantine XII. Romanus blinded, dies of his wounds.
1072 Alp Arslan, unable to obtain payment of Romanus’ ransom,
invades empire. He finally conquers the Byzantine part of Asia
Minor, giving it to Suleiman to rule.
1074 Rebellion of Ursel. Treaty with the Turks.
1076 The Turks take possession of Jerusalem.
1078 Bryennius attempts to gain the throne. After a severe
struggle Michael abdicates in favour of =Nicephorus (III)
Botaniates=.
1081 Nicephorus, after a constant struggle with many
aspirants, is dethroned by =Alexius (I) Comnenus= after the
capture and sack of Constantinople. Many pretenders are put
down. Treaty of peace with Suleiman. Defeat of Alexius by
Robert Guiscard.
1084 Defeat of Bohemond, the Norman leader. Relief of Larissa.
1085 Alexius recovers Dyrrhachium from the Normans.
1087-1099 Patzinak war ending in imperial victory at Levounion.
1092 Tzachas, emir of Smyrna, assumes title of emperor.
1093 Murder of Tzachas at instigation of Alexius.
1096 The first crusaders appear at Constantinople.
1097-1098 With the help of the crusaders, Alexius regains
Nicæa, Antioch, and the whole of Asia Minor.
1103-1108 War of Alexius with Bohemond, prince of Antioch.
1110-1116 War against the Turks in Asia Minor, ending in many
Turkish losses, enabling Alexius to make treaty of peace.
1111 Hostilities of Alexius with Tancred and the crusaders.
1118 Death of Alexius. =Joannes Comnenus=, his son, succeeds.
Failure of conspiracy of Anna Comnena and Nicephorus Bryennius
to place latter on throne.
1119 Joannes takes Laodicea and
1120 Sozopolis in campaigns against the Turks.
1122 Great victory of Joannes over the Patzinaks in Macedonia.
1124 Joannes drives back the Servians who have seized Belgrade
and Branitzova. He now proceeds again against the Turks of
Iconium and holds Castamonia and Gangra for a short time.
1131 Campaign against Livo of Cilicia, whose dominions
1137 are united to the empire.
1138 Joannes proceeds against Raymond of Antioch, who refuses
to recognise him for his liege-lord. Raymond apologises and
helps Joannes in a successful campaign against the Turks in
Syria.
1141 Joannes defeats the sultan of Iconium.
1142 He sets out for Cilicia to conquer all the Latin
principalities taken from the empire, but
1143 dies as the result of a wound received while hunting. His
son =Manuel (I) Comnenus= succeeds.
1144 Raymond, prince of Antioch, compelled to renew bonds of
vassalage.
1145 Manuel invades Isauria and concludes treaty of peace with
Turks.
1147 Manuel promises to aid the Second Crusade, but gives
secret information of it to the Turks.
1148 War with Roger of Sicily, who attempts to invade Greece.
Manuel quickly repels an invasion of Patzinaks, and with the
help of Venice proceeds against the Normans at Corfu.
1149 Fortress at Corfu taken. Roger invites the Hungarians and
Servians to attack from the north.
1152 Imperial repulse in Cilicia, but great successes in Italy.
1153 Peace made with King Geisa of Hungary.
1153-1155 The Norman war turns against the empire. Many
defeats. Maius, the Sicilian admiral, lands at Constantinople.
1155 Peace made with William of Sicily, Roger’s successor.
Punishment of Reynolf of Antioch, successor of Raymond, and
his reduction to vassalage.
1157 Renewal of war with sultan of Iconium. Peace made.
1161 War breaks out with Stephen III of Hungary.
1163 Short interval of peace in Hungarian War.
1168 Battle of Zeugmin. Great imperial victory. End of
Hungarian War. Manuel joins with Almeric of Jerusalem in an
attack on Egypt.
1171 Failure of attack through jealousy of Almeric. War
with Venice over, Manuel attacks the Lombards. After an
unprofitable contest
1174 peace made with Venice.
1176 Renewal of war with Kilidj-Arslan, sultan of Iconium.
Crushing defeat of Manuel near Myriocephalus. Dishonourable
peace made by Manuel.
1177 Manuel breaks peace. Imperial victory on the Mæander.
Honourable peace.
1180 Death of Manuel. His son, =Alexius (II) Comnenus=,
succeeds, under guardianship of mother, Maria of Antioch.
1183 =Andronicus (I) Comnenus= usurps the throne after
inducing Alexius to have his mother put to death, and then
killing him. Marries Alexius’ widow, Agnes, daughter of Louis
VII of France.
1184 Isaac, sent to Cyprus to govern by the emperor, causes
rebellion by his misgovernment, which entirely separates the
island from the empire.
1185 Silician invasion at instigation of Greek fugitives.
William II destroys Thessalonica, but is induced to
desist from attack on Constantinople. The lieutenant,
Hagiochristophorites, incites rebellion at Constantinople
against Isaac. The people take Isaac’s part and proclaim him
emperor. Death of Andronicus at hands of mob. =Isaac (II)
Angelus= emperor. Victory at Demerize over Silician invaders.
1186 Rebellion of the Bulgarians and Wallachians owing to
unjust taxation.
1187 Defeat of rebels by Joannes Cantacuzenus. Alexius Branas
given command of army. He takes advantage of victories to
proclaim himself emperor and appears before Constantinople,
but is defeated and killed by Isaac’s brother-in-law, Conrad
of Montferrat. William II of Sicily gives up his conquests in
Greece.
1188 Wallachian successes lead to formation of independent
kingdom.
1189 Emperor Frederick I of Germany appears with 150,000
crusaders. The terrified Isaac offers to make alliance with
Saladin, but the latter declines.
Theodore Mancaphas proclaims himself emperor. He is pardoned,
and gives up claim. Careers of the “False Alexius” and other
pretenders.
1191 Capture of Cyprus by Richard I of England. It is lost
forever to the empire.
1194 Isaac recognises the Wallachian kingdom.
1195 Isaac deposed by the nobles, and his brother =Alexius
(III) Angelus-Comnenus= “the tyrant” made emperor. Alexius has
Isaac’s eyes put out, and imprisons him in a Constantinople
dungeon. Alexius’ extravagant conduct completes the
destruction of the financial mechanism of the Roman Empire.
Great disorder and anarchy throughout the empire.
1197 Peace purchased from Mueddin, sultan of Angora.
1198 War with the sultan of Iconium.
1199 Rebellion of Chryses, the Wallachian officer. Alexius
makes peace, leaving him in possession of several towns.
1200 Ivan the Bulgarian attempts to found independent monarchy
in Thrace and Macedonia.
1202 Alexius, son of Isaac II, escaping to Italy, brings about
treaty between Venetians and crusaders to replace Isaac and
himself on the throne.
1203 Siege of Constantinople. Flight of Alexius III to Italy.
Crusaders occupy the city. =Isaac III= and =Alexius (IV)
Angelus= on the throne. Great fire in Constantinople. Constant
trouble between Alexius and the crusaders, in consequence of
which
1204 =Alexius (V) Ducas= “=Murzuphlus=,” a party leader, seizes the
throne. Murder of Alexius IV. Isaac dies of grief. Alexius
finds it impossible to hold out against the crusaders. Capture
and sack of Constantinople by crusaders and Venetians. Treaty
of partition. End of true Byzantine Empire. The Latin Empire
of Romania founded with Baldwin, count of Flanders. The Greek
Empire continues at Nicæa.
THE LATIN EMPIRE OF ROMANIA (1204-1261 A.D.)
1204 =Baldwin I= elected emperor. His dominions consist only
of Constantinople and Thrace, for the rest of the empire is
divided among the Flemish, French, and Venetian leaders.
1205 Joannice of Bulgaria revolts, and obtains possession of
Hadrianopolis. Capture of Baldwin in siege of town. He dies in
captivity. His brother =Henry I= succeeds.
1206 Treaty with David Comnenus, brother of the emperor of
Trebizond, in the interest of the latter.
1207 Death of Joannice. Henry marries his daughter, and thus
effects peace with Bulgaria. Treaty with Theodore Lascaris,
emperor of Nicæa.
1209 Parliament of Ravenika (ancient Chalcidice) summoned by
Henry to determine definitely the feudal relations of all
subjects of the empire.
1214 War between Henry and Theodore. Defeat of Henry in
Bithynia. Siege of Pemanene. Peace, ceding to Theodore all
territory east of Sardis and Nicæa.
1215 A mock union between the Greek and Roman churches in
Henry’s dominions.
1216 Death of Henry during expedition against Theodore, the
despot of Epirus. =Pierre de Courtenai=, then in France,
chosen emperor. He falls into the hands of Theodore of Epirus
on his way to Constantinople, and dies in captivity, 1219.
1221 His second son, =Robert de Courtenai=, after a delay of
two years, is made emperor.
1222 Theodore of Epirus takes possession of the Lombard
kingdom of Thessalonica. Defeat of Robert at Serres.
1223-1224 Robert invades Nicæa with many losses. Revolt of the
Greeks in Hadrianopolis. Theodore of Epirus takes the city.
1228 Death of Robert. His young brother, =Baldwin II=,
succeeds. =Jean de Brienne=, titular king of Jerusalem,
elected guardian and colleague. The empire is attacked by
Joannes Vatatzes of Nicæa and John Asan, king of Bulgaria.
1233 Jean de Brienne routed in Bithynia.
1234 Alliance between Vatatzes and Asan to attack
Constantinople. They ravage the whole Latin Empire.
1236 Danger to Constantinople averted by help from the
Venetians and Geoffrey of Achaia.
1237 Death of Jean de Brienne. The Bulgarian king abandons
Nicæa and makes alliance with Latins. Baldwin visits western
Europe to obtain help. Louis IX of France gives pecuniary
assistance.
1240 Baldwin with his new army attacks Nicæa and obtains some
advantage.
1243 Baldwin makes alliance with Seljuk Turks, but in spite
of this is compelled to
1245 revisit western Europe for assistance.
1259 On the accession of Michael Palæologus, the Nicæan Empire
attacks the Latin Empire.
1261 Recovery of Constantinople by the Greeks of Nicæa. End
of the Latin Empire of Romania. Although driven from their
dominions, the descendants of Baldwin II are known in eastern
Europe as titular emperors until 1383 when, with the death of
James de Baux, the family of Baldwin became extinct.
THE GREEK EMPERORS AT NICÆA (1204-1261 A.D.)
1204 After the capture of Constantinople Theodore Lascaris,
leader of the anti-Latin party, flees to Bithynia, and makes
himself master of the city of Nicæa.
1206 =Theodore (I) Lascaris= crowned emperor by the Greek
patriarch. His title is contested by several princes, among
them Alexius Comnenus, reigning as emperor of Trebizond. David
Comnenus, the latter’s brother, proceeds against him, but is
badly defeated on the Sangarius.
1210 Alexius, father-in-law of Theodore, claims throne,
supported by the sultan of Iconium. The latter slain in
battle, Alexius falls into Theodore’s hand, and is put into a
monastery.
1214 War with Henry of Romania. Peace defining limits of
empire.
1214-1222 Years of peace.
1222 Death of Theodore. His son-in-law, =Joannes (III) Ducas
Vatatzes=, succeeds. Theodore Angelus, despot of Epirus and
Ætolia, assumes title of emperor of Thessalonica.
1224 Victory of Pemanene over Robert, the Latin emperor.
1225 Peace with the Latins. Conspiracy of Nestongos.
1233 Defeat of the Latins by Joannes in Bithynia. Naval
campaign to obtain sovereignty of the sea. The Greek fleets
driven back to Asia by the Venetian, Marino Sanuti.
1234 Alliance of Joannes Vatatzes and Asan of Bulgaria against
Baldwin II. Vatatzes reduces the empire of Thessalonica to a
despotat (despotat of Epirus).
1236 Attack of the allies on Constantinople unsuccessful.
1237 Asan breaks the alliance as Constantinople is about to be
attacked the second time.
1241 On the death of John Asan of Bulgaria, Vatatzes begins to
assert his supremacy over the emperor of Thessalonica.
1242 Joannes Comnenus, the Thessalonian emperor, reduced
to rank of despot by Vatatzes. Alliance with the sultan of
Iconium to resist threatened invasion of Mongols who have
already destroyed the Seljuk empire.
1245 Joannes Vatatzes reconquers Byzantine dominions in Thrace
from the infant king Michael of Bulgaria.
1246 Vatatzes unites despotat of Epirus to the empire.
1251-1253 War with Michael II, despot of Epirus, ending in a
peace ceding some Thracian territory to Vatatzes.
1254 Death of Joannes Vatatzes. His son =Theodore (II)
Lascaris= succeeds.
1255-1256 War with Bulgaria resulting in slight concessions to
Theodore.
1257 War with Michael of Epirus conducted by Michael
Palæologus, with unfavourable results.
1258 Death of Theodore. Succeeded by his young son =Joannes
(IV) Lascaris=. The prime minister Muzalon and the patriarch
Arsenius are regents.
1259 =Michael (VIII) Palæologus= proclaimed emperor as the
result of a successful conspiracy. Muzalon murdered. The
emperor goes to war with Michael of Epirus and puts him to
flight. Battle of Pelagonia. Capture of William Villehardouin,
prince of Achaia.
1261 The general Strategopulus captures Constantinople. Fall
of the Latin Empire. Michael removes the seat of empire
thither.
THE PALÆOLOGUS DYNASTY AT CONSTANTINOPLE (1261-1453 A.D.)
1261 Michael imprisons Joannes IV and has his eyes put out.
For this Arsenius excommunicates Michael. Important commercial
treaty with the Genoese renewed after hostilities in 1275.
Pope Urban IV frees Villehardouin from his promises to Michael
on his release. Warfare results.
1263 Urban IV mediates between Michael and Villehardouin.
1264 Peace between the emperor and Michael of Epirus.
1265 Deposition of Arsenius causing the Arsenite schism.
1269 Charles of Anjou, aided by Joannes of Thessaly and
Michael of Epirus, takes up arms against the emperor to
restore Baldwin II.
1271 Great defeat of the imperial forces at Demetriades
(Volo). Constantinople in danger. Michael proposes union of
Greek and Latin churches as a means of saving his throne.
1274 Union of churches effected at council of Lyons. It is
opposed by a large faction in the Greek church. It was never
really completed, and falls to pieces at Michael’s death.
1280 The Seljuk Turks take Nyssa.
1281 Treaty of Orvietto between the pope, Naples, and Venice
to conquer the Greek Empire for Philip, son of Baldwin II. The
plan is frustrated by the Sicilian Vespers.
1282 Death of Michael in an expedition against Joannes Ducas
of Thessaly. He is a conspicuous example of the misuse of
despotic power. His son =Andronicus (II) Palæologus= succeeds.
Ecclesiastical troubles compel the emperor to neglect military
matters for a time.
1290 Unsuccessful attack upon Nicephorus of Epirus.
1295 =Michael IX=, son of Andronicus, receives the imperial
title from his father.
1301 Foundation of Ottoman Empire by Osman, who attacks the
Greek Empire. Disgraceful defeat of Greeks commanded by
Michael, near Nicomedia. The command given to a Tatar chief.
The Ottomans gradually conquer all the Byzantine possessions
in Asia.
1303 The Catalan Grand Company, engaged by Michael to help
fight the Turks, and headed by Roger de Flor, lands in
Constantinople.
1304 Relief of Philadelphia by Roger. He conceives the idea of
forming a principality in the East.
1305 Roger de Flor visits Constantinople to demand pay for his
men.
1306 Turks retake Philadelphia. Plan of Ferdinand of Majorca
to conquer a kingdom in the Greek Empire.
1307 Roger de Flor created cæsar. He sets out for Asia but is
assassinated. The company breaks its ties with Michael, and
sets out to conquer territory for itself. Battle of Apros. The
company takes possession of several districts. Excommunication
of Andronicus by Clement V.
1310 The company and their Turkish auxiliaries enter service
of the duke of Athens. Conquest of Rhodes by knights of St.
John.
1311 Battle of the Cephisus and victory of the Catalan Grand
Company over the duke of Athens pave way for the conquest of
Attica. The Turkish auxiliaries return home.
1315 Victory of Philes Palæologus over Turks at Bizya.
1320 The emperor Michael dies.
1321 Beginning of civil war by partisans of the emperor’s
grandson Andronicus led by Cantacuzenus and Synadenus.
1322 Peace of Epibates concludes civil war.
1325 Andronicus compelled to bestow imperial crown on his
grandson =Andronicus (III) Palæologus=; the two reign together.
1327 Andronicus II brings charges against Andronicus III.
Civil war breaks out again.
1328 Synadenus overcomes garrison of Constantinople.
Abdication of Andronicus II puts an end to civil war, but the
court remains full of intrigue.
1329 Imperial defeat at Pelekanon by the Ottoman Orkhan.
1330 Surrender of Nicæa to Orkhan.
1330-1337 Ottoman invasions of the European provinces.
1334-1337 Expedition of Andronicus into Epirus.
1337 The Mongols cross the Danube and ravage northern
district. =Anne= regent for Nicephorus II, despot of Epirus,
turns the despotat over to Andronicus.
1338 Surrender of Nicomedia to Orkhan.
1339 Revolt in the despotat of Epirus put down.
1341 Death of Andronicus. His young son =Joannes (V)
Palæologus= succeeds with Empress =Anne= of Savoy as regent.
Rebellion of the prime minister =Joannes (VI) Cantacuzenus=,
who is proclaimed emperor and guardian of Joannes. He often
calls himself Joannes V. Apocauchus and Joannes Apri intrigue
against Cantacuzenus. A long civil struggle commences.
1342 Stephen Dushan of Servia allies himself with rebels and
invades empire.
1343 Cantacuzenus makes alliance with Turks. The war continues
with violence.
1344 Cantacuzenus takes Gratianopolis and makes treaties with
Servia and Bulgaria.
1345 Murder of Apocauchus. Vicinity of Constantinople
devastated.
1346 Defection of Orkhan from Anne’s cause leads to triumph of
Cantacuzenus. Earthquake at Constantinople destroys portion of
St. Sophia.
1347 Treaty of Cantacuzenus with Anne recognises right of
former to rule for ten years. The Black Death rages.
1350 Cantacuzenus uses money sent by Russians to rebuild St.
Sophia to pay Ottoman mercenaries.
1351 Joannes V takes up arms against Cantacuzenus.
1352 Peace with Genoa after three years’ war. Cantacuzenus
hires Turkish mercenaries to fight Bulgarians and Servians.
1353 Cantacuzenus proclaims his son Matthæus emperor, and a
deadly strife between him and the Palæologus family ensues.
1354 Cantacuzenus dethroned. Joannes V sole emperor. Matthæus
Cantacuzenus continues civil war.
1357 Matthæus Cantacuzenus delivered to Joannes by his captors
the Servians and made to renounce all rights to the throne.
1361 The Ottoman Turks under Murad I take Hadrianopolis. This
seals the fate of the Greek Empire.
1363 The Ottomans take Philippopolis and Serres. Defeat of
Louis of Hungary.
1369-1370 Joannes visits Rome to obtain help for his falling
empire, but is unsuccessful. On way home is arrested for debt
in Venice and released with money raised by his son, Manuel.
1375 Andronicus, Joannes’ eldest son, conspires against him
while the emperor is absent on a visit to Murad. He is aided
by Saugdi, eldest son of Murad. Murad hastens to Europe and
quells rebellion. Both Andronicus and Saugdi have their eyes
put out.
1377 Andronicus escapes from prison, imprisons his father, and
confers title on his own son.
1381 Joannes rescued by Venetians under Carlo Zeno. Concludes
treaty with Andronicus, recognising his and his son’s rights
to the title. Treaty with Murad in which Joannes acknowledges
himself the vassal of the Ottoman Empire.
1384 Manuel, second son of Joannes, proclaimed emperor and
crowned.
1389 Battle of Kossova. Great Ottoman victory over the
Servians. Assassination of Murad. Bajazet succeeds, renews
treaty with Joannes, and puts Manuel at head of Greek troops
in Ottoman army.
1390 Ottomans capture Philadelphia the last independent Greek
community in Asia Minor.
1391 Death of Joannes. =Manuel (II) Palæologus= sole emperor.
He hastens to Constantinople, fearing his brother will seize
the crown.
1396 Great victory of Bajazet at Nicopolis. He now determines
to proceed against Constantinople. Manuel visits France for
help.
1398 Marshal Boucicault arrives at Constantinople with his
fleet. The Tatar conqueror, Timur, distracts Bajazet’s
attention from the empire.
1399 Joannes of Selymbria, son of Andronicus, enters
Constantinople and is proclaimed emperor. Manuel visits
European courts for help.
1402 Manuel returns home, his mission unsuccessful. Battle of
Angora. Crushing defeat of Bajazet by Timur.
1403 Treaty of Suleiman and Manuel, the former yielding up
territory in Macedonia and Thessaly.
1410 Musa, Suleiman’s brother, after the latter’s death,
reconquers territory ceded by Suleiman to Manuel.
1412 Musa begins a feeble siege of Constantinople, but is soon
distracted by civil troubles.
1413-1421 During reign of Muhammed I, the Greek Empire enjoys
uninterrupted peace. Manuel employs time in reorganising
administration and consolidating his power.
1419 Manuel makes his son, =Joannes (VII) Palæologus=,
co-emperor.
1422 Murad II besieges Constantinople to punish Manuel for his
intrigues. He is obliged to raise siege in order to proceed
against his brother, Mustapha.
1423 Manuel assumes monastic habit, taking name of Matthew.
Joannes sole emperor. The empire is now reduced to the city
of Constantinople and vicinity, Thessalonica, and a part of
the Peloponnesus. The finances are exhausted through payment
of tribute to the Turks. The empire enters its final stage of
lethargy.
1430 Murad II conquers Thessalonica. The Genoese of Galata
attack Constantinople on account of trade dispute in Black Sea.
1431 Terrible epidemic in Constantinople.
1439 Joannes and the Greek patriarch attend council of
Florence and ratify union of the Greek and Roman church. The
pope promises to aid the empire, but forgets agreement to send
fleet to Constantinople.
1440 On return of the emperor, the bishop of Ephesus succeeds
in confining the union only to the palace. The emperor’s
brother Demetrius attempts to gain throne, but fails.
1447 Murad marches against the emperor’s brother Constantine,
who is ruling over the Peloponnesus. Corinth and Patras taken.
Treaty with Constantine, who pays tribute.
1448 Death of Joannes. His brother =Constantine (XIII)
Palæologus= or =Dragazes=, despot of Sparta, succeeds.
1449 Muhammed II succeeds Murad II. His chief ambition is the
conquest of Constantinople, and he at once prepares for it.
Builds a fort on the Bosporus.
1452 Joannes appeals to Pope Nicholas V for aid. Cardinal
Isidore and a small body of auxiliaries are sent.
1453 Siege and capture of Constantinople by Muhammed II. Death
of Constantine in battle. Muhammed enters his new capital. End
of the Eastern Empire.
THE EMPIRE OF TREBIZOND (1204-1461 A.D.)
Isaac Angelus, as soon as he is placed on the throne by the
exasperated mob that slew the tyrannical Andronicus I (1185),
has the eyes of Manuel Comnenus, the murdered emperor’s
eldest son, put out. Manuel dies under the operation,
leaving two sons, Alexius and David. They live in obscurity
in Constantinople until the crusaders besiege the capital
(1203), when they escape to the coast of Colchis. Alexius
gathers around him a small force and
1204 about the time of the fall of Constantinople enters Trebizond,
the ancient Trapezus, on the Black Sea, having been
proclaimed “emperor of the Romans.” He calls himself =Alexius
(I) Grand-Comnenus=, to distinguish himself from the family
of Alexius Angelus-Comnenus. The weakness of the expelled
house of Angelus permits Alexius to found his empire and
begin a career of conquest. In the course of a few months the
whole country from the Phasis to the Thermodon is his. David
Comnenus adds the coast from Sinope to Heraclea to the new
empire.
1206 Defeat of David on the Sangarius, by Theodore (I)
Lascaris. Alexius badly beaten at Amisus by the sultan of
Iconium or Rum in league with Theodore. David makes treaty
with the emperor Henry of Romania, in the interest of his
possessions.
1214 Theodore I attempts to reunite David’s territory to the
empire of Nicæa. Death of David in defence of Sinope, besieged
and captured by the Turks. Pontus assailed by the Turks.
Colchis by the Georgians.
1216 Alexius compelled to declare himself a vassal of the
sultan of Iconium.
1222 Death of Alexius. His son-in-law, =Andronicus (I)
Ghidus=, succeeds, Joannes the eldest son being passed over.
1224 Treaty with Ala ad-Din, sultan of Iconium. Hayton,
Turkish governor of Sinope, seizes a Trebizontine ship.
Andronicus attacks Sinope; Ala ad-Din breaks treaty and
attacks Trebizond. Andronicus drives him off and by a treaty
frees himself from vassalage.
1226 Andronicus acknowledges himself vassal of Gela ad-Din,
shah of Khwarizm.
1230 On defeat of Gela ad-Din by the Mongols, Andronicus
renews vassalage to Iconium. The Iberian provinces of
Trebizond unite with the new Iberian kingdom where King David
still retains his independence against the Turks.
1235 Death of Andronicus. His brother-in-law, =Joannes (I)
Auxuchus=, succeeds.
1238 Death of Joannes. His brother, =Manuel (I) the Great
Captain=, succeeds. There is little information about the
events of his reign, but he was a vassal of the Seljuks; and,
after their defeat, in 1244, at Kusadac of the Mongol khan,
Octar.
1263 =Andronicus II= succeeds his father.
1266 =George= succeeds his brother. The power of the Mongols
and Seljuks in Asia Minor declines, and George frees himself
from them. He attempts to conquer more territory but in
1280 is deserted by his nobles on an expedition and captured by
the Turkomans. =Joannes III= succeeds. He is invited by a
party in Constantinople, disgusted at Michael VIII’s union
with the Latin church, to place himself at the head of the
orthodox Christians and of the Greek Empire; but Joannes fears
to do this.
1281 Michael sends George Acropolita, the historian, on a
mission to Joannes to induce him to lay aside title of emperor
of the Romans or accept matrimonial alliance with his family.
It is unsuccessful. An insurrection at Trebizond deprives
Joannes of his power, but he soon recovers it.
1282 Joannes agrees to marry Michael’s daughter Eudocia. The
ceremony is performed at Constantinople, and Joannes gives
up title “emperor of the Romans,” taking that of “emperor of
all the East, Iberia, and Peratea.” David of Iberia makes
an unsuccessful attack on Trebizond. George released by
Turkomans, but fails in an attempt to regain throne.
1285 Joannes’ sister, =Theodora=, assembles an army and mounts
throne, but Joannes soon recovers it and drives her from it.
Pope Nicholas IV invites Joannes to assist in crusade to
recover Ptolemais, but affairs at home prevent his doing so.
1297 Death of Joannes. His son =Alexius II= succeeds at age of
fifteen. He soon frees himself from his guardian, Andronicus
II of Constantinople.
1302 Alexius repels a Turkoman invasion in a great battle near
Kerasunt.
1310 After many trade disputes with the Genoese establishments
on the Black Sea, Genoa demands a favourable treaty with
Alexius, which he refuses. The enraged Genoese burn a portion
of Trebizond, but fear of the Venetians compels them to agree
to trading on the old terms.
1314 Sinopian pirates set fire to Trebizond and much damage is
done.
1330 Death of Alexius. His eldest son, =Andronicus III=,
succeeds. A period of anarchy and civil war begins. Andronicus
supposed to have put two brothers to death. Another brother
and an uncle flee to Constantinople.
1332 Death of Andronicus. Accession of his young son, =Manuel
II=, with everyone in power attempting to gain the direction
of affairs. Taking advantage of the condition of affairs the
Turkomans invade the empire, which is in great danger, and
=Basil=, the fugitive son of Alexius II, is invited to become
emperor. Manuel deposed. Basil proves a profligate monarch,
and marries his mistress in spite of the fact that he has a
wife. The power becomes decentralised.
1340 Death of Basil. His lawful wife, =Irene Palæologina=,
daughter of the Byzantine emperor, is placed on the throne by
her adherents. Civil war breaks out.
1341 =Anna Anachoulu=, daughter of Alexius II, is placed by
the Comnenian party on the throne. Irene deposed. Michael,
second son of Joannes II, claims throne. He is imprisoned, but
a party forms around his son, Joannes.
1342 =Joannes III= gains throne from Anna. She is strangled.
1344 Disgusted with Joannes’ conduct the young nobles release
his father, =Michael=, from prison and make him emperor.
Michael confines Joannes in a monastery, and afterwards sends
him to Hadrianopolis. He tries to improve the condition of
affairs and decrease the power of the nobles, but is not
strong enough for the task.
1347 The Great Plague (Black Death) rages in Trebizond. The
Turkomans ravage the empire up to the walls of the capital.
1348 Turks capture Kerasunt. Genoese men of war attack
Trebizond. The Greeks massacre the Franks for revenge.
1349 Michael makes peace with Genoese, ceding them fortress
of Leontokastron. Civil riots break out. Michael dethroned
and =Alexius III=, son of Basil, and his mistress, Irene of
Trebizond, are brought from Constantinople to occupy the
throne. The rebellions of the aristocracy continue.
1355 The rebels headed by the grand duke Nicetas appear with
a fleet before Trebizond. Alexius drives them off. He begins
to consolidate his power, but the Turkomans gradually seize
territory from the empire until there is only a narrow strip
of sea-coast left.
1380 Alexius quarrels with Megollo Lescari, a Genoese
merchant, who fits out galleys to ravage the Black Sea.
Alexius submits and confirms trade privileges of the Genoese.
1390 Death of Alexius. His son =Manuel III= succeeds.
1400 Manuel sends troops to the army of Timur, but does not
himself take part in the battle of Angora (1402).
1405 After Timur’s death Manuel delivers empire from tribute
to the Mongols.
1417 Death of Manuel. His son =Alexius IV= succeeds. After the
retreat of the Mongols the empire is overrun by the two great
Turkoman hordes of the Black and White Sheep. Kara Yusuf,
chief of the Black Horde, compels Alexis to send a daughter to
marry his son, and exacts tribute.
1420 Death of Kara Yusuf--the emperor ceases to pay tribute to
the Black Horde.
1426 Rebellion of Alexius’ son Calo-Joannes, who has been
raised to imperial dignity. The nobles rescue the emperor.
Alexius confers rights of heir apparent and imperial dignity
on his second son Alexander, who dies soon afterwards.
1442 First attack of Ottoman Turks on Trebizond is repulsed.
1446 Second rebellion of Calo-Joannes. He murders Alexius and
succeeds as =Joannes IV=. He is hated for his crimes.
1449 The sheikh of Ertebil fails in an attempt to capture
Trebizond. Joannes forms plan to expel Ottomans from Asia
Minor and Muhammed II forced to invade the empire. Joannes
compelled to become vassal of Muhammed and pay tribute.
1458 Death of Joannes as he is forming a great league against
the Ottomans. A four-year-old son is set aside in favour of
his brother =David= who continues Joannes’ work on the league.
1461 Siege and capture of Trebizond by Muhammed II. End of
the empire of Trebizond. David retires to Mavronaros which he
receives in exchange for his empire, and a few years later is
put to death at Constantinople for refusing to join the Moslem
faith.
THE KINGDOM OF SALONICA (1204-1222 A.D.)
1204 In the division of the Byzantine Empire among
the crusaders, =Boniface=, marquis of Montferrat,
commander-in-chief, receives a feudatory kingdom in Asia, but
not liking to be so far from his Italian domains, he exchanges
it for the province of Macedonia with Thessalonica for his
capital. He calls it the kingdom of Salonica. He also believes
himself entitled to Crete, and exchanges it with the Venetians
for portions of Thessaly. Boniface would like to maintain an
independent realm, but Baldwin I of Romania promptly compels
him to do homage.
1204-1207 Boniface defeats attempts of the Greeks to recover
his kingdom. He marches into the Peloponnesus and lays siege
to Corinth and Argos, but is recalled by a rebellion in
Thessalonica.
1207 Death of Boniface in a skirmish with the Bulgarians.
=Demetrius= his son two years old succeeds with the queen,
Margaret, as regent.
The kingdom is protected against the prince of Epirus and the
king of Bulgaria by the Romanian emperor, until after the
death of Pierre de Courtenai.
1222 While Demetrius is still completing his education in
Italy, Theodore, prince of Epirus, conquers the kingdom and is
crowned emperor of Thessalonica. Demetrius makes unsuccessful
attempts to recover his kingdom. The title is held by the
descendants of Demetrius until William marquis of Montferrat
cedes it to the Byzantine emperor in 1284.
1266 Baldwin II, then titular emperor of Romania, granted
the kingdom of Salonica to the house of Burgundy, where it
remained until Eudes IV sold it to Philip of Tarentum, titular
emperor of Romania in 1320.
THE DESPOTAT OF EPIRUS AND EMPIRE OF THESSALONICA (1204-1469 A.D.)
1204 After the conquest of Constantinople, =Michael I=,
a natural son of Constantine Angelus and uncle of Isaac
II and Alexius III, escapes into Epirus, marries a native
lady, and establishes a government in the territory west of
the Pindus Mountains. His capital is at Joannina. It is a
typical Byzantine state, totally different from the Frankish
feudatory governments. Michael and his descendants all take
name of Angelus Comnenus Ducas. He is an able military leader,
and extends his principality over all Epirus, Acarnania,
Ætolia, and a part of Macedonia and Thessaly. He is virtually
independent, but acknowledges Theodore Lascaris I as the
lawful emperor of the East.
1214 Assassination of Michael by one of his slaves. His
brother =Theodore= succeeds, having sworn fidelity to the
throne of Nicæa. He at once begins to extend his dominions.
1217 Theodore captures the Latin emperor, Pierre de Courtenai,
who is on his way to Constantinople.
1222 Theodore drives the Lombards out of Salonica, and is
crowned emperor of Thessalonica.
_The Empire of Thessalonica_
1224 Theodore takes Hadrianopolis. His empire now extends
from the Adriatic to the Black Sea. He plans attack on
Constantinople, but becomes involved in war with John Asan of
Bulgaria.
1230 John Asan takes Theodore prisoner and puts out his eyes.
Theodore’s brother =Manuel= assumes imperial title.
1232 John Asan marries Theodore’s daughter and releases him.
Theodore returns to Thessalonica and forms party strong enough
to drive Manuel out. Theodore’s blindness prevents him from
reigning, so his son =Joannes= takes the title. Manuel escapes
to Nicæa and returns with aid from Joannes Vatatzes, but
Theodore persuades him and his brother Constantine to aid in
defending the empire against Nicæa.
1234 Vatatzes takes Thessalonica. Joannes compelled to give up
imperial dignity and assume rank of despot.
_The Despotat of Epirus_
1244 =Demetrius= succeeds his brother Joannes.
1246 Joannes Vatatzes, owing to disputes, drives Demetrius
from office and unites Thessalonica to the Greek Empire. A
natural son of Michael I, Michael is, however, in possession
of a portion of the despotat and the blind Theodore of
another. Joannes Vatatzes makes =Michael II= despot under
promise of absolute fidelity, but Theodore,
1251-1255 by his intrigues, involves Michael in war with Vatatzes.
1255 Michael delivers up Theodore and makes peace with
Vatatzes. Michael is expelled from his dominions, but recovers
the southern portion and rules there.
1267 Death of Michael. =Nicephorus=, his son, receives title
and marries daughter of Theodore Lascaris II. He extends his
territory in Acarnania and Ætolia.
1290 Nicephorus attacked by Andronicus II and the Genoese, but
he repels them with help of the prince of Achaia and the count
of Cephalonia.
1293 Death of Nicephorus. His son =Thomas= succeeds.
1318 Murder of Thomas by his nephew, =Thomas II=, the count
of Cephalonia, who is murdered by his wife =Anne=, who is
guardian of her son, Nicephorus II, twelve years old, when in
1337 Andronicus III invades the country. Anne turns the despotat
over to him. Nicephorus killed, 1358, in a battle with the
Albanians while attempting to recover the despotat.
_The Wallachian Princes of Thessaly_
1259 =Joannes Ducas I=, natural son of the despot Michael
II, marries daughter of the Wallachian chief in Thessaly. He
founds an independent government, fighting with or against
Epirus or Constantinople, as suits his interests.
1290 Succeeded by his son, name not known.
1300 =Joannes Ducas (II)= succeeds under guardianship of Guy
II, duke of Athens, his cousin.
1308 On death of Joannes, his possessions are divided among
the frontier states.
_The Servian Despots of Epirus_
1367 =Thomas Prelubos= recognised by Stephen Dushan as prince
of Joannina or Arta.
1385 Assassination of Prelubos on account of his cruelties.
His widow marries =Esau Buondelmonte=, who wars with the
Albanians until captured in 1399.
_The Tocco Family in Epirus (Despotat of Romania)_
1400 =Charles Tocco=, grandson of Leonardo Tocco, who was
invested with Cephalonia by Robert of Tarentum, titular
emperor of Romania, invades Epirus about 1390, and finally
conquers enough territory to declare himself despot of Romania.
1429 =Charles II= succeeds his uncle.
1431 The Turks capture Joannina and Ætolia.
1433 Charles becomes a citizen of Venice in order to obtain
the protection of that republic.
1452 =Leonard= succeeds his father.
1469 The Turks drive Leonard from the throne.
THE DUCHY OF ATHENS (1205-1456 A.D.)
_The House of de la Roche_
Between the kingdom of Salonica and the Peloponnesus lie
several feudal states apportioned among the crusaders. Of
these the duchy of Athens is the most important.
1205 =Otto de la Roche=, a Burgundian noble, takes possession
of Athens. He is master of all Attica and Bœotia, but does
homage to Boniface of Salonica.
1207 On death of Boniface Thebes is taken from Otto and added
to Salonica, but is returned later by Henry of Romania.
1225 Otto prefers to return to his fief in France and resigns
in favour of his nephew, =Guy I=.
1264 =John= succeeds his father. He assists Joannes Ducas
against the Byzantine army and forms a close alliance with him
later on. John captured in the battle of Oreus by the forces
of Michael VIII and is released without payment of ransom.
1275 John succeeded by his brother, =William I=.
1280 William assumes the government of Achaia during minority
of Isabella Villehardouin.
1290 Death of William. His son, =Guy II=, succeeds.
1293 Guy is invited to administer the dominions of the despot
of Wallachia, his ward. Anna, widow of Nicephorus of Epirus,
prepares to attack him, but withdraws through fear.
1304 Guy on his marriage to Maud of Hainault receives a fief
in the Morea, but claims the whole principality of Achaia.
1308 Death of Guy before he can force his claim. His cousin,
=Walter de Brienne=, succeeds.
_The House of Brienne_
The despots of Epirus and Wallachia threaten invasion. Walter
makes alliance with Catalan Grand Company for defence and
1310 Walter defeats his enemies, but the Catalans refuse to quit
the land.
1311 The Catalans defeat Walter at the battle of Cephisus. The
Frankish power falls in northern Greece; the house of Brienne
still holds fiefs in Nauplia and Argos.
_The Catalan Grand Company_
=Roger Deslau= appointed duke of Athens. His dominions are
extended north and west.
_The House of Aragon, Duke of Athens and Neopatras_
1326 On death of Roger, =Manfred=, son of Frederick II of
Sicily, is invested with the duchy, which becomes an appanage
of the house of Aragon.
1330 =William=, Manfred’s brother, succeeds.
1331 The son of Walter de Brienne makes unsuccessful attempt
to regain duchy.
1338 =John=, brother of William and Manfred, succeeds.
1348 =Frederick=, marquis of Randazzo, son of John, succeeds.
He never visits Athens.
1355 =Frederick III=, king of Sicily, succeeds the marquis of
Randazzo.
1377 =Maria=, daughter of Frederick III, succeeds to the duchy.
1386 Conquest of Athens by Nerio Acciajuoli, governor of
Corinth, in a war concerning the countess of Salona and her
heritage.
_The House of Acciajuoli_
1394 =Nerio I= confirmed in the duchy by King Ladislaus of
Naples. Nerio taken prisoner by Navarrese troops and purchases
his liberty. Death of Nerio; his natural son, =Antonio=,
succeeds. Bajazet recognises his authority. Athens enjoys a
tranquil rule of forty years.
1435 =Nerio II=, grand-nephew of Nerio I, succeeds on death of
Antonio. The administration comes into hands of his brother,
Antonio, while Nerio is in western Europe.
1443 Nerio pays tribute to the despot of Morea.
1450 Nerio joins forces with Muhammed II and becomes Ottoman
vassal.
1453 Infant son of Nerio succeeds on his father’s death with
his mother as regent.
1455 Muhammed orders duchy conferred on =Franco=, nephew of
Nerio II.
1456 Muhammed finding the Athenians disgusted with Franco
annexes duchy to the Ottoman Empire.
There are other feudal states north of the isthmus of Corinth,
ruled by the lords of Budonitza, Salona, and Negropont, but
details of their history are lacking. Like Athens they are
finally merged in the Ottoman Empire.
THE PRINCIPALITY OF ACHAIA (1205-1460 A.D.)
1205-1208 =Guillaume de Champlitte=, receiving territory in
the Peloponnesus as his share of the Byzantine Empire, is
joined by Geoffrey Villehardouin, nephew of the chronicler,
and conquering about half the peninsula within three years
organises a strong feudal government. Geoffrey is his most
important feudal vassal, and receives the fief of Kalamata.
1210 Guillaume returns to France leaving his relative Hugh
in charge, but the latter dying, Geoffrey is elected in his
place. =Geoffrey= possesses himself of the principality. He
strengthens it in every possible way.
1218 =Geoffrey II= succeeds his father.
1219-1222 Serious quarrel of Geoffrey with the pope. The ban
of excommunication is finally removed.
1246 Death of Geoffrey. His brother =Guillaume Villehardouin=
succeeds. He proposes to complete conquest of Peloponnesus.
1247 Conquest of Nauplia with help of Venetians of Modon.
1248 Conquest of Monemvasia. Before the end of the year the
entire Peloponnesus is under Frankish domination.
1259 Guillaume assists his father-in-law Michael II of Epirus
in his war against Michael VIII of Constantinople. Battle of
Pelagonia, and capture of Guillaume, by Michael VIII.
1261 Guillaume released by ceding Monemvasia, Misithra, and
Maina, three strong cities, to Michael VIII.
Pope Urban IV releases Guillaume from promise not to wage war
on Michael. Warfare results in the Morea.
1263 Urban IV mediates between Michael and Guillaume.
1267 The principality becomes a dependency of the kingdom of
Naples, having been that of the Romanian emperors.
1277 Death of Guillaume. His daughter =Isabella= succeeds.
1278 Death of Isabella’s husband Philip of Anjou. =Guillaume
de la Roche=, duke of Athens, governs for ten years.
1291 Isabella marries Florenz of Hainault.
1297 Death of Florenz and end of last prosperous period of the
principality. The suzerainty of Achaia has been transferred to
Philip of Tarentum.
1301 Isabella marries Philip of Savoy.
1304 Isabella and Philip leave Greece in consequence of
disputes with their vassals and with Philip of Tarentum.
1311 Death of Isabella in Italy. Her daughter =Maud of
Hainault=, widow of Guy II of Athens, succeeds.
1313 Maud marries Louis of Burgundy.
1315 Maud and Louis leave for Greece. Ferdinand of Majorca
claims principality and sets out to take it.
1316 Death of Ferdinand in battle with Louis.
1317 Death of Louis. The house of Anjou try to marry Maud to
Count John of Gravina, but finds she has already married Hugh
de la Pallisse. King of Naples declares this marriage null,
and Maud is compelled to go through ceremony with John. She
is then imprisoned and dies about 1324. =Philip of Tarentum=
takes title of prince.
1332 =Robert=, titular emperor of Romania, succeeds his father
Philip as prince, while his mother Catherine of Valois becomes
suzerain. John of Gravina still disputes the principality.
The Achæan barons fail in attempt to transfer their fealty to
Constantinople and to Don Jayme II of Majorca.
1346 At death of Catherine de Valois, Robert becomes suzerain
of Achaia as well as prince.
1364 Death of Robert, leaving principality to his widow =Mary=
of Bourbon, the suzerainty devolving on Philip III titular
emperor of Romania. Mary establishes herself in Greece, but is
unable to hold the position.
1373 James de Baux becomes suzerain.
1387 Mary retires to Italy. She is last sovereign to rule
over the whole of the principality. Achaia falls into a state
of anarchy. The country is ravaged by the Seljuk and Ottoman
Turks; the strategi and despots of the Palæologus family
established by the emperor of Constantinople in the Morean
territory that was the price of William Villehardouin’s
ransom, gradually reconquer the Peloponnesus from the French
feudal lords. About 1425, Murad II sets about ruining the
Byzantine possessions in the Peloponnesus. After this the
Ottoman power in the land steadily increases. In 1458 Muhammed
II visits the Peloponnesus, and it is finally conquered by
him in 1460, except some cities still in the hands of the
Venetians. For world-historic interest, perhaps the most
important feature of the feudal states in Greece is thus
stated by Finlay: “The Franks ruled the greater part of the
Peloponnesus for two centuries, and the feudal system which
they introduced was maintained in full vigour for sufficient
time to admit of its effects on civilised communities living
under the simpler system of personal rights, traced out in
the Roman law, being fully developed. The result was that the
Franks were demoralised, the Greeks impoverished, and Greece
ruined.”
THE VENETIAN ACQUISITIONS (1207-1566 A.D.)
In the partition of the Byzantine Empire, the republic of
Venice receives about three-eighths of the whole empire of
Romania; but her resources not being adequate to conquer
this amount of territory, she makes no effort to take a
considerable portion of her share. We have seen how a portion
of Thessaly was exchanged with Boniface of Montferrat, and
a considerable amount of land falls into the hands of the
other adventurers. Venice pursues the policy, allowing her
barons personally to conquer certain territories, on condition
that they be held as fiefs of the republic. Thus the Dandolo
and Viaro families take Gallipoli and the island of Andros;
the Ghisi seize Tinos, Scyros, Mycone, and other islands.
Ceos falls to the Justiniani and Michicle, Lemnos to the
Navigajosa, Astypalia to the Quirini. The twelve islands of
the Archipelago forming the Byzantine theme of the Ægean Sea
are taken by Mark Sanduno. He invades Naxos about 1207. The
Sanduno and Della Carceri rule the islands, vassals of Romania
and Venice--uneventful rules in which a fierce Seljuk invasion
of Naxos in 1330 is perhaps the most important event--until
1381 when through conspiracy the Crispo family seizes the
duchy. In the treaty between Muhammed II and Venice after
the capture of Constantinople, the dukes of the Archipelago
act as subjects of Venice. When the republic and the Ottoman
Empire engage in hostilities, the duke of the Archipelago is
compelled to become a vassal of the Sublime Porte, 1537. In
1566, on complaint of the Greek residents, the sultan Selim II
seizes the duchy and adds it to his empire, and the last fief
of the Romanian Empire is extinguished.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER I
THE REIGN OF ARCADIUS
[395-408 A.D.]
The Emperor Theodosius I died in Mediolanum on the 17th of January,
395, after a long illness. A few months before this he had defeated at
Frigidus, in the pass of the Julian Alps, Eugenius, the second pretender
to lay claim to the throne during his reign. The pious monarch met
his death in a different manner from his young co-rulers, Gratian and
Valentinian II, but as had many of his predecessors. No murderous steel
of mercenary aspirants put an end to his life, but surrounded by faithful
friends and followers, and attended by the venerable Bishop Ambrose, his
great soul departed from a body long worn out with trouble and anxiety
and the many struggles of an almost incessant war. He was not old when
he died, for having been born in 346 he had not yet reached the age
of fifty, and so, according to the prospect of longevity, it had been
thought that he would have a much longer reign.
There had never been a more prosperous time for the Roman world than just
then; for, after the defeat of Eugenius, the whole of the Roman Empire
had once more passed under the undivided control of one man. Theodosius
with his two-sided policy--openly to welcome the Germans pressing into
his country, if they agreed to keep peace and friendship, or strongly to
oppose their hostile advances--would have been well able to withstand
the overcrowding of the west by the tribes persecuted by the Huns for
many years longer; but the death of so powerful an enemy, who was greatly
feared even by the barbarians, was the signal for an internal rising as
well as for an external revolt.
In the midst of all this trouble and distress the ruler now died, leaving
the kingdom to his two sons Arcadius and Honorius, the former but a
youth, the latter a child of eleven years. With regard to the dividing
of the empire, that was all settled, at least as far as Arcadius was
concerned, for it was certainly not on his death-bed that the careful
Theodosius had first considered the matter. The eastern half, formerly
ruled by the father, was left to Arcadius as the elder son; whilst before
the murder of Valentinian II a part of the Occident was probably intended
to be divided between him (Valentinian) and Honorius.
A COMPARISON OF THE TWO EMPIRES
[Sidenote: [395 A.D.]]
The Western Empire consisted of Britain as far as the frontier wall of
Hadrian, of Gaul, of Germany up to the _limes transrhenanus_, of Spain,
of Italy, of the western part of the province of Illyricum which embraced
Noricum, Pannonia, and Dalmatia, and of which the boundary stretched
southeastwards from the mouth of the Scodra (Scutari) over the Bosnian
Mountains, along the Drinus (Drina) to the Savus (Save), and of the
entire north coast of Africa from the Atlantic Ocean to the Barca plain.
The eastern half bequeathed to Arcadius included the Balkan peninsula,
bound on the north by the Danube, Asia Minor, the Tauric peninsula
(Crimea), Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Lower Libya, and the Pentapolis.
A mere glance on the map shows that the area of the western half by far
exceeded that of the east. Indeed, Honorius’ realm spread over about
one and one half times the area of that of his brother Arcadius. The
productiveness and fertility of the individual quarters of the Occident
also exceeded that of the Orient; Britain, the farthest link of the
Western Roman Empire, brought, according to Strabo’s report, tin from the
Cornwall peninsula, corn and splendid cattle from the flat southeast;
from the hills of the west and north, gold, silver, and ore. The Gauls
were renowned pig and sheep breeders, Italy supplied cloth and pickled
meats, whilst the flat north and east produced such quantities of grain
that at the end of the fourth century the inhabitants of Rome could well
have dispensed with the corn sent from Africa and had their wheat brought
from Gaul. Spain, although not successful in the cultivation of grain,
was amply compensated by the splendid wines which it produced; the rivers
yielded gold dust, the mountains silver, copper, and iron, and the sea a
wealth of fish.
Africa, owing to the fertility which for centuries filled the granaries
of Rome, was so thickly populated that in the fourth century there were
123 bishops’ sees in Numidia, and 170 in the consular province of Africa,
compared with which Tripolis on the borders of the Sahara was far behind.
Italy was and is still to a far greater extent a land of agriculture than
Greece.
The Eastern Empire on the other hand shows at first glance a remarkable
lack of flat land and a great number of mountains. The Balkan peninsula,
for instance, is almost entirely composed of chains of mountains which
cross and recross in such a manner as to render exploration very
difficult; even up to the present day little is known of the country.
Owing to the mountainous character of the Balkan peninsula only a portion
of the ground (of which to-day 30 per cent. is unproductive in Turkey,
but in Greece quite 58.9 per cent.) could be cultivated. The expansive
north was so favourable to the cultivation of corn, especially in the
valleys near the rivers, that Thrace once enjoyed the distinction of
producing the finest and heaviest wheat for exportation to Greece;
whilst in Greece itself only Thessaly and Bœotia were noted for their
agricultural soil, the remaining districts being best suited to pasture
land for cattle.
Furthermore, in Asia Minor and on the east coast of the Mediterranean but
a part of the land repays the trouble of cultivation, for it is only the
western valleys of the rivers emptying themselves into the Ægean Sea and
the northern border of the Black Sea which yield good harvests of wine,
oil, and corn; for the Mediterranean coast, with the exception of the
rich district of Adana, offers no specially productive ground.
The eastern portion of the Roman Empire, though certainly far behind the
west not only in size but also in its products, enjoyed in other ways
many advantages denied to the Occident. On account of the vastness of the
Western Empire the various cities and places of importance were widely
scattered and separated from the chief centre by great distances, which
arrangement was undoubtedly advantageous to discontented legions and
ambitious officers desirous of revolting against the lawful head of the
state. The wide expanse to the northwest, however, occasioned a fatal
lengthening of the eastern border line guarded by the easily crossed
Rhine and Danube.
The Orient, on the contrary, had its sole coast-line bound by the
Mediterranean, a much navigated and frequented sea. No city or town was
separated from the others by long stretches of land, for the sea enabled
the troops from one garrison to reach another in a few days. The Danube
was a weak defence against the barbarians marching from the north, and
the natural highway of Baku would not lead invaders into the valley of
a river opening into Asia Minor, but straight into Armenia, which being
full of chasms and ravines, was easy to defend. Even in the case of an
invasion from the north the whole of the East, excepting Egypt, would
offer but wild uninhabited country to the enemy.
It was not only the sameness of climate and the consequent similarity of
products which bound the various divisions of the East closer together
than were those of the West, but it was rather the one spiritual
teaching and the equable advancement of education which placed the
Orient before the Occident. This latter dominion had two great works of
civilisation before it--to instil religious knowledge into the minds
of the inhabitants of the northwestern provinces, and to introduce
Catholic Christianity, as yet unknown to them. The East on the other
hand consisted entirely of pure Greeks or of those who had long learned
not only to speak but to think in Greek from their ancestors who, seven
centuries before, had accompanied Alexander in his glorious triumphal
march to the Hydaspes. The whole populace had long since been turned from
the Arian belief, so that any differences in the interpretation of a
dogma were now taken up and carefully thought over by all, rich and poor,
from north to south alike.
In the Occident, however, there was a strong pagan party at court which
had only been outwardly overthrown by the downfall of Eugenius, and
needed but a favourable opportunity to reproclaim polytheism, even though
it were at the cost of their patriotism.
Ambrose states that Theodosius, when on his death-bed, was far more
concerned about the sanctity of the church than the welfare of the state,
for he little thought that the two portions of his empire would be
separated and become as two worlds with totally different histories. He
died in the firm belief that his sons and descendants would never lose
sight of the value and importance of unity, and that each would make his
own the perils of the other.
By reason of this the two dominions remained united, at least to all
outward appearances, for many centuries. All laws and regulations of both
were without exception headed by the names of the two rulers, and they
were all drawn up in Latin up to the time of Justinian; the year was then
as now named after the two consuls, one of whom was appointed by each
division.
In Europe north of the Danube the country was being constantly invaded,
and consequently the neighbouring provinces, such as Scythia, Mœsia
Secunda, Dacia Ripensis, and Mœsia Prima, had numerous troops which
were under the command of _duces_. Thirty-one regiments of cavalry,
thirty-nine auxiliaries, a portion of which consisted of well-trained
scouts (_exploratores_), thirty-two legiones riparenses, three of them
being exploratores, and three detachments of sailors (_nauclerii_)
were quartered in the numerous fortresses situated either right on the
banks of the Danube or as close as possible, especially in Noviodunum,
Durostorum, Viminacium, Cebrum, and Margus. The whole of the active
military forces consisted, as far as infantry is concerned, of seventy
legions, which, all told, would present an army of 420,000 men and thus
exceed the Turkish peace army of 151,129 (in war 758,000 men) which
occupied that territory in 1885.
As the frontiers of the country were so well protected it may be
supposed, though there is but scanty information on the subject, that
there was also a strong navy. The fleet served to protect military
transports and the grain ships, and helped in the transmission of troops
and baggage.
The Eastern as well as the Western Empire had a fleet on the Rhine and on
the Danube controlled by those governing the army in that quarter, but
the positions of the stations cannot be given with certainty.
Arms for the entire forces by land and by sea were manufactured in
enormous state factories, the post of a workman being an hereditary one,
like that of a decurio. Everything was under the direct supervision
of the magister officiorum. In the Orient Damascus forged shields and
other weapons, and Antioch shields and mail for horse and man. In Odessa
shields and necessaries for fitting out the ships were manufactured,
and in Irenopolis (Cilicia) spears and lances. The diocese of Pontus in
Cæsarea (Cappadocia) supplied mail and shields; in Asia there was only
one manufactory for weapons and that was in Sardis, whilst in Thrace for
the same purpose there were many buildings.
GREATNESS OF CONSTANTINOPLE
The capital of the Eastern dominions, now separated forever from the
Western, was Constantinople, the city which had hitherto stood second to
Rome. It would be impossible even to compare its history and existence
with that of Rome, yet, owing to its excellent position, it was superior.
It would have been the greatest possible mistake for Constantine the
Great to have chosen either Sardica, Thessalonica, the territory of Ilium
or Chalcedon, between which places he hesitated some time, to be the new
Rome of the East, for however richly nature may have endowed them all, to
elect any one would have seemed but the satisfying of a princely caprice;
as Constantinople on the straits of the Bosporus was then and always will
be the one natural city commanding the whole of the Balkan peninsula,
Asia Minor, and the numerous seas and rivers uniting at this spot.
Where is such another city on the main sea to be found on which nature’s
favours have been so profusely showered? It is from here that the way
leads by Thessalonica and Dyrrhachium to the Occident; by Philippopolis,
Hadrianopolis, Sardica, and along the Morava into the heart of Europe; on
the other side one goes across country over the plains of Asia Minor to
the great metropolis of Antioch, to Babylon, and yet further on straight
to the spices, pearls, and precious stones of rich India. By sea the way
is open to the rich corn districts on the coast of Pontus, eastward to
Trebizond, the Phasis, and still further in this direction is Tiflis with
the Caspian Sea and central Asia; southward to the flourishing Grecian
colonies on the west coast of Asia Minor and past Rhodes to the valuable
land of Egypt; and lastly southwards to the island world in the Ægean
Sea, Athens, and away to the west of the Mediterranean. Constantinople
was specially suited to the carrying on of such a gigantic shipping
trade, since, in the deeply indented “Golden Horn,” it possessed one of
the most beautiful and best sheltered harbours that may be found the
world over.
For the maintenance of the inhabitants the sea was richly supplied
with fish, and millions of tunny fish passed yearly through the sea
of Marmora, which when caught were salted and smoked. Although in the
course of years this wealth of fish began to diminish, a number of the
people could and do still earn their livelihood by fishing; for besides
this special species quantities of sword-fish, anchovies, etc., are
caught. The land provided hares, swine, and pheasants, splendid quail and
partridges, and the generally mild climate was favourable to the growth
of nourishing figs.
[Illustration: BYZANTINE EMPEROR
(Based on Mongez)]
Although the environs of Thrace had in earlier days supplied sufficient
wheat to supply the wants of the people, the increase of population now
demanded more food, and Pontian and Egyptian corn were introduced into
the country.
Unfortunately this city, otherwise so perfect, was frequently disturbed
by earthquakes, sometimes accompanied by great upheavals of the sea;
but in spite of the unsafe foundations of the buildings, especially of
the larger and more important ones, the emperors did not hesitate to
enrich the city, rebuilt by Constantine the Great in 330, with imposing
edifices. As Constantine himself, with a perennial passion for building,
had endeavoured to cover the land for about fifteen furlongs around the
city with edifices of every possible kind, the succeeding emperors were
not to be thought lacking; and so, up to the time when the two empires
were separated, the residences of the emperors on the seven hills in
the fourteen departments were, according to models of Rome, of no mean
pretensions.
In the first division, which took in the east points of the neck of
land washed by the Golden Horn and the Bosporus, was the great imperial
palace, which included, besides the private residence of the emperor,
with the throne room and the apartment made entirely of porphyry in which
the princes and princesses were born, the houses of all the chief people
in office at court, extensive laundries, and a host of most beautiful
halls, courts, and gardens. Other palaces were attached, as the one
inhabited by Theodosius’ daughter Placidia, and there were also fifteen
private baths supplied by the warm springs of Arcadia; and through the
chalœ, with its surrounding piazza and gilded roofed entrance, the way
led to the second division, in which stood the “great church” built
by Constantine and rebuilt later by Justinian as St. Sophia, and the
residences of the senators, all carried out in the best style with the
costliest marble. The inartistic Constantine had had the statues of the
Rhodian Zeus and the Athene of Lindos taken from their original standing
places and put in front of these buildings. Lastly came the Baths of
Zeuxippus in the Grove of Zeus, sufficiently immense to enable two
thousand men to bathe there daily.[b]
THE EAST AND THE WEST
The number and importance of the Gothic forces in the Roman armies during
the reign of Theodosius had enabled several of their commanders to
attain the highest rank; and among these officers, Alaric was the most
distinguished by his future greatness.
The death of Theodosius threw the administration of the Eastern Empire
into the hands of Rufinus, the minister of Arcadius; and that of the
Western, into those of Stilicho, the guardian of Honorius. The discordant
elements which composed the Roman Empire began to reveal all their
incongruities under these two ministers. Rufinus was a civilian from
Gaul; and, from his Roman habits and feelings and western prejudices,
disagreeable to the Greeks. Stilicho was of barbarian descent, and
consequently equally unacceptable to the aristocracy of Rome; but he
was an able and popular soldier, and had served with distinction both
in the East and in the West. As Stilicho was the husband of Serena, the
niece and adopted daughter of Theodosius the Great, his alliance with
the imperial family gave him an unusual influence in the administration.
The two ministers hated one another with all the violence of aspiring
ambition; and, unrestrained by any feeling of patriotism, each was more
intent on ruining his rival than on serving the state. The greater number
of the officers in the Roman service, both civil and military, were
equally inclined to sacrifice every public duty for the gratification of
their avarice or ambition.
ALARIC’S REVOLT
At this time Alaric, partly from disgust at not receiving all the
preferment which he expected, and partly in the hope of compelling the
government of the Eastern Empire to agree to his terms, quitted the
imperial service and retired towards the frontiers, where he assembled
a force sufficiently large to enable him to act independently of all
authority. Availing himself of the disputes between the ministers of the
two emperors, and perhaps instigated by Rufinus or Stilicho to aid their
intrigues, he established himself in the provinces to the south of the
Danube. In the year 395 he advanced to the walls of Constantinople; but
the movement was evidently a feint, as he must have known his inability
to attack a large and populous city defended by a powerful garrison, and
which even in ordinary times received the greater part of its supplies by
sea. After this demonstration, Alaric marched into Thrace and Macedonia,
and extended his ravages into Thessaly. Rufinus has been accused of
assisting Alaric’s invasion, and his negotiations with him while in
the vicinity of Constantinople authorise the suspicion. When the Goth
found the northern provinces exhausted, he resolved to invade Greece and
Peloponnesus, which had long enjoyed profound tranquillity. The cowardly
behaviour of Antiochus the proconsul of Achaia, and of Gerontius the
commander of the Roman troops, both friends of Rufinus, was considered a
confirmation of his treachery. Thermopylæ was left unguarded, and Alaric
entered Greece without encountering any resistance.
The ravages committed by Alaric’s army have been described in fearful
terms; villages and towns were burned, the men were murdered, and the
women and children carried away to be sold as slaves by the Goths. But
even this invasion affords proofs that Greece had recovered from the
desolate condition in which it had been seen by Pausanias. The walls of
Thebes had been rebuilt, and it was in such a state of defence that
Alaric could not venture to besiege it, but hurried forward to Athens. He
concluded a treaty with the civil and military authorities, which enabled
him to enter that city without opposition; his success was probably
assisted by treacherous arrangements with Rufinus, and by the treaty with
the municipal authorities, which secured the town from being plundered by
the Gothic soldiers; for he appears to have really occupied Athens rather
as a federate leader than as a foreign conqueror.
The tale recorded by Zosimus[e] of the Christian Alaric having been
induced by the apparition of the goddess Minerva to spare Athens, is
refuted by the direct testimony of other writers, who mention the
capitulation of the city. The fact that the depredations of Alaric
hardly exceeded the ordinary license of a rebellious general, is, at the
same time, perfectly established. The public buildings and monuments
of ancient splendour suffered no wanton destruction from his visit;
but there can be no doubt that Alaric and his troops levied heavy
contributions on the city and its inhabitants. Athens evidently owed
its good treatment to the condition of its population, and perhaps to
the strength of its walls, which imposed some respect on the Goths;
for the rest of Attica did not escape the usual fate of the districts
through which the barbarians marched. The town of Eleusis, and the great
temple of Ceres, were plundered and then destroyed. Whether this work of
devastation was caused by the Christian monks who attended the Gothic
host, and excited their bigoted Arian votaries to avenge the cause of
religion on the temples of the pagans at Eleusis, because they had
been compelled to spare the shrines at Athens, or whether it was the
accidental effect of the eager desire of plunder or of the wanton love
of destruction among a disorderly body of troops, is not very material.
Bigoted monks, avaricious officers, and disorderly soldiers were numerous
in Alaric’s band.
Gerontius, who had abandoned the pass of Thermopylæ, took no measures to
defend the Isthmus of Corinth, or the difficult passes of Mount Geranion,
so that Alaric marched unopposed into the Peloponnesus, and, in a short
time, captured every city in it without meeting with any resistance.
Corinth, Argos, and Sparta, were all plundered by the Goths. The security
in which Greece had long remained, and the policy of the government,
which discouraged their independent institutions, had conspired to
leave the province without protection, and the people without arms.
The facility which Alaric met with in effecting his conquest, and his
views, which were directed to obtain an establishment in the empire as an
imperial officer or feudatory governor, rendered the conduct of his army
not that of avowed enemies. Yet it often happened that they laid waste
everything in the line of their march, burned villages, and massacred the
inhabitants.
Alaric passed the winter in the Peloponnesus without encountering any
opposition from the people; yet many of the Greek cities still kept a
body of municipal police, which might surely have taken the field, had
the imperial officers performed their duty and endeavoured to organise
a regular resistance in the country districts. The moderation of the
Goth, and the treason of the Roman governor, seem both attested by this
circumstance. The government of the Eastern Empire had fallen into such
disorder at the commencement of the reign of Arcadius, that even after
Rufinus had been assassinated by the army the new ministers of the empire
gave themselves very little concern about the fate of Greece.
Honorius had a more able, active, and ambitious minister in Stilicho,
and he determined to punish the Goths for their audacity in daring to
establish themselves in the empire without the imperial authority.
Stilicho had attempted to save Thessaly in the preceding year, but had
been compelled to return to Italy, after he had reached Thessalonica,
by an express order of the emperor Arcadius, or rather of his minister
Rufinus. In the spring of the year 396, he assembled a fleet at Ravenna,
and transported his army directly to Corinth, which the Goths do not
appear to have garrisoned, and where, probably, the Roman governor still
resided. Stilicho’s army, aided by the inhabitants, soon cleared the
open country of the Gothic bands, and Alaric drew together the remains
of his diminished army in the elevated plain of Mount Pholoe, which has
since served as a point of retreat for the northern invaders of Greece.
Stilicho contented himself with occupying the passes with his army; but
his carelessness, or the relaxed discipline of his troops, soon afforded
the watchful Alaric an opportunity of escaping with his army, of carrying
off all the plunder which they had collected, and, by forced marches, of
gaining the Isthmus of Corinth.
[Sidenote: [395-396 A.D.]]
Alaric succeeded in conducting his army into Epirus, where he disposed
his forces to govern and plunder that province, as he had expected
to rule Peloponnesus. Stilicho was supposed to have winked at his
proceedings, in order to render his own services indispensable by leaving
a dangerous enemy in the heart of the Eastern Empire; but the truth
appears to be that Alaric availed himself so ably of the jealousy with
which the court of Constantinople viewed the proceedings of Stilicho, as
to negotiate a treaty, by which he was received into the Roman service,
and that he really entered Epirus as a general of Arcadius. Stilicho was
again ordered to retire from the Eastern Empire, and he obeyed rather
than commence a civil war by pursuing Alaric. The conduct of the Gothic
troops in Epirus was, perhaps, quite as orderly as that of the Roman
legionaries; so that Alaric was probably welcomed as a protector when he
obtained the appointment of commander-in-chief of the imperial forces
in eastern Illyricum, which he held for four years. During this time
he prepared his troops to seek his fortune in the Western Empire. The
military commanders, whether Roman or barbarian, were equally indifferent
to the fate of the people whom they were employed to defend; and the
Greeks appear to have suffered equal oppression from the armies of
Stilicho and Alaric.
[Illustration: BYZANTINE PEASANT]
The condition of the European Greeks underwent a great change for the
worse, in consequence of this unfortunate plundering expedition of the
Goths. The destruction of their property and the loss of their slaves
were so great, that the evil could only have been slowly repaired under
the best government and perfect security of their possessions. In the
miserable condition to which the Eastern Empire was reduced, this was
hopeless; and a long period elapsed before the mass of the population of
Greece again attained the prosperous condition in which Alaric had found
it; nor were some of the cities which he destroyed ever rebuilt. The ruin
of roads, aqueducts, cisterns, and public buildings, erected by the
accumulation of capital in prosperous and enterprising ages, was a loss
which could never be repaired by a diminished and impoverished population.
History generally preserves but few traces of the devastations which
affect only the people; but the sudden misery inflicted on Greece was so
great, when contrasted with her previous tranquillity, that testimonies
of her sufferings are to be found in the laws of the empire. Her
condition excited the compassion of the government during the reign of
Theodosius II. There exists a law which exempts the cities of Illyricum
from the charge of contributing towards the expenses of the public
spectacles at Constantinople, in consequence of the sufferings which the
ravages of the Goths and the oppressive administration of Alaric had
inflicted on the inhabitants. There is another law which proves that many
estates were without owners, in consequence of the depopulation caused by
the Gothic invasions; and a third law relieves Greece from two-thirds of
the ordinary contributions to government, in consequence of the poverty
to which the inhabitants were reduced.
This unfortunate period is as remarkable for the devastations committed
by the Huns in Asia as for those of the Goths in Europe, and marks the
commencement of the rapid decrease of the Greek race and of the decline
of Greek civilisation throughout the empire. While Alaric was laying
waste the provinces of European Greece, an army of Huns from the banks
of the Tanais penetrated through Armenia into Cappadocia, and extended
their ravages over Syria, Cilicia, and Mesopotamia. Antioch, at last,
resisted their assaults and arrested their progress; but they took many
Greek cities of importance, and inflicted an incalculable injury on the
population of the provinces which they entered. In a few months they
retreated to their seats on the Palus Mæotis, having contributed much
to accelerate the ruin of the richest and most populous portion of the
civilised world.[c]
EUTROPIUS THE EUNUCH
[Sidenote: [396-399 A.D.]]
The first events of the reign of Arcadius and Honorius are so intimately
connected that the rebellion of the Goths and the fall of Rufinus have
already claimed a place in the history of the West.
Eutropius, one of the principal eunuchs of the palace of Constantinople,
succeeded the haughty minister whose ruin he had accomplished, and
whose vices he soon imitated. Every order of the state bowed to the
new favourite; and their tame and obsequious submission encouraged him
to insult the laws and, what is still more difficult and dangerous,
the manners of his country. Under the weakest of the predecessors of
Arcadius, the reign of the eunuchs had been secret and almost invisible.
They insinuated themselves into the confidence of the prince; but their
ostensible functions were confined to the menial service of the wardrobe
and imperial bedchamber.
Now in the senate, the capital, and the provinces, the statues of
Eutropius were erected in brass or marble, decorated with the symbols
of his civil and military virtues, and inscribed with the pompous
title of the third founder of Constantinople. He was promoted to the
rank of patrician, which began to signify, in a popular and even legal
acceptation, the father of the emperor; and the last year of the fourth
century was polluted by the consulship of a eunuch and a slave.
The bold and vigorous mind of Rufinus seems to have been actuated by a
more sanguinary and revengeful spirit; but the avarice of the eunuch was
not less insatiate than that of the prefect. As long as he despoiled the
oppressors, who had enriched themselves with the plunder of the people,
Eutropius might gratify his covetous disposition without much envy or
injustice; but the progress of his rapine soon invaded the wealth which
had been acquired by lawful inheritance or laudable industry.
Among the generals and consuls of the East, Abundantius had reason to
dread the first effects of the resentment of Eutropius. He had been
guilty of the unpardonable crime of introducing that abject slave to the
palace of Constantinople; and some degree of praise must be allowed to
a powerful and ungrateful favourite who was satisfied with the disgrace
of his benefactor. Abundantius was stripped of his ample fortunes by
an imperial rescript, and banished to Pityus, on the Euxine, the last
frontier of the Roman world, where he subsisted by the precarious mercy
of the barbarians, till he could obtain, after the fall of Eutropius, a
milder exile at Sidon in Phœnicia.
The destruction of Timasius required a more serious and regular mode
of attack. That great officer, the master-general of the armies of
Theodosius, had signalised his valour by a decisive victory which he
obtained over the Goths of Thessaly; but he was too prone, after the
example of his sovereign, to enjoy the luxury of peace and to abandon
his confidence to wicked and designing flatterers. Timasius had despised
the public clamour, by promoting an infamous dependent to the command
of a cohort; and he deserved to feel the ingratitude of Bargus, who
was secretly instigated by the favourite to accuse his patron of a
treasonable conspiracy.
The general was arraigned before the tribunal of Arcadius himself; and
the principal eunuch stood by the side of the throne to suggest the
questions and answers of his sovereign. But as this form of trial might
be deemed partial and arbitrary, the further inquiry into the crimes
of Timasius was delegated to Saturninus and Procopius; the former of
consular rank, the latter still respected as the father-in-law of the
emperor Valens. The appearances of a fair and legal proceeding were
maintained by the blunt honesty of Procopius; and he yielded with
reluctance to the obsequious dexterity of his colleague, who pronounced
a sentence of condemnation against the unfortunate Timasius. His immense
riches were confiscated, in the name of the emperor and for the benefit
of the favourite; and he was doomed to perpetual exile at Oasis, a
solitary spot in the midst of the sandy deserts of Libya (399).
The public hatred and the despair of individuals, continually threatened,
or seemed to threaten, the personal safety of Eutropius, as well as of
the numerous adherents who were attached to his fortune and had been
promoted by his venal favour. For their mutual defence, he contrived
the safeguard of a law, which violated every principle of humanity and
justice.
(1) It is enacted, in the name and by the authority of Arcadius, that all
those who shall conspire, either with subjects or with strangers, against
the lives of any of the persons whom the emperor considers as the members
of his own body, shall be punished with death and confiscation.
(2) This extreme severity might, perhaps, be justified, had it been
only directed to secure the representatives of the sovereign from any
actual violence in the execution of their office. But the whole body
of imperial dependents claimed a privilege, or rather impunity, which
screened them, in the loosest moments of their lives, from the hasty,
perhaps the justifiable, resentment of their fellow-citizens; and, by a
strange perversion of the laws, the same degree of guilt and punishment
was applied to a private quarrel and to a deliberate conspiracy against
the emperor and the empire. The edict of Arcadius most positively and
most absurdly declares that, in such cases of treason, thoughts and
actions ought to be punished with equal severity; that the knowledge of a
mischievous intention, unless it be instantly revealed, becomes equally
criminal with the intention itself; and that those rash men who shall
presume to solicit the pardon of traitors, shall themselves be branded
with public and perpetual infamy.
(3) “With regard to the sons of the traitors,” continues the emperor,
“although they ought to share the punishment, since they will probably
imitate the guilt, of their parents, yet, by the special effect of our
imperial lenity, we grant them their lives; but, at the same time, we
declare them incapable of inheriting, either on the father’s or on the
mother’s side, or of receiving any gift or legacy from the testament
either of kinsmen or of strangers. Stigmatised with hereditary infamy,
excluded from the hopes of honours or fortune, let them endure the pangs
of poverty and contempt, till they shall consider life as a calamity,
and death as a comfort and relief.” In such words, so well adapted to
insult the feelings of mankind, did the emperor, or rather his favourite
eunuch, applaud the moderation of a law which transferred the same unjust
and inhuman penalties to the children of all those who had seconded or
who had not disclosed these fictitious conspiracies. Some of the noblest
regulations of Roman jurisprudence have been suffered to expire; but
this edict, a convenient and forcible engine of ministerial tyranny, was
carefully inserted in the codes of Theodosius and Justinian; and the
same maxims have been revived in modern ages to protect the electors of
Germany and the cardinals of the church of Rome.
TRIBIGILD THE OSTROGOTH; THE FALL OF EUTROPIUS
[Sidenote: [399-400 A.D.]]
Yet the sanguinary laws which spread terror among a disarmed and
dispirited people were of too weak a texture to restrain the bold
enterprise of Tribigild the Ostrogoth. The colony of that warlike nation,
which had been planted by Theodosius in one of the most fertile districts
of Phrygia, impatiently compared the slow returns of laborious husbandry
with the successful rapine and liberal rewards of Alaric; and their
leader resented, as a personal affront, his own ungracious reception in
the palace of Constantinople.
A soft and wealthy province, in the heart of the empire, was astonished
by the sound of war; and the faithful vassal who had been disregarded or
oppressed was again respected as soon as he resumed the hostile character
of a barbarian. The vineyards and fruitful fields, between the rapid
Marsyas and the winding Mæander, were consumed with fire; the decayed
walls of the city crumbled into dust at the first stroke of an enemy;
the trembling inhabitants escaped from a bloody massacre to the shores
of the Hellespont; and a considerable part of Asia Minor was desolated
by the rebellion of Tribigild. His rapid progress was checked by the
resistance of the peasants of Pamphylia; and the Ostrogoths, attacked in
a narrow pass, between the city of Selgæ, a deep morass, and the craggy
cliffs of Mount Taurus, were defeated with the loss of their bravest
troops. But the spirit of their chief was not daunted by misfortune; and
his army was continually recruited by swarms of barbarians and outlaws,
who were desirous of exercising the profession of robbery under the
more honourable names of war and conquest. The rumours of the success
of Tribigild might for some time be suppressed by fear or disguised by
flattery; yet they gradually alarmed both the court and the capital.
The approach of danger and the obstinacy of Tribigild, who refused all
terms of accommodation, compelled Eutropius to summon a council of war.
After claiming for himself the privilege of a veteran soldier, the eunuch
intrusted the guard of Thrace and the Hellespont to Gainas the Goth, and
the command of the Asiatic army to his favourite Leo; two generals who
differently, but effectually, promoted the cause of the rebels. Leo, who
from the bulk of his body and the dulness of his mind was surnamed the
Ajax of the East, had deserted his original trade of a woolcomber to
exercise, with much less skill and success, the military profession; and
his uncertain operations were capriciously framed and executed, with an
ignorance of real difficulties and a timorous neglect of every favourable
opportunity. The rashness of the Ostrogoths had drawn them into a
disadvantageous position between the rivers Melas and Eurymedon, where
they were almost besieged by the peasants of Pamphylia; but the arrival
of an imperial army, instead of completing their destruction, afforded
the means of safety and victory. Tribigild surprised the unguarded
camp of the Romans in the darkness of the night; seduced the faith of
the greater part of the barbarian auxiliaries, and dissipated, without
much effort, the troops which had been corrupted by the relaxation of
discipline and the luxury of the capital.
The bold satirist, who has indulged his discontent by the partial and
passionate censure of the Christian emperors, violates the dignity rather
than the truth of history by comparing the son of Theodosius to one of
those harmless and simple animals who scarcely feel that they are the
property of their shepherd. Two passions, however, fear and conjugal
affection, awakened the languid soul of Arcadius; he was terrified by the
threats of a victorious barbarian; and he yielded to the tender eloquence
of his wife, Eudoxia, who, with a flood of artificial tears, presenting
her infant children to their father, implored his justice for some real
or imaginary insult which she imputed to the audacious eunuch. The
emperor’s hand was directed to sign the condemnation of Eutropius; the
magic spell, which during four years had bound the prince and the people,
was instantly dissolved; and the acclamations that so lately hailed the
merit and fortune of the favourite, were converted into the clamours
of the soldiers and people, who reproached his crimes and pressed his
immediate execution.
In this hour of distress and despair his only refuge was in the sanctuary
of the church, whose privileges he had wisely or profanely attempted
to circumscribe; and the most eloquent of the saints, John Chrysostom,
enjoyed the triumph of protecting a prostrate minister, whose choice
had raised him to the ecclesiastical throne of Constantinople. The
archbishop, ascending the pulpit of the cathedral, that he might be
distinctly seen and heard by an innumerable crowd of either sex and
of every age, pronounced a seasonable and pathetic discourse on the
forgiveness of injuries and the instability of human greatness. The
agonies of the pale and affrighted wretch who lay grovelling under the
table of the altar, exhibited a solemn and instructive spectacle; and
the orator, who was afterwards accused of insulting the misfortunes of
Eutropius, laboured to excite the contempt that he might assuage the fury
of the people. The powers of humanity, of superstition, and of eloquence
prevailed. The empress Eudoxia was restrained, by her own prejudices or
by those of her subjects, from violating the sanctuary of the church; and
Eutropius was tempted to capitulate, by the milder arts of persuasion and
by an oath that his life should be spared.
Careless of the dignity of their sovereign, the new ministers of the
palace immediately published an edict to declare that his late favourite
had disgraced the names of consul and patrician, to abolish his
statues, to confiscate his wealth, and to inflict a perpetual exile in
the island of Cyprus. A despicable and decrepit eunuch could no longer
alarm the fears of his enemies; nor was he capable of enjoying what yet
remained--the comforts of peace, of solitude, and of a happy climate. But
their implacable revenge still envied him the last moments of a miserable
life, and Eutropius had no sooner touched the shores of Cyprus than he
was hastily recalled. The vain hope of eluding by a change of place the
obligation of an oath, engaged the empress to transfer the scene of
his trial and execution from Constantinople to the adjacent suburb of
Chalcedon. The consul Aurelian pronounced the sentence; and the motives
of that sentence expose the jurisprudence of a despotic government.
The crimes which Eutropius had committed against the people might have
justified his death, but he was found guilty of harnessing to his chariot
the sacred animals which, from their breed or colour, were reserved for
the use of the emperor alone.
While this domestic revolution was transacted, Gainas openly revolted
from his allegiance; united his forces, at Thyatira in Lydia, with those
of Tribigild; and still maintained his superior ascendant over the
rebellious leader of the Ostrogoths. The confederate armies advanced,
without resistance, to the straits of the Hellespont and the Bosporus;
and Arcadius was instructed to prevent the loss of his Asiatic dominions
by resigning his authority and his person to the faith of the barbarians.
The church of the holy martyr Euphemia, situate on a lofty eminence near
Chalcedon, was chosen for the place of the interview. Gainas bowed with
reverence at the feet of the emperor, whilst he required the sacrifice
of Aurelian and Saturninus, two ministers of consular rank; and their
naked necks were exposed by the haughty rebel to the edge of the sword,
till he condescended to grant them a precarious and disgraceful respite.
The Goths, according to the terms of the agreement, were immediately
transported from Asia into Europe; and their victorious chief, who
accepted the title of master-general of the Roman armies, soon filled
Constantinople with his troops and distributed among his dependents the
honours and rewards of the empire.
[Illustration: BYZANTINE PRIEST]
In his early youth, Gainas had passed the Danube as a suppliant and
a fugitive; his elevation had been the work of valour and fortune,
and his indiscreet or perfidious conduct was the cause of his rapid
downfall. Notwithstanding the vigorous opposition of the archbishop,
he importunately claimed for his Arian sectaries the possession of a
peculiar church; and the pride of the Catholics was offended by the
public toleration of heresy. [The Emperor, at Gainas’ demand, melted the
plate of the church of the Apostles.]
[Sidenote: [400-401 A.D.]]
Every quarter of Constantinople was filled with tumult and disorder; and
the barbarians gazed with such ardour on the rich shops of the jewellers
and the tables of the bankers, which were covered with gold and silver,
that it was judged prudent to remove those dangerous temptations from
their sight. They resented the injurious precaution; and some alarming
attempts were made, during the night, to attack and destroy with fire the
imperial palace. In this state of mutual and suspicious hostility, the
guards and the people of Constantinople shut the gates and rose in arms
to prevent or to punish the conspiracy of the Goths. During the absence
of Gainas, his troops were surprised and oppressed; seven thousand
barbarians perished in this bloody massacre. In the fury of the pursuit
the Catholics uncovered the roof, and continued to throw down flaming
logs of wood, till they overwhelmed their adversaries, who had retreated
to the church or conventicle of the Arians. Gainas was either innocent
of the design or too confident of his success; he was astonished by the
intelligence that the flower of his army had been ingloriously destroyed,
that he himself was declared a public enemy, and that his countryman,
Fravitta, a brave and loyal confederate, had assumed the management of
the war by sea and land.
The enterprises of the rebel against the cities of Thrace were
encountered by a firm and well-ordered defence; his hungry soldiers were
soon reduced to the grass that grew on the margin of the fortifications;
and Gainas, who vainly regretted the wealth and luxury of Asia, embraced
a desperate resolution of forcing the passage of the Hellespont. He was
destitute of vessels; but the woods of the Chersonesus afforded material
for rafts, and his intrepid barbarians did not refuse to trust themselves
to the waves. But Fravitta attentively watched the progress of their
undertaking. As soon as they had gained the middle of the stream, the
Roman galleys, impelled by the full force of oars, of the current, and of
a favourable wind, rushed forwards in compact order and with irresistible
weight; and the Hellespont was covered with the fragments of the Gothic
shipwreck.
After the destruction of his hopes and the loss of many thousands of
his bravest soldiers, Gainas, who could no longer aspire to govern or
to subdue the Romans, determined to resume the independence of a savage
life. A light and active body of barbarian horse, disengaged from their
infantry and baggage, might perform in eight or ten days a march of three
hundred miles from the Hellespont to the Danube. This design was secretly
communicated to the national troops, who devoted themselves to the
fortunes of their leader; and before the signal of departure was given, a
great number of provincial auxiliaries whom he suspected of an attachment
to their native country, were perfidiously massacred.
But a formidable ally appeared in arms to vindicate the majesty of the
empire, and to guard the peace and liberty of Scythia. The superior
forces of Uldin, king of the Huns, opposed the progress of Gainas; a
hostile and ruined country prohibited his retreat; he disdained to
capitulate, and after repeatedly attempting to cut his way through the
ranks of the enemy, he was slain, with his desperate followers, in the
field of battle. Eleven days after the naval victory of the Hellespont,
the head of Gainas, the inestimable gift of the conqueror, was received
at Constantinople with the most liberal expressions of gratitude; and the
public deliverance was celebrated by festivals and illuminations. The
triumphs of Arcadius became the subject of epic poems; and the monarch,
no longer oppressed by any hostile terrors, resigned himself to the mild
and absolute dominion of his wife, the fair and artful Eudoxia, who has
sullied her fame by the persecution of St. John Chrysostom.
ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM
[Sidenote: [398-403 A.D.]]
Born of a noble and opulent family in the capital of Syria, Chrysostom
had been educated by the care of a tender mother, under the tuition of
the most skilful masters. His piety soon disposed him to renounce the
lucrative and honourable profession of the law, and to bury himself
in the adjacent desert, where he subdued the lusts of the flesh by an
austere penance of six years. His infirmities compelled him to return to
the society of mankind, but in the midst of his family and afterwards on
the archiepiscopal throne Chrysostom still persevered in the practice
of the monastic virtues. The ample revenues which his predecessors had
consumed in pomp and luxury he diligently applied to the establishment
of hospitals; and the multitudes who were supported by his charity
preferred the eloquent and edifying discourses of their archbishop to the
amusements of the theatre or the circus.
The pastoral labours of the archbishop of Constantinople provoked and
gradually united against him two sorts of enemies--the aspiring clergy
who envied his success, and the obstinate sinners who were offended by
his reproofs. [Chrysostom’s sermons from the pulpit of St. Sophia on the
degeneracy of the Christians had their severest application in court
circles where there was a large share of guilt to be divided among a
relatively small number of criminals.] The secret resentment of the court
encouraged the discontent of the clergy and monks of Constantinople,
who were too hastily reformed by the fervent zeal of their archbishop.
He had condemned from the pulpit the domestic females of the clergy of
Constantinople, who, under the name of servants or sisters, afforded a
perpetual occasion either of sin or of scandal.
The silent and solitary ascetics who had secluded themselves from the
world were entitled to the warmest approbation of Chrysostom; but he
despised and stigmatised, as the disgrace of their holy profession, the
crowd of degenerate monks who, from some unworthy motives of pleasure
or profit, so frequently infested the streets of the capital. To the
voice of persuasion the archbishop was obliged to add the terrors of
authority; and his ardour in the exercise of ecclesiastical jurisdiction
was not always exempt from passion; nor was it always guided by prudence.
Chrysostom was naturally of a choleric disposition. Although he
struggled, according to the precepts of the gospel, to love his private
enemies, he indulged himself in the privilege of hating the enemies of
God and of the church; and his sentiments were sometimes delivered with
too much energy of countenance and expression.
Conscious of the purity of his intentions, and perhaps of the superiority
of his genius, the archbishop of Constantinople extended the jurisdiction
of the imperial city, that he might enlarge the sphere of his pastoral
labours; and the conduct which the profane imputed to an ambitious motive
appeared to Chrysostom himself in the light of a sacred and indispensable
duty. In his visitation through the Asiatic provinces, he deposed
thirteen bishops of Lydia and Phrygia; and indiscreetly declared that
a deep corruption of simony and licentiousness had infected the whole
episcopal order. If those bishops were innocent, such a rash and unjust
condemnation must excite a well-grounded discontent. If they were guilty,
the numerous associates of their guilt would soon discover that their
own safety depended on the ruin of the archbishop, whom they studied to
represent as the tyrant of the Eastern church.
This ecclesiastical conspiracy was managed by Theophilus, archbishop of
Alexandria, an active and ambitious prelate, who displayed the fruits of
rapine in monuments of ostentation. His national dislike to the rising
greatness of a city which degraded him from the second to the third rank
in the Christian world, was exasperated by some personal disputes with
Chrysostom himself. By the private invitation of the empress, Theophilus
landed at Constantinople with a stout body of Egyptian mariners to
encounter the populace, and a train of dependent bishops to secure, by
their voices, the majority of a synod.
[Sidenote: [403-404 A.D.]]
The synod was convened in the suburb of Chalcedon, surnamed the Oak,
where Rufinus had erected a stately church and monastery; and their
proceedings were continued during fourteen days or sessions. A bishop
and a deacon accused the archbishop of Constantinople; but the frivolous
or improbable nature of the forty-seven articles which they presented
against him may justly be considered as a fair and unexceptionable
panegyric. Four successive summons were signified to Chrysostom; but he
still refused to trust either his person or his reputation in the hands
of his implacable enemies, who, prudently declining the examination
of any particular charges, condemned his contumacious disobedience
and hastily pronounced a sentence of deposition. The synod of the Oak
immediately addressed the emperor to ratify and execute their judgment,
and charitably insinuated that the penalties of treason might be
inflicted on the audacious preacher, who had reviled, under the name of
Jezebel, the empress Eudoxia herself. The archbishop was rudely arrested,
and conducted through the city by one of the imperial messengers, who
landed him, after a short navigation, near the entrance of the Euxine;
but two days later he was gloriously recalled.
The first astonishment of his faithful people had been mute and passive;
they suddenly rose with unanimous and irresistible fury. Theophilus
escaped; but the promiscuous crowd of monks and Egyptian mariners was
slaughtered without pity in the streets of Constantinople. A seasonable
earthquake justified the interposition of heaven; the torrent of sedition
rolled forwards to the gates of the palace; and the empress, agitated
by fear or remorse, threw herself at the feet of Arcadius and confessed
that the public safety could be purchased only by the restoration of
Chrysostom.
The short interval of a perfidious truce was employed to concert more
effectual measures for the disgrace and ruin of the archbishop. A
numerous council of the Eastern prelates, who were guided from a distance
by the advice of Theophilus, confirmed the validity, without examining
the justice, of the former sentence; and a detachment of barbarian
troops was introduced into the city, to suppress the emotions of the
people. On the vigil of Easter, the solemn administration of baptism
was rudely interrupted by the soldiers, who alarmed the modesty of the
naked catechumens, and violated by their presence the awful mysteries
of the Christian worship. Arsacius occupied the church of St. Sophia
and the archiepiscopal throne. The Catholics retreated to the baths
of Constantine, and afterwards to the fields; where they were still
pursued and insulted by the guards, the bishops, and the magistrates. The
fatal day of the second and final exile of Chrysostom was marked by the
conflagration of the cathedral, of the senate house, and of the adjacent
buildings; and this calamity was imputed, without proof but not without
probability, to the despair of a persecuted faction.
Instead of listening to his humble prayer that he might be permitted to
reside at Cyzicus or Nicomedia, the inflexible empress assigned for his
exile the remote and desolate town of Cucusus, among the ridges of Mount
Taurus in the Lesser Armenia. A secret hope was entertained that the
archbishop might perish in a difficult and dangerous march of seventy
days, in the heat of summer, through the provinces of Asia Minor, where
he was continually threatened by the hostile attacks of the Isaurians and
the more implacable fury of the monks. Yet Chrysostom arrived in safety
at the place of his confinement; and the three years which he spent
at Cucusus, and the neighbouring town of Arabissus, were the last and
most glorious of his life. His character was consecrated by absence and
persecution; the faults of his administration were no longer remembered,
but every tongue repeated the praises of his genius and virtue; and the
respectful attention of the Christian world was fixed on a desert spot
among the mountains of Taurus.
[Sidenote: [404-408 A.D.]]
From that solitude the archbishop, his active mind invigorated by
misfortunes, maintained a strict and frequent correspondence with
the most distant provinces; exhorted the separate congregation of
his faithful adherents to persevere in their allegiance; urged the
destruction of the temples of Phœnicia, and the extirpation of heresy in
the isle of Cyprus; extended his pastoral care to the missions of Persia
and Scythia; negotiated, by his ambassadors, with the Roman pontiff
and the emperor Honorius; and boldly appealed from a partial synod to
the supreme tribunal of a free and general council. The mind of the
illustrious exile was still independent; but his captive body was exposed
to the revenge of the oppressors, who continued to abuse the name and
authority of Arcadius. An order was despatched for the instant removal of
Chrysostom to the extreme desert of Pityus; and his guards so faithfully
obeyed their cruel instructions that, before he reached the sea-coast
of the Euxine, he expired at Comana, in Pontus, in the sixtieth year of
his age. The succeeding generation acknowledged his innocence and merit.
The archbishops of the East, who might blush that their predecessors had
been the enemies of Chrysostom, were gradually disposed, by the firmness
of the Roman pontiff, to restore the honours of that venerable name. At
the pious solicitation of the clergy and people of Constantinople, his
relics, thirty years after his death, were transported from their obscure
sepulchre to the royal city. The emperor Theodosius advanced to receive
them as far as Chalcedon; and falling prostrate on the coffin implored,
in the name of his guilty parents, Arcadius and Eudoxia, the forgiveness
of the injured saint. Yet a reasonable doubt may be entertained whether
any stain of hereditary guilt could be derived from Arcadius to his
successor. Eudoxia was a young and beautiful woman, who indulged her
passions and despised her husband; Count John enjoyed, at least, the
confidence of the empress; and the public named him as the real father
of Theodosius the Younger. The birth of a son was accepted, however,
by the pious husband as an event the most fortunate and honourable to
himself, to his family, and to the Eastern world. In less than four
years afterwards, Eudoxia, in the bloom of youth, was destroyed by the
consequence of a miscarriage (404), and in four more years (May, 408),
after a reign (if we may abuse that word) of thirteen years, three months
and fifteen days, Arcadius expired in the palace of Constantinople. It is
impossible to delineate his character; since in a period very copiously
furnished with historical materials, it has not been possible to remark
one action that properly belongs to the son of the great Theodosius.[d]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER II. REIGN OF THEODOSIUS THE YOUNGER TO THE ELEVATION OF JUSTINIAN
[408-527 A.D.]
[Sidenote: [408-444 A.D.]]
Arcadius was succeeded by his son Theodosius, who at the time of his
father’s death was a mere child. The Roman world was deeply interested
in the education of its master. A regular course of study and exercise
was judiciously instituted, of the military exercises of riding and
shooting with the bow; of the liberal studies of grammar, rhetoric, and
philosophy; the most skilful masters of the East ambitiously solicited
the attention of their royal pupil, and several noble youths were
introduced into the palace, to animate his diligence by the emulation of
friendship. Pulcheria alone discharged the important task of instructing
her brother in the arts of government; but her precepts may countenance
some suspicion of the extent of her capacity or of the purity of her
intentions.[1]
But Theodosius was never excited to support the weight and glory of an
illustrious name; and instead of aspiring to imitate his ancestors, he
degenerated (if we may presume to measure the degrees of incapacity)
below the weakness of his father and his uncle. Arcadius and Honorius
had been assisted by the guardian care of a parent whose lessons were
enforced by his authority and example. But the unfortunate prince who is
born in the purple must remain a stranger to the voice of truth; and the
son of Arcadius was condemned to pass his perpetual infancy encompassed
only by a servile train of women and eunuchs. The ample leisure which
he acquired by neglecting the essential duties of his high office, was
filled by idle amusements and unprofitable studies. Hunting was the only
active pursuit that could tempt him beyond the limits of the palace; but
he most assiduously laboured in the mechanic occupations of painting
and carving; and the elegance with which he transcribed religious books
entitled the Roman emperor to the singular epithet of Calligraphes, or a
fair writer.
Separated from the world by an impenetrable veil, Theodosius trusted
the persons whom he loved; he loved those who were accustomed to amuse
and flatter his indolence, and as he never perused the papers that
were presented for the royal signature, acts of injustice the most
repugnant to his character were frequently perpetrated in his name. The
emperor himself was chaste, temperate, liberal, and merciful; but these
qualities, which can only deserve the name of virtues when they are
supported by courage and regulated by discretion, were seldom beneficial
and they sometimes proved mischievous to mankind. His mind, enervated by
a royal education, was oppressed and degraded by abject superstition; he
fasted, he sang psalms, he blindly accepted the miracles and doctrines
with which his faith was continually nourished. He devoutly worshipped
the dead and living saints of the Catholic church.
The story of a fair and virtuous maiden exalted from a private condition
to the imperial throne might be deemed an incredible romance, if such
a romance had not been verified in the marriage of Theodosius. The
celebrated Athenais was educated by her father Leontius in the religion
and sciences of the Greeks; and so advantageous was the opinion which
the Athenian philosopher entertained of his contemporaries, that he
divided his patrimony between his two sons, bequeathing to his daughter
a small legacy of one hundred pieces of gold, in the lively confidence
that her beauty and merit would be a sufficient portion. The jealousy
and avarice of her brothers soon compelled Athenais to seek a refuge at
Constantinople; and, with some hopes either of justice or favour, to
throw herself at the feet of Pulcheria. That sagacious princess listened
to her eloquent complaint; and secretly destined the daughter of the
philosopher Leontius for the future wife of the emperor of the East, who
had now attained the twentieth year of his age.
Athenais, who was easily persuaded to renounce the errors of paganism,
received at her baptism the Christian name of Eudocia; but the cautious
Pulcheria withheld the title of Augusta till the wife of Theodosius had
approved her fruitfulness by the birth of a daughter, who espoused,
fifteen years afterwards, the emperor of the West. The brothers of
Eudocia obeyed, with some anxiety, her imperial summons; but as she could
easily forgive their fortunate unkindness, she indulged the tenderness,
or perhaps the vanity, of a sister, by promoting them to the rank of
consuls and prefects. In the luxury of the palace she still cultivated
those ingenuous arts which had contributed to her greatness; and wisely
dedicated her talents to the honour of religion and of her husband.
Eudocia composed a poetical paraphrase of the first eight books of the
Old Testament, and of the prophecies of Daniel and Zachariah; a cento
of the verses of Homer, applied to the life and miracles of Christ,
the legend of St. Cyprian, and a panegyric on the Persian victories of
Theodosius; and her writings, which were applauded by a servile and
superstitious age, have not been disdained by the candour of impartial
criticism.
[Sidenote: [420-460 A.D.]]
The fondness of the emperor was not abated by time and possession; and
Eudocia, after the marriage of her daughter, was permitted to discharge
her grateful vows by a solemn pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Her ostentatious
progress through the East may seem inconsistent with the spirit of
Christian humility. But this pilgrimage was the fatal term of the glories
of Eudocia. Satiated with empty pomp, and unmindful perhaps of her
obligations to Pulcheria, she ambitiously aspired to the government of
the Eastern Empire; the palace was distracted by female discord, but the
victory was at last decided by the superior ascendant of the sister of
Theodosius.
As soon as the empress perceived that the affection of Theodosius was
irretrievably lost, she requested the permission of retiring to the
distant solitude of Jerusalem. She obtained her request; but the
jealousy of Theodosius, or the vindictive spirit of Pulcheria, pursued
her in her last retreat. The remainder of the life of Eudocia, about
sixteen years, was spent in exile and devotion; and the approach of age,
the death of Theodosius, the misfortunes of her only daughter, who was
led a captive from Rome to Carthage, and the society of the holy monks of
Palestine, insensibly confirmed the religious temper of her mind. After
a full experience of the vicissitudes of human life, the daughter of the
philosopher Leontius expired at Jerusalem, in the sixty-seventh year of
her age; protesting with her dying breath that she had never transgressed
the bounds of innocence and friendship (460).[2]
The gentle mind of Theodosius was never inflamed by the ambition of
conquest or military renown, and the slight alarm of a Persian war
scarcely interrupted the tranquillity of the East. The motives of this
war were just and honourable. In the last year of the reign of Jezdegerd,
the Persian king, a bishop, who aspired to the crown of martyrdom,
destroyed one of the fire-temples of Susa. His zeal and obstinacy were
revenged on his brethren: the Magi excited a cruel persecution; and the
intolerant zeal of Jezdegerd was imitated by his son Varanes, or Bahram,
who soon afterwards ascended the throne. Some Christian fugitives, who
escaped to the Roman frontier, were sternly demanded and generously
refused; and the refusal, aggravated by commercial disputes, soon kindled
a war between the rival monarchies. The mountains of Armenia and the
plains of Mesopotamia were filled with hostile armies; but the operations
of two successive campaigns were not productive of any decisive events.
A truce of one hundred years was solemnly ratified, and although the
revolution of Armenia might threaten the public tranquillity, the
essential conditions of the treaty were respected near fourscore years by
the successors of Constantine and Artaxerxes.[b]
Before taking up the subject of the coming of the Huns the following
extract from J. B. Bury’s _History of the Later Roman Empire_ will enable
the reader to understand how it was that the barbaric invasions had such
different effects on the Eastern and Western divisions of the Empire.[a]
“When we read the chronicles of the reign of Theodosius II, we at
first receive the impression that it was a period of few important
events, though set with curious stories. The invasions of Attila and
the general council of Ephesus are the only facts which seem to stand
out prominently in the chronicles, while they are full of stories and
interesting traits which attract the imagination, such as the life of
Athenais, the martyrdom of Hypatia, the monastic life of the imperial
votaries Pulcheria and her sisters, the story of the waking of the seven
sleepers--the young saints who in the reign of Decius had fallen asleep
in a cave. But on further study we come to the conclusion that it was a
period of capital importance,--a period in which the empire was passing a
vital crisis.
“To an unprejudiced observer in the reign of Arcadius it might have
seemed that the empire in its eastern parts was doomed to a speedy
decline. One possessed of the insight of Synesius might have thought
it impossible that it could last for eight hundred years more when he
considered the threatening masses of barbarians who environed it, the
corruptions and divisions of the imperial court, the oppression of the
subjects, and all the evils which Synesius actually pointed out. For
with the beginning of the fifth century a critical time approached for
the whole empire. At the end of the same century we find that while the
western half had been found wanting in the day of its trial, the eastern
half had passed the crisis and all the dangers successfully; we find
strong and prudent emperors ruling at New Rome, disposed to alleviate the
burdens of the subjects, and in the court a different atmosphere from
that of the days of Arcadius.
“Now the significance of the reign of Theodosius II is that it was
the transition from the court of Arcadius to the court of the steady
reforming emperors in the latter half of the century, and it partook of
both characters. This double-sidedness is its peculiarity. Theodosius
was weak, like his father, but he was not so weak, and he seems to
have profited more by his education. The senate struggles with effect
against irresponsible officialism, and although we hear that there was
venality and corruption in the days of Pulcheria, a great improvement
is in progress. In the chronicles we do not hear much about the senate,
everything is attributed to Pulcheria or Theodosius; but the words of
Socrates that the emperor was much beloved ‘by the senate and people’
are significant, and there is no doubt that the much-lauded wisdom of
Pulcheria’s regency consisted in the wisdom of the senate which she
supported. And although towards the close of the reign eunuchs had
power, the ground gained by the senate was not lost; the spirit of
its administration and the lines of its policy were followed by the
succeeding emperors, and it guided the state safely through a most
momentous period which proved fatal to the integrity of the western
provinces.
“The two most important acts of Theodosius were the foundation of a
university at Constantinople and the compilation of the code called after
his name. The inauguration of the university was an important measure for
Byzantine life, and indicates the enlightenment of Theodosius’ reign. It
was intended to supersede the university of Athens, the headquarters of
paganism, and thereby to further the cause of Christianity.
“In the year 429 Theodosius determined to form a collection of all the
constitutions issued by the ‘renowned Constantine, the divine emperors
who succeeded him, and ourselves.’ The new code was to be drawn up on
the model of the Gregorian and Hermogenian codes, and the execution of
the work was entrusted to a commission of nine persons, among whom was
Apelles, professor of law at the new university. In 438 the work was
completed and published.”[e]
THE HUNS
[Sidenote: [175-375 A.D.]]
The question of the race affinities of the Huns has been the occasion for
a great deal of controversy. By various writers they have been connected
with the Mongols, the Turks, the Ugrians, etc., but as yet no agreement
has been reached that has placed this question on a safe basis.[a]
The history of the Huns is generally commenced with the narratives of
Ammianus Marcellinus and Jordanes; but they were known in Europe at an
earlier date. Ptolemy (175-182 A.D.) mentions the Chunni between the
Bastarnæ and Roxolani, and places them on the Dnieper; but Schafarik
suggests that this may be an interpolated passage; see the _Slavische
Alterthümer_, 1-322. Dionysius Periegetes, about 200 A.D., names them
among the borderers of the Caspian, in this order: Scyths, Huns,
Caspiani, Albani.
[Sidenote: [375-451 A.D.]]
It was in 374 or 375 that the Huns made their first really important
advance into Europe. Jordanes tells us their leader was named Balamir,
or, as some of the Mss. make it, Balamber; see Thierry, _History of
Attila and His Successors_, p. 617. Ammianus tells us that the Huns,
being excited by an unrestrainable desire of plundering the possessions
of others, went on ravaging and slaughtering all the nations in their
neighbourhood, till they reached the Alani. Having attacked and defeated
them, they enlisted them in their service, and then proceeded to invade
the empire of the Ostrogoths, or Grutungs, ruled over by Hermanric.
Having been beaten in two encounters with them, Hermanric committed
suicide. His son, Withimir, continued the struggle; but was also defeated
and killed in battle, and the Ostrogoths became subject to the Huns. The
latter now marched on towards the Dniester, on which lived the Visigoths
or Thervings. Athanaric, the king of the latter, took great precautions,
but was nevertheless surprised by the Huns, who forded the river in the
night, fell suddenly upon his camp, and utterly defeated him. He now
attempted to raise a line of fortifications between the Pruth and the
Danube, behind which to take shelter; but was abandoned by the greater
portion of his subjects, who, under the command of Alavivus, crossed the
Danube, and by permission of the emperor Valens settled in Thrace.
The Huns now occupied the country vacated by the Goths; they succeeded
in fact to the empire of Hermanric, and apparently subjected the
various nations over which he ruled. They did not disturb the Roman
world by their invasions for fifty years, but contented themselves
with overpowering the various tribes who lived north of the Danube, in
Sarmatia and Germany. Many of them, in fact, entered the service of the
Romans. Thus, in 405 one Huldin, a king of the Huns, assisted Honorius in
his struggle against the Visigoths of Radagaisus.
During the regency of Placidia, sixty thousand Huns were in the Roman
service, according to Thierry. Meanwhile, although they did not attack
Rome directly, the Huns were gradually forcing the tribes of Germany,
the Suevi, the Vandals, the Alans, etc., across the Rhine, and gradually
pushing themselves along the valley of the Danube. In 407, they appeared
under their chief, Octar, in the valley of the Rhine, and fought with the
Burgundians on the Main; [see Thierry]. This Octar was the brother of
Mundzuk, the father of Attila; there were two other brothers, Abarre and
Ruas, who divided between them the greater part of the Hunnic tribes.
The latter became a notable sovereign, and has lost a reputation, as so
many others have, by having a more fortunate successor. He was the friend
of Aëtius. The emperor Theodosius the Second paid him an annual stipend
of 350 pounds of gold, and created him a Roman general. This good feeling
was disturbed by the Romans having given refuge to certain revolted
Hunnic tribes, the Annuldsuri, Ithimari, Tonosuri, and Boisi (according
to Priscus, cited by Thierry), the same confederacy that, as I have
already mentioned from Jordanes was the first to cross the Mæotis. This
quarrel led to the sending of envoys who arrived after the death of Ruas,
and were received by his nephews, Attila and Bleda.
In 448, Attila conquered the Akatziri Unni, says Priscus, another Hunnic
confederacy on the Pontus, which afterwards revived under the name of
Khazars. Having destroyed their chiefs, except one named Kuridakh, he
placed his son Ellah in authority over them. He then proceeded to subdue
the various Slavic and Germanic tribes that still remained independent,
extending his conquests to the Battick. There followed the long and
generally victorious struggle which he carried on against Rome, and which
concluded with the terrible fight on the Catalaunian fields[c] [Châlons,
in which Theodoric I king of the Visigoths was slain].
AMMIANUS MARCELLINUS DESCRIBES THE HUNS
They never shelter themselves under roofed houses, but avoid them as
people ordinarily avoid sepulchres, as things not fitted for common use.
Nor is there even to be found among them a cabin thatched with reeds: but
they wander about, roaming over the mountains and the woods, and accustom
themselves to bear frost and hunger and thirst from their very cradles.
And even when abroad they never enter a house unless under the compulsion
of extreme necessity; nor, indeed, do they think people under roofs as
safe as others.
They wear linen clothes, or else garments made of the skins of
field-mice; nor do they wear a different dress out of doors from that
which they wear at home; but after a tunic is once put round their necks,
however it becomes worn, it is never taken off or changed till, from long
decay, it becomes actually so ragged as to fall to pieces.
They cover their heads with round caps, and their shaggy legs with
the skins of kids; their shoes are not made on any lasts, but are so
unshapely as to hinder them from walking with a free gait. And for this
reason they are not well suited to infantry battles, but are nearly
always on horseback, their horses being ill shaped, but hardy; and
sometimes they even sit upon them like women if they want to do anything
more conveniently. There is not a person in the whole nation who cannot
remain on his horse day and night. On horseback they buy and sell, they
take their meat and drink, and there they recline on the narrow neck of
their steed, and yield to sleep so deep as to indulge in every variety of
dream.
And when any deliberation is to take place on any weighty matter, they
all hold their common council on horseback. They are not under the
authority of a king, but are contented with the irregular government
of their nobles, and under their lead they force their way through all
obstacles.
Sometimes when provoked, they fight; and when they go into battle,
they form in a solid body, and utter all kinds of terrific yells. They
are very quick in their operations, of exceeding speed, and fond of
surprising their enemies. With a view to this, they suddenly disperse,
then reunite, and again, after having inflicted vast loss upon the enemy,
scatter themselves over the whole plain in irregular formations; always
avoiding a fort or an entrenchment.
And in one respect you may pronounce them the most formidable of all
warriors, for when at a distance they use missiles of various kinds
tipped with sharpened bones instead of the usual points of javelins,
and these bones are admirably fastened into the shaft of the javelin
or arrow; but when they are at close quarters they fight with the
sword, without any regard for their own safety; and often while their
antagonists are warding off their blows they entangle them with twisted
cords, so that, their hands being fettered, they lose all power of either
riding or walking.
None of them plough, or even touch a plough-handle; for they have no
settled abode, but are homeless and lawless, perpetually wandering with
their wagons, which they make their homes; in fact they seem to be people
always in flight. Their wives live in these wagons, and there weave
their miserable garments; and here too they sleep with their husbands,
and bring up their children till they reach the age of puberty; nor,
if asked, can any one of them tell you where he was born, as he was
conceived in one place, born in another at a great distance, and brought
up in another still more remote.[d]
ATTILA, KING OF THE HUNS
[Sidenote: [375-434 A.D.]]
The Western world was oppressed by the Goths and Vandals, who fled before
the Huns; but the achievements of the Huns themselves were not adequate
to their power and prosperity. Their victorious hordes had spread from
the Volga to the Danube, but the public force was exhausted by the
discord of independent chieftains; their valour was idly consumed in
obscure and predatory excursions; and they often degraded their national
dignity by condescending, for the hopes of spoil, to enlist under the
banners of their fugitive enemies. In the reign of Attila, the Huns again
became the terror of the world; and we shall now describe the character
and actions of that formidable barbarian, who alternately insulted and
invaded the East and the West, and urged the rapid downfall of the Roman
Empire.
In the tide of emigration which impetuously rolled from the confines of
China to those of Germany, the most powerful and populous tribes may
commonly be found on the verge of the Roman provinces. The accumulated
weight was sustained for a while by artificial barriers; and the easy
condescension of the emperors invited, without satisfying, the insolent
demands of the barbarians, who had acquired an eager appetite for the
luxuries of civilised life. The Hungarians, who ambitiously insert the
name of Attila among their native kings, may affirm with truth that the
hordes which were subject to his uncle Roas (Ruas) or Rugilas had formed
their encampments within the limits of modern Hungary, in a fertile
country which liberally supplied the wants of a nation of hunters and
shepherds.
In this advantageous situation, Rugilas and his valiant brothers,
who continually added to their power and reputation, commanded the
alternative of peace or war with the two empires. His alliance with
the Romans of the West was cemented by his personal friendship for the
great Aëtius, who was always secure of finding, in the barbarian camp,
a hospitable reception and a powerful support. At his solicitation, and
in the name of Joannes the usurper, sixty thousand Huns advanced to the
confines of Italy; their march and their retreat were alike expensive to
the state; and the grateful policy of Aëtius abandoned the possession of
Pannonia to his faithful confederates.
The Romans of the East were not less apprehensive of the arms of
Rugilas, which threatened the provinces, or even the capital. Some
ecclesiastical historians have destroyed the barbarians with lightning
and pestilence; but Theodosius was reduced to the more humble expedient
of stipulating an annual payment of 350 pounds of gold, and of disguising
this dishonourable tribute by the title of general, which the king of
the Huns condescended to accept. The public tranquillity was frequently
interrupted by the fierce impatience of the barbarians and the perfidious
intrigues of the Byzantine court. Four dependent nations, among whom we
may distinguish the Bavarians, disclaimed the sovereignty of the Huns;
and their revolt was encouraged and protected by a Roman alliance, till
the just claims and formidable power of Rugilas were effectually urged by
the voice of Eslaw his ambassador. Peace was the unanimous wish of the
senate. Their decree was ratified by the emperor; and two ambassadors
were named, Plinthas, a general of Scythian extraction but of consular
rank, and the quæstor Epigenes, a wise and experienced statesman, who was
recommended to that office by his ambitious colleague.
[Sidenote: [434-444 A.D.]]
The death of Rugilas suspended the progress of the treaty. His two
nephews, Attila and Bleda, who succeeded to the throne of their uncle,
consented to a personal interview with the ambassadors of Constantinople;
but as they proudly refused to dismount, the business was transacted
on horseback, in a spacious plain near the city of Margus, in the upper
Mœsia. The kings of the Huns assumed the solid benefits as well as the
vain honours of the negotiation. They dictated the conditions of peace,
and each condition was an insult to the majesty of the empire. Besides
the freedom of a safe and plentiful market on the banks of the Danube,
they required that the annual contribution should be augmented from 350
to 700 pounds of gold; that a fine or ransom of eight pieces of gold
should be paid for every Roman captive who had escaped from his barbarian
master; that the emperor should renounce all treaties and engagements
with the enemies of the Huns; and that all the fugitives who had taken
refuge in the court or provinces of Theodosius should be delivered to
the justice of their offended sovereign. This justice was rigorously
inflicted on some unfortunate youths of a royal race. They were crucified
on the territories of the empire, by the command of Attila; and as soon
as the king of the Huns had impressed the Romans with the terror of
his name, he indulged them in a short and arbitrary respite, whilst he
subdued the rebellious or independent nations of Scythia and Germany.
Attila, the son of Mundzuk, deduced his noble, perhaps his regal descent
from the ancient Huns, who had formerly contended with the monarchs of
China. His features, according to the observation of a Gothic historian,
bore the stamp of his national origin, and the portrait of Attila
exhibits the genuine deformity of a modern Kalmuck; a large head, a
swarthy complexion, small deep-seated eyes, a flat nose, a few hairs
in the place of a beard, broad shoulders, and a short square body, of
nervous strength though of a disproportioned form. The haughty step and
demeanour of the king of the Huns expressed the consciousness of his
superiority above the rest of mankind; and he had a custom of fiercely
rolling his eyes, as if he wished to enjoy the terror which he inspired.
Yet this savage hero was not inaccessible to pity; his suppliant enemies
might confide in the assurance of peace or pardon, and Attila was
considered by his subjects as a just and indulgent master. He delighted
in war; but after he had ascended the throne in a mature age, his head,
rather than his hand, achieved the conquest of the north; and the fame of
an adventurous soldier was usefully exchanged for that of a prudent and
successful general.
[Illustration: COSTUME OF A BYZANTINE EMPEROR]
The effects of personal valour are so inconsiderable, except in poetry
or romance, that victory, even among barbarians, must depend on the
degree of skill with which the passions of the multitude are combined
and guided for the service of a single man. The Scythian conquerors,
Attila and Jenghiz, surpassed their rude countrymen in art rather than
in courage; and it may be observed that the monarchies, both of the
Huns and of the Mongols, were erected by their founders on the basis of
popular superstition. The miraculous conception which fraud and credulity
ascribed to the virgin mother of Jenghiz, raised him above the level
of human nature; and the naked prophet, who, in the name of the Deity,
invested him with the empire of the earth, pointed the valour of the
Mongols with irresistible enthusiasm. The religious arts of Attila were
not less skilfully adapted to the character of his age and country.
It was natural enough that the Scythians should adore, with peculiar
devotion, the god of war; but as they were incapable of forming either
an abstract idea or a corporeal representation, they worshipped their
tutelar deity under the symbol of an iron scimitar. One of the shepherds
of the Huns perceived that a heifer, who was grazing, had wounded herself
in the foot, and curiously followed the track of the blood till he
discovered, among the long grass, the point of an ancient sword, which
he dug out of the ground and presented to Attila. That magnanimous, or
rather that artful prince accepted with pious gratitude this celestial
favour; and, as the rightful possessor of the sword of Mars, asserted his
divine and indefeasible claim to the dominion of the earth.
[Illustration: BYZANTINE IMPERIAL GUARD]
If the rites of Scythia were practised on this solemn occasion, a lofty
altar, or rather pile of fagots, three hundred yards in length and in
breadth, was raised in a spacious plain; and the sword of Mars was placed
erect on the summit of this rustic altar, which was annually consecrated
by the blood of sheep, horses, and of the hundredth captive. Whether
human sacrifices formed any part of the worship of Attila, or whether he
propitiated the god of war with the victims which he continually offered
in the field of battle, the favourite of Mars soon acquired a sacred
character, which rendered his conquests more easy and more permanent; and
the barbarian princes confessed, in the language of devotion or flattery,
that they could not presume to gaze with a steady eye on the divine
majesty of the king of the Huns. His brother Bleda, who reigned over a
considerable part of the nation, was compelled to resign his sceptre
and his life. Yet even this cruel act was attributed to a supernatural
impulse; and the vigour with which Attila wielded the sword of Mars
convinced the world that it had been reserved alone for his invincible
arm. But the extent of his empire affords the only remaining evidence of
the number and importance of his victories; and the Scythian monarch,
however ignorant of the value of science and philosophy, might perhaps
lament that his illiterate subjects were destitute of the art which could
perpetuate the memory of his exploits.
If a line of separation were drawn between the civilised and the savage
climates of the globe, between the inhabitants of cities who cultivated
the earth and the hunters and shepherds who dwelt in tents, Attila might
aspire to the title of supreme and sole monarch of the barbarians. He
alone, among the conquerors of ancient and modern times, united the two
mighty kingdoms of Germany and Scythia; and those vague appellations,
when they are applied to his reign, may be understood with an ample
latitude. Thuringia, which stretched beyond its actual limits as far
as the Danube, was in the number of his provinces; he interposed, with
the weight of a powerful neighbour, in the domestic affairs of the
Franks; and one of his lieutenants chastised, and almost exterminated,
the Burgundians of the Rhine. He subdued the islands of the ocean, the
kingdoms of Scandinavia, encompassed and divided by the waters of the
Baltic; and the Huns might derive a tribute of furs from that northern
region which has been protected from all other conquerors by the severity
of the climate and the courage of the natives.
Towards the east it is difficult to circumscribe the dominion of Attila
over the Scythian deserts; yet we may be assured that he reigned on the
banks of the Volga; that the king of the Huns was dreaded, not only as
a warrior, but as a magician; that he insulted and vanquished the khan
of the formidable Geougen; and that he sent ambassadors to negotiate
an equal alliance with the empire of China. In the proud review of
the nations who acknowledged the sovereignty of Attila and who never
entertained, during his lifetime, the thought of a revolt, the Gepidæ and
the Ostrogoths were distinguished by their numbers, their bravery, and
the personal merit of their chiefs.
The ambassadors of the Huns might awaken the attention of Theodosius by
reminding him that they were his neighbours, both in Europe and Asia;
since they touched the Danube on one hand, and reached with the other
as far as the Tanais. In the reign of his father Arcadius, a band of
adventurous Huns had ravaged the provinces of the East; from whence they
brought away rich spoils and innumerable captives. They advanced, by a
secret path, along the shores of the Caspian Sea; traversed the snowy
mountains of Armenia; passed the Tigris, the Euphrates, and the Halys;
recruited their weary cavalry with the generous breed of Cappadocian
horses; occupied the hilly country of Cilicia, and disturbed the festal
songs and dances of the citizens of Antioch. Egypt trembled at their
approach; and the monks and pilgrims of the Holy Land prepared to escape
their fury by a speedy embarkation. The memory of this invasion was
still recent in the minds of the Orientals. The subjects of Attila might
execute, with superior forces, the design which these adventurers had so
boldly attempted; and it soon became the subject of anxious conjecture
whether the tempest would fall on the dominions of Rome or of Persia.
Some of the great vassals of the king of the Huns, who were themselves
in the rank of powerful princes, had been sent to ratify an alliance and
society of arms with the emperor, or rather with the general, of the
West. They related, during their residence at Rome, the circumstances of
an expedition which they had lately made into the East. After passing
a desert and a morass, supposed by the Romans to be the lake Mæotis,
they penetrated through the mountains, and arrived at the end of fifteen
days’ march on the confines of Media, where they advanced as far as the
unknown cities of Basic and Cursic. They encountered the Persian army
in the plains of Media; and the air, according to their own expression,
was darkened by a cloud of arrows. But the Huns were obliged to retire
before the numbers of the enemy. Their laborious retreat was effected
by a different road; they lost the greatest part of their booty; and at
length returned to the royal camp, with some knowledge of the country and
an impatient desire for revenge.
[Sidenote: [441-447 A.D.]]
In the free conversation of the imperial ambassadors, who discussed at
the court of Attila the character and designs of their formidable enemy,
the ministers of Constantinople expressed their hope that his strength
might be diverted and employed in a long and doubtful contest with the
princes of the house of Sassan. The more sagacious Italians admonished
their Eastern brethren of the folly and danger of such a hope, and
convinced them that the Medes and Persians were incapable of resisting
the arms of the Huns; and that the easy and important acquisition would
exalt the pride as well as power of the conqueror. Instead of contenting
himself with a moderate contribution and a military title, which equalled
him only to the generals of Theodosius, Attila would proceed to impose
a disgraceful and intolerable yoke on the necks of the prostrate and
captive Romans, who would then be encompassed on all sides by the empire
of the Huns.
While the powers of Europe and Asia were solicitous to avert the
impending danger, the alliance of Attila maintained the Vandals in the
possession of Africa. An enterprise had been concerted between the
courts of Ravenna and Constantinople for the recovery of that valuable
province; and the ports of Sicily were already filled with the military
and naval forces of Theodosius. But the subtle Genseric, who spread his
negotiations round the world, prevented their designs, by exciting the
king of the Huns to invade the Eastern Empire; and a trifling incident
soon became the motive, or pretence, of a destructive war.
Under the faith of the treaty of Margus, a free market was held on the
northern side of the Danube, which was protected by a Roman fortress,
surnamed Constantia. A troop of barbarians violated the commercial
security; killed or dispersed the unsuspecting traders, and levelled
the fortress with the ground. The Huns justified this outrage as an
act of reprisal; alleged that the bishop of Margus had entered their
territories, to discover and steal a secret treasure of their kings; and
sternly demanded the guilty prelate, the sacrilegious spoil, and the
fugitive subjects who had escaped from the justice of Attila. The refusal
of the Byzantine court was the signal of war; and the Mœsians at first
applauded the generous firmness of their sovereign. But they were soon
intimidated by the destruction of Viminiacum and the adjacent towns; and
the people was persuaded to adopt the convenient maxim that a private
citizen, however innocent or respectable, may be justly sacrificed to
the safety of his country. The bishop of Margus, who did not possess the
spirit of a martyr, resolved to prevent the designs which he suspected.
He boldly treated with the princes of the Huns; secured, by solemn oaths,
his pardon and reward; posted a numerous detachment of barbarians in
silent ambush on the banks of the Danube; and, at the appointed hour,
opened with his own hand the gates of his episcopal city. This advantage,
which had been obtained by treachery, served as a prelude to more
honourable and decisive victories.
The Illyrian frontier was covered by a line of castles and fortresses;
and though the greatest part of them consisted only of a single tower,
with a small garrison, they were commonly sufficient to repel, or to
intercept, the inroads of an enemy, who was ignorant of the art and
impatient of the delay of a regular siege. But these slight obstacles
were instantly swept away by the inundation of the Huns. They destroyed,
with fire and sword, the populous cities of Sirmium and Singidunum,
of Ratiaria and Marcianopolis, of Naissus and Sardica; where every
circumstance of the discipline of the people and the construction of the
buildings had been gradually adapted to the sole purpose of defence.
The whole breadth of Europe, as it extends above five hundred miles
from the Euxine to the Adriatic, was at once invaded, and occupied, and
desolated, by the myriads of barbarians whom Attila led into the field.
The public danger and distress could not, however, provoke Theodosius
to interrupt his amusements and devotion, or to appear in person at the
head of the Roman legions. But the troops which had been sent against
Genseric were hastily recalled from Sicily, the garrisons on the side
of Persia were exhausted; and a military force was collected in Europe,
formidable by their arms and numbers, if the generals had understood the
science of command and their soldiers the duty of obedience. The armies
of the Eastern Empire were vanquished in three successive engagements;
and the progress of Attila may be traced by the fields of battle. The two
former, on the banks of the Utus and under the walls of Marcianopolis,
were fought in the extensive plains between the Danube and Mount Hæmus.
[In the latter battle Arnegisclus, the Roman commander, was slain.]
[Sidenote: [447-448 A.D.]]
As the Romans were pressed by a victorious enemy, they gradually, and
unskilfully, retired towards the Chersonesus of Thrace; and that narrow
peninsula, the last extremity of the land, was marked by their third and
irreparable defeat. By the destruction of this army Attila acquired the
indisputable possession of the field. From the Hellespont to Thermopylæ
and the suburbs of Constantinople, he ravaged, without resistance and
without mercy, the provinces of Thrace and Macedonia. Heraclea and
Hadrianopolis might perhaps escape this dreadful irruption of the Huns;
but the words the most expressive of total extirpation and erasure are
applied to the calamities which they inflicted on seventy cities of the
Eastern Empire. Theodosius, his court, and the unwarlike people, were
protected by the walls of Constantinople; but those walls had been shaken
by a recent earthquake, and the fall of fifty-eight towers had opened a
large and tremendous breach. The damage indeed was speedily repaired; but
this accident was aggravated by a superstitious fear that heaven itself
had delivered the imperial city to the shepherds of Scythia, who were
strangers to the laws, the language, and the religion of the Romans.
In all their invasions of the civilised empires of the south, the
Scythian shepherds have been uniformly actuated by a savage and
destructive spirit. The laws of war, that restrain the exercise of
national rapine and murder, are founded on two principles of substantial
interest--the knowledge of the permanent benefits which may be obtained
by a moderate use of conquest, and a just apprehension, lest the
desolation which we inflict on the enemy’s country may be retaliated on
our own. But these considerations of hope and fear are almost unknown in
the pastoral state of nations. The Huns of Attila may, without injustice,
be compared to the Moguls and Tatars, before their primitive manners were
changed by religion and luxury; and the evidence of oriental history may
reflect some light on the short and imperfect annals of Rome.
After the Mongols had subdued the northern provinces of China, it was
seriously proposed, not in the hour of victory and passion but in
calm, deliberate council, to exterminate all the inhabitants of that
populous country, that the vacant land might be converted to the pasture
of cattle. The firmness of a Chinese mandarin, who insinuated some
principles of rational policy into the mind of Jenghiz, diverted him
from the execution of this horrid design. But in the cities of Asia,
which yielded to the Mongols, the inhuman abuse of the rights of war was
exercised with a regular form of discipline, which may, with equal reason
though not with equal authority, be imputed to the victorious Huns.
The three great capitals of Khorasan, Maru, Neisabur, and Herat were
destroyed by the armies of Jenghiz; and the exact account which was taken
of the slain amounted to 4,347,000 persons. Timur, or Tamerlane, was
educated in a less barbarous age, and in the profession of the Mohammedan
religion; yet, if Attila equalled the hostile ravages of Tamerlane,
either the Tatar or the Hun might deserve the epithet of the Scourge of
God.
It may be affirmed with bolder assurance that the Huns depopulated the
provinces of the empire, by the number of Roman subjects whom they
led away into captivity. In the hands of a wise legislator, such an
industrious colony might have contributed to diffuse through the deserts
of Scythia the rudiments of the useful and ornamental arts; but these
captives, who had been taken in war, were accidentally dispersed among
the hordes that obeyed the empire of Attila. The estimate of their
respective value was formed by the simple judgment of unenlightened and
unprejudiced barbarians. Perhaps they might not understand the merit of
a theologian, profoundly skilled in the controversies of the Trinity and
the Incarnation; yet they respected the ministers of every religion,
and the active zeal of the Christian missionaries, without approaching
the person or the palace of the monarch, successfully laboured in the
propagation of the gospel.
The pastoral tribes, who were ignorant of the distinction of landed
property, must have disregarded the use, as well as the abuse, of civil
jurisprudence; and the skill of an eloquent lawyer could excite only
their contempt or their abhorrence. The perpetual intercourse of the Huns
and the Goths had communicated the familiar knowledge of the two national
dialects; and the barbarians were ambitious of conversing in Latin,
the military idiom even of the Eastern Empire. But they disdained the
language and the sciences of the Greeks; and the vain sophist, or grave
philosopher, who had enjoyed the flattering applause of the schools, was
mortified to find that his robust servant was a captive of more value and
importance than himself. The mechanic arts were encouraged and esteemed,
as they tended to satisfy the wants of the Huns.
An architect in the service of Onegesius, one of the favourites of
Attila, was employed to construct a bath; but this work was a rare
example of private luxury; and the trades of the smith, the carpenter,
the armourer, were much more adapted to supply the wandering people
with the useful instruments of peace and war. But the merit of the
physician was received with universal favour and respect; the barbarians,
who despised death, might be apprehensive of disease; and the haughty
conqueror trembled in the presence of a captive to whom he ascribed,
perhaps, an imaginary power of prolonging or preserving his life. The
Huns might be provoked to insult the misery of their slaves, over whom
they exercised a despotic command; but their manners were not susceptible
of a refined system of oppression, and the efforts of courage and
diligence were often recompensed by the gift of freedom.
THE DIPLOMACY OF ATTILA
The timid or selfish policy of the western Romans had abandoned
the Eastern Empire to the Huns. The loss of armies and the want of
discipline or virtue were not supplied by the personal character of the
monarch. Theodosius might still affect the style as well as the title
of Invincible Augustus; but he was reduced to solicit the clemency of
Attila, who imperiously dictated these harsh and humiliating conditions
of peace.
(1) The emperor of the East resigned, by an express or tacit convention,
an extensive and important territory which stretched along the southern
banks of the Danube, from Singidunum or Belgrade as far as Novæ, in the
diocese of Thrace. The breadth was defined by the vague computation of
fifteen days’ journey; but from the proposal of Attila to remove the
situation of the national market, it soon appeared that he comprehended
the ruined city of Naissus within the limits of his dominions.
(2) The king of the Huns required, and obtained, that his tribute or
subsidy should be augmented from seven hundred pounds of gold to the
annual sum of twenty-one hundred; and he stipulated the immediate
payment of six thousand pounds of gold to defray the expenses, or to
expiate the guilt, of the war. One might imagine that such a demand,
which scarcely equalled the measure of private wealth, would have been
readily discharged by the opulent Empire of the East; and the public
distress affords a remarkable proof of the impoverished or at least of
the disorderly state of the finances. A large proportion of the taxes,
extorted from the people, was detained and intercepted in their passage
through the foulest channels to the treasury of Constantinople. The
revenue was dissipated by Theodosius and his favourites in wasteful and
profuse luxury; which was disguised by the names of imperial magnificence
or Christian charity. The immediate supplies had been exhausted by the
unforeseen necessity of military preparations. A personal contribution,
rigorously but capriciously imposed on the members of the senatorian
order, was the only expedient that could disarm, without loss of time,
the impatient avarice of Attila; and the poverty of the nobles compelled
them to adopt the scandalous resource of exposing to public auction the
jewels of their wives and the hereditary ornaments of their palaces.
The king of the Huns appears to have established, as a principle of
national jurisprudence, that he could never lose the property which he
had once acquired, in the persons who had yielded either a voluntary or
reluctant submission to his authority. From this principle he concluded,
and the conclusions of Attila were irrevocable laws, that the Huns who
had been taken prisoners in war should be released without delay and
without ransom; that every Roman captive who had presumed to escape
should purchase his right to freedom at the price of twelve pieces of
gold; and that all the barbarians who had deserted the standard of Attila
should be restored, without any promise or stipulation of pardon. In the
execution of this cruel and ignominious treaty, the imperial officers
were forced to massacre several loyal and noble deserters, who refused
to devote themselves to certain death; and the Romans forfeited all
reasonable claims to the friendship of any Scythian people, by this
public confession that they were destitute either of faith or power to
protect the suppliant who had embraced the throne of Theodosius.
The firmness of a single town, so obscure that, except on this occasion,
it has never been mentioned by any historian or geographer, exposed the
disgrace of the emperor and empire. Azimus, or Azimuntium, a small city
of Thrace on the Illyrian borders, had been distinguished by the martial
spirit of its youth, the skill and reputation of the leaders whom they
had chosen, and their daring exploits against the innumerable host of the
barbarians. Instead of tamely expecting their approach, the Azimuntines
attacked, in frequent and successful sallies, the troops of the Huns, who
gradually declined the dangerous neighbourhood; rescued from their hands
the spoil and the captives, and recruited their domestic force by the
voluntary association of fugitives and deserters.
After the conclusion of the treaty, Attila still menaced the empire
with implacable war unless the Azimuntines were persuaded or compelled
to comply with the conditions which their sovereign had accepted.
The ministers of Theodosius confessed with shame and with truth that
they no longer possessed any authority over a society of men who so
bravely asserted their natural independence; and the king of the Huns
condescended to negotiate an equal exchange with the citizens of Azimus.
They demanded the restitution of some shepherds, who, with their cattle,
had been accidentally surprised. A strict, though fruitless, inquiry was
allowed; but the Huns were obliged to swear that they did not detain any
prisoners belonging to the city, before they could recover two surviving
countrymen whom the Azimuntines had reserved as pledges for the safety of
their lost companions.
Attila, on his side, was satisfied, and deceived, by their solemn
asseveration that the rest of the captives had been put to the sword, and
that it was their constant practice immediately to dismiss the Romans and
the deserters, who had obtained the security of the public faith. This
prudent and officious dissimulation may be condemned or excused by the
casuists as they incline to the rigid decree of St. Augustine or to the
milder sentiment of St. Jerome and St. Chrysostom; but every soldier,
every statesman, must acknowledge that if the race of the Azimuntines
had been encouraged and multiplied, the barbarians would have ceased to
trample on the majesty of the empire.
It would have been strange, indeed, if Theodosius had purchased by the
loss of honour a secure and solid tranquillity; or if his tameness had
not invited the repetition of injuries. The Byzantine court was insulted
by five or six successive embassies, and the ministers of Attila were
uniformly instructed to press the tardy or imperfect execution of the
last treaty; to produce the names of fugitives and deserters, who were
still protected by the empire; and to declare, with seeming moderation,
that unless their sovereign obtained complete and immediate satisfaction,
it would be impossible for him, were it even his wish, to check the
resentment of his warlike tribes.
Besides the motives of pride and interest which might prompt the king
of the Huns to continue this train of negotiation, he was influenced
by the less honourable view of enriching his favourites at the expense
of his enemies. The imperial treasury was exhausted to procure the
friendly offices of the ambassadors and their principal attendants,
whose favourable report might conduce to the maintenance of peace.
The barbarian monarch was flattered by the liberal reception of his
ministers; he computed with pleasure the value and splendour of their
gifts, rigorously exacted the performance of every promise which would
contribute to their private emolument, and treated as an important
business of state the marriage of his secretary Constantius. That Gallic
adventurer, who was recommended by Aëtius to the king of the Huns, had
engaged his service to the ministers of Constantinople for the stipulated
reward of a wealthy and noble wife; and the daughter of Count Saturninus
was chosen to discharge the obligations of her country. The reluctance
of the victim, some domestic troubles, and the unjust confiscation of
her fortune, cooled the ardour of her interested lover; but he still
demanded, in the name of Attila, an equivalent alliance; and, after
many ambiguous delays and excuses, the Byzantine court was compelled to
sacrifice to this insolent stranger the widow of Armatius, whose birth,
opulence, and beauty placed her in the most illustrious rank of the Roman
matrons.
For these importunate and oppressive embassies, Attila claimed a suitable
return; he weighed, with suspicious pride, the character and station of
the imperial envoys; but he condescended to promise that he would advance
as far as Sardica, to receive any ministers who had been invested with
the consular dignity. The council of Theodosius eluded this proposal
by representing the desolate and ruined condition of Sardica; and even
ventured to insinuate that every officer of the army or household was
qualified to treat with the most powerful princes of Scythia. Maximin, a
respectable courtier, whose abilities had been long exercised in civil
and military employments, accepted with reluctance the troublesome, and
perhaps dangerous, commission of reconciling the angry spirit of the king
of the Huns. His friend, the historian Priscus, embraced the opportunity
of observing the barbarian hero in the peaceful and domestic scenes of
life; but the secret of the embassy, a fatal and guilty secret, was
intrusted only to the interpreter Vigilius. The two last ambassadors of
the Huns, Orestes a noble subject of the Pannonian province, and Edecon
a valiant chieftain of the tribe of the Scyrri, returned at the same
time from Constantinople to the royal camp. Their obscure names were
afterwards illustrated by the extraordinary fortune and the contrast of
their sons; the two servants of Attila became the fathers of the last
Roman emperor of the West and of the first barbarian king of Italy.
The ambassadors, who were followed by a numerous train of men and
horses, made their first halt at Sardica at the distance of 350 miles,
or thirteen days’ journey from Constantinople. As the remains of Sardica
were still included within the limits of the empire, it was incumbent on
the Romans to exercise the duties of hospitality. They provided, with the
assistance of the provincials, a sufficient number of sheep and oxen; and
invited the Huns to a splendid or at least a plentiful supper. But the
harmony of the entertainment was soon disturbed by mutual prejudice and
indiscretion.
[Illustration: WEAPONS OF THE HUNS]
The greatness of the emperor and the empire was warmly maintained by
their ministers; the Huns with equal ardour asserted the superiority
of their victorious monarch. The dispute was inflamed by the rash
and unseasonable flattery of Vigilius, who passionately rejected the
comparison of a mere mortal with the divine Theodosius; and it was
with extreme difficulty that Maximin and Priscus were able to divert
the conversation, or to soothe the angry minds of the barbarians. When
they rose from table, the imperial ambassador presented Edecon and
Orestes with rich gifts of silk robes and Indian pearls, which they
thankfully accepted. Yet Orestes could not forbear insinuating that he
had not always been treated with such respect and liberality; and the
offensive distinction which was implied, between his civil office and the
hereditary rank of his colleague, seems to have made Edecon a doubtful
friend and Orestes an irreconcilable enemy.
After this entertainment, they travelled about one hundred miles from
Sardica to Naissus. That flourishing city, which had given birth to the
great Constantine, was levelled with the ground; the inhabitants were
destroyed or dispersed; and the appearance of some sick persons, who were
still permitted to exist among the ruins of the churches, served only
to increase the horror of the prospect. The surface of the country was
covered with the bones of the slain; and the ambassadors, who directed
their course to the northwest, were obliged to pass the hills of modern
Servia, before they descended into the flat and marshy grounds which are
terminated by the Danube.
When Attila first gave audience to the Roman ambassadors on the banks of
the Danube, his tent was encompassed with a formidable guard. The monarch
himself was seated in a wooden chair. His stern countenance, angry
gestures, and impatient tone astonished the firmness of Maximin; but
Vigilius had more reason to tremble, since he distinctly understood the
menace that, if Attila did not respect the law of nations, he would nail
the deceitful interpreter to a cross and leave his body to the vultures.
The Romans, both of the East and of the West, were twice invited to the
banquets where Attila feasted with the princes and nobles of Scythia.
Maximin and his colleagues were stopped on the threshold till they had
made a devout libation to the health and prosperity of the king of the
Huns, and were conducted after this ceremony to their respective seats
in a spacious hall. Before they retired they enjoyed an opportunity
of observing the manners of the nation in their convivial amusements.
In the midst of intemperate riots, Attila alone, without a change of
countenance, maintained his steadfast and inflexible gravity, which was
never relaxed, except on the entrance of Irnac, the youngest of his sons;
he embraced the boy with a smile of paternal tenderness, gently pinched
him by the cheek, and betrayed a partial affection which was justified by
the assurance of his prophets that Irnac would be the future support of
his family and empire.
Two days afterwards the ambassadors received a second invitation; and
they had reason to praise the politeness as well as the hospitality of
Attila. The king of the Huns held a long and familiar conversation with
Maximin; but his civility was interrupted by rude expressions and haughty
reproaches; and he was provoked, by a motive of interest, to support with
unbecoming zeal the private claims of his secretary, Constantius. “The
emperor,” said Attila, “has long promised him a rich wife; Constantius
must not be disappointed; nor should a Roman emperor deserve the name of
liar.” On the third day the ambassadors were dismissed; the freedom of
several captives was granted, for a moderate ransom, to their pressing
entreaties; and, besides the royal presents, they were permitted to
accept from each of the Scythian nobles the honourable and useful gift of
a horse. Maximin returned by the same road to Constantinople; and, though
he was involved in an accidental dispute with Beric, the new ambassador
of Attila, he flattered himself that he had contributed, by the laborious
journey, to confirm the peace and alliance of the two nations.
ATTEMPT TO ASSASSINATE ATTILA
[Sidenote: [448-449 A.D.]]
But the Roman ambassador was ignorant of the treacherous design which
had been concealed under the mask of the public faith. The surprise
and satisfaction of Edecon, when he contemplated the splendour of
Constantinople, had encouraged the interpreter Vigilius to procure for
him a secret interview with the eunuch Chrysaphius, who governed the
emperor and the empire. After some previous conversation and a mutual
oath of secrecy, the eunuch, who had not from his own feelings or
experience imbibed any exalted notions of ministerial virtue, ventured
to propose the death of Attila, as an important service by which
Edecon might deserve a liberal share of the wealth and luxury which he
admired. The ambassador of the Huns listened to the tempting offer;
and professed, with apparent zeal, his ability as well as readiness to
execute the bloody deed; the design was communicated to the master of
the offices, and the devout Theodosius consented to the assassination of
his invincible enemy. But this perfidious conspiracy was defeated by the
dissimulation or repentance of Edecon; and, though he might exaggerate
his inward abhorrence for the treason which he seemed to approve, he
dexterously assumed the merit of an early and voluntary confession.
If we now review the embassy of Maximin, and the behaviour of Attila, we
must applaud the barbarian, who respected the laws of hospitality and
generously entertained and dismissed the minister of a prince who had
conspired against his life. But the rashness of Vigilius will appear
still more extraordinary, since he returned, conscious of his guilt and
danger, to the royal camp, accompanied by his son and carrying with him
a weighty purse of gold, which the favourite eunuch had furnished to
satisfy the demands of Edecon, and to corrupt the fidelity of the guards.
The interpreter was instantly seized and dragged before the tribunal of
Attila, where he asserted his innocence with specious firmness, till the
threat of inflicting instant death on his son extorted from him a sincere
discovery of the criminal transaction.
Under the name of ransom or confiscation, the rapacious king of the
Huns accepted two hundred pounds of gold for the life of a traitor
whom he disdained to punish. He pointed his just indignation against
a nobler object. His ambassadors, Eslaw and Orestes, were immediately
despatched to Constantinople, with a peremptory instruction which it
was much safer for them to execute than to disobey. They boldly entered
the imperial presence, with the fatal purse hanging down from the neck
of Orestes, who interrogated the eunuch Chrysaphius, as he stood beside
the throne, whether he recognised the evidence of his guilt. But the
office of reproof was reserved for the superior dignity of his colleague
Eslaw, who gravely addressed the emperor of the East in the following
words: “Theodosius is the son of an illustrious and respectable parent;
Attila likewise is descended from a noble race; and he has supported,
by his actions, the dignity which he inherited from his father Mundzuk.
But Theodosius has forfeited his paternal honours, and, by consenting
to pay tribute, has degraded himself to the condition of a slave. It
is, therefore, just that he should reverence the man whom fortune and
merit have placed above him; instead of attempting, like a wicked slave,
clandestinely to conspire against his master.”
[Sidenote: [449-450 A.D.]]
The son of Arcadius, who was accustomed only to the voice of flattery,
heard with astonishment the severe language of truth; he blushed and
trembled; nor did he presume directly to refuse the head of Chrysaphius,
which Eslaw and Orestes were instructed to demand. A solemn embassy,
armed with full powers and magnificent gifts, was hastily sent to
deprecate the wrath of Attila; and his pride was gratified by the choice
of Nomius and Anatolius, two ministers of consular or patrician rank, of
whom the one was great treasurer, and the other was master-general of
the armies of the East. He condescended to meet these ambassadors on the
banks of the river Drenco; and though he at first affected a stern and
haughty demeanour, his anger was insensibly mollified by their eloquence
and liberality. He condescended to pardon the emperor, the eunuch, and
the interpreter; bound himself by an oath to observe the conditions of
peace; released a great number of captives; abandoned the fugitives and
deserters to their fate; and resigned a large territory to the south of
the Danube, which he had already exhausted of its wealth and inhabitants.
But this treaty was purchased at an expense which might have supported
a vigorous and successful war; and the subjects of Theodosius were
compelled to redeem the safety of a worthless favourite by oppressive
taxes, which they would more cheerfully have paid for his destruction.
The emperor Theodosius did not long survive the most humiliating
circumstance of an inglorious life. As he was riding or hunting in the
neighbourhood of Constantinople, he was thrown from his horse into the
river Lycus; his spine was injured by the fall; and he expired some days
afterwards, in the fiftieth year of his age, and the forty-third of his
reign. His sister Pulcheria, whose authority had been controlled both
in civil and ecclesiastical affairs by the pernicious influence of the
eunuchs, was unanimously proclaimed empress of the East; and the Romans,
for the first time, submitted to a female reign. No sooner had Pulcheria
ascended the throne, than she indulged her own and the public resentment
by an act of popular justice. Without any legal trial, the eunuch
Chrysaphius was executed before the gates of the city; and the immense
riches which had been accumulated by the rapacious favourite served only
to hasten and to justify his punishment.
SUCCESSORS OF THEODOSIUS
Amidst the general acclamation of the clergy and people, the empress did
not forget the prejudice and disadvantage to which her sex was exposed;
and she wisely resolved to prevent their murmurs by the choice of a
colleague who would always respect the superior rank and virgin chastity
of his wife. She gave her hand to Marcian, a senator, about sixty years
of age; and the nominal husband of Pulcheria was solemnly invested with
the imperial purple. The zeal which he displayed for the orthodox creed,
as it was established by the council of Chalcedon, would alone have
inspired the grateful eloquence of the Catholics. But the behaviour of
Marcian in a private life, and afterwards on the throne, may support a
more rational belief that he was qualified to restore and invigorate an
empire, which had been almost dissolved by the successive weakness of two
hereditary monarchs.
He was born in Thrace, and educated to the profession of arms; but
Marcian’s youth had been severely exercised by poverty and misfortune,
since his only resource, when he first arrived at Constantinople,
consisted in two hundred pieces of gold, which he had borrowed of a
friend. He passed nineteen years in the domestic and military service
of Aspar and his son Ardaburius; followed those powerful generals to
the Persian and African wars; and obtained, by their influence, the
honourable rank of tribune and senator. His mild disposition and useful
talents, without alarming the jealousy, recommended Marcian to the esteem
and favour of his patrons; he had seen, perhaps he had felt, the abuses
of a venal and oppressive administration, and his own example gave weight
and energy to the laws which he promulgated for the reformation of
manners.
[Sidenote: [453-468 A.D.]]
After Pulcheria’s death, he gave his people the example of the religious
worship that was due to the memory of the imperial saint. Attentive
to the prosperity of his own dominions, Marcian seemed to behold with
indifference the misfortunes of Rome; and the obstinate refusal of a
brave and active prince to draw his sword against the Vandals was
ascribed to a secret promise, which had formerly been exacted from him
when he was a captive in the power of Genseric.
The death of Marcian, after a reign of seven years, would have exposed
the East to the danger of a popular election, if the superior weight of a
single family had not been able to incline the balance in favour of the
candidate whose interest they supported. The patrician Aspar might have
placed the diadem on his own head, if he would have subscribed the Nicene
Creed. During three generations, the armies of the East were successively
commanded by his father, by himself, and by his son Ardaburius; his
barbarian guards formed a military force that overawed the palace and
the capital; and the liberal distribution of his immense treasures
rendered Aspar as popular as he was powerful. He recommended the obscure
name of Leo of Thrace, a military tribune and the principal steward of
his household. His nomination was unanimously ratified by the senate;
and the servant of Aspar received the imperial crown from the hands of
the patriarch or bishop, who was permitted to express, by this unusual
ceremony, the suffrage of the Deity (457).
This emperor, the first of the name of Leo, has been distinguished by
the title of “the great” from a succession of princes, who gradually
fixed, in the opinion of the Greeks, a very humble standard of heroic or
at least of royal perfection. Yet the temperate firmness with which Leo
resisted the oppression of his benefactor showed that he was conscious of
his duty and of his prerogative. When Leo had delivered himself from that
ignominious servitude, he listened to the complaints of the Italians;
resolved to extirpate the tyranny of the Vandals, and declared his
alliance with Marcian’s son-in-law Anthemius, whom he solemnly invested
with the diadem and purple of the West.
In all his public declarations the emperor Leo assumes the authority and
professes the affection of a father, for his son Anthemius with whom
he had divided the administration of the universe. The situation and
perhaps the character of Leo dissuaded him from exposing his person to
the toils and dangers of an African war. But the powers of the Eastern
Empire were strenuously exerted to deliver Italy and the Mediterranean
from the Vandals; and Genseric, who had so long oppressed both the land
and sea, was threatened from every side with a formidable invasion. The
campaign was opened by a bold and successful enterprise of the prefect
Heraclius. The expense of the naval armament, which Leo sent against the
Vandals, has been distinctly ascertained; and the curious and instructive
account displays the wealth of the declining empire. The royal demesnes,
or private patrimony of the prince, supplied seventeen thousand pounds of
gold; forty-seven thousand pounds of gold and seven hundred thousand of
silver were levied and paid into the treasury by the prætorian prefects.
But the cities were reduced to extreme poverty; and the diligent
calculation of fines and forfeitures, as a valuable object of the
revenue, does not suggest the idea of a just or merciful administration.
The whole expense, by whatsoever means it was defrayed, of the African
campaign amounted to the sum of 130,000 pounds of gold [about £5,200,000
or $26,000,000], at a time when the value of money appears, from the
comparative price of corn, to have been somewhat higher than in the
present age. The fleet that sailed from Constantinople to Carthage
consisted of 1113 ships, and the number of soldiers and mariners
exceeded 100,000 men. Basiliscus, the brother of the empress Verina, was
entrusted with this important command. His sister, the wife of Leo, had
exaggerated the merit of his former exploits against the Scythians. But
the discovery of his guilt, or incapacity, was reserved for the African
War; and his friends could only save his military reputation by asserting
that he had conspired with Aspar to spare Genseric, and to betray the
last hope of the Western Empire.
[Sidenote: [468-491 A.D.]]
He returned to Constantinople with the loss of more than half of his
fleet and army, and sheltered his guilty head in the sanctuary of St.
Sophia, till his sister, by her tears and entreaties, could obtain his
pardon from the indignant emperor. Leo confirmed and dishonoured his
reign by the perfidious murder of Aspar and his sons, who too rigorously
exacted the debt of gratitude and obedience. The inheritance of Leo and
of the East was peaceably devolved on his infant grandson, Leo II, the
son of his daughter Ariadne; and her Isaurian husband, the fortunate
Trascalisseus, exchanged that barbarous sound for the Grecian appellation
of Zeno. After the decease of the elder Leo, he approached with unnatural
respect the throne of his son, humbly received as a gift the second
rank in the empire, and soon excited the public suspicion on the sudden
and premature death of his young colleague, whose life could no longer
promote the success of his ambition. But the palace of Constantinople was
ruled by female influence, and agitated by female passions; and Verina,
the widow of Leo, claiming his empire as her own, pronounced a sentence
of deposition against the worthless and ungrateful servant on whom she
alone had bestowed the sceptre of the East.
As soon as she sounded a revolt in the ears of Zeno, he fled with
precipitation into the mountains of Isauria, and her brother Basiliscus,
already infamous by his African expedition, was unanimously proclaimed by
the servile senate. But the reign of the usurper was short and turbulent.
Basiliscus presumed to assassinate the lover of his sister; he dared
to offend the lover of his wife, the vain and insolent Harmatius, who,
in the midst of Asiatic luxury, affected the dress, the demeanour, and
the surname of Achilles. By the conspiracy of the malcontents, Zeno
was recalled from exile; and the armies, the capital, the person of
Basiliscus, were betrayed; and his whole family was condemned to the long
agony of cold and hunger by the inhuman conqueror who wanted courage
to encounter or to forgive his enemies. [It was after Zeno’s return to
the throne that Theodoric, the Ostrogothic king, left Illyricum with
his people to invade Italy (488). This event will be fully described in
Chapter I of the “Western Empire.”]
The haughty spirit of Verina was still incapable of submission or repose.
She provoked the enmity of a favourite general, embraced his cause as
soon as he was disgraced, created a new emperor in Syria and Egypt,
raised an army of seventy thousand men, and persisted to the last moment
of her life in a fruitless rebellion, which, according to the fashion of
the age, had been predicted by Christian hermits and pagan magicians.
While the East was afflicted by the passions of Verina, her daughter
Ariadne was distinguished by the female virtues of mildness and fidelity;
she followed her husband in his exile, and after his restoration she
implored his clemency in favour of her mother. On the decease of Zeno,
Ariadne, the daughter, the mother, and the widow of an emperor, gave
her hand and the imperial title to Anastasius, an aged domestic of the
palace, who survived his elevation above twenty-seven years, and whose
character is attested by the acclamation of the people: “Reign as you
have lived!”[b]
[Sidenote: [491-518 A.D.]]
Anastasius’ accession was not undisputed. Zeno’s brother Longinus claimed
the throne and with his brother Isaurians fought for it. A five years’
war beginning in 491 was the result. Constantinople furnished the scene
for several bloody riots, especially when, after a decisive victory of
the troops at Colyæum in 493, Anastasius issued an edict expelling the
Isaurians from the capital. The adherents of the banished nation kept
up desultory fighting until in 496 Longinus and his brother were taken.
The Isaurian War was the temporary ruin of Asia Minor, and the Persian
monarch Kobad found it no difficult task to seize Martyropolis, Amida,
and other Armenian strongholds in 503. The cause of this hostile act is
a matter of dispute; it may have been that the emperor refused a payment
promised by Leo, or Anastasius may have declined to grant Kobad a loan he
wished to raise. The consequence of this war might have been most serious
for the empire had not the Huns invaded Persia at this critical moment.
Kobad was now anxious to sue for peace, the more so since the new Roman
general Celer was fast undoing the mistakes of his predecessor, Hypatius.
The treaty was signed in 505. The next few years are marked chiefly
with the revolt of Vitalian, the Goth. In 514 he attempted to seize the
throne, but Anastasius brought him to terms with the office of magister
militum of Thrace, and a present of money.[a]
JUSTIN I
Justin I is said to have been an illiterate Illyrian peasant, who, with
two other peasants of the same village, deserted for the profession of
arms the more useful employment of husbandmen or shepherds. On foot,
with a scanty provision of biscuit in their knapsacks, the three youths
followed the high road to Constantinople, and were soon enrolled, for
their strength and stature, among the guards of the emperor Leo.
Under the two succeeding reigns, the fortunate peasant emerged to wealth
and honours; and his escape from some dangers which threatened his life
was afterwards ascribed to the guardian angel who watches over the fate
of kings. His long and laudable service in the Isaurian and Persian wars
would not have preserved from oblivion the name of Justin; yet they
might warrant the military promotion which in the course of fifty years
he gradually obtained--the rank of tribune, of count, and of general,
the dignity of senator, and the command of the guards, who obeyed him
as their chief at the important crisis when the emperor Anastasius was
removed from the world. The powerful kinsmen, whom he had raised and
enriched, were excluded from the throne; and the eunuch Amantius, who
reigned in the palace, had secretly resolved to fix the diadem on the
head of the most obsequious of his creatures. A liberal donative, to
conciliate the suffrage of the guards, was entrusted for that purpose
in the hands of their commander. But these weighty arguments were
treacherously employed by Justin in his own favour; and as no competitor
presumed to appear, the Dacian peasant was invested with the purple,
by the unanimous consent of the soldiers, who knew him to be brave and
gentle, of the clergy and people, who believed him to be orthodox, and of
the provincials, who yielded a blind and implicit submission to the will
of the capital.
[Sidenote: [518-527 A.D.]]
The elder Justin, as he is distinguished from another emperor of the same
family and name, ascended the Byzantine throne at the age of sixty-eight
years; and, had he been left to his own guidance, every moment of a
nine years’ reign must have exposed to his subjects the impropriety of
their choice. His ignorance was similar to that of Theodoric; and it is
remarkable that in an age not destitute of learning two contemporary
monarchs had never been instructed in the knowledge of the alphabet.
But the genius of Justin was far inferior to that of the Gothic king;
the experience of a soldier had not qualified him for the government
of an empire, and, though personally brave, the consciousness of his
own weakness was naturally attended with doubt, distrust, and political
apprehension. But the official business of the state was diligently
and faithfully transacted by the quæstor Proclus, and the aged emperor
adopted the talents and ambition of his nephew Justinian, an aspiring
youth whom his uncle had drawn from the rustic solitude of Dacia, and
educated at Constantinople, as the heir of his private fortune and at
length of the Eastern Empire.
Since the eunuch Amantius had been defrauded of his money, it became
necessary to deprive him of his life. The task was easily accomplished
by the charge of a real or fictitious conspiracy; and the judges were
informed, as an accumulation of guilt, that he was secretly addicted to
the Manichæan heresy. Amantius lost his head; three of his companions,
the first domestics of the palace, were punished either with death or
exile; and their unfortunate candidate for the purple was cast into a
deep dungeon, overwhelmed with stones, and ignominiously thrown, without
burial, into the sea.
The ruin of Vitalian was a work of more difficulty and danger. That
Gothic chief had rendered himself popular by the civil war which he
boldly waged against Anastasius for the defence of the orthodox faith,
and, after the conclusion of an advantageous treaty, he still remained
in the neighbourhood of Constantinople, at the head of a formidable and
victorious army of barbarians. By the frail security of oaths, he was
tempted to relinquish this advantageous situation, and to trust his
person within the walls of a city whose inhabitants, particularly the
blue faction, were artfully incensed against him by the remembrance even
of his pious hostilities. The emperor and his nephew embraced him as the
faithful and worthy champion of the church and state, and gratefully
adorned their favourite with the titles of consul general; but in the
seventh month of his consulship, Vitalian was stabbed with seventeen
wounds at the royal banquet; and Justinian, who inherited the spoil, was
accused as the assassin of a spiritual brother, to whom he had recently
pledged his faith in the participation of the Christian mysteries.
After the fall of his rival, he was promoted, without any claim of
military service, to the office of master-general of the eastern armies,
whom it was his duty to lead into the field against the public enemy.
But, in the pursuit of fame, Justinian might have lost his present
dominion over the age and weakness of his uncle; and instead of acquiring
by Scythian or Persian trophies the applause of his countrymen, the
prudent warrior solicited their favour in the churches, the circus, and
the senate of Constantinople. The Catholics were attached to the nephew
of Justin, who, between the Nestorian and Eutychian heresies, trod the
narrow path of inflexible and intolerant orthodoxy.
In the first days of the new reign, he prompted and gratified the popular
enthusiasm against the memory of the deceased emperor. After a schism
of thirty-four years, he reconciled the proud and angry spirit of the
Roman pontiff, and spread among the Latins a favourable report of his
pious respect for the apostolic see. The thrones of the East were filled
with Catholic bishops devoted to his interests, the clergy and the monks
were gained by his liberality, and the people were taught to pray for
their future sovereign, the hope and pillar of the true religion. The
magnificence of Justinian was displayed in the superior pomp of his
public spectacles, an object not less sacred and important in the eyes
of the multitude than the creed of Nicæa or Chalcedon; the expense of
his consulship was esteemed at 288,000 pieces of gold; twenty lions and
thirty leopards were produced at the same time in the amphitheatre, and a
numerous train of horses, with their rich trappings, was bestowed as an
extraordinary gift on the victorious charioteers of the circus.
While he indulged the people of Constantinople, and received the
addresses of foreign kings, the nephew of Justin assiduously cultivated
the friendship of the senate. That venerable name seemed to qualify
its members to declare the sense of the nation, and to regulate the
succession of the imperial throne; the feeble Anastasius had permitted
the vigour of government to degenerate into the form or substance of an
aristocracy; and the military officers who had obtained the senatorial
rank were followed by their domestic guards, a band of veterans whose
arms or acclamations might fix in a tumultuous moment the diadem of the
East. The treasures of the state were lavished to procure the voices of
the senators; and their unanimous wish, that he would be pleased to adopt
Justinian for his colleague, was communicated to the emperor. But this
request, which too clearly admonished him of his approaching end, was
unwelcome to the jealous temper of an aged monarch, desirous to retain
the power which he was incapable of exercising; and Justin, holding his
purple with both his hands, advised them to prefer, since an election was
so profitable, some older candidate.
[Sidenote: [527 A.D.]]
Notwithstanding this reproach, the senate proceeded to decorate Justinian
with the royal epithet of _nobilissimus_; and their decree was ratified
by the affection or the fears of his uncle. After some time the languor
of mind and body to which he was reduced by an incurable wound in his
thigh, indispensably required the aid of a guardian. He summoned the
patriarch and senators; and in their presence solemnly placed the diadem
on the head of his nephew, who was conducted from the palace to the
circus, and saluted by the loud and joyful applause of the people. The
life of Justin was prolonged about four months, but from the instant of
this ceremony he was considered as dead to the empire, which acknowledged
Justinian, in the forty-fifth year of his age, for the lawful sovereign
of the East.[b]
FOOTNOTES
[1] [The prætorian prefect Anthemius assumed the guidance of the state
until Pulcheria was created augusta in 414, and, says Bury,[e] “the
measures which were passed during these six years exhibit an intelligent
and sincere solicitude for the welfare of the people and the correction
of abuses.” Anthemius protected the borders of Mœsia and Scythia against
the Huns and materially assisted the Illyrian provinces to recover from
the ravages of the Visigoths.]
[2] [There was a rumour at court that a certain Paulinus, master of
the offices, who was executed when Pulcheria became powerful, had been
Eudocia’s lover.]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER III. JUSTINIAN AND THEODORA
[525-548 A.D.]
In the exercise of supreme power, the first act of Justinian was to
divide it with the woman whom he loved, the famous Theodora, whose
strange elevation cannot be applauded as the triumph of female virtue.
Under the reign of Anastasius, the care of the wild beasts maintained by
the green faction at Constantinople was entrusted to Acacius, a native of
the isle of Cyprus, who, from his employment, was surnamed the master of
the bears. This honourable office was given after his death to another
candidate, notwithstanding the diligence of his widow, who had already
provided a husband and a successor.
[Sidenote: [525-527 A.D.]]
Acacius had left three daughters, Comito, Theodora, and Anastasia,
the eldest of whom did not then exceed the age of seven years. On a
solemn festival, these helpless orphans were sent by their distressed
and indignant mother, in the garb of suppliants, into the midst of
the theatre; the green faction received them with contempt, the blues
with compassion; and this difference, which sunk deep into the mind of
Theodora, was felt long afterwards in the administration of the empire.
As they improved in age and beauty, the three sisters were successively
devoted to the public and private pleasures of the Byzantine people;
and Theodora, after following Comito on the stage, in the dress of a
slave, with a stool on her head, was at length permitted to exercise
her independent talents. She neither danced, nor sang, nor played on
the flute; her skill was confined to the pantomime arts; she excelled
in buffoon characters, and as often as the comedian swelled her cheeks
and complained with a ridiculous tone and gesture of the blows that were
inflicted, the whole theatre of Constantinople resounded with laughter
and applause. The beauty of Theodora was the subject of more flattering
praise and the source of more exquisite delight. Her features were
delicate and regular; her complexion, though somewhat pale, was tinged
with a natural colour; every sensation was instantly expressed by the
vivacity of her eyes; her easy motions displayed the graces of a small
but elegant figure.
[The question of the beauty of Theodora has been a subject for much
discussion. “A contemporary,” says Bury,[l] “said it was impossible
for mere man to describe her comeliness in words, or to imitate it by
art”; but he adds that we cannot judge how far this remark was due to
the enthusiasm of adulation. He admits, however, that she was doubtless
beautiful, although somewhat short in stature and of pale complexion.]
In the most abject state of her fortune and reputation, some vision,
either of sleep or of fancy, had whispered to Theodora the pleasing
assurance that she was destined to become the spouse of a potent monarch.
Conscious of her approaching greatness, she returned from Paphlagonia to
Constantinople; assumed, like a skilful actress, a more decent character;
relieved her poverty by the laudable industry of spinning wool; and
affected a life of chastity and solitude in a small house, which she
afterwards changed into a magnificent temple. Her beauty, assisted by
art or accident, soon attracted, captivated, and fixed the patrician
Justinian, who already reigned with absolute sway under the name of his
uncle. Perhaps she contrived to enhance the value of a gift which she had
so often lavished on the meanest of mankind; perhaps she inflamed, at
first by modest delays and at last by sensual allurements, the desires
of a lover who from nature or devotion was addicted to long vigils and
abstemious diet. When his first transports had subsided, she still
maintained the same ascendant over his mind, by the more solid merit
of temper and understanding. Justinian delighted to ennoble and enrich
the object of his affection; the treasures of the East were poured at
her feet, and the nephew of Justin was determined, perhaps by religious
scruples, to bestow on his concubine the sacred and legal character of
a wife. But the laws of Rome expressly prohibited the marriage of a
senator with any female who had been dishonoured by a servile origin or
theatrical profession; the empress, a barbarian of rustic manners but of
irreproachable virtue, refused to accept a prostitute for her niece.
[Sidenote: [527-548 A.D.]]
These obstacles were removed by the inflexible constancy of Justinian.
He patiently expected the death of the empress; he despised the tears of
his mother, who soon sank under the weight of her affliction; and a law
was promulgated in the name of the emperor Justin, which abolished the
rigid jurisprudence of antiquity. A glorious repentance (the words of the
edict) was left open for the unhappy females who had prostituted their
persons on the theatre, and they were permitted to contract a legal union
with the most illustrious of the Romans. This indulgence was speedily
followed by the solemn nuptials of Justinian and Theodora; her dignity
was gradually exalted with that of her lover; and, as soon as Justin had
invested his nephew with the purple, the patriarch of Constantinople
placed the diadem on the heads of the emperor and empress of the East.
But the usual honours which the severity of Roman manners had allowed to
the wives of princes could not satisfy either the ambition of Theodora
or the fondness of Justinian. He seated her on the throne as an equal
and independent colleague in the sovereignty of the empire, and an oath
of allegiance was imposed on the governors of the provinces in the joint
names of Justinian and Theodora. The eastern world fell prostrate before
the genius and fortune of the daughter of Acacius.
Her private hours were devoted to the prudent as well as grateful care
of her beauty, the luxury of the bath and table, and the long slumber of
the evening and the morning. Her secret apartments were occupied by the
favourite women and eunuchs, whose interests and passions she indulged
at the expense of justice; the most illustrious personages of the state
were crowded into a dark and sultry antechamber, and when at last, after
tedious attendance, they were admitted to kiss the feet of Theodora, they
experienced, as her humour might suggest, the silent arrogance of an
empress or the capricious levity of a comedian. Her rapacious avarice to
accumulate an immense treasure may be excused by the apprehension of her
husband’s death, which could leave no alternative between ruin and the
throne; and fear as well as ambition might exasperate Theodora against
two generals who, during a malady of the emperor, had rashly declared
that they were not disposed to acquiesce in the choice of the capital.
But the reproach of cruelty, so repugnant even to her softer vices,
has left an indelible stain on the memory of Theodora. Her numerous
spies observed, and zealously reported, every action, or word, or look
injurious to their royal mistress. Whomsoever they accused were cast
into her peculiar prisons, inaccessible to the inquiries of justice;
and it was rumoured that the torture of the rack, or scourge, had been
inflicted in the presence of a female tyrant, insensible to the voice
of prayer or of pity. Some of these unhappy victims perished in deep
unwholesome dungeons, while others were permitted, after the loss of
their limbs, their reason, or their fortune, to appear in the world the
living monuments of her vengeance, which was commonly extended to the
children of those whom she had suspected or injured. The senator or
bishop whose death or exile Theodora had pronounced, was delivered to a
trusty messenger, and his diligence was quickened by a message from her
own mouth: “If you fail in the execution of my commands, I swear by Him
who liveth forever, that your skin shall be flayed from your body.”
If the creed of Theodora had not been tainted with heresy, her exemplary
devotion might have atoned, in the opinion of her contemporaries, for
pride, avarice, and cruelty. But if she employed her influence to assuage
the intolerant fury of the emperor, the present age will allow some merit
to her religion, and much indulgence to her speculative errors. The name
of Theodora was introduced, with equal honour, in all the pious and
charitable foundations of Justinian; and the most benevolent institution
of his reign may be ascribed to the sympathy of the empress for her
less fortunate sisters. A palace, on the Asiatic side of the Bosporus,
was converted into a stately and spacious monastery, and a liberal
maintenance was assigned to five hundred women, who had been collected
from the streets and brothels of Constantinople. In this safe and holy
retreat they were devoted to perpetual confinement; and the despair
of some, who threw themselves headlong into the sea, was lost in the
gratitude of the penitents, who had been delivered from sin and misery by
their generous benefactress. The prudence of Theodora is celebrated by
Justinian himself; and his laws are attributed to the sage counsels of
his most reverend wife, whom he had received as the gift of the Deity.
Her courage was displayed amidst the tumult of the people and the terrors
of the court. Her chastity, from the moment of her union with Justinian,
is founded on the silence of her implacable enemies.
The wishes and prayers of Theodora could never obtain the blessing of
a lawful son, and she buried an infant daughter, the sole offspring of
her marriage. Notwithstanding this disappointment, her dominion was
permanent and absolute; she preserved, by art or merit, the affections
of Justinian; and their seeming dissensions were always fatal to the
courtiers who believed them to be sincere. Perhaps her health had been
impaired by the licentiousness of her youth; but it was always delicate,
and she was directed by her physicians to use the Pythian warm baths.
In this journey, the empress was followed by the prætorian prefect, the
great treasurer, several counts and patricians, and a splendid train of
four thousand attendants. The highways were repaired at her approach,
a palace was erected for her reception; and as she passed through
Bithynia, she distributed liberal alms to the churches, the monasteries,
and the hospitals, that they might implore heaven for the restoration
of her health. At length, in the twenty-fourth year of her marriage,
and the twenty-second of her reign, she was consumed by a cancer; and
the irreparable loss was deplored by her husband, who, in the room of
a theatrical prostitute, might have selected the purest and most noble
virgin of the East.
THE FACTIONS OF THE CIRCUS
A material difference may be observed in the games of antiquity; the most
eminent of the Greeks were actors, the Romans were merely spectators.
The Olympic stadium was open to wealth, merit, and ambition; and if the
candidates could depend on their personal skill and activity they might
pursue the footsteps of Diomede and Menelaus, and conduct their own
horses in the rapid career. Ten, twenty, forty chariots were allowed
to start at the same instant; a crown of leaves was the reward of the
victor, and his fame, with that of his family and country, was chanted
in lyric strains more durable than monuments of brass and marble. But
a senator, or even a citizen, conscious of his dignity, would have
blushed to expose his person or his horses in the circus of Rome. The
games were exhibited at the expense of the republic, the magistrates,
or the emperors; but the reins were abandoned to servile hands; and if
the profits of a favourite charioteer sometimes exceeded those of an
advocate, they must be considered as the effects of popular extravagance
and the high wages of a disgraceful profession. The race, in its first
institution, was a simple contest of two chariots, whose drivers were
distinguished by white and red liveries; two additional colours, a light
green and a cerulean blue, were afterwards introduced; and as the races
were repeated twenty-five times, one hundred chariots contributed in the
same day to the pomp of the circus. The four factions soon acquired a
legal establishment, and a mysterious origin, and their fanciful colours
were derived from the various appearances of nature in the four seasons
of the year; the red dog-star of summer, the snows of winter, the deep
shades of autumn, and the cheerful verdure of the spring.
[Illustration: COATS OF MAIL, VERY EARLY PERIOD]
Another interpretation preferred the elements to the seasons, and the
struggle of the green and blue was supposed to represent the conflict
of the earth and sea. Their respective victories announced either a
plentiful harvest or a prosperous navigation, and the hostility of the
husbandmen and mariners was somewhat less absurd than the blind ardour
of the Roman people, who devoted their lives and fortunes to the colour
which they had espoused. Such folly was disdained and indulged by the
wisest princes; but the names of Caligula, Nero, Vitellius, Verus,
Commodus, Caracalla, and Elagabalus were enrolled in the blue or green
factions of the circus; they frequented their stables, applauded their
favourites, chastised their antagonists, and deserved the esteem of the
populace by the natural or affected imitation of their manners. The
bloody and tumultuous contest continued to disturb the public festivity,
till the last age of the spectacles of Rome; and Theodoric, from a motive
of justice or affection, interposed his authority to protect the greens
against the violence of a consul and a patrician, who were passionately
addicted to the blue faction of the circus.
Constantinople adopted the follies, though not the virtues, of ancient
Rome; and the same factions which had agitated the circus raged with
redoubled fury in the hippodrome. Under the reign of Anastasius,
this popular frenzy was inflamed by religious zeal; and the greens,
who had treacherously concealed stones and daggers under baskets of
fruit, massacred, at a solemn festival, three thousand of their blue
adversaries. From the capital this pestilence was diffused into the
provinces and cities of the East, and the sportive distinction of two
colours produced two strong and irreconcilable factions, which shook the
foundations of a feeble government. The popular dissensions, founded on
the most serious interest or holy pretence, have scarcely equalled the
obstinacy of this wanton discord, which invaded the peace of families,
divided friends and brothers, and tempted the female sex, though seldom
seen in the circus, to espouse the inclinations of their lovers or to
contradict the wishes of their husbands.
Every law, either human or divine, was trampled under foot, and as long
as the party was successful, its deluded followers appeared careless of
private distress or public calamity. The license, without the freedom, of
democracy was revived at Antioch and Constantinople, and the support of a
faction became necessary to every candidate for civil or ecclesiastical
honours. A secret attachment to the family or sect of Anastasius was
imputed to the greens; the blues were zealously devoted to the cause of
orthodoxy and Justinian, and their grateful patron protected, above five
years, the disorders of a faction whose seasonable tumults overawed the
palace, the senate, and the capitals of the East. Insolent with royal
favour, the blues affected to strike terror by a peculiar and barbaric
dress--the long hair of the Huns, their close sleeves and ample garments,
a lofty step, and a sonorous voice.
In the day they concealed their two-edged poniards, but in the night they
boldly assembled in arms, and in numerous bands, prepared for every act
of violence and rapine. Their adversaries of the green faction, or even
inoffensive citizens, were stripped and often murdered by these nocturnal
robbers, and it became dangerous to wear any gold buttons or girdles,
or to appear at a late hour in the streets of a peaceful capital. A
daring spirit, rising with impunity, proceeded to violate the safeguard
of private houses; and fire was employed to facilitate the attack or
to conceal the crimes of those factious rioters. No place was safe or
sacred from their depredations; to gratify either avarice or revenge,
they profusely spilt the blood of the innocent; churches and altars were
polluted by atrocious murders; and it was the boast of the assassins that
their dexterity could always inflict a mortal wound with a single stroke
of their dagger.
The dissolute youth of Constantinople adopted the blue livery of
disorder; the laws were silent, and the bonds of society were relaxed;
creditors were compelled to resign their obligations, judges to reverse
their sentence, masters to enfranchise their slaves, fathers to supply
the extravagance of their children; noble matrons were prostituted to
the lust of their servants; beautiful boys were torn from the arms of
their parents; and wives, unless they preferred a voluntary death, were
ravished in the presence of their husbands. The despair of the greens,
who were persecuted by their enemies and deserted by the magistrate,
assumed the privilege of defence, perhaps of retaliation; but those who
survived the combat were dragged to execution, and the unhappy fugitives,
escaping to woods and caverns, preyed without mercy on the society from
whence they were expelled. Those ministers of justice who had courage
to punish the crimes and to brave the resentment of the blues, became
the victims of their indiscreet zeal; a prefect of Constantinople fled
for refuge to the holy sepulchre; a count of the East was ignominiously
whipped, and a governor of Cilicia was hanged, by the order of Theodora,
on the tomb of two assassins whom he had condemned for the murder of his
groom and a daring attack upon his own life.
An aspiring candidate may be tempted to build his greatness on the
public confusion, but it is the interest as well as duty of a sovereign
to maintain the authority of the laws. The first edict of Justinian,
which was often repeated and sometimes executed, announced his firm
resolution to support the innocent, and to chastise the guilty, of every
denomination and colour. Yet the balance of justice was still inclined in
favour of the blue faction, by the secret affection, the habits, and the
fears of the emperor; his equity, after an apparent struggle, submitted,
without reluctance, to the implacable passions of Theodora, and the
empress never forgot, or forgave, the injuries of the comedian. At the
accession of the younger Justin, the proclamation of equal and rigorous
justice indirectly condemned the partiality of the former reigns. “Ye
blues, Justinian is no more! ye greens, he is still alive!”
[Sidenote: [532 A.D.]]
A sedition, which almost laid Constantinople in ashes, was excited by the
mutual hatred and momentary reconciliation of the two factions. In the
fifth year of his reign, Justinian celebrated the festival of the ides of
January: the games were incessantly disturbed by the clamorous discontent
of the greens; till the twenty-second race, the emperor maintained his
silent gravity; at length yielding to his impatience, he condescended to
hold, in abrupt sentences and by the voice of a crier, the most singular
dialogue that ever passed between a prince and his subjects.
The first complaints were respectful and modest; they accused the
subordinate ministers of oppression, and proclaimed their wishes for
the long life and victory of the emperor. “Be patient and attentive, ye
insolent railers,” exclaimed Justinian; “be mute, ye Jews, Samaritans,
and Manichæans!” The greens still attempt to awaken his compassion. “We
are poor, we are innocent, we are injured, we dare not pass through
the streets: a general persecution is exercised against our name and
colour. Let us die, O emperor! but let us die by your command, and for
your service!” But the repetition of partial and passionate invectives
degraded, in their eyes, the majesty of the purple; they renounced
allegiance to the prince who refused justice to his people; lamented
that the father of Justinian had been born; and branded his son with
the opprobrious names of homicide, an ass, and a perjured tyrant. “Do
you despise your lives?” cried the indignant monarch. The blues rose
with fury from their seats; their hostile clamours thundered in the
hippodrome; and their adversaries, deserting the unequal contest, spread
terror and despair through the streets of Constantinople.
A military force, which had been despatched to the aid of the civil
magistrate, was fiercely encountered by an armed multitude, whose
numbers and boldness continually increased; and the Heruli, the wildest
barbarians in the service of the empire, overturned the priests and
their relics, which, from a pious motive, had been rashly interposed
to separate the bloody conflict. The tumult was exasperated by this
sacrilege; the people fought with enthusiasm in the cause of God; the
women from the roofs and windows showered stones on the heads of the
soldiers, who darted firebrands against the houses; and the various
flames, which had been kindled by the hands of citizens and strangers,
spread without control over the face of the city. The conflagration
involved the cathedral of St. Sophia, the baths of Zeuxippus, a part of
the palace from the first entrance to the altar of Mars, and the long
portico from the palace to the forum of Constantine; a large hospital,
with the sick patients, was consumed; many churches and stately edifices
were destroyed, and an immense treasure of gold and silver was either
melted or lost. From such scenes of horror and distress, the wise and
wealthy citizens escaped over the Bosporus to the Asiatic side; and,
during five days, Constantinople was abandoned to the factions, whose
watchword, _Nika_ (vanquish), has given a name to this memorable sedition.
As long as the factions were divided, the triumphant blues and desponding
greens appeared to behold with the same indifference the disorders of the
state. They agreed to censure the corrupt management of justice and the
finance; and the two responsible ministers, the artful Tribonian and the
rapacious Joannes of Cappadocia, were loudly arraigned as the authors of
the public misery. The peaceful murmurs of the people would have been
disregarded; they were heard with respect when the city was in flames;
the quæstor and the prefect were instantly removed, and their offices
were filled by two senators of blameless integrity. After this popular
concession, Justinian proceeded to the hippodrome to confess his own
errors, and to accept the repentance of his grateful subjects; but they
distrusted his assurances, though solemnly pronounced in the presence of
the holy Gospels; and the emperor, alarmed by their distrust, retreated
with precipitation to the strong fortress of the palace.
The obstinacy of the tumult was now imputed to a secret and ambitious
conspiracy, and a suspicion was entertained that the insurgents, more
especially the green faction, had been supplied with arms and money by
Hypatius and Pompeius, two patricians, who could neither forget with
honour nor remember with safety, that they were the nephews of the
emperor Anastasius. Capriciously trusted, disgraced, and pardoned by
the jealous levity of the monarch, they had appeared as loyal servants
before the throne; and during five days of the tumult they were detained
as important hostages; till at length, the fears of Justinian prevailing
over his prudence, he viewed the two brothers in the light of spies,
perhaps of assassins, and sternly commanded them to depart from the
palace.
After a fruitless representation that obedience might lead to involuntary
treason, they retired to their houses, and in the morning of the sixth
day Hypatius was surrounded and seized by the people, who, regardless
of his virtuous resistance and the tears of his wife, transported their
favourite to the forum of Constantine, and, instead of a diadem, placed
a rich collar on his head. If the usurper, who afterwards pleaded the
merit of his delay, had complied with the advice of his senate and urged
the fury of the multitude, their first irresistible effort might have
oppressed or expelled his trembling competitor. The Byzantine palace
enjoyed a free communication with the sea; vessels lay ready at the
garden stairs; and a secret resolution was already formed to convey the
emperor with his family and treasures to a safe retreat, at some distance
from the capital.
Justinian was lost, if the prostitute whom he raised from the theatre
had not renounced the timidity as well as the virtues of her sex. In
the midst of a council, where Belisarius was present, Theodora alone
displayed the spirit of a hero; and she alone, without apprehending his
future hatred, could save the emperor from the imminent danger and his
unworthy fears. “If flight,” said the consort of Justinian, “were the
only means of safety, yet I should disdain to fly. Death is the condition
of our birth; but they who have reigned should never survive the loss of
dignity and dominion. I implore heaven that I may never be seen, not a
day, without my diadem and purple; that I may no longer behold the light,
when I cease to be saluted with the name of queen. If you resolve, O
Cæsar! to fly, you have treasures; behold the sea, you have ships; but
tremble lest the desire of life should expose you to wretched exile and
ignominious death. For my own part, I adhere to the maxim of antiquity,
that the throne is a glorious sepulchre.”
The firmness of a woman restored the courage to deliberate and act, and
courage soon discovers the resources of the most desperate situation.
It was an easy and a decisive measure to revive the animosity of the
factions. The blues were astonished at their own guilt and folly, that
a trifling injury should provoke them to conspire with their implacable
enemies against a gracious and liberal benefactor; they again proclaimed
the majesty of Justinian, and the greens, with their upstart emperor,
were left alone in the hippodrome. The fidelity of the guards was
doubtful; but the military force of Justinian consisted in three thousand
veterans, who had been trained to valour and discipline in the Persian
and Illyrian wars.
[Illustration: A BYZANTINE COSTUME]
Under the command of Belisarius and Mundus, they silently marched in
two divisions from the palace, forced their obscure way through narrow
passages, expiring flames, and falling edifices, and burst open at the
same moment the two opposite gates of the hippodrome. In this narrow
space, the disorderly and affrighted crowd was incapable of resisting on
either side a firm and regular attack; the blues signalised the fury of
their repentance; and it is computed that above thirty thousand persons
were slain in the merciless and promiscuous carnage of the day.[3]
Hypatius was dragged from his throne, and conducted with his brother
Pompeius to the feet of the emperor; they implored his clemency; but
their crime was manifest, their innocence uncertain, and Justinian had
been too much terrified to forgive. The next morning the two nephews
of Anastasius, with eighteen illustrious accomplices of patrician or
consular rank were privately executed by the soldiers; their bodies
were thrown into the sea, their palaces razed, and their fortunes
confiscated. The hippodrome itself was condemned during several years to
a mournful silence; with the restoration of the games the same disorders
revived, and the blue and green factions continued to afflict the reign
of Justinian, and to disturb the tranquillity of the Eastern Empire,
which still embraced the nations beyond the Adriatic and as far as the
frontiers of Ethiopia and Persia.
AVARICE AND PROFUSION OF JUSTINIAN
[Sidenote: [527-565 A.D.]]
Justinian reigned over sixty-four provinces and 935 cities, his dominions
were blessed by nature with the advantages of soil, situation, and
climate; and the improvements of human art had been perpetually diffused
along the coast of the Mediterranean and the banks of the Nile, from
ancient Troy to the Egyptian Thebes. Abraham had been relieved by the
well-known plenty of Egypt; the same country, a small and populous tract,
was still capable of exporting each year 260,000 quarters of wheat for
the use of Constantinople; and the capital of Justinian was supplied
with the manufactures of Sidon, fifteen centuries after they had been
celebrated in the poems of Homer.
The subjects of Justinian were dissatisfied with the times and with the
government. Europe was overrun by the barbarians, and Asia by the monks;
the poverty of the West discouraged the trade and manufactures of the
East; the produce of labour was consumed by the unprofitable servants of
the church, the state, and the army, and a rapid decrease was felt in the
fixed and circulating capitals which constitute the national wealth. The
public distress had been alleviated by the economy of Anastasius, and
that prudent emperor accumulated an immense treasure, while he delivered
his people from the most odious or oppressive taxes. His example was
neglected, and his treasure was abused, by the nephew of Justin. The
riches of Justinian were speedily exhausted by alms and buildings,
by ambitious wars, and ignominious treaties. His revenues were found
inadequate to his expenses.
Every art was tried to extort from the people the gold and silver which
he scattered with a lavish hand from Persia to France; his reign was
marked by the vicissitudes, or rather by the combat, of rapaciousness and
avarice, of splendour and poverty; he lived with the reputation of hidden
treasures, and bequeathed to his successor the payment of his debts. Such
a character has been justly accused by the voice of the people and of
posterity; but public discontent is credulous, private malice is bold;
and a lover of truth will peruse with a suspicious eye the instructive
anecdotes of Procopius.[e] The secret historian represents only the vices
of Justinian, and those vices are darkened by his malevolent pencil.
Ambiguous actions are imputed to the worst motives, error is confounded
with guilt, accident with design, and laws with abuses; the partial
injustice of a moment is dexterously applied as the general maxim of a
reign of thirty-two years. The emperor alone is made responsible for the
faults of his officers, the disorders of the times, and the corruption of
his subjects; and even the calamities of nature, plagues, earthquakes,
and inundations, are imputed to the prince of the demons, who had
mischievously assumed the form of Justinian.
After this precaution, we shall briefly relate the anecdotes of avarice
and rapine, under the following heads: (1) Justinian was so profuse that
he could not be liberal. The civil and military officers, when they were
admitted into the service of the palace, obtained a humble rank and a
moderate stipend; they ascended by seniority to a station of affluence
and repose; the annual pensions, of which the most honourable class was
abolished by Justinian, amounted to four hundred thousand pounds; and
this domestic economy was deplored by the venal or indigent courtiers as
the last outrage on the majesty of the empire. The posts, the salaries
of physicians, and the nocturnal illuminations, were objects of more
general concern; and the cities might justly complain that he usurped
the municipal revenues which had been appropriated to these useful
institutions. Even the soldiers were injured; and such was the decay
of military spirit that they were injured with impunity. The emperor
refused, at the return of each fifth year, the customary donative of five
pieces of gold, reduced his veterans to beg their bread, and suffered
unpaid armies to melt away in the wars of Italy and Persia.
(2) The humanity of his predecessors had always remitted, in some
auspicious circumstance of their reign, the arrears of public tribute;
and they dexterously assumed the merit of resigning those claims which
it was impracticable to enforce. “Justinian, in the space of thirty-two
years, has never granted a similar indulgence; and many of his subjects
have renounced the possession of those lands whose value is insufficient
to satisfy the demands of the treasury. To the cities which had suffered
by hostile inroads, Anastasius promised a general exemption of seven
years; the provinces of Justinian have been ravaged by the Persians and
Arabs, the Huns and Slavonians; but his vain and ridiculous dispensation
of a single year has been confined to those places which were actually
taken by the enemy.” Such is the language of the secret historian, who
expressly denies that any indulgence was granted to Palestine after the
revolt of the Samaritans; a false and odious charge, confuted by the
authentic record, which attests a relief of thirteen centenaries of
gold (£52,000 or $260,000) obtained for that desolate province by the
intercession of St. Sabas.
(3) Procopius has not condescended to explain the system of taxation,
which fell like a hail-storm upon the land, like a devouring pestilence
on its inhabitants; but we should become the accomplices of his
malignity, if we imputed to Justinian alone the ancient, though rigorous
principle, that a whole district should be condemned to sustain the
partial loss of the persons or property of individuals. The _annona_,
or supply of corn for the use of the army and capital, was a grievous
and arbitrary exaction, which exceeded, perhaps in a tenfold proportion,
the ability of the farmer; and his distress was aggravated by the
partial injustice of weights and measures, and the expense and labour of
distant carriage. In a time of scarcity, an extraordinary requisition
was made to the adjacent provinces of Thrace, Bithynia, and Phrygia; but
the proprietors, after a wearisome journey and a perilous navigation,
received so inadequate a compensation that they would have chosen the
alternative of delivering both the corn and price at the doors of their
granaries. These precautions might indicate a tender solicitude for the
welfare of the capital; yet Constantinople did not escape the rapacious
despotism of Justinian. Till his reign, the straits of the Bosporus and
Hellespont were open to the freedom of trade, and nothing was prohibited
except the exportation of arms for the service of the barbarians. At
each of these gates of the city a prætor was stationed, the minister of
imperial avarice; heavy customs were imposed on the vessels and their
merchandise; the oppression was retaliated on the helpless consumer; the
poor were afflicted by the artificial scarcity and exorbitant price of
the market; and a people, accustomed to depend on the liberality of their
prince, might sometimes complain of the deficiency of water and bread.
The aërial tribute, without a name, a law, or a definite object, was an
annual gift of £120,000 or $600,000, which the emperor accepted from
his prætorian prefect; and the means of payment were abandoned to the
discretion of that powerful magistrate.
(4) Even such a tax was less intolerable than the privilege of
monopolies, which checked the fair competition of industry, and, for the
sake of a small and dishonest gain, imposed an arbitrary burden on the
wants and luxury of the subject. “As soon,” says Procopius,[e] “as the
exclusive sale of silk was usurped by the imperial treasurer, a whole
people, the manufacturers of Tyre and Berytus, was reduced to extreme
misery, and either perished with hunger, or fled to the hostile dominions
of Persia.” A province might suffer by the decay of its manufactures;
but in this example Procopius has partially overlooked the inestimable
benefit which the empire received from Justinian’s introduction of
silk-culture. His addition of one-seventh to the ordinary price of copper
money may be interpreted with the same candour; and the alteration, which
might be wise, appears to have been innocent; since he neither alloyed
the purity nor enhanced the value of the gold coin, the legal measure of
public and private payments.
(5) The ample jurisdiction, required by the farmers of the revenue to
accomplish their engagements, might be placed in an odious light, as
if they had purchased from the emperor the lives and fortunes of their
fellow-citizens. And a more direct sale of honours and offices was
transacted in the palace, with the permission, or at least with the
connivance, of Justinian and Theodora. The claims of merit, even those
of favour, were disregarded; and it was almost reasonable to expect
that the bold adventurer, who had undertaken the trade of a magistrate,
should find a rich compensation for infamy, labour, danger, the debts
which he had contracted, and the heavy interest which he paid. A sense
of the disgrace and mischief of this venal practice at length awakened
the slumbering virtue of Justinian; and he attempted, by the sanction
of oaths and penalties, to guard the integrity of his government: but
at the end of a year of perjury, his rigorous edict was suspended, and
corruption licentiously abused her triumph over the impotence of the laws.
(6) The testament of Eulalius, count of the domestics, declared
the emperor his sole heir, on condition, however, that he should
discharge his debts and legacies, allow to his three daughters a decent
maintenance, and bestow each of them in marriage, with a portion of ten
pounds of gold. But the splendid fortune of Eulalius had been consumed
by fire; and the inventory of his goods did not exceed the trifling sum
of 564 pieces of gold. A similar instance in Grecian history admonished
the emperor of the honourable part prescribed for his imitation. He
checked the selfish murmurs of the treasury, applauded the confidence
of his friend, discharged the legacies and debts, educated the three
virgins under the eye of the empress Theodora, and doubled the marriage
portion which had satisfied the tenderness of their father. The humanity
of a prince (for princes cannot be generous) is entitled to some praise;
yet even in this act of virtue we may discover the inveterate custom
of supplanting the legal or natural heirs, which Procopius imputes to
the reign of Justinian. His charge is supported by eminent names and
scandalous examples; neither widows nor orphans were spared; and the art
of soliciting, or extorting, or supposing testaments, was beneficially
practised by the agents of the palace. This base and mischievous tyranny
invades the security of private life; and the monarch who has indulged
an appetite for gain, will soon be tempted to anticipate the moment of
succession, to interpret wealth as an evidence of guilt, and to proceed
from the claim of inheritance to the power of confiscation.
(7) Among the forms of rapine, a philosopher may be permitted to name the
conversion of pagan or heretical riches to the use of the faithful; but
in the time of Justinian this holy plunder was condemned by the sectaries
alone, who became the victims of his orthodox avarice.
Dishonour might be ultimately reflected on the character of Justinian;
but much of the guilt, and still more of the profit, was intercepted
by the ministers, who were seldom promoted for their virtues, and not
always selected for their talents. The merits of Tribonian the quæstor
will hereafter be weighed in the reformation of the Roman law; but
the economy of the East was subordinate to the prætorian prefect, and
Procopius[f] has justified his anecdotes by the portrait which he exposes
in his public history of the notorious vices of Joannes of Cappadocia.
The corruption of his heart was equal to the vigour of his understanding.
Although he was suspected of magic and pagan superstition, he appeared
insensible to the fear of God or the reproaches of man; and his aspiring
fortune was raised on the death of thousands, the poverty of millions,
the ruin of cities, and the desolation of provinces. From the dawn of
light to the moment of dinner he assiduously laboured to enrich his
master and himself at the expense of the Roman world; the remainder of
the day was spent in sensual and obscene pleasures, and the silent hours
of the night were interrupted by the perpetual dread of the justice of
an assassin. His abilities, perhaps his vices, recommended him to the
lasting friendship of Justinian; the emperor yielded with reluctance
to the fury of the people; his victory was displayed by the immediate
restoration of their enemy; and they felt above ten years, under his
oppressive administration, that he was stimulated by revenge, rather
than instructed by misfortune. Their murmurs served only to fortify the
resolution of Justinian; but the prefect, in the insolence of favour,
provoked the resentment of Theodora, disdained a power before which every
knee was bent, and attempted to sow the seeds of discord between the
emperor and his beloved consort.
[Illustration: A BYZANTINE GOBLET]
Even Theodora herself was constrained to dissemble, to wait a favourable
moment, and by an artful conspiracy, to render Joannes of Cappadocia the
accomplice of his own destruction. At a time when Belisarius, unless he
had been a hero, must have shown himself a rebel, his wife Antonina, who
enjoyed the secret confidence of the empress, communicated his feigned
discontent to Euphemia, the daughter of the prefect; the credulous virgin
imparted to her father the dangerous project, and Joannes, who might
have known the value of oaths and promises, was tempted to accept a
nocturnal, and almost treasonable, interview with the wife of Belisarius.
An ambuscade of guards and eunuchs had been posted by the command of
Theodora; they rushed with drawn swords to seize or to punish the guilty
minister; he was saved by the fidelity of his attendants; but, instead of
appealing to a gracious sovereign, who had privately warned him of his
danger, he pusillanimously fled to the sanctuary of the church.
The favourite of Justinian was sacrificed to conjugal tenderness or
domestic tranquillity; the conversion of a prefect into a priest
extinguished his ambitious hopes, but the friendship of the emperor
alleviated his disgrace, and he retained, in the mild exile of Cyzicus,
an ample portion of his riches. Such imperfect revenge could not satisfy
the unrelenting hatred of Theodora; the murder of his old enemy, the
bishop of Cyzicus, afforded a decent pretence; and Joannes of Cappadocia,
whose actions had deserved a thousand deaths, was at last condemned for a
crime of which he was innocent. A great minister, who had been invested
with the honours of consul and patrician, was ignominiously scourged like
the vilest of malefactors; a tattered cloak was the sole remnant of his
fortunes; he was transported in a bark to the place of his banishment at
Antinopolis in Upper Egypt, and the prefect of the East begged his bread
through the cities which had trembled at his name.
During an exile of seven years, his life was protected and threatened
by the ingenious cruelty of Theodora; and when her death permitted the
emperor to recall a servant whom he had abandoned with regret, the
ambition of Joannes of Cappadocia was reduced to the humble duties
of the sacerdotal profession. His successors convinced the subjects
of Justinian that the arts of oppression might still be improved by
experience and industry; the frauds of a Syrian banker were introduced
into the administration of the finances; and the example of the prefect
was diligently copied by the quæstor, the public and private treasurer,
the governors of provinces, and the principal magistrates of the Eastern
Empire.
The edifices of Justinian were cemented with the blood and treasure
of his people; but those stately structures appeared to announce the
prosperity of the empire, and actually displayed the skill of their
architects. Both the theory and practice of the arts, which depend on
mathematical science and mechanical power, were cultivated under the
patronage of the emperors; the fame of Archimedes was rivalled by Proclus
and Anthemius; and if their miracles had been related by intelligent
spectators, they might now enlarge the speculations instead of exciting
the distrust of philosophers. A tradition has prevailed that the Roman
fleet was reduced to ashes in the port of Syracuse by the burning-glasses
of Archimedes; and it is asserted that a similar expedient was
employed by Proclus to destroy the Gothic vessels in the harbour of
Constantinople, and to protect his benefactor Anastasius against the bold
enterprise of Vitalian. A machine was fixed on the walls of the city,
consisting of an hexagon mirror of polished brass, with many smaller and
movable polygons to receive and reflect the rays of the meridian sun; and
a consuming flame was darted to the distance, perhaps, of two hundred
feet.
The truth of these two extraordinary facts is invalidated by the silence
of the most authentic historians; and the use of burning-glasses was
never adopted in the attack or defence of places. Yet the admirable
experiments of a French philosopher [Buffon] have demonstrated the
possibility of such a mirror; and, since it is possible, we are more
disposed to attribute the art to the greatest mathematicians of
antiquity, than to give the merit of the fiction to the idle fancy of a
monk or a sophist. According to another story [told by John Malalas[h]],
Proclus applied sulphur to the destruction of the Gothic fleet; in a
modern imagination, the name of sulphur is instantly connected with the
suspicion of gunpowder, and that suspicion is propagated by the secret
arts of his disciple Anthemius.
[Illustration: A BYZANTINE NOBLE]
The fame of Metrodorus the grammarian, and of Anthemius the mathematician
and architect, reached the ears of the emperor Justinian, who invited
them to Constantinople; and while the one instructed the rising
generation in the schools of eloquence, the other filled the capital and
provinces with more lasting monuments of his art. In a trifling dispute,
relative to the walls or windows of their contiguous houses, he had
been vanquished by the eloquence of his neighbour Zeno; but the orator
was defeated in his turn by the master of mechanics, whose malicious,
though harmless, stratagems are darkly represented by the ignorance
of Agathias. In a lower room, Anthemius arranged several vessels or
cauldrons of water, each of them covered by the wide bottom of a leathern
tube, which rose to a narrow top, and was artificially conveyed among the
joists and rafters of the adjacent building. A fire was kindled beneath
the cauldron; the steam of the boiling water ascended through the tubes;
the house was shaken by the efforts of imprisoned air, and its trembling
inhabitants might wonder that the city was unconscious of the earthquake
which they had felt.
At another time the friends of Zeno, as they sat at table, were dazzled
by the intolerable light which flashed in their eyes from the reflecting
mirrors of Anthemius; they were astonished by the noise which he produced
from the collision of certain minute and sonorous particles; and the
orator declared in tragic style to the senate, that a mere mortal must
yield to the power of an antagonist who shook the earth with the trident
of Neptune, and imitated the thunder and lightning of Jove himself. The
genius of Anthemius and his colleague Isidore the Milesian was excited
and employed by a prince whose taste for architecture had degenerated
into a mischievous and costly passion. His favourite architects submitted
their designs and difficulties to Justinian, and discreetly confessed
how much their laborious meditations were surpassed by the intuitive
knowledge or celestial inspiration of an emperor whose views were always
directed to the benefit of his people, the glory of his reign, and the
salvation of his soul.
THE BUILDING OF ST. SOPHIA
[Sidenote: [532-538 A.D.]]
The principal church, which was dedicated by the founder of
Constantinople to St. Sophia, or the eternal Wisdom, had been twice
destroyed by fire; after the exile of John Chrysostom, and during the
_Nika_ of the blue and green factions. No sooner did the tumult subside
than the Christian populace deplored their sacrilegious rashness; but
they might have rejoiced in the calamity, had they foreseen the glory
of the new temple which, at the end of forty days, was strenuously
undertaken by the piety of Justinian. The ruins were cleared away, a more
spacious plan was described, and, as it required the consent of some
proprietors of ground, they obtained the most exorbitant terms from the
eager desires and timorous conscience of the monarch. Anthemius formed
the design, and his genius directed the hands of ten thousand workmen,
whose payment in pieces of fine silver was never delayed beyond the
evening. The emperor himself, clad in a linen tunic, surveyed each day
their rapid progress, and encouraged their diligence by his familiarity,
his zeal, and his rewards.
The new cathedral of St. Sophia was consecrated by the patriarch, five
years, eleven months, and ten days from the first foundation; and in the
midst of the solemn festival, Justinian exclaimed with devout vanity,
“Glory be to God, who hath thought me worthy to accomplish so great a
work; I have vanquished thee, O Solomon!” But the pride of the Roman
Solomon, before twenty years had elapsed, was humbled by an earthquake,
which overthrew the eastern part of the dome. Its splendour was again
restored by the perseverance of the same prince; and, in the thirty-sixth
year of his reign, Justinian celebrated the second dedication of a
temple, which remains, after twelve centuries, a stately monument of his
fame. The architecture of St. Sophia, which is now converted into the
principal mosque, has been imitated by the Turkish sultans, and that
venerable pile continues to excite the fond admiration of the Greeks,
and the more rational curiosity of European travellers. The eye of the
spectator is disappointed by an irregular prospect of half domes and
shelving roofs; the western front, the principal approach, is destitute
of simplicity and magnificence; and the scale of dimensions has been much
surpassed by several of the Latin cathedrals. But the architect, who
first erected an aërial cupola, is entitled to the praise of bold design
and skilful execution.
The altar itself, a name which insensibly became familiar to Christian
ears, was placed in the eastern recess, artificially built in the form
of a demicylinder; and this sanctuary communicated by several doors
with the sacristy, the vestry, the baptistery, and the contiguous
buildings, subservient either to the pomp of worship or the private
use of the ecclesiastical ministers. The memory of past calamities
inspired Justinian with a wise resolution, that no wood, except for the
doors, should be admitted into the new edifice; and the choice of the
materials was applied to the strength, the lightness, or the splendour
of the respective parts. The solid piles which sustained the cupola were
composed of huge blocks of freestone, hewn into squares and triangles,
fortified by circles of iron, and firmly cemented by the infusion of
lead and quicklime; but the weight of the cupola was diminished by the
levity of its substance, which consists either of pumice-stone, that
floats in the water, or of bricks from the isle of Rhodes, five times
less ponderous than the ordinary sort. The whole frame of the edifice
was constructed of brick; but those base materials were concealed by a
crust of marble; and the inside of St. Sophia, the cupola, the two larger
and the six smaller semi-domes, the walls, the hundred columns, and the
pavement, delight even the eyes of barbarians with a rich and variegated
picture.
A poet, who beheld the primitive lustre of St. Sophia, enumerates the
colours, the shades, and the spots of ten or twelve marbles, jaspers,
and porphyries, which nature had profusely diversified, and which were
blended and contrasted as it were by a skilful painter. The triumph of
Christ was adorned with the last spoils of paganism; but the greater part
of these costly stones was extracted from the quarries of Asia Minor, the
isles and continent of Greece, Egypt, Africa, and Gaul. Eight columns
of porphyry, which Aurelian had placed in the temple of the sun, were
offered by the piety of a Roman matron; eight others, of green marble,
were presented by the ambitious zeal of the magistrates of Ephesus: both
are admirable by their size and beauty; but every order of architecture
disclaims their fantastic capitals.
A variety of ornaments and figures was curiously expressed in mosaic;
and the images of Christ, of the Virgin, of saints, and of angels, which
have been defaced by Turkish fanaticism, were dangerously exposed to the
superstition of the Greeks. According to the sanctity of each object the
precious metals were distributed in thin leaves or in solid masses. The
balustrade of the choir, the capitals of the pillars, the ornaments of
the doors and galleries, were of gilt bronze; the spectator was dazzled
by the glittering aspect of the cupola; the sanctuary contained forty
thousand pounds’ weight of silver; and the holy vases and vestments of
the altar were of the purest gold, enriched with inestimable gems. Before
the structure of the church had risen two cubits above the ground, 45,200
pounds were already consumed; and the whole expense amounted to 320,000
pounds; each reader, according to the measure of his belief, may estimate
their value either in gold or silver; but the sum of £1,000,000, or
$5,000,000, is the result of the lowest computation. A magnificent temple
is a laudable monument of national taste and religion, and the enthusiast
who entered the dome of St. Sophia might be tempted to suppose that it
was the residence, or even the workmanship, of the Deity. Yet how dull is
the artifice, how insignificant is the labour, if it be compared with the
formation of the vilest insect that crawls upon the surface of the temple!
OTHER BUILDINGS OF JUSTINIAN
[Sidenote: [527-565 A.D.]]
So minute a description of an edifice which time has respected may attest
the truth and excuse the relation of the innumerable works, both in the
capital and provinces, which Justinian constructed on a smaller scale and
less durable foundations.[4] In Constantinople alone, and the adjacent
suburbs, he dedicated twenty-five churches to the honour of Christ, the
Virgin, and the saints; most of these churches were decorated with marble
and gold; and their various situation was skilfully chosen in a populous
square, or a pleasant grove; on the margin of the seashore, or on some
lofty eminence which overlooked the continents of Europe and Asia.
The Virgin of Jerusalem might exult in the temple erected by her imperial
votary on a most ungrateful spot, which afforded neither ground nor
materials to the architect. A level was formed, by raising part of a
deep valley to the height of the mountain. The stones of a neighbouring
quarry were hewn into regular forms; each block was fixed on a peculiar
carriage, drawn by forty of the strongest oxen, and the roads were
widened for the passage of such enormous weights. Lebanon furnished
her loftiest cedars for the timbers of the church; and the seasonable
discovery of a vein of red marble supplied its beautiful columns, two of
which, the supporters of the exterior portico, were esteemed the largest
in the world.
The pious munificence of the emperor was diffused over the Holy Land:
and if reason should condemn the monasteries of both sexes which were
built or restored by Justinian, yet charity must applaud the wells which
he sank, and the hospitals which he founded, for the relief of the
weary pilgrims. The schismatical temper of Egypt was ill entitled to
the royal bounty; but in Syria and Africa some remedies were applied to
the disasters of wars and earthquakes, and both Carthage and Antioch,
emerging from their ruins, might revere the name of their gracious
benefactor.
Almost every saint in the calendar acquired the honours of a temple;
almost every city of the empire obtained the solid advantages of
bridges, hospitals, and aqueducts; but the severe liberality of the
monarch disdained to indulge his subjects in the popular luxury of
baths and theatres. While Justinian laboured for the public service, he
was not unmindful of his own dignity and ease. The Byzantine palace,
which had been damaged by the conflagration, was restored with new
magnificence; and some notion may be conceived of the whole edifice by
the vestibule, or hall, which, from the doors perhaps, or the roof, was
surnamed _chalce_, or the brazen. The dome of a spacious quadrangle was
supported by massy pillars; the pavement and walls were encrusted with
many-coloured marbles--the emerald green of Laconia, the fiery red and
the white Phrygian stone, intersected with veins of a sea-green hue; the
mosaic paintings of the dome and sides represented the glories of the
African and Italian triumphs.
On the Asiatic shore of the Propontis, at a small distance to the east
of Chalcedon, the costly palace and gardens of Heræum were prepared for
the summer residence of Justinian, and more especially of Theodora.
The poets of the age have celebrated the rare alliance of nature and
art, the harmony of the nymphs of the groves, the fountains, and the
waves; yet the crowd of attendants who followed the court complained of
their inconvenient lodgings, and the nymphs were too often alarmed by
the famous Porphyrio, a whale of ten cubits in breadth and thirty in
length, who was stranded at the mouth of the river Sangaris, after he had
infested more than half a century the seas of Constantinople.
FORTIFICATIONS
The fortifications of Europe and Asia were multiplied by Justinian; but
the repetition of those timid and fruitless precautions exposes to a
philosophic eye the debility of the empire. From Belgrade to the Euxine,
from the conflux of the Save to the mouth of the Danube, a chain of
above fourscore fortified places was extended along the banks of the
great river. Single watch-towers were changed into spacious citadels;
vacant walls, which the engineers contracted or enlarged according to the
nature of the ground, were filled with colonies or garrisons; a strong
fortress defended the ruins of Trajan’s bridge, and several military
stations affected to spread beyond the Danube the pride of the Roman
name. But that name was divested of its terrors; the barbarians, in their
annual inroads, passed and contemptuously repassed before these useless
bulwarks; and the inhabitants of the frontier, instead of reposing
under the shadow of the general defence, were compelled to guard, with
incessant vigilance, their separate habitations.
The solitude of ancient cities was replenished; the new foundations of
Justinian acquired, perhaps too hastily, the epithets of impregnable
and populous; and the auspicious place of his own nativity attracted
the grateful reverence of the vainest of princes. Under the name of
_Justiniana Prima_, the obscure village of Tauresium became the seat
of an archbishop and a prefect, whose jurisdiction extended over
seven warlike provinces of Illyricum, and the corrupt appellation
of _Giustendil_ still indicates, about twenty miles to the south
of Sophia, the residence of a Turkish sanjak. For the use of the
emperor’s countrymen, a cathedral, a palace, and an aqueduct were
speedily constructed; the public and private edifices were adapted to
the greatness of a royal city; and the strength of the walls resisted,
during the lifetime of Justinian, the unskilful assaults of the Huns
and Slavonians. Their progress was sometimes retarded, and their hopes
of rapine were disappointed, by the innumerable castles which, in the
provinces of Dacia, Epirus, Thessaly, Macedonia, and Thrace, appear to
cover the whole face of the country. Six hundred of these forts were
built or repaired by the emperor: but it seems reasonable to believe that
the far greater part consisted only of a stone or brick tower, in the
midst of a square or circular area, which was surrounded by a wall and
ditch, and afforded in a moment of danger some protection to the peasants
and cattle of the neighbouring villages.
Yet these military works, which exhausted the public treasure, could not
remove the just apprehensions of Justinian and his European subjects.
The warm baths of Anchialus in Thrace were rendered as safe as they
were salutary; but the rich pastures of Thessalonica were foraged by
the Scythian cavalry; the delicious vale of Tempe, three hundred miles
from the Danube, was continually alarmed by the sound of war; and no
unfortified spot, however distant or solitary, could securely enjoy the
blessings of peace. The straits of Thermopylæ which seemed to protect,
but which had so often betrayed, the safety of Greece, were diligently
strengthened by the labours of Justinian. From the edge of the seashore,
through the forest and valleys, and as far as the summit of the
Thessalian Mountains, a strong wall was continued, which occupied every
practicable entrance. Instead of a hasty crowd of peasants, a garrison of
two thousand soldiers was stationed along the rampart; granaries of corn
and reservoirs of water were provided for their use; and by a precaution
that inspired the cowardice which it foresaw, convenient fortresses
were erected for their retreat. The walls of Corinth, overthrown by
an earthquake, and the mouldering bulwarks of Athens and Platæa, were
carefully restored; the barbarians were discouraged by the prospect of
successive and painful sieges; and the naked cities of Peloponnesus were
covered by the fortifications of the Isthmus of Corinth.
At the extremity of Europe, another peninsula, the Thracian Chersonesus,
runs three days’ journey into the sea, to form, with the adjacent shores
of Asia, the straits of the Hellespont. The intervals between eleven
populous towns were filled by lofty woods, fair pastures, and arable
lands; and the isthmus, of thirty-seven stadia or furlongs, had been
fortified by a Spartan general nine hundred years before the reign of
Justinian. In an age of freedom and valour, the slightest rampart may
prevent a surprise; and Procopius appears insensible of the superiority
of ancient times, while he praises the solid construction and double
parapet of a wall whose long arms stretched on either side into the sea,
but whose strength was deemed insufficient to guard the Chersonesus, if
each city, and particularly Gallipoli and Sestos, had not been secured by
their peculiar fortifications.
The long wall, as it was emphatically styled, was a work as disgraceful
in the object as it was respectable in the execution. The riches of
a capital diffuse themselves over the neighbouring country, and the
territory of Constantinople, a paradise of nature, was adorned with the
luxurious gardens and villas of the senators and opulent citizens. But
their wealth served only to attract the bold and rapacious barbarians;
the noblest of the Romans, in the bosom of peaceful indolence, were led
away into Scythian captivity, and their sovereign might view, from his
palace, the hostile flames which were insolently spread to the gates of
the imperial city. At the distance only of forty miles, Anastasius was
constrained to establish a last frontier; his long wall, of sixty miles
from the Propontis to the Euxine, proclaimed the impotence of his arms;
and as the danger became more imminent, new fortifications were added by
the indefatigable prudence of Justinian.
Asia Minor, after the submission of the Isaurians, remained without
enemies and without fortifications. Those bold savages, who had disdained
to be the subjects of Gallienus, persisted 230 years in a life of
independence and rapine. The most successful princes respected the
strength of the mountains and the despair of the natives; their fierce
spirit was sometimes soothed with gifts, and sometimes restrained by
terror; and a military count, with three legions, fixed his permanent and
ignominious station in the heart of the Roman provinces.
If we extend our view from the tropic to the mouth of the Tanais, we may
observe on one hand the precautions of Justinian to curb the savages of
Ethiopia, and on the other the long walls which he constructed in Crimea
for the protection of his friendly Goths, a colony of three thousand
shepherds and warriors. From that peninsula to Trebizond, the eastern
curve of the Euxine was secured by forts, by alliance, or by religion;
and the possession of Lazica, the Colchos of ancient, the Mingrelia of
modern geography, soon became the object of an important war. Trebizond,
in after times the seat of a romantic empire, was indebted to the
liberality of Justinian for a church, an aqueduct, and a castle, whose
ditches are hewn in the solid rock. From that maritime city, a frontier
line of five hundred miles may be drawn to the fortress of Circesium, the
last Roman station on the Euphrates.
Among the Roman cities beyond the Euphrates, we distinguish two recent
foundations, which were named from Theodosius and the relics of the
martyrs, and two capitals, Amida and Edessa, which are celebrated in the
history of every age. Their strength was proportioned, by Justinian, to
the danger of their situation. A ditch and palisade might be sufficient
to resist the artless force of the cavalry of Scythia; but more elaborate
works were required to sustain a regular siege against the arms and
treasures of the great king. His skilful engineers understood the methods
of conducting deep mines, and of raising platforms to the level of the
rampart; he shook the strongest battlements with his military engines,
and sometimes advanced to the assault with a line of movable turrets on
the backs of elephants. In the great cities of the East the disadvantage
of space, perhaps of position, was compensated by the zeal of the people,
who seconded the garrison in the defence of their country and religion;
and the fabulous promise of the Son of God, that Edessa should never
be taken, filled the citizens with valiant confidence and chilled the
besiegers with doubt and dismay.
The subordinate towns of Armenia and Mesopotamia were diligently
strengthened, and the posts which appeared to have any command of ground
or water were occupied by numerous forts, substantially built of stone or
more hastily erected with the obvious materials of earth and brick. The
eye of Justinian investigated every spot; and his cruel precautions might
attract the war into some lonely vale, whose peaceful natives, connected
by trade and marriage, were ignorant of national discord and the quarrels
of princes. Westward of the Euphrates, a sandy desert extends above six
hundred miles to the Red Sea. Nature had interposed a vacant solitude
between the ambition of two rival empires; the Arabians, till Mohammed
arose, were formidable only as robbers, and in the proud security of
peace the fortifications of Syria were neglected on the most vulnerable
side.
SUPPRESSION OF THE SCHOOLS
[Sidenote: [529-541 A.D.]]
Justinian suppressed the schools of Athens and the consulship of
Rome, which had given so many sages and heroes to mankind. Both these
institutions had long since degenerated from their primitive glory; yet
some reproach may be justly inflicted on the avarice and jealousy of a
prince by whose hands such venerable ruins were destroyed.
The schools of Athens were protected by the wisest and most virtuous
of the Roman princes. The library which Hadrian founded was placed in
a portico, adorned with pictures, statues, and a roof of alabaster,
and supported by one hundred columns of Phrygian marble. The public
salaries were assigned by the generous spirit of the Antonines; and each
professor, of politics, of rhetoric, of the platonic, the peripatetic,
the stoic, and the epicurean philosophy, received an annual stipend
of ten thousand drachmæ [more than £300, or $1500]. After the death
of Marcus these liberal donations, and the privileges attached to the
thrones of science, were abolished and revived, diminished and enlarged;
but some vestige of royal bounty may be found under the successors of
Constantine, and their arbitrary choice of an unworthy candidate might
tempt the philosophers of Athens to regret the days of independence and
poverty. It is remarkable that the impartial favour of the Antonines was
bestowed on the four adverse sects of philosophy, which they considered
as equally useful, or at least as equally innocent.
The Gothic arms were less fatal to the schools of Athens than the
establishment of a new religion, whose ministers superseded the exercise
of reason, resolved every question by an article of faith, and condemned
the infidel or sceptic to eternal flames. In many a volume of laborious
controversy they exposed the weakness of the understanding and the
corruption of the heart, insulted human nature in the sages of antiquity,
and proscribed the spirit of philosophical inquiry, so repugnant to the
doctrine or at least to the temper of an humble believer. The surviving
sect of the platonists, whom Plato would have blushed to acknowledge,
extravagantly mingled a sublime theory with the practice of superstition
and magic; and as they remained alone in the midst of a Christian world,
they indulged a secret rancour against the government of the church and
the state, whose severity was still suspended over their heads.
[Illustration: GOTHIC WEAPONS AND HELMET]
About a century after the reign of Julian, Proclus was permitted to
teach in the philosophic chair of the academy; and such was his industry
that he frequently, in the same day, pronounced five lessons and
composed seven hundred lines. His sagacious mind explored the deepest
questions of morals and metaphysics, and he ventured to urge eighteen
arguments against the Christian doctrine of the creation of the world.
But, in the intervals of study, he personally conversed with Pan,
Æsculapius, and Minerva, in whose mysteries he was secretly initiated,
and whose prostrate statues he adored in the devout persuasion that the
philosopher, who is a citizen of the universe, should be the priest of
its various deities. An eclipse of the sun announced his approaching
end; and his life, with that of his scholar Isidore, compiled by two of
their most learned disciples, exhibits a deplorable picture of the second
childhood of human reason.
[Sidenote: [527-565 A.D.]]
Yet the golden chain, as it was fondly styled, of the Platonic
succession, continued forty-four years from the death of Proclus to the
edict of Justinian, which imposed a perpetual silence on the schools
of Athens, and excited the grief and indignation of the few remaining
votaries of Grecian science and superstition. Seven friends and
philosophers, Diogenes and Hermias, Eulalius and Priscian, Damascius,
Isidore, and Simplicius, who dissented from the religion of their
sovereign, embraced the resolution of seeking in a foreign land the
freedom which was denied in their native country. They had heard, and
they credulously believed, that the republic of Plato was realised in
the despotic government of Persia, and that a patriot king reigned over
the happiest and most virtuous of nations. They were soon astonished by
the natural discovery that Persia resembled the other countries of the
globe; that Chosroes, who affected the name of a philosopher, was vain,
cruel, and ambitious; that bigotry and a spirit of intolerance prevailed
among the Magi; that the nobles were haughty, the courtiers servile, and
the magistrates unjust; that the guilty sometimes escaped, and that the
innocent were often oppressed.
The disappointment of the philosophers provoked them to overlook the real
virtues of the Persians; and they were scandalised, more deeply perhaps
than became their profession, with the plurality of wives and concubines,
the incestuous marriages, and the custom of exposing dead bodies to the
dogs and vultures, instead of hiding them in the earth or consuming
them with fire. Their repentance was expressed by a precipitate return,
and they loudly declared that they had rather die on the borders of the
empire, than enjoy the wealth and favour of the barbarian. From this
journey, however, they derived a benefit which reflects the purest lustre
on the character of Chosroes. He required that the seven sages, who had
visited the court of Persia, should be exempted from the penal laws
which Justinian enacted against his pagan subjects; and this privilege,
expressly stipulated in a treaty of peace, was guarded by the vigilance
of a powerful mediator.[5]
Simplicius and his companions ended their lives in peace and obscurity;
and as they left no disciples, they terminate the long list of Grecian
philosophers, who may be justly praised, notwithstanding their defects,
as the wisest and most virtuous of their contemporaries. The writings of
Simplicius are now extant. His physical and metaphysical commentaries on
Aristotle have passed away with the fashion of the times; but his moral
interpretation of Epictetus is preserved in the library of nations as
a classic book, most excellently adapted to direct the will, to purify
the heart, and to confirm the understanding, by a just confidence in the
nature both of God and man.
EXTINCTION OF THE ROMAN CONSULSHIP
[Sidenote: [541 A.D.]]
About the same time that Pythagoras first invented the appellation of
philosopher, liberty and the consulship were founded at Rome by the
elder Brutus. The first magistrates of the republic had been chosen by
the people to exercise, in the senate and in the camp, the powers of
peace and war which were afterwards translated to the emperors. But
the tradition of ancient dignity was long revered by the Romans and
barbarians. The Gothic historian Jordanes[i] applauds the consulship
of Theodoric as the height of all temporal glory;[6] the king of Italy
himself congratulates those annual favourites of fortune, who without
the cares enjoyed the splendour of the throne; and at the end of a
thousand years two consuls were created by the sovereigns of Rome and
Constantinople, for the sole purpose of giving a date to the year and a
festival to the people. But the expenses of this festival, in which the
wealthy and the vain aspired to surpass their predecessors, insensibly
arose to the enormous sum of £80,000 [$400,000]; the wisest senators
declined a useless honour, which involved the certain ruin of their
families; and to this reluctance we should impute the frequent chasms in
the last age of the consular _fasti_.
The predecessors of Justinian had assisted from the public treasures
the dignity of the less opulent candidates; the avarice of that
prince preferred the cheaper and more convenient method of advice and
regulation. Seven processions or spectacles was the number to which his
edict confined the horse and chariot races, the athletic sports, the
music and pantomimes of the theatre, and the hunting of wild beasts; and
small pieces of silver were discreetly substituted for the gold medals
which had always excited tumult and drunkenness when they were scattered
with a profuse hand among the populace. Notwithstanding these precautions
and his own example, the succession of consuls finally ceased in the
thirteenth year of Justinian, whose despotic temper might be gratified
by the silent extinction of a title which admonished the Romans of their
ancient freedom.
THE VANDALIC WAR
[Sidenote: [523-533 A.D.]]
When Justinian ascended the throne, about fifty years after the fall of
the Western Empire, the kingdoms of the Goths and Vandals had obtained a
solid, and, as it might seem, a legal establishment, both in Europe and
Africa. The titles which Roman victories had inscribed were erased with
equal justice by the sword of the barbarians; and their successful rapine
derived a more venerable sanction from time, from treaties, and from the
oaths of fidelity, already repeated by a second or third generation of
obedient subjects.
After Rome herself had been stripped of the imperial purple, the princes
of Constantinople assumed the sole and sacred sceptre of the monarchy;
demanded, as their rightful inheritance, the provinces which had been
subdued by the consuls or possessed by the Cæsars; and feebly aspired
to deliver their faithful subjects of the West from the usurpation of
heretics and barbarians. The execution of this splendid design was in
some degree reserved for Justinian. During the first five years of his
reign, he reluctantly waged a costly and unprofitable war against Persia;
till his pride submitted to his ambition, and he purchased, at the price
of £440,000 [$2,200,000], the benefit of a precarious truce which, in
the language of both nations, was dignified with the appellation of “the
endless peace.” The safety of the East enabled the emperor to employ his
forces against the Vandals; and the internal state of Africa afforded an
honourable motive and promised a powerful support to the Roman arms.
According to the testament of the founder, the African kingdom had
lineally descended to Hilderic, the eldest of the Vandal princes. A mild
disposition inclined the son of a tyrant, the grandson of a conqueror,
to prefer the counsels of clemency and peace; and his accession was
marked by the salutary edict which restored two hundred bishops to their
churches, and allowed the free profession of the Athanasian Creed. But
the Catholics accepted, with cold and transient gratitude, a favour so
inadequate to their pretensions, and the virtues of Hilderic offended the
prejudices of his countrymen. The Arian clergy presumed to insinuate that
he had renounced the faith, and the soldiers more loudly complained that
he had degenerated from the courage of his ancestors. His ambassadors
were suspected of a secret and disgraceful negotiation in the Byzantine
court; and his general, the Achilles, as he was named, of the Vandals,
lost a battle against the naked and disorderly Moors.
The public discontent was exasperated by Gelimer, whose age, descent,
and military fame gave him an apparent title to the succession. He
assumed, with the consent of the nation, the reins of government; and
his unfortunate sovereign sank without a struggle from the throne to a
dungeon, where he was strictly guarded, with a faithful counsellor and
his unpopular nephew, the Achilles of the Vandals. But the indulgence
which Hilderic had shown to his Catholic subjects had powerfully
recommended him to the favour of Justinian, who, for the benefit of his
own sect, could acknowledge the use and justice of religious toleration;
their alliance, while the nephew of Justin remained in a private station,
was cemented by the mutual exchange of gifts and letters, and the emperor
Justinian asserted the cause of royalty and friendship.
In two successive embassies, he admonished the usurper to repent of his
treason, or to abstain at least from any further violence, which might
provoke the displeasure of God and of the Romans; to reverence the laws
of kindred and succession, and to suffer an infirm old man peaceably
to end his days, either on the throne of Carthage or in the palace of
Constantinople. The passions or even the prudence of Gelimer compelled
him to reject these requests, which were urged in the haughty tone of
menace and command; and he justified his ambition in a language rarely
spoken in the Byzantine court, by alleging the right of a free people
to remove or punish their chief magistrate, who had failed in execution
of the kingly office. After this fruitless expostulation, the captive
monarch was more rigorously treated, his nephew was deprived of his eyes,
and the cruel Vandal, confident in his strength and distance, derided
the vain threats and slow preparations of the emperor of the East.
Justinian resolved to deliver or revenge his friend, Gelimer to maintain
his usurpation; and the war was preceded, according to the practice of
civilised nations, by the most solemn protestations that each party was
sincerely desirous of peace.
The report of an African war was grateful only to the vain and idle
populace of Constantinople, whose poverty exempted them from tribute and
whose cowardice was seldom exposed to military service. But the wiser
citizens, who judged of the future by the past, revolved in their memory
the immense loss, both of men and money, which the empire had sustained
in the expedition of Basiliscus. The troops, which after five laborious
campaigns had been recalled from the Persian frontier, dreaded the sea,
the climate, and the arms, of an unknown enemy.
The forces of the Vandals were diminished by discord and suspicion; the
Roman armies were animated by the spirit of Belisarius, one of those
heroic names which are familiar to every age and to every nation.
BELISARIUS
The Africanus of New Rome was born, and perhaps educated, among the
Thracian peasants,[7] without any of those advantages which had formed
the virtues of the elder and younger Scipio--a noble origin, liberal
studies, and the emulation of a free state. The silence of a loquacious
secretary may be admitted to prove that the youth of Belisarius could
not afford any subject of praise; he served, most assuredly with valour
and reputation, among the private guards of Justinian; and when his
patron became emperor, the domestic was promoted to military command.
After a bold inroad into Pers-Armenia, in which his glory was shared by a
colleague and his progress was checked by an enemy, Belisarius repaired
to the important station of Dara, where he first accepted the service
of Procopius,[f] the faithful companion and diligent historian of his
exploits.
[Illustration: A VANDAL CHIEF]
Peace relieved him from the guard of the eastern frontier, and his
conduct in the sedition of Constantinople amply discharged his
obligations to the emperor. When the African war became the topic of
popular discourse and secret deliberation, each of the Roman generals
was apprehensive, rather than ambitious, of the dangerous honour; but as
soon as Justinian had declared his preference of superior merit, their
envy was rekindled by the unanimous applause which was given to the
choice of Belisarius. The temper of the Byzantine court may encourage a
suspicion that the hero was darkly assisted by the intrigues of his wife,
the fair and subtle Antonina, who alternately enjoyed the confidence and
incurred the hatred of the empress Theodora. The birth of Antonina was
ignoble; she descended from a family of charioteers; and her chastity
has been stained with the foulest reproach. Yet she reigned with long
and absolute power over the mind of her illustrious husband; and if
Antonina disdained the merit of conjugal fidelity, she expressed a manly
friendship to Belisarius, whom she accompanied with undaunted resolution
in all the hardships and dangers of a military life.
[Sidenote: [533-534 A.D.]]
The preparations for the African war were not unworthy of the last
contest between Rome and Carthage. The pride and flower of the army
consisted of the guards of Belisarius, who, according to the pernicious
indulgence of the times, devoted themselves by a particular oath of
fidelity to the service of their patrons. Their strength and stature, for
which they had been curiously selected, the goodness of their horses and
armour, and the assiduous practice of all the exercises of war, enabled
them to act whatever their courage might prompt; and their courage was
exalted by the social honour of their rank, and the personal ambition of
favour and fortune.
Five hundred transports, navigated by twenty thousand mariners of Egypt,
Cilicia, and Ionia, were collected in the harbour of Constantinople. The
smallest of these vessels may be computed at thirty, the largest at five
hundred tons; and the fair average will supply an allowance, liberal
but not profuse, of about one hundred thousand tons, for the reception
of thirty-five thousand soldiers and sailors, of five thousand horses,
of arms, engines, and military stores, and of a sufficient stock of
water and provisions for a voyage perhaps of three months. The proud
galleys, which in former ages swept the Mediterranean with so many
hundred oars, had long since disappeared; and the fleet of Justinian
was escorted only by ninety-two light brigantines, covered from the
missile weapons of the enemy and rowed by two thousand of the brave and
robust youth of Constantinople. Twenty-two generals are named, most of
whom were afterwards distinguished in the wars of Africa and Italy; but
the supreme command, both by land and sea, was delegated to Belisarius
alone, with a boundless power of acting according to his discretion, as
if the emperor himself were present. The separation of the naval and
military professions is at once the effect and the cause of the modern
improvements in the science of navigation and maritime war.
If Gelimer had been informed of the approach of the enemy, he must have
delayed the conquest of Sardinia for the immediate defence of his person
and kingdom.
A detachment of 5000 soldiers and 120 galleys would have joined the
remaining forces of the Vandals; and the descendant of Genseric might
have surprised and oppressed a fleet of deep-laden transports, incapable
of action, and of light brigantines, that seemed only qualified for
flight. Belisarius had secretly trembled when he overheard his soldiers,
in the passage, emboldening each other to confess their apprehensions; if
they were once on shore, they hoped to maintain the honour of their arms;
but if they should be attacked at sea, they did not blush to acknowledge
that they wanted courage to contend at the same time with the winds, the
waves, and the barbarians. The knowledge of their sentiments decided
Belisarius to seize the first opportunity of landing them on the coast of
Africa, and he prudently rejected, in a council of war, the proposal of
sailing with the fleet and army into the port of Carthage.
[Illustration: THE ROMAN FORUM]
Three months after their departure from Constantinople, the men and
horses, the arms and military stores, were safely disembarked, and
five soldiers were left as a guard on board each of the ships, which
were disposed in the form of a semicircle. The remainder of the troops
occupied a camp on the sea shore, which they fortified according to
ancient discipline with a ditch and rampart; and the discovery of
a source of fresh water, while it allayed the thirst, excited the
superstitious confidence, of the Romans. The next morning, some of the
neighbouring gardens were pillaged; and Belisarius, after chastising
the offenders, embraced the slight occasion, but the decisive moment,
of inculcating the maxims of justice, moderation, and genuine policy.
“When I first accepted the commission of subduing Africa, I depended
much less,” said the general, “on the numbers, or even the bravery, of
my troops, than upon the friendly disposition of the natives and their
immortal hatred to the Vandals. You alone can deprive me of this hope;
if you continue to extort by rapine what might be purchased for a little
money, such acts of violence will reconcile these implacable enemies,
and unite them in a just and holy league against the invaders of their
country.”
These exhortations were enforced by a rigid discipline, of which the
soldiers themselves soon felt and praised the salutary effects. The
inhabitants, instead of deserting their houses or hiding their corn,
supplied the Romans with a fair and liberal market; the civil officers
of the province continued to exercise their functions in the name of
Justinian; and the clergy, from motives of conscience and interest,
assiduously laboured to promote the cause of a Catholic emperor.
Belisarius advanced without opposition as far as Grasse, a palace of
the Vandal kings, at the distance of fifty miles from Carthage. The
near approach of the Romans to Carthage filled the mind of Gelimer with
anxiety and terror. He prudently wished to protract the war till his
brother, with his veteran troops, should return from the conquest of
Sardinia; and he now lamented the rash policy of his ancestors, who, by
destroying the fortifications of Africa, had left him only the dangerous
resource of risking a battle in the neighbourhood of his capital. The
Vandal conquerors, from their original number of 50,000, were multiplied,
without including their women and children, to 160,000 fighting men;
and such forces, animated with valour and union, might have crushed at
their first landing the feeble and exhausted bands of the Roman general.
But the friends of the captive king were more inclined to accept the
invitations than to resist the progress of Belisarius; and many a proud
barbarian disguised his aversion to war under the more specious name of
his hatred to the usurper. Yet the authority and promises of Gelimer
collected a formidable army, and his plans were concerted with some
degree of military skill.
An order was despatched to his brother Ammatas, to collect all the forces
of Carthage and to encounter the van of the Roman army at the distance
of ten miles from the city; his nephew Gibamund, with two thousand
horse, was destined to attack their left, when the monarch himself,
who silently followed, should charge their rear, in a situation which
excluded them from the aid or even the view of their fleet. But the
rashness of Ammatas was fatal to himself and his country. He anticipated
the hour of the attack, outstripped his tardy followers, and was pierced
with a mortal wound, after he had slain with his own hand twelve of his
boldest antagonists. His Vandals fled to Carthage; the highway, almost
ten miles, was strewed with dead bodies; and it seemed incredible that
such multitudes could be slaughtered by the swords of three hundred
Romans. The nephew of Gelimer was defeated, after a slight combat, by the
six hundred Massagetæ; they did not equal the third part of his numbers,
but each Scythian was fired by the example of his chief, who gloriously
exercised the privilege of his family by riding foremost and alone to
shoot the first arrow against the enemy.
In the meanwhile Gelimer himself, ignorant of the event and misguided
by the windings of the hills, inadvertently passed the Roman army and
reached the scene of action where Ammatas had fallen. He wept the fate of
his brother and of Carthage, charged with irresistible fury the advancing
squadrons, and might have pursued and perhaps decided the victory if
he had not wasted those inestimable moments in the discharge of a vain
though pious duty to the dead.[8]
While his spirit was broken by this mournful office, he heard the trumpet
of Belisarius, who, leaving Antonina and his infantry in the camp,
pressed forward with his guards and the remainder of the cavalry to rally
his flying troops and to restore the fortune of the day. Much room could
not be found in this disorderly battle for the talents of a general;
but the king fled before the hero; and the Vandals, accustomed only to
a Moorish enemy, were incapable of withstanding the arms and discipline
of the Romans.[9] Gelimer retired with hasty steps towards the desert of
Numidia; but he had soon the consolation of learning that his private
orders for the execution of Hilderic and his captive friends had been
faithfully obeyed. The tyrant’s revenge was useful only to his enemies.
The death of a lawful prince excited the compassion of his people; his
life might have perplexed the victorious Romans; and the lieutenant
of Justinian, by a crime of which he was innocent, was relieved from
the painful alternative of forfeiting his honour or relinquishing his
conquests.
BELISARIUS ENTERS CARTHAGE
Belisarius was soon satisfied that he might confide, without danger, in
the peaceful and friendly aspect of the capital. Carthage blazed with
innumerable torches, the signals of the public joy; the chain was removed
that guarded the entrance of the port; the gates were thrown open, and
the people, with acclamations of gratitude, hailed and invited their
Roman deliverers. The defeat of the Vandals and the freedom of Africa
were announced to the city on the eve of St. Cyprian, when the churches
were already adorned and illuminated for the festival of the martyr, whom
three centuries of superstition had almost raised to a local deity. The
Arians, conscious that their reign had expired, resigned the temple to
the Catholics, who rescued their saint from profane hands, performed the
holy rites, and loudly proclaimed the creed of Athanasius and Justinian.
One awful hour reversed the fortunes of the contending parties.
The suppliant Vandals, who had so lately indulged the vices of
conquerors, sought a humble refuge in the sanctuary of the church; while
the merchants of the East were delivered from the deepest dungeon of the
palace by their affrighted keeper, who implored the protection of his
captives, and showed them, through an aperture in the wall, the sails
of a Roman fleet. But the imperial fleet, advancing with a fair wind,
steered through the narrow entrance of the Goletta, and occupied, in the
deep and capacious lake of Tunis, a secure station about five miles from
the capital. No sooner was Belisarius informed of their arrival than
he despatched orders that the greatest part of the mariners should be
immediately landed to join the triumph and to swell the apparent numbers
of the Romans. Before he allowed them to enter the gates of Carthage, he
exhorted them, in a discourse worthy of himself and the occasion, not to
disgrace the glory of their arms; and to remember that the Vandals had
been the tyrants, but that they were the deliverers of the Africans, who
must now be respected as the voluntary and affectionate subjects of their
common sovereign.
The Romans marched through the streets in close ranks, prepared for
battle if an enemy had appeared; the strict order maintained by the
general imprinted on their minds the duty of obedience; and in an age
in which custom and impunity almost sanctified the abuse of conquest,
the genius of one man repressed the passions of a victorious army. The
voice of menace and complaint was silent; the trade of Carthage was not
interrupted; while Africa changed her master and her government, the
shops continued open and busy; and the soldiers, after sufficient guards
had been posted, modestly departed to the houses which were allotted for
their reception. Belisarius fixed his residence in the palace. He seated
himself on the throne of Genseric; accepted and distributed the barbaric
spoil; granted their lives to the suppliant Vandals; and laboured to
repair the damage which the suburb of Mandracium had sustained in the
preceding night.
The fortifications of Carthage had alone been exempted from the general
proscription; but in the reign of ninety-five years they were suffered
to decay by the thoughtless and indolent Vandals. A wiser conqueror
restored with incredible despatch the walls and ditches of the city. His
liberality encouraged the workmen; the soldiers, the mariners, and the
citizens vied with each other in the salutary labour; and Gelimer, who
had feared to trust his person in an open town, beheld with astonishment
and despair the rising strength of an impregnable fortress.
[Illustration: BYZANTINE OIL VASE]
That unfortunate monarch, after the loss of his capital, applied himself
to collect the remains of an army scattered, rather than destroyed, by
the preceding battle; and the hopes of pillage attracted some Moorish
bands to the standard of Gelimer. He encamped in the fields of Bulla,
four days’ journey from Carthage; insulted the capital, which he deprived
of the use of an aqueduct; proposed a high reward for the head of
every Roman; affected to spare the persons and property of his African
subjects, and secretly negotiated with the Arian sectaries and the
confederate Huns.
Under these circumstances, the conquest of Sardinia served only to
aggravate his distress; he reflected with the deepest anguish that he had
wasted, in that useless enterprise, five thousand of his bravest troops;
and he read, with grief and shame, the victorious letters of his brother
Zano, who expressed a sanguine confidence that the king, after the
example of their ancestors, had already chastised the rashness of the
Roman invader. “Alas! my brother,” replied Gelimer, “heaven has declared
against our unhappy nation. While you have subdued Sardinia, we have
lost Africa. No sooner did Belisarius appear with a handful of soldiers,
than courage and prosperity deserted the cause of the Vandals. Your
nephew Gibamund, your brother Ammatas, have been betrayed to death by the
cowardice of their followers. Our horses, our ships, Carthage itself, and
all Africa, are in the power of the enemy. Yet the Vandals still prefer
an ignominious repose, at the expense of their wives and children, their
wealth and liberty. Nothing now remains except the field of Bulla and
the hope of your valour. Abandon Sardinia; fly to our relief; restore
our empire, or perish by our side.” On the receipt of this epistle, Zano
imparted his grief to the principal Vandals; but the intelligence was
prudently concealed from the natives of the island.
The troops embarked in 120 galleys at the port of Cagliari, cast anchor
the third day on the confines of Mauretania, and hastily pursued their
march to join the royal standard in the camp of Bulla. Mournful was the
interview. The two brothers embraced, they wept in silence; no questions
were asked of the Sardinian victory, no inquiries were made of the
African misfortunes; they saw before their eyes the whole extent of
their calamities, and the absence of their wives and children afforded a
melancholy proof that either death or captivity had been their lot.
The languid spirit of the Vandals was at length awakened and united by
the entreaties of their king, the example of Zano, and the instant danger
which threatened their monarchy and religion. The military strength of
the nation advanced to battle; and such was the rapid increase that,
before their army reached Tricameron, about twenty miles from Carthage,
they might boast, perhaps with some exaggeration, that they surpassed
in a tenfold proportion the diminutive powers of the Romans. But these
powers were under the command of Belisarius; and as he was conscious
of their superior merit, he permitted the barbarians to surprise him
at an unseasonable hour. The Romans were instantly under arms. A
rivulet covered their front; the cavalry formed the first line, which
Belisarius supported in the centre, at the head of five hundred guards;
the infantry, at some distance, was posted in the second line; and the
vigilance of the general watched the separate station and ambiguous faith
of the Massagetæ, who secretly reserved their aid for the conquerors.
Zano, with the troops which had followed him to the conquest of Sardinia,
was placed in the centre; and the throne of Genseric might have stood, if
the multitude of Vandals had imitated their intrepid resolution. Casting
away their lances and missile weapons, they drew their swords, and
expected the charge. The Roman cavalry thrice passed the rivulet, they
were thrice repulsed; and the conflict was firmly maintained till Zano
fell, and the standard of Belisarius was displayed. Gelimer retreated
to his camp; the Huns joined the pursuit, and the victors despoiled the
bodies of the slain. Yet no more than fifty Romans and eight hundred
Vandals were found on the field of battle; so inconsiderable was the
carnage of a day which extinguished a nation and transferred the empire
of Africa.
In the evening Belisarius led his infantry to the attack of the camp;
and the pusillanimous flight of Gelimer exposed the vanity of his recent
declarations that to the vanquished death was a relief, life a burden,
and infamy the only object of terror. His departure was secret; but as
soon as the Vandals discovered that their king had deserted them, they
hastily dispersed, anxious only for their personal safety and careless
of every object that is dear or valuable to mankind. The Romans entered
the camp without resistance, and the wildest scenes of disorder were
veiled in the darkness and confusion of the night. Every barbarian who
met their swords was inhumanly massacred; their widows and daughters,
as rich heirs or beautiful concubines, were embraced by the licentious
soldiers; and avarice itself was almost satiated with the treasures of
gold and silver, the accumulated fruits of conquests or economy in a
long period of prosperity and peace. In this frantic search the troops,
even of Belisarius, forgot their caution and respect. Intoxicated with
lust and rapine, they explored in small parties, or alone, the adjacent
fields, the woods, the rocks, and the caverns, that might possibly
conceal any desirable prize; laden with booty, they deserted their ranks,
and wandered, without a guide, on the high-road to Carthage; and if the
flying enemies had dared to return, very few of the conquerors would have
escaped.
Deeply sensible of the disgrace and danger, Belisarius passed an
apprehensive night on the field of victory; at the dawn of day he
planted his standard on a hill, recalled his guards and veterans, and
gradually restored the modesty and obedience of the camp. It was equally
the concern of the Roman general to subdue the hostile and to save the
prostrate barbarian; and the suppliant Vandals, who could be found only
in churches, were protected by his authority, disarmed, and separately
confined, that they might neither disturb the public peace nor become
the victims of popular revenge. After despatching a light detachment to
tread the footsteps of Gelimer, he advanced with his whole army about
ten days’ march, as far as Hippo Regius, which no longer possessed the
relics of St. Augustine. The season, and the certain intelligence that
the Vandal had fled to the inaccessible country of the Moors, determined
Belisarius to relinquish the vain pursuit and to fix his winter quarters
at Carthage. From thence he despatched his principal lieutenant to inform
the emperor that, in the space of three months, he had achieved the
conquest of Africa.
Belisarius spoke the language of truth. The surviving Vandals yielded,
without resistance, their arms and their freedom; the neighbourhood of
Carthage submitted to his presence, and the more distant provinces were
successively subdued by the report of his victory. Tripolis was confirmed
in her voluntary allegiance; Sardinia and Corsica surrendered to an
officer who carried, instead of a sword, the head of the valiant Zano;
and the isles of Majorca, Minorca, and Yvica consented to remain a humble
appendage of the African kingdom. Cæsarea, a royal city, which in looser
geography may be confounded with the modern Algiers, was situate thirty
days’ march to the westward of Carthage; by land, the road was infested
by the Moors; but the sea was open, and the Romans were now masters of
the sea.
An active and discreet tribune sailed as far as the straits, where he
occupied Septem or Ceuta, which rises opposite to Gibraltar on the
African coast; that remote place was afterwards adorned and fortified by
Justinian; and he seems to have indulged the vain ambition of extending
his empire to the columns of Hercules. He received the messengers of
victory at the time when he was preparing to publish the pandects of
the Roman law; and the devout or jealous emperor celebrated the divine
goodness, and confessed, in silence, the merit of his successful general.
Impatient to abolish the temporal and spiritual tyranny of the Vandals,
he proceeded without delay to the full establishment of the Catholic
church. Her jurisdiction, wealth, and immunities, perhaps the most
essential part of episcopal religion, were restored and amplified with a
liberal hand; the Arian worship was suppressed; the Donatist meetings
were proscribed, and the synod of Carthage, by the voice of 217 bishops,
applauded the just measure of pious retaliation.
On such an occasion, it may not be presumed that many orthodox prelates
were absent; but the comparative smallness of their number, which in
ancient councils had been twice or even thrice multiplied, most clearly
indicates the decay both of the church and state. While Justinian
approved himself the defender of the faith, he entertained an ambitious
hope that his victorious lieutenant would speedily enlarge the narrow
limits of his dominion to the space which they occupied before the
invasion of the Moors and Vandals; and Belisarius was instructed to
establish five dukes or commanders in the convenient stations of
Tripolis, Leptis, Cirta, Cæsarea, and Sardinia, and to compute the
military force of palatines or borderers that might be sufficient for the
defence of Africa. The kingdom of the Vandals was not unworthy of the
presence of a prætorian prefect; and four consulars, three presidents,
were appointed to administer the seven provinces under his civil
jurisdiction. After the departure of Belisarius, who acted by a high and
special commission, no ordinary provision was made for a master-general
of the forces; but the office of prætorian prefect was entrusted to a
soldier; the civil and military powers were united, according to the
practice of Justinian, in the chief governor; and the representative of
the emperor in Africa, as well as in Italy, was soon distinguished by the
appellation of exarch.
TRIUMPH AND MEEKNESS OF BELISARIUS
Yet the conquest of Africa was imperfect till her former sovereign was
delivered, either alive or dead, into the hands of the Romans. Doubtful
of the event, Gelimer had given secret orders that a part of his treasure
should be transported to Spain, where he hoped to find a secure refuge
at the court of the king of the Visigoths. But these intentions were
disappointed by accident, treachery, and the indefatigable pursuit of his
enemies; when the royal captive accosted his conqueror, he burst into a
fit of laughter. The crowd might naturally believe that extreme grief had
deprived Gelimer of his senses; but in this mournful state, unseasonable
mirth insinuated to more intelligent observers that the vain and
transitory scenes of human greatness are unworthy of a serious thought.
Their contempt was soon justified by a new example of a vulgar
truth--that flattery adheres to power, and envy to superior merit. The
chiefs of the Roman army presumed to think themselves the rivals of a
hero. Their private despatches maliciously affirmed that the conqueror
of Africa, strong in his reputation and the public love, conspired to
seat himself on the throne of the Vandals. Justinian listened with too
patient an ear; and his silence was the result of jealousy rather than
of confidence. An honourable alternative, of remaining in the province
or of returning to the capital, was indeed submitted to the discretion
of Belisarius; but he wisely concluded, from intercepted letters and
the knowledge of his sovereign’s temper, that he must either resign
his head, erect his standard, or confound his enemies by his presence
and submission. Innocence and courage decided his choice; his guards,
captives, and treasures were diligently embarked, and so prosperous was
the navigation that his arrival at Constantinople preceded any certain
account of his departure from the port of Carthage. Such unsuspecting
loyalty removed the apprehensions of Justinian; envy was silenced and
inflamed by the public gratitude; and the third Africanus obtained the
honours of a triumph, a ceremony which the city of Constantine had never
seen and which ancient Rome, since the reign of Tiberius, had reserved
for the auspicious arms of the Cæsars.
[Sidenote: [534-535 A.D.]]
The glorious procession entered the gate of the Hippodrome, was saluted
by the acclamations of the senate and people, and halted before the
throne where Justinian and Theodora were seated to receive the homage
of the captive monarch and the victorious hero. They both performed the
customary adoration; and, falling prostrate on the ground, respectfully
touched the footstool of a prince who had not unsheathed his sword and
of a prostitute who had danced on the theatre; some gentle violence
was used to bend the stubborn spirit of the grandson of Genseric, and,
however trained to servitude, the genius of Belisarius must have secretly
rebelled. He was immediately declared consul for the ensuing year, and
the day of his inauguration resembled the pomp of a second triumph; his
curule chair was borne aloft on the shoulders of captive Vandals; and
the spoils of war, gold cups, and rich girdles, were profusely scattered
among the populace.[10]
[Illustration: BYZANTINE SILVER CUP]
But the purest reward of Belisarius was in the faithful execution of a
treaty for which his honour had been pledged to the king of the Vandals.
The religious scruples of Gelimer, who adhered to the Arian heresy, were
incompatible with the dignity of senator or patrician; but he received
from the emperor an ample estate in the province of Galatia, where the
abdicated monarch retired with his family and friends, to a life of
peace, of affluence, and perhaps of content. The daughters of Hilderic
were entertained with the respectful tenderness due to their age and
misfortune; and Justinian and Theodora accepted the honour of educating
and enriching the female descendants of the great Theodosius.
The bravest of the Vandal youth were distributed into five squadrons of
cavalry, which adopted the name of their benefactor and supported in the
Persian wars the glory of their ancestors. But these rare exceptions,
the reward of birth or valour, are insufficient to explain the fate of
a nation whose numbers, before a short and bloodless war, amounted to
more than six hundred thousand persons. After the exile of their king and
nobles, the servile crowd might purchase their safety by abjuring their
character, religion, and language; and their degenerate posterity would
be insensibly mingled with the common herd of African subjects. Yet even
in the present age, and in the heart of the Moorish tribes, a curious
traveller has discovered the white complexion and long flaxen hair of
a northern race; and it was formerly believed that the boldest of the
Vandals fled beyond the power, or even the knowledge, of the Romans, to
enjoy their solitary freedom on the shores of the Atlantic ocean. Africa
had been their empire, it became their prison; nor could they entertain a
hope, or even a wish, of returning to the banks of the Elbe, where their
brethren, of a spirit less adventurous, still wandered in their native
forests.
It was impossible for cowards to surmount the barriers of unknown seas
and hostile barbarians; it was impossible for brave men to expose their
nakedness and defeat before the eyes of their countrymen, to describe
the kingdoms which they had lost, and to claim a share of the humble
inheritance, which, in a happier hour, they had almost unanimously
renounced. In the country between the Elbe and the Oder, several populous
villages of Lusatia are inhabited by the Vandals: they still preserve
their language, their customs, and the purity of their blood; support,
with some impatience, the Saxon or Prussian yoke; and serve with secret
and voluntary allegiance the descendant of their ancient kings, who
in his garb and present fortune is confounded with the meanest of his
vassals. The name and situation of this unhappy people might indicate
their descent from one common stock with the conquerors of Africa. But
the use of a Slavonian dialect more clearly represents them as the last
remnant of the new colonies, who succeeded to the genuine Vandals,
already scattered or destroyed in the age of Procopius.
SOLOMON’S WARS WITH THE MOORS
[Sidenote: [439-534 A.D.]]
If Belisarius had been tempted to hesitate in his allegiance, he might
have urged, even against the emperor himself, the indispensable duty of
saving Africa from an enemy more barbarous than the Vandals. The origin
of the Moors is involved in darkness; they were ignorant of the use of
letters. Their limits cannot be precisely defined: a boundless continent
was open to the Libyan shepherds; the change of seasons and pastures
regulated their motions; and their rude huts and slender furniture were
transported with the same ease as their arms, their families, and their
cattle, which consisted of sheep, oxen, and camels. During the vigour
of the Roman power, they observed a respectful distance from Carthage
and the sea shore; under the feeble reign of the Vandals, they invaded
the cities of Numidia, occupied the sea coast from Tingis (Tangier) to
Cæsarea, and pitched their camps, with impunity, in the fertile province
of Byzacium.
The formidable strength and artful conduct of Belisarius secured the
neutrality of the Moorish princes, whose vanity aspired to receive,
in the emperor’s name, the ensigns of their regal dignity. They were
astonished by the rapid event, and trembled in the presence of their
conqueror. But his approaching departure soon relieved the apprehensions
of a savage and superstitious people; the number of their wives allowed
them to disregard the safety of their infant hostages; and when the
Roman general hoisted sail in the port of Carthage, he heard the
cries, and almost beheld the flames, of the desolated province. Yet he
persisted in his resolution; and leaving only a part of his guards to
reinforce the feeble garrisons, he entrusted the command of Africa to the
eunuch Solomon, who proved himself not unworthy to be the successor of
Belisarius.
[Sidenote: [534-535 A.D.]]
In the first invasion, some detachments, with two officers of merit, were
surprised and intercepted; but Solomon speedily assembled his troops,
marched from Carthage into the heart of the country, and in two great
battles destroyed sixty thousand of the barbarians. The Moors depended
on their multitude, their swiftness, and their inaccessible mountains;
and the aspect and smell of their camels are said to have produced some
confusion in the Roman cavalry. But as soon as they were commanded
to dismount, they derided this contemptible obstacle; as soon as the
columns ascended the hills, the naked and disorderly crowd was dazzled by
glittering arms and regular evolutions; and the menace of their female
prophets was repeatedly fulfilled, that the Moors should be discomfited
by a beardless antagonist. The victorious eunuch advanced thirteen days’
journey from Carthage, to besiege Mount Aurasius, the citadel and at
the same time the garden of Numidia. That range of hills, a branch of
the great Atlas, contains, within a circumference of 120 miles, a rare
variety of soil and climate; the intermediate valleys and elevated plains
abound with rich pastures, perpetual streams, and fruits of a delicious
taste and uncommon magnitude. This fair solitude is decorated with the
ruins of Lambesa, a Roman city, once the seat of a legion, and the
residence of forty thousand inhabitants.
The Ionic temple of Æsculapius is encompassed with Moorish huts; and
the cattle now graze in the midst of an amphitheatre, under the shade
of Corinthian columns. A sharp perpendicular rock rises above the level
of the mountain, where the African princes deposited their wives and
treasure; and a proverb is familiar to the Arabs, that the man may eat
fire who dares to attack the craggy cliffs and inhospitable natives of
Mount Aurasius. This hardy enterprise was twice attempted by the eunuch
Solomon. From the first, he retreated with some disgrace; and in the
second, his patience and provisions were almost exhausted; and he must
again have retired, if he had not yielded to the impetuous courage of
his troops, who audaciously scaled, to the astonishment of the Moors,
the mountain, the hostile camp, and the summit of the Geminian rock. A
citadel was erected to secure this important conquest, and to remind the
barbarians of their defeat; and as Solomon pursued his march to the west,
the long-lost province of Mauretanian Sitifi was again annexed to the
Roman Empire. The Moorish War continued several years after the departure
of Belisarius; but the laurels which he resigned to a faithful lieutenant
may be justly ascribed to his own triumph.
The experience of past faults, which may sometimes correct the mature
age of an individual, is seldom profitable to the successive generations
of mankind. The nations of antiquity, careless of each other’s safety,
were separately vanquished and enslaved by the Romans. This awful lesson
might have instructed the barbarians of the West to oppose, with timely
counsels and confederate arms, the unbounded ambition of Justinian. Yet
the same error was repeated, the same consequences were felt; and the
Goths both of Italy and Spain, insensible of their approaching danger,
beheld with indifference, and even with joy, the rapid downfall of the
Vandals.
After the failure of the royal line, Theudes, a valiant and powerful
chief, ascended, in 531, the throne of Spain, which he had formerly
administered in the name of Theodoric and his infant grandson. Under
his command the Visigoths besieged the fortress of Ceuta on the African
coast; but while they spent the sabbath day in peace and devotion, the
pious security of their camp was invaded by a sally from the town; and
the king himself, with some difficulty and danger, escaped from the hands
of a sacrilegious enemy. It was not long before his pride and resentment
were gratified by a suppliant embassy from the unfortunate Gelimer, who
implored in his distress the aid of the Spanish monarch. But, instead of
sacrificing these unworthy passions to the dictates of generosity and
prudence, Theudes amused the ambassadors, till he was secretly informed
of the loss of Carthage, and then dismissed them with obscure and
contemptuous advice, to seek in their native country a true knowledge of
the state of the Vandals.
[Sidenote: [535-625 A.D.]]
The long continuance of the Italian War delayed the punishment of the
Visigoths; and the eyes of Theudes were closed before they tasted the
fruits of his mistaken policy. After his death, the sceptre of Spain was
disputed by a civil war. The weaker candidate solicited the protection of
Justinian; and ambitiously subscribed a treaty of alliance, which deeply
wounded the independence and happiness of his country. Several cities,
both on the ocean and the Mediterranean, were ceded to the Roman troops,
who afterwards refused to evacuate those pledges, as it should seem,
either of safety or payment; and as they were fortified by perpetual
supplies from Africa, they maintained their impregnable stations, for
the mischievous purpose of inflaming the civil and religious factions of
the barbarians. Seventy years elapsed before this painful thorn could be
extirpated from the bosom of the monarchy; and as long as the emperors
retained any share of these remote and useless possessions, their vanity
might number Spain in the list of their provinces, and the successors of
Alaric in the rank of their vassals.[b]
MILITARY TACTICS UNDER JUSTINIAN
[Sidenote: [527-565 A.D.]]
During the time Justinian’s generals were changing the state of Europe
and destroying some of the nations which had dismembered the Western
Empire, circumstances beyond the control of that international system of
policy, of which the sovereigns of Constantinople and Persia were the
arbiters, produced a general movement in the population of central Asia.
The whole human race was thrown into a state of convulsive agitation,
from the frontiers of China to the shores of the Atlantic. This agitation
destroyed many of the existing governments, and exterminated several
powerful nations; while, at the same time, it laid the foundation of the
power of new states and nations, some of which have maintained their
existence to the present times.
The Eastern Empire bore no inconsiderable part in raising this mighty
storm in the West and in quelling its violence in the East, in
exterminating the Goths and Vandals, and in arresting the progress of
the Avars and Turks. Yet the number and composition of the Roman armies
have often been treated by historians as weak and contemptible. It is
impossible, in this sketch, to attempt any examination of the whole
military establishment of the Roman Empire during Justinian’s reign;
but in noticing the influence exercised by the military system on the
Greek population, it is necessary to make a few general observations.
The army consisted of two distinct classes--the regular troops, and the
mercenaries. The regular troops were composed both of native subjects
of the Roman Empire, raised by conscription, and of barbarians, who
had been allowed to occupy lands within the emperor’s dominions and to
retain their own usages on the condition of furnishing a fixed number
of recruits for the army. The Roman government still clung to the great
law of the empire, that the portion of its subjects which paid the land
tax could not be allowed to escape that burden by entering the army. The
proprietors of the land were responsible for the tribute; the cultivators
of the soil, both slaves and serfs, secured the amount of the public
revenues; neither could be permitted to forego their fiscal obligations
for their military duties.
For some centuries it had been more economical to purchase the service
of the barbarians than to employ native troops; and perhaps, if the
oppressive system of the imperial administration had not impaired the
resources of the state and diminished the population by consuming the
capital of the people, this might have long continued to be the case.
Native troops were always drawn from the mountainous districts, which
paid a scanty tribute, and in which the population found difficulty in
procuring subsistence. The invasions of the barbarians, likewise, threw
numbers of the peasantry of the provinces to the south of the Danube out
of employment, and many of these entered the army. A supply of recruits
was likewise obtained from the idle and needy population of the towns.
The most active and intelligent soldiers were placed in the cavalry--a
force that was drilled with the greatest care, subjected to the most
exact discipline, and sustained the glory of the Roman arms in the
field of battle. As the higher and middle classes in the provinces had,
for ages, been excluded from the military profession, and the army had
been at last composed chiefly of the rudest and most ignorant peasants,
of enfranchised slaves, and naturalised barbarians, military service
was viewed with aversion; and the greatest repugnance arose among the
civilians to become soldiers. In the meantime, the depopulation of the
empire daily increased the difficulty of raising the number of recruits
required for a service which embraced an immense extent of territory and
entailed a great destruction of human life.
The troops of the line, particularly the infantry, had deteriorated
considerably in Justinian’s time; but the artillery and engineer
departments were not much inferior, in science and efficiency, to what
they had been in the best days of the empire. Military resources, not
military knowledge, had diminished. The same arsenals continued to
exist; mere mechanical skill had been uninterruptedly exercised; and the
constant demand which had existed for military mechanicians, armourers,
and engineers had never allowed the theoretical instruction of this
class to be neglected, nor their practical skill to decline from want of
employment. This fact requires to be borne in mind.
The mercenaries formed the most valued and brilliant portion of the
army; and it was the fashion of the day to copy and admire the dress
and manners of the barbarian cavalry. The empire was now surrounded
by numbers of petty princes who, though they had seized possession
of provinces once belonging to the Romans, by force, and had often
engaged in war with the emperor, still acknowledged a certain degree of
dependence on the Roman power. Some of them, as the kings of the Heruli
and the Gepidæ, and the king of Colchis, held their regal rank by a
regular investiture from Justinian. These princes, and the kings of the
Lombards, Huns, Saracens, and Moors, all received regular subsidies.
Some of them furnished a number of their best warriors, who entered the
Roman service and served in separate bands, under their own leaders and
with their national weapons, but subjected to the regular organisation
and discipline of the Roman armies, though not to the Roman system of
military exercises and manœuvres. Some of these corps of barbarians were
also formed of volunteers, who were attracted by the high pay which they
received and the license with which they were allowed to behave.
The superiority of these troops arose from natural causes. The northern
nations who invaded the empire consisted of a population trained from
infancy to warlike exercises, and following no profession but that of
arms. Their lands were cultivated by the labour of their slaves, or by
that of the Roman subjects who still survived in the provinces they had
occupied; but their only pecuniary resources arose from the plunder of
their neighbours or the subsidies of the Roman emperors. Their habits
of life, the celerity of their movements, and the excellence of their
armour rendered them the choicest troops of the age; and their most
active warriors were generally engaged to serve in the imperial forces.
The emperors preferred armies composed of a number of motley bands of
mercenary foreigners, attached to their own persons by high pay, and
commanded by chiefs who could never pretend to political rank and who
had much to lose and little to gain by rebellion; for experience proved
that they perilled their throne by entrusting the command of a national
army to a native general, who, from a popular soldier, might become a
dangerous rival. Though the barbarian mercenaries in the service of Rome
generally proved far more efficient troops than their free countrymen,
yet they were on the whole unequal to the native Roman cavalry of
Justinian’s army, the _cataphracti_, sheathed in complete steel on the
Persian model, and armed with the Grecian spear, who were still the best
troops in a field of battle, and were the real type of the chivalry of
the Middle Ages.
[Illustration: A GOTH]
Justinian weakened the Roman army in several ways by his measures of
reform. His anxiety to reduce its expenditure induced him to diminish the
establishment of camels, horses, and chariots, which attended the troops
for transporting the military machines and baggage. This train had been
previously very large, as it was calculated to save the peasantry from
any danger of having their labours interrupted, or their cattle seized,
under the pretext of being required for transport. Numerous abuses were
introduced by diminishing the pay of the troops, and by neglecting to pay
them with regularity and to furnish them with proper food and clothing.
At the same time, the efficiency of the army in the field was more
seriously injured by continuing the policy adopted by Anastasius, of
restricting the power of the generals; a policy however which, it must
be confessed, was not unnecessary in order to avoid greater evils. This
is evident from the numerous rebellions in Justinian’s reign, and the
absolute want of any national or patriotic feeling in the majority of the
Roman officers.
Large armies were at times composed of a number of corps, each
commanded by its own officer, over whom the nominal commander-in-chief
had little or no authority; and it is to this circumstance that the
unfortunate results of some of the Gothic and Persian campaigns are
to be attributed, and not to any inferiority of the Roman troops.
Even Belisarius himself, though he gave many proofs of attachment to
Justinian’s throne, was watched with the greatest jealousy. He was
treated with constant distrust, and his officers were at times encouraged
to dispute his measures, and never punished for disobeying his orders.
The fact is that Belisarius might, if so disposed, have assumed the
purple, and perhaps dethroned his master. Narses was the only general who
was implicitly trusted and steadily supported; but Narses was an aged
eunuch, and could never have become emperor.
The imperial military forces consisted of 150,000 men;[11] and though
the extent of the frontier which these troops were compelled to guard
was very great, and lay open to the incursions of many active hostile
tribes, still Justinian was able to assemble some admirably appointed
armies for his foreign expeditions. The armament which accompanied
Belisarius to Africa consisted of ten thousand infantry, five thousand
cavalry, and twenty thousand sailors. Belisarius must have had about
thirty thousand troops under his command in Italy before the taking of
Ravenna. Germanus, when he arrived in Africa, found that only one-third
of the Roman troops about Carthage had remained faithful, and the rebels
under Stozas amounted to eight thousand men. As there were still troops
in Numidia which had not joined the deserters, the whole Roman force in
Africa cannot have been less than fifteen thousand. Narses, in the year
551, when the empire began to show evident proofs of the bad effects of
Justinian’s government, could assemble thirty thousand chosen troops,
an army which defeated the veterans of Totila and destroyed the fierce
bands of Franks and Alamanni which hoped to wrest Italy from the Romans.
The character of the Roman troops, in spite of all that modern writers
have said to depreciate them, still stood so high that Totila, the
warlike monarch of the Goths, strove to induce them to join his standard
by offers of high pay. No army had yet proved itself equal to the Roman
on the field of battle; and their exploits in Spain, Africa, Colchis,
and Mesopotamia, proved their excellence; though the defeats which they
sustained, both from the Persians and on the Danube, reveal the fact that
their enemies were improving in military science, and watching every
opportunity of availing themselves of any neglect of the Roman government
in maintaining the efficiency of the army.
DECADENCE OF THE SOLDIERY
Numerous examples could be cited of almost incredible disorder in
the armies, originating generally in the misconduct of the imperial
government. Belisarius attempted, but found it impossible, to enforce
strict discipline,[12] when the soldiers were unpaid and the officers
authorised to act independently of his orders. Two thousand Heruli
ventured to quit his standard in Italy, and, after marching round the
Adriatic, were pardoned by Justinian and again engaged in the imperial
service. Procopius mentions repeatedly that the conduct of the unpaid
and unpunished troops ruined the provinces; and in Africa, no less than
three Roman officers, Stozas, Maximin, and Gontharis, attempted to render
themselves independent, and were supported by large bodies of troops.
The Greeks were the only portion of the population who were considered
as sincerely attached to the imperial government, or at least who would
readily defend it against every enemy; and accordingly Gontharis, when he
wished to secure Carthage, ordered all the Greeks to be murdered without
distinction. The Greeks were, however, from their position and rank in
society as burgesses or taxpayers, almost entirely excluded from the
army, and though they furnished the greater part of the sailors for the
fleet, they were generally an unwarlike population. Witiges, the Gothic
king, calls the Roman army of Belisarius an army of Greeks, a band of
pirates, actors, and mountebanks.
One of the most unfortunate measures of Justinian was the disbanding
all the provincial militia. This is incidentally mentioned in the
_Secret History_ of Procopius, who informs us that Thermopylæ had been
previously guarded by two thousand of this militia; but that this corps
was dissolved, and a garrison of regular troops placed in Greece. As a
general measure it was probably dictated by a plan of financial reform,
and not by any fear of popular insurrection; but its effects were
extremely injurious to the empire in the declining state of society, and
in the increasing disorganisation of the central power; and though it may
possibly have prevented some provinces from recovering their independence
by their own arms, it prepared the way for the easy conquests of the
Avars and Arabs. Justinian was desirous of centralising all power, and
rendering all public burdens uniform and systematic; and had adopted the
opinion that it was cheaper to defend the empire by walls and fortresses
than by a movable army. The practice of moving the troops with great
celerity to defend the frontiers had induced the officers to abandon the
ancient practice of fortifying a regular camp; and at last even the art
of encamping was neglected. The barbarians, however, could always move
with greater rapidity than the regular troops of the empire.
To secure the frontiers, Justinian adopted a plan of constructing
extensive lines supported by innumerable forts and castles, in which
he placed garrisons, in order that they might be ready to sally out on
the invading bands. These lines extended from the Adriatic to the Black
Sea, and were further strengthened by the long wall of Anastasius, which
covered Constantinople by walls protecting the Thracian Chersonesus and
the peninsula of Pallene, and by fortifications at Thermopylæ, and at
the Isthmus of Corinth, which were all carefully repaired. At all these
posts permanent garrisons were maintained. The eulogy of Procopius on
the public edifices of Justinian seems almost irreconcilable with the
events of the latter years of his reign; for Zabergan, king of the Huns,
penetrated through breaches he found unrepaired in the long wall, and
advanced almost to the very suburbs of Constantinople.
Another instance of the declining state of military tactics may be
mentioned, as it must have originated in the army itself, and not in
consequence of any arrangements of the government. The combined manœuvres
of the divisions of the regiments had been so neglected that the
bugle-calls once used had fallen into desuetude, and were unknown to the
soldiers. The motley recruits, of dissimilar habits, could not acquire
with the requisite rapidity a perception of the delicacy of the ancient
music, and the Roman infantry no longer moved
“In perfect phalanx, to the Dorian mood,
Of flutes and soft recorders.”
It happened, during the siege of Auximum in Italy, that Belisarius
was placed in difficulty from the want of an instantaneous means of
communicating orders to the troops engaged in skirmishing with the
Goths. On this occasion it was suggested to him by Procopius, his
secretary and the historian of his wars, to replace the forgotten
bugle-calls by making use of the brazen trumpet of the cavalry to sound a
charge, and of the infantry bugle to summon a retreat.
Foreigners were preferred by the emperors as the occupants of the highest
military commands; and the confidence with which the barbarian chiefs
were honoured by the court enabled many to reach the highest rank in the
army. Narses, the most distinguished military leader after Belisarius,
was a Pers-Armenian captive. Peter, who commanded against the Persians
in the campaign of 528, was also a Pers-Armenian. Pharas, who besieged
Gelimer in Mount Pappua, was a Herulian. Mundus, who commanded in Illyria
and Dalmatia, was a Gepid prince. Chilbud, who, after several victories,
perished with his army in defending the frontiers against the Slavonians,
was of northern descent, as may be inferred from his name. Solomon, who
governed Africa with great courage and ability, was a eunuch from Dara.
Artaban was an Armenian prince. Johannes Troglita the patrician, the hero
of the poem of Corippus called the _Johannid_, is also supposed to have
been an Armenian. Yet the empire might still have furnished excellent
officers, as well as valiant troops; for the Isaurians and Thracians
continued to distinguish themselves in every field of battle, and were
equal in courage to the fiercest of the barbarians.
It became the fashion in the army to imitate the manners and habits of
the barbarians; their headlong personal courage became the most admired
quality, even in the highest rank; and nothing tended more to hasten
the decay of the military art. The officers in the Roman armies became
more intent on distinguishing themselves for personal exploits than
for exact order and strict discipline in their corps. Even Belisarius
himself appears at times to have forgotten the duties of a general in
his eagerness to exhibit his personal valour on his bay charger; though
he may, on such occasions, have considered that the necessity of keeping
up the spirits of his army was a sufficient apology for his rashness.
Unquestionably the army, as a military establishment, had declined in
excellence ere Justinian ascended the throne, and his reign tended to
sink it much lower; yet it is probable that it was never more remarkable
for the enterprising valour of its officers or for their personal skill
in the use of their weapons. The death of numbers of the highest rank,
in battles and skirmishes in which they rashly engaged, proves this
fact. There was, however, one important feature of ancient tactics still
preserved in the Roman armies, which gave them a decided superiority
over their enemies. They had still the confidence in their discipline
and skill to form their ranks, and encounter their opponents in line;
the bravest of their enemies, whether on the banks of the Danube or the
Tigris, only ventured to charge them, or receive their attack, in close
masses.[d]
FOOTNOTES
[3] Marcellinus[n] says in general terms: _Innumeris populis in circo
trucidatis_. Procopius numbers 30,000 victims; and the 35,000 of
Theophanes are swelled to 40,000 by the more recent Zonaras. Such is the
usual progress of exaggeration.
[4] The six books of the _Edifices_ of Procopius[g] are thus distributed.
The first is confined to Constantinople; the second includes Mesopotamia
and Syria; the third, Armenia and the Euxine; the fourth, Europe; the
fifth, Asia Minor and Palestine; the sixth, Egypt and Africa. Italy is
forgotten by the emperor or the historian, who published this work of
adulation before the date (555 A.D.) of its final conquest.
[5] Agathias[c] relates this curious story. Chosroes ascended the
throne in the year 531, and made his first peace with the Romans in the
beginning of 533.
[6] [Theodoric himself, according to Cassiodorus,[j] claimed to model his
policy on the Roman, and said to Anastasius, “Our kingdom is an imitation
of yours.”]
[7] [Procopius[f] says he was born in a district of Thrace called
Germania. According to Von Hammer[k] his name is a Slavonic word,
“Belitzar,” meaning “white prince.” Bury[l] also thinks it Slavonic, but
translates it “white dawn.”]
[8] [Bury[l] calls this an “amiable imprudence.”]
[9] The army of Belisarius was chiefly composed of barbarian mercenaries,
whom he had trained to Roman discipline and strategy. But the inferiority
of the Vandals, whose ancestors had conquered hosts still better drilled,
proceeded from the degeneracy which was already commencing, after a
residence of only thirty years in Africa. Now that they had been for a
century masters of the country, the cause, which was shown then to have
enervated them, had operated with progressive effect, and reduced them to
a state almost as helpless and hopeless as that of the people whom they
had subjugated.
[10] [“When he beheld the splendour of the imperial court,” Bury[l] says
of Gelimer, “he merely said ‘Vanity of vanities, all is vanity,’ a remark
which, as Ranke[m] notices, had a sort of historical signification. For
along with Gelimer, Belisarius brought to Constantinople those vessels
of gold, of which Gaiseric (or Genseric) had robbed Rome, and of which
Titus had despoiled Jerusalem. They were part of the riches of the king
to whom the words ‘Vanity of vanities’ are traditionally attributed.” As
Gibbon states, the vessels were later returned to the Christian church of
Jerusalem.]
[11] Agathias[c] states that the military establishment of the empire
once consisted of 645,000 men. It probably included the local militia and
the garrisons.
[12] According to Procopius[f] Belisarius told his troops that the
Persians excelled them in discipline.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER IV
THE LATER YEARS OF JUSTINIAN’S REIGN
[535-565 A.D.]
BYZANTIUM RIDS ROME OF THE GOTHS
The empire of the Ostrogoths, though established on principles of a just
administration by the wisdom of the great Theodoric, soon began to suffer
as complete a national demoralisation as that of the Vandals, though the
Goths themselves, from being more civilised and living more directly
under the restraint of laws which protected the property of their Roman
subjects, had not become individually so corrupted by the possession of
wealth.
The conquest of Italy[13] had not produced any very great revolution
in the state of the country. The Romans had long been accustomed to be
defended in name, but in fact to be ruled, by the commanders of the
mercenary troops in the emperor’s service. The Goths, even after the
conquest, allowed them to retain two-thirds of their landed estates, with
all their movable property; and as they had really been as completely
excluded from military service under their own emperors, their social
condition underwent but little change. Policy induced Theodoric to treat
the inhabitants of Italy with mildness. The permanent maintenance of his
conquests required a considerable revenue, and that revenue could only be
supplied by the industry and civilisation of his Italian subjects. His
sagacity told him that it was wiser to tax the Romans than to plunder
them, and that it was necessary, in order to secure the fruits of a
regular system of taxation, to leave them in the possession of those laws
and privileges which enabled them to defend their civilisation.
[Sidenote: [535-537 A.D.]]
The kingdom which the great Theodoric left to his grandson Athalaric,
under the guardianship of his daughter Amalasuntha, embraced not only
Italy, Sicily, and a portion of the south of France; it also included
Dalmatia, a part of Illyricum, Pannonia, Noricum, and Rætia. In these
extensive dominions, the Gothic race formed but a small part of the
population; and yet the Goths, from the privileges which they enjoyed,
were everywhere regarded with jealousy by the bulk of the inhabitants.
Dissensions arose in the royal family; Athalaric died young; Amalasuntha
was murdered by Theodatus, his successor; and as she had been in constant
communication with the court of Constantinople, this crime afforded
Justinian a decent pretext for interfering in the affairs of the Goths.
To prepare the way for the reconquest of Italy, Belisarius was sent to
attack Sicily, which he invaded with an army of 7500 men, in the year
535, and subjected without difficulty. During the same campaign, Dalmatia
was conquered by the imperial arms, recovered by the Goths, but again
reconquered by Justinian’s troops. A rebellion of the troops in Africa
arrested, for a while, the progress of Belisarius, and compelled him to
visit Carthage; but he returned to Sicily in a short time, and crossing
over to Rhegium marched directly to Neapolis. As he proceeded, he was
everywhere welcomed by the inhabitants, who were then almost universally
Greeks; even the Gothic commander in the south of Italy favoured the
progress of the Roman general.
The city of Neapolis made a vigorous defence; but after a siege of three
weeks it was taken by introducing into the place a body of troops through
the passage of an ancient aqueduct. The conduct of Belisarius, after the
capture of the city, was dictated by policy, and displayed very little
humanity. As the inhabitants had shown some disposition to assist the
Gothic garrison in defending the city, and as such conduct would have
greatly increased the difficulty of his campaign in Italy, in order to
intimidate the population of other cities he appears to have winked at
the pillage of the town, to have tolerated the massacre of many of the
citizens in the churches, where they had sought an asylum, and to have
overlooked a sedition of the lowest populace, in which the leaders of the
Gothic party were assassinated. From Neapolis, Belisarius marched forward
to Rome.
Only sixty years had elapsed since Rome had been conquered by Odoacer;
and during this period its population, the ecclesiastical and civil
authority of its bishop who was the highest dignitary of the Christian
world, and the influence of its senate which still continued to be in the
eyes of mankind the most honourable political body in existence, enabled
it to preserve a species of independent civic constitution. Theodoric
had availed himself of this municipal government to smooth away many of
the difficulties which presented themselves in the administration of
Italy. The Goths, however, in leaving the Romans in possession of their
own civil laws and institutions, had not diminished their aversion to a
foreign yoke; yet as they possessed no distinct feelings of nationality
apart from their connection with the imperial domination and their
religious orthodoxy, they never aspired to independence, and were content
to turn their eyes towards the emperor of the East as their legitimate
sovereign. Belisarius, therefore, entered the Eternal City rather as
a friend than as a conqueror; but he had hardly entered it before he
perceived that it would be necessary to take every precaution to defend
his conquest against the new Gothic king Witiges. He immediately repaired
the walls of Rome, strengthened them with a breastwork, collected large
stores of provisions, and prepared to sustain a siege.
The Gothic war forms an important epoch in the history of the city of
Rome; for within the space of sixteen years it changed masters five
times, and suffered three severe sieges. Its population was almost
destroyed; its public buildings and its walls must have undergone many
changes, according to the exigencies of the various measures required for
its defence. It has, consequently, been too generally assumed that the
existing walls indicate the exact position of the walls of Aurelian. This
period is also memorable for the ruin of many monuments of ancient art,
which the generals of Justinian destroyed without compunction.[14]
[Sidenote: [537-540 A.D.]]
Witiges laid siege to Rome with an army said by Procopius[d] to have
amounted to 150,000 men; yet this army was insufficient to invest the
whole circuit of the city. The Gothic king distributed his troops in
seven fortified camps; six were formed to surround the city, and the
seventh was placed to protect the Milvian bridge. Five camps covered the
space from the Prænestine to the Flaminian gates, and the remaining camp
was formed beyond the Tiber, in the plain below the Vatican. By these
arrangements the Goths only commanded about half the circuit of Rome, and
the roads to Naples and to the ports at the mouth of the Tiber remained
open. The Roman infantry was now the weakest part of a Roman army. Even
in the defence of a fortified city it was subordinate to the cavalry, and
the military superiority of the Roman arms was sustained by mercenary
horsemen. It is strange to find the tactics of the Middle Ages described
by Procopius in classic Greek.
In spite of the prudent arrangements adopted by Belisarius to insure
supplies of provisions from his recent conquests in Sicily and Africa,
Rome suffered very severely from famine during the siege; but the Gothic
army was compelled to undergo equal hardships, and suffered far greater
losses from disease. The communications of the garrison with the coast
were for a time interrupted, but at last a body of five thousand fresh
troops and an abundant supply of provisions, despatched by Justinian to
the assistance of Belisarius, entered Rome. Shortly after the arrival of
this reinforcement, the Goths found themselves constrained to abandon
the siege, in which they had persevered for a year. Justinian again
augmented his army in Italy, by sending over seven thousand troops under
the command of the eunuch Narses, a man whose military talents were
in no way inferior to those of Belisarius, and whose name occupies an
equally important place in the history of Italy. The emperor, guided by
the prudent jealousy which dictated the strictest control over all the
powerful generals of the empire, had conferred on Narses an independent
authority over his own division, and that general, presuming too far
on his knowledge of Justinian’s feelings, ventured to throw serious
obstacles in the way of Belisarius. The dissensions of the two generals
delayed the progress of the Roman arms. The Goths availed themselves
of the opportunity to continue the war with vigour; they succeeded in
reconquering Mediolanum, which had admitted a Roman garrison, and sacked
the city, which was second only to Rome in wealth and population. They
massacred the whole male population, and behaved with such cruelty that
three hundred thousand persons were said to have perished--a number which
probably only indicates the whole population of Mediolanum at this period.
Witiges, finding his resources inadequate to check the conquests of
Belisarius, solicited the aid of the Franks, and despatched an embassy
to Chosroes to excite the jealousy of the Persian monarch. The Franks,
under Theodebert, entered Italy, but they were soon compelled to retire;
and Belisarius, being placed at the head of the whole army by the recall
of Narses, soon terminated the war. Ravenna, the Gothic capital, was
invested; but the siege was more remarkable for the negotiations which
were carried on during its progress than for the military operations. The
Goths, with the consent of Witiges, made Belisarius the singular offer
of acknowledging him as the emperor of the West, on condition of his
joining his forces to theirs, permitting them to retain their position
and property in Italy, and thus ensuring them the possession of their
nationality and their peculiar laws.
Perhaps neither the state of the mercenary army which he commanded nor
the condition of the Gothic nation rendered the project very feasible. It
is certain that Belisarius only listened to it, in order to hasten the
surrender of Ravenna and secure the person of Witiges without further
bloodshed. Italy submitted to Justinian, and the few Goths who still
maintained their independence beyond the Po pressed Belisarius in vain to
declare himself emperor. But even without these solicitations, his power
had awakened the fears of his sovereign, and he was recalled, though with
honour, from his command in Italy. He returned to Constantinople leading
Witiges captive, as he had formerly appeared conducting Gelimer.
FINLAY’S ESTIMATE OF BELISARIUS
Great as the talents of Belisarius really were, and sound as his judgment
appears to have been, still it must be confessed that his name occupies
a more prominent place in history than his merits are entitled to claim.
The accident that his conquest put an end to two powerful monarchies,
of his having led captive to Constantinople the representatives of the
dreaded Genseric and the great Theodoric, joined with the circumstance
that he enjoyed the singular good fortune of having his exploits recorded
in the classic language of Procopius, the last historian of the Greeks,
have rendered a brilliant career more brilliant from the medium through
which it is seen. At the same time the tale of his blindness and poverty
has extended a sympathy with his misfortunes into circles which would
have remained indifferent to the real events of his history, and made his
name an expression for heroic greatness reduced to abject misery by royal
ingratitude.
But Belisarius, though he refused the Gothic throne and the empire of
the West, did not despise nor neglect wealth; he accumulated riches
which could not have been acquired by any commander-in-chief amidst
the wars and famines of the period, without rendering the military and
civil administration subservient to his pecuniary profit. On his return
from Italy he lived at Constantinople in almost regal splendour, and
maintained a body of seven thousand cavalry attached to his household.
In an empire where confiscation was an ordinary financial resource, and
under a sovereign whose situation rendered jealousy only common prudence,
it is not surprising that the wealth of Belisarius excited the imperial
cupidity, and induced Justinian to seize great part of it. His fortune
was twice reduced by confiscations. The behaviour of the general under
his misfortunes, and the lamentable picture of his depression which
Procopius has drawn, when he lost a portion of his wealth on his first
disgrace, does not tend to elevate his character. At a later period, his
wealth was again confiscated on an accusation of treason, and on this
occasion it is said that he was deprived of his sight, and reduced to
such a state of destitution that he begged his bread in a public square,
soliciting charity with the exclamation, “Give Belisarius an obolus!”
But ancient historians were ignorant of this fable, which has been
rejected by every modern authority in Byzantine history. Justinian, on
calm reflection, disbelieved the treason imputed to a man who, in his
younger days, had refused to ascend a throne; or else he pardoned what he
supposed to be the error of a general to whose services he was so deeply
indebted; and Belisarius, reinstated in some part of his fortune, died in
possession of wealth and honour.
THE GOTHS RENEW THE WAR
[Sidenote: [540-544 A.D.]]
Belisarius had hardly quitted Italy when the Goths reassembled their
forces. They were accustomed to rule, and nourished in the profession
of arms. Justinian sent a civilian, Alexander the logothete, to govern
Italy, hoping that his financial arrangements would render the new
conquest a source of revenue to the imperial treasury.[15] The fiscal
administration of the new governor soon excited great discontent. He
diminished the number of the Roman troops, and put a stop to those
profits which a state of war usually affords the military; while at
the same time he abolished the pensions and privileges which formed
no inconsiderable portion of the revenue of the higher classes, and
which had never been entirely suppressed during the Gothic domination.
Alexander may have acted in some cases with undue severity in enforcing
these measures; but it is evident, from their nature, that he must have
received express orders to put an end to what Justinian considered the
lavish expenditure of Belisarius.
[Illustration: A GOTH OF QUALITY
(After Hottenroth)]
A part of the Goths in the north of Italy retained their independence
after the surrender of Witiges. They raised Hildebald to the throne,
which he occupied about a year when he was murdered by one of his own
guards. The tribe of Rugii then raised Eraric their leader to the throne;
but on his entering into negotiations with the Romans he was murdered,
after a reign of only five months. Totila was then elected king of the
Goths, and had he not been opposed to the greatest men whom the declining
age of the Roman Empire produced, he would probably have succeeded in
restoring the Gothic monarchy in Italy. His successes endeared him to
his countrymen, while the justice of his administration contrasted with
the rapacity of Justinian’s government, and gained him the respect and
submission of the native provincials. He was on the point of commencing
the siege of Rome, when Belisarius, who after his departure from Ravenna
had been employed in the Persian War, was sent back to Italy to recover
the ground already lost.
[Sidenote: [544-547 A.D.]]
The imperial forces were completely destitute of that unity and
military organisation which constitute a number of different corps
into one army. The various bodies of troops were commanded by officers
completely independent of one another, and obedient only to Belisarius as
commander-in-chief. Justinian, acting on his usual maxims of jealousy,
and distrusting Belisarius more than formerly, had retained the greater
part of his body-guard and all his veteran followers at Constantinople;
so that he now appeared in Italy unaccompanied by a staff of scientific
officers and a body of veteran troops on whose experience and discipline
he could rely for implicit obedience to his orders. The heterogeneous
elements of which his army was composed made all combined operations
impracticable, and his position was rendered still more disadvantageous
by the change that had taken place in that of his enemy. Totila was now
able to command every sacrifice on the part of his followers, for the
Goths, taught by their misfortunes and deprived of their wealth, felt the
importance of union and discipline, and paid the strictest attention to
the orders of their sovereign. The Gothic king laid siege to Rome, and
Belisarius established himself in Porto, at the mouth of the Tiber; but
all his endeavours to relieve the besieged city proved unsuccessful, and
Totila compelled it to surrender under his eye and in spite of all his
exertions.
The national and religious feelings of the orthodox Romans rendered them
the irreconcilable enemies of the Arian Goths. Totila soon perceived
that it would not be in his power to defend Rome against a scientific
enemy and a hostile population, in consequence of the great extent of the
fortifications, and the impossibility of dislodging the imperial troops
from the forts at the mouth of the Tiber. But he also perceived that
the Eastern emperors would be unable to maintain a footing in central
Italy without the support of the Roman population, whose industrial,
commercial, aristocratic, and ecclesiastical influence was concentrated
in the city population of Rome. He therefore determined to destroy the
Eternal City, and if policy authorise kings on great occasions to trample
on the precepts of humanity, the king of the Goths might claim a right
to destroy the race of the Romans. Even the statesman may still doubt
whether the decision of Totila, if it had been carried into execution in
the most merciless manner, would not have purified the moral atmosphere
of Italian society.
He commenced the destruction of the walls; but either the difficulty
of completing his project or the feelings of humanity which were
inseparable from his enlightened ambition induced him to listen to the
representations of Belisarius, who conjured him to abandon his barbarous
scheme of devastation. Totila, nevertheless, did everything in his power
to depopulate Rome; he compelled the inhabitants to retire into the
Campania, and forced the senators to abandon their native city. It is to
this emigration that the utter extinction of the old Roman race and civic
government must be attributed; for when Belisarius, and at a later period
Totila himself, attempted to repeople Rome, they laid the foundations
of a new society, which connects itself rather with the history of the
Middle Ages than with that of preceding times.
BELISARIUS IN ROME
Belisarius entered the city after the departure of the Goths; and as
he found it deserted, he had the greatest difficulty in putting it in
a state of defence. But though Belisarius was enabled, by his military
skill, to defend Rome against the attacks of Totila, he was unable to
make any head against the Gothic army in the open field; and after vainly
endeavouring to bring back victory to the Roman standards in Italy, he
received permission to resign the command and return to Constantinople.
His want of success must be attributed solely to the inadequacy of
the means placed at his disposal for encountering an active and able
sovereign like Totila. The unpopularity of his second administration
in Italy arose from the neglect of Justinian in paying the troops, and
the necessity which that irregularity imposed on their commander of
levying heavy contributions on the Italians, while it rendered the task
of enforcing strict discipline, and of protecting the property of the
people from the ill-paid soldiery, quite impracticable. Justice, however,
requires that we should not omit to mention that Belisarius, though he
returned to Constantinople with diminished glory, did not neglect his
pecuniary interests, and came back without any diminution of his wealth.
[Sidenote: [547-553 A.D.]]
As soon as Totila was freed from the restraint imposed on his movements
by the fear of Belisarius, he quickly recovered Rome; and the loss of
Italy appeared inevitable, when Justinian decided on making a new effort
to retain it. As it was necessary to send a large army against the
Goths, and invest the commander-in-chief with great powers, it is not
probable that Justinian would have trusted any other of his generals
more than Belisarius had he not fortunately possessed an able officer,
the eunuch Narses, who could never rebel with the hope of placing the
imperial crown on his own head. The assurance of his fidelity gave Narses
great influence in the interior of the palace, and secured him a support
which would never have been conceded to any other general. His military
talents, and his freedom from the reproach of avarice or peculation,
augmented his personal influence, and his diligence and liberality
soon assembled a powerful army. The choicest mercenary troops--Huns,
Herulians, Armenians, and Lombards--marched under his standard with the
veteran Roman soldiers. The first object of Narses after his arrival in
Italy was to force the Goths to risk a general engagement, trusting to
the excellence of his troops and to his own skill in the employment of
their superior discipline.
The rival armies met at Tagina (Tadinum) near Nuceria (Nocera), and
the victory of Narses was complete.[16] Totila and six thousand Goths
perished, and Rome again fell under the dominion of Justinian. At the
solicitation of the Goths, an army of Franks and Germans was permitted
by Theobald, king of Austrasia, to enter Italy for the purpose of making
a diversion in their favour. Bucelin, the leader of this army, was met
by Narses on the banks of the Casilinus, near Capua. The forces of the
Franks consisted of thirty thousand men, those of the Romans did not
exceed eighteen thousand; but the victory of Narses was so complete that
but few of the former escaped. The remaining Goths elected another king,
Theias, who perished with his army near the banks of the Sarnus (Sarno).
His death put an end to the kingdom of the Ostrogoths, and allowed Narses
to turn his whole attention to the civil government of his conquests,
and to establish security of property and a strict administration of
justice. He appears to have been a man singularly well adapted to his
situation, possessing the highest military talents, combined with a
perfect knowledge of the civil and financial administration; and he was
consequently able to estimate with exactness the sum which he could
levy on the province and remit to Constantinople, without arresting
the gradual improvement of the country. His fiscal government was,
nevertheless, regarded by the Italians as extremely severe, and he was
unpopular with the inhabitants of Rome.
[Sidenote: [535-625 A.D.]]
The existence of a numerous Roman population in Spain, connected with
the Eastern Empire by the memory of ancient ties, by active commercial
relations, and by a strong orthodox feeling against the Arian Visigoths,
enabled Justinian to avail himself of these advantages in the same manner
as he had done in Africa and Italy. The king Theudes had attempted to
make a diversion in Africa by besieging Ceuta, in order to call off the
attention of Justinian from Italy. His attack was unsuccessful, but the
circumstances were not favourable at the time for Justinian’s attempting
to revenge the injury. Dissensions in the country soon after enabled the
emperor to take part in a civil war, and he seized the pretext of sending
a fleet and troops to support the claims of a rebel chief, in order to
secure the possession of a large portion of the south of Spain. The rebel
Athanagild, having been elected king of the Visigoths, vainly endeavoured
to drive the Romans out of the provinces which they had occupied.
Subsequent victories extended the conquests of Justinian from the mouth
of the Tagus, Ebora, and Corduba, along the coast of the ocean and of
the Mediterranean, almost as far as Valentia; and at times the relations
of the Romans with the Catholic population of the interior enabled them
to carry their arms almost into the centre of Spain. The Eastern Empire
retained possession of these distant conquests for about sixty years.[b]
GIBBON’S ESTIMATE OF BELISARIUS AND HIS TIMES
Our estimate of personal merit is relative to the common faculties of
mankind. The aspiring efforts of genius or virtue, either in active
or speculative life, are measured not so much by their real elevation
as by the height to which they ascend above the level of their age or
country; and the same stature, which in a people of giants would pass
unnoticed, must appear conspicuous in a race of pigmies. Leonidas and
his three hundred companions devoted their lives at Thermopylæ; but the
education of the infant, the boy, and the man had prepared, and almost
insured, this memorable sacrifice; and each Spartan would approve, rather
than admire, an act of duty of which himself and eight thousand of his
fellow-citizens were equally capable.
The great Pompey might inscribe on his trophies that he had defeated in
battle two millions of enemies, and reduced fifteen hundred cities from
the lake Mæotis to the Red Sea; but the fortune of Rome flew before his
eagles; the nations were oppressed by their own fears, and the invincible
legions which he commanded had been formed by the habits of conquest
and the discipline of ages. In this view, the character of Belisarius
may be deservedly placed above the heroes of the ancient republic. His
imperfections flowed from the contagion of the times; his virtues were
his own, the free gift of nature or reflection; he raised himself without
a master or a rival; and so inadequate were the arms committed to his
hand that his sole advantage was derived from the pride and presumption
of his adversaries. Under his command, the subjects of Justinian often
deserved to be called Romans; but the unwarlike appellation of Greeks was
imposed as a term of reproach by the haughty Goths, who affected to blush
that they must dispute the kingdom of Italy with a nation of tragedians,
pantomimes, and pirates.
The climate of Asia has indeed been found less congenial than that of
Europe to military spirit; those populous countries were enervated by
luxury, despotism, and superstition, and the monks were more expensive
and more numerous than the soldiers of the East. The regular force of
the empire had once amounted to 645,000 men: it was reduced, in the time
of Justinian, to 150,000; and this number, large as it may seem, was
thinly scattered over the sea and land--in Spain and Italy, in Africa
and Egypt, on the banks of the Danube, the coast of Euxine, and the
frontiers of Persia. The citizen was exhausted, yet the soldier was
unpaid; his poverty was mischievously soothed by the privilege of rapine
and indolence; and the tardy payments were detained and intercepted by
the fraud of those agents who usurp, without courage or danger, the
emoluments of war. Public and private distress recruited the armies of
the state; but in the field, and still more in the presence of the enemy,
their numbers were always defective.
The want of national spirit was supplied by the precarious faith and
disorderly service of barbarian mercenaries. Even military honour, which
has often survived the loss of virtue and freedom, was almost totally
extinct. The generals, who were multiplied beyond the example of former
times, laboured only to prevent the success, or to sully the reputation,
of their colleagues; and they had been taught by experience that, if
merit sometimes provoked the jealousy, error or even guilt would obtain
the indulgence of a gracious emperor.
In such an age the triumphs of Belisarius, and afterwards of Narses,
shine with incomparable lustre; but they are encompassed with the darkest
shades of disgrace and calamity.[17]
BARBARIC INROADS
[Sidenote: [100-550 A.D.]]
Even the Gothic victories of Belisarius were prejudicial to the state,
since they abolished the important barrier of the upper Danube, which
had been so faithfully guarded by Theodoric and his daughter. For the
defence of Italy, the Goths evacuated Pannonia and Noricum, which they
left in a peaceful and flourishing condition; the sovereignty was claimed
by the emperor of the Romans, the actual possession was abandoned to
the boldness of the first invader. On the opposite banks of the Danube,
the plains of upper Hungary and the Transylvanian hills were possessed,
since the death of Attila, by the tribes of the Gepidæ, who respected the
Gothic arms and despised not indeed the gold of the Romans but the secret
motive of their annual subsidies.
The vacant fortifications of the river were instantly occupied by
these barbarians; their standards were planted on the walls of Sirmium
and Belgrade; and the ironical tone of their apology aggravated this
insult on the majesty of the empire. “So extensive, O Cæsar, are your
dominions, so numerous are your cities, that you are continually seeking
for nations to whom, either in peace or war, you may relinquish these
useless possessions. The Gepidæ are your brave and faithful allies; and
if they have anticipated your gifts, they have shown a just confidence in
your bounty.” Their presumption was excused by the mode of revenge which
Justinian embraced. Instead of asserting the rights of a sovereign for
the protection of his subjects, the emperor invited a strange people to
invade and possess the Roman provinces between the Danube and the Alps;
and the ambition of the Gepidæ was checked by the rising power and fame
of the Lombards.
This corrupt appellation has been diffused in the thirteenth century
by the merchants and bankers, the Italian posterity of these savage
warriors: but the original name of Langobards is expressive only of
the peculiar length and fashion of their beards.[18] About the time of
Augustus and Trajan, a ray of historic light breaks on the darkness of
their antiquities, and they are discovered, for the first time, between
the Elbe and the Oder. Fierce beyond the example of the Germans, they
delighted to propagate the tremendous belief that their heads were
formed like the heads of dogs, and that they drank the blood of their
enemies whom they vanquished in battle. The smallness of their numbers
was recruited by the adoption of their bravest slaves; and alone, amidst
their powerful neighbours, they defended by arms their high-spirited
independence.
[Illustration: A GOTHIC CHIEF]
In the tempest of the north, which overwhelmed so many names and nations,
this little bark of the Lombards still floated on the surface. They
gradually descended towards the south and the Danube, and at the end of
four hundred years[19] they again appear with their ancient valour and
renown. Their manners were not less ferocious. The assassination of a
royal guest was executed in the presence and by the command of the king’s
daughter, who had been provoked by some words of insult and disappointed
by his diminutive stature;[20] and a tribute, the price of blood, was
imposed on the Lombards by his brother the king of the Heruli. Adversity
revived a sense of moderation and justice, and the insolence of conquest
was chastised by the signal defeat and irreparable dispersion of the
Heruli, who were seated in the southern provinces of Poland.[21]
The victories of the Lombards recommended them to the friendship of the
emperors; and at the solicitation of Justinian they passed the Danube
to reduce, according to their treaty, the cities of Noricum and the
fortresses of Pannonia. But the spirit of rapine soon tempted them beyond
these ample limits; they wandered along the coast of the Adriatic as
far as Dyrrhachium, and presumed, with familiar rudeness, to enter the
towns and houses of their Roman allies, and to seize the captives who had
escaped from their audacious hands. These acts of hostility, the sallies,
as it might be pretended, of some loose adventurers, were disowned by the
nation and excused by the emperor; but the arms of the Lombards were more
seriously engaged by a contest of thirty years, which was terminated only
by the extirpation of the Gepidæ.
[Sidenote: [550-554 A.D.]]
The hostile nations often pleaded their cause before the throne of
Constantinople; and the crafty Justinian, to whom the barbarians were
almost equally odious, pronounced a partial and ambiguous sentence, and
dexterously protracted the war by slow and ineffectual succours. Their
strength was formidable, since the Lombards, who sent into the field
several myriads of soldiers, still claimed, as the weaker side, the
protection of the Romans. Their spirit was intrepid, yet such is the
uncertainty of courage that the two armies were suddenly struck with a
panic; they fled from each other, and the rival kings remained with their
guards in the midst of an empty plain. A short truce was obtained, but
their mutual resentment again kindled; and the remembrance of their shame
rendered the next encounter more desperate and bloody. Forty thousand of
the barbarians perished in the decisive battle[22] which broke the power
of the Gepidæ, transferred the fears and wishes of Justinian, and first
displayed the character of Alboin, the youthful prince of the Lombards
and the future conqueror of Italy.
SLAVIC INCURSIONS
[Sidenote: [100-540 A.D.]]
The wild people who dwelt or wandered in the plains of Russia, Lithuania,
and Poland might be reduced, in the age of Justinian, under the two great
families of the Bulgarians and the Slavonians. According to the Greek
writers, the former, who touched the Euxine and the lake of Mæotis,
derived from the Huns their name or descent; and it is needless to renew
the simple and well-known picture of Tatar manners. They were bold and
dexterous archers, who drank the milk and feasted on the flesh of their
indefatigable horses; whose flocks and herds followed, or rather guided,
the motions of their roving camps; to whose inroads no country was remote
or impervious, and who were practised in flight, though incapable of fear.
The nation was divided into two powerful and hostile tribes, who pursued
each other with fraternal hatred. They eagerly disputed the friendship
or rather the gifts of the emperor; and the distinction which nature
had fixed between the faithful dog and the rapacious wolf was applied
by an ambassador who received only verbal instructions from the mouth
of his illiterate prince. The Bulgarians, of whatsoever species, were
equally attracted by Roman wealth; they assumed a vague dominion over
the Slavonian name, and their rapid marches could only be stopped by
the Baltic Sea, or the extreme cold and poverty of the north. But the
same race of Slavonians appears to have maintained, in every age, the
possession of the same countries. Their numerous tribes, however distant
or adverse, used one common language (it was harsh and irregular), and
were known by the resemblance of their form, which deviated from the
swarthy Tatar and approached without attaining the lofty stature and fair
complexion of the German.
Forty-six hundred villages were scattered over the provinces of Russia
and Poland, and their huts were hastily built of rough timber, in a
country deficient both in stone and iron. Erected, or rather concealed,
in the depth of forests, on the banks of rivers or the edge of morasses,
we may, not perhaps without flattery, compare them to the architecture of
the beaver; which they resembled in a double issue to the land and water
for the escape of the savage inhabitant--an animal less cleanly, less
diligent, and less social than that marvellous quadruped. The fertility
of the soil, rather than the labour of the natives, supplied the rustic
plenty of the Slavonians. Their sheep and horned cattle were large
and numerous, and the fields which they sowed with millet and panic,
afforded, in the place of bread, a coarse and less nutritive food. The
incessant rapine of their neighbours compelled them to bury this treasure
in the earth; but on the appearance of a stranger it was freely imparted,
by a people whose unfavourable character is qualified by the epithets of
chaste, patient, and hospitable. As their supreme god, they adored an
invisible master of the thunder. The rivers and the nymphs obtained their
subordinate honours, and the popular worship was expressed in vows and
sacrifice.
The Slavonians disdained to obey a despot, a prince, or even a
magistrate; but their experience was too narrow, their passions too
headstrong, to compose a system of equal law or general defence. Some
voluntary respect was yielded to age and valour; but each tribe or
village existed as a separate republic, and all must be persuaded where
none could be compelled. They fought on foot, almost naked, and, except
an unwieldy shield, without any defensive armour; their weapons of
offence were a bow, a quiver of small poisoned arrows, and a long rope,
which they dexterously threw from a distance, and entangled their enemy
in a running noose. In the field the Slavonian infantry were dangerous by
their speed, agility, and hardiness: they swam, they dived, they remained
under water, drawing their breath through a hollow cane; and a river or
lake was often the scene of their unsuspected ambuscade. But these were
the achievements of spies and stragglers; the military art was unknown
to the Slavonians; their name was obscure, and their conquests were
inglorious.
[Sidenote: [540-565 A.D.]]
The level country of Moldavia and Wallachia was occupied by the Antes (or
Antai), a Slavonian tribe, which swelled the titles of Justinian with an
epithet of conquest. Against the Antes he erected the fortifications of
the lower Danube; and laboured to secure the alliance of a people seated
in the direct channel of northern inundation, an interval of two hundred
miles between the mountains of Transylvania and the Euxine Sea. But the
Antes wanted power and inclination to stem the fury of the torrent; and
the light-armed Slavonians, from a hundred tribes, pursued with almost
equal speed the footsteps of the Bulgarian horse.[23] The payment of one
piece of gold for each soldier procured a safe and easy retreat through
the country of the Gepidæ, who commanded the passage of the upper Danube.
The hopes or fears of the barbarians, their intestine union or discord,
the accident of a frozen or shallow stream, the prospect of harvest
or vintage, the prosperity or distress of the Romans--were the causes
which produced the uniform repetition of annual visits, tedious in the
narrative and destructive in the event. The same year, and possibly the
same month, in which Ravenna surrendered was marked by an invasion of
the Huns or Bulgarians,[24] so dreadful that it almost effaced the memory
of their past inroads. They spread from the suburbs of Constantinople to
the Ionian Gulf, destroyed thirty-two cities or castles, erased Potidæa
which Athens had built and Philip had besieged, and repassed the Danube,
dragging at their horses’ heels 120,000 of the subjects of Justinian. In
a subsequent inroad they pierced the wall of the Thracian Chersonesus,
extirpated the habitations and the inhabitants, boldly traversed the
Hellespont, and returned to their companions, laden with the spoils of
Asia. Another party, which seemed a multitude in the eyes of the Romans,
penetrated without opposition from the straits of Thermopylæ to the
Isthmus of Corinth; and the last ruin of Greece has appeared an object
too minute for the attention of history.
The works which the emperor raised for the protection but at the expense
of his subjects served only to disclose the weakness of some neglected
part; and the walls, which by flattery had been deemed impregnable,
were either deserted by the garrison or scaled by the barbarians. Three
thousand Slavonians, who insolently divided themselves into two bands,
discovered the weakness and misery of a triumphant reign. They passed the
Danube and the Hebrus, vanquished the Roman generals who dared to oppose
their progress, and plundered with impunity the cities of Illyricum
and Thrace, each of which had arms and numbers to overwhelm their
contemptible assailants.
[Illustration: A BYZANTINE COSTUME]
Whatever praise the boldness of the Slavonians may deserve, it is sullied
by the wanton and deliberate cruelty which they are accused of exercising
on their prisoners. Without distinction of rank, or age, or sex, the
captives were impaled or flayed alive, or suspended between four posts
and beaten with clubs till they expired, or enclosed in some spacious
building and left to perish in the flames with the spoil and cattle which
might impede the march of these savage victors. Perhaps a more impartial
narrative would reduce the number, and qualify the nature, of these
horrid acts; and they might sometimes be excused by the cruel laws of
retaliation. In the siege of Topirus, whose obstinate defence had enraged
the Slavonians, they massacred fifteen thousand males;[25] but they
spared the women and children. The most valuable captives were always
reserved for labour or ransom; the servitude was not rigorous, and the
terms of their deliverance were speedy and moderate. But the subject or
the historian of Justinian exhaled his just indignation in the language
of complaint and reproach; and Procopius has confidently affirmed that,
in a reign of thirty-two years, each annual inroad of the barbarians
consumed two hundred thousand of the inhabitants of the Roman Empire.
The entire population of Turkish Europe, which nearly corresponds with
the provinces of Justinian, would perhaps be incapable of supplying six
millions of persons, the result of this incredible estimate.
In the midst of these obscure calamities, Europe felt the shock of a
revolution, which first revealed to the world the name and nation of the
Turks.[c]
TURKS AND AVARS
[Sidenote: [545-557 A.D.]]
Since that period the Turks have always continued to occupy a memorable
place in the history of mankind, as the destroyers of ancient
civilisation. In their progress towards the West, they were preceded
by the Avars, a people whose arrival in Europe produced the greatest
alarm, whose dominion was soon widely extended, but whose complete
extermination, or amalgamation with their subjects, leaves the history
of their race a problem never likely to receive a very satisfactory
solution. The Avars are supposed to have been a portion of the
inhabitants of a powerful Asiatic empire which figures in the annals of
China as ruling a great part of the centre of Asia, and extending to
the Gulf of Corea. The great empire of the Avars was overthrown by a
rebellion of their Turkish subjects, and the noblest caste soon became
lost to history amidst the revolutions of the Chinese Empire.
The original seats of the Turks were in the country round the great chain
of Mount Altai. As subjects of the Avars, they had been distinguished
by their skill in working and tempering iron; their industry had
procured them wealth, and wealth had inspired them with the desire for
independence. After throwing off the yoke of the Avars, they waged war
with that people, and compelled the military strength of the nation to
fly before them in two separate bodies. One of these divisions fell back
on China; the other advanced into western Asia, and at last entered
Europe. The Turks engaged in a career of conquest, and in a few years
their dominions extended from the Volga and the Caspian Sea to the shores
of the ocean, or the Sea of Japan, and from the banks of the Oxus (Gihon)
to the deserts of Siberia. The western army of the Avars, increased by
many tribes who feared the Turkish government, advanced into Europe as a
nation of conquerors, and not as a band of fugitives. The mass of this
army is supposed to have been composed of people of the Turkish race,
because those who afterwards bore the Avar name in Europe seem to have
belonged to that family. It must not, however, be forgotten, that the
mighty army of Avar emigrants might easily, in a few generations, lose
all national peculiarities, and forget its native language, amidst the
greater number of its Hunnish subjects, even if we should suppose the two
races to have been originally derived from different stocks. The Avars,
however, are sometimes styled Turks, even by the earliest historians.
The use of the appellation Turk, in an extended sense, including the
Mongol race, is found in Theophylactus Simocatta,[m] a writer possessing
considerable knowledge of the affairs of eastern Asia, and who speaks
of the inhabitants of the flourishing kingdom of Taugus as Turks. This
application of the term appears to have arisen from the circumstance,
that the part of China to which he alluded was subject at the time to a
foreign, or, in his phrase, a Turkish dynasty.
The Avars soon conquered all the countries as far as the banks of the
Danube, and before Justinian’s death they were firmly established on the
borders of Pannonia.[b]
They had followed the well-known road of the Volga, cherished the error
of the nations who confounded them with the original Avars, and spread
the terror of that false though famous appellation, which had not,
however, saved its lawful proprietors from the yoke of the Turks. After
a long and victorious march, the new Avars arrived at the foot of Mount
Caucasus, in the country of the Alans and Circassians, where they first
heard of the splendour and weakness of the Roman Empire. They humbly
requested their confederate, the prince of the Alans, to lead them to
this source of riches; and their ambassador, with the permission of the
governor of Lazica, was transported by the Euxine Sea to Constantinople.
The whole city was poured forth to behold with curiosity and terror
the aspect of a strange people; their long hair, which hung in tresses
down their backs, was gracefully bound with ribbons, but the rest of
their habit appeared to imitate the fashion of the Huns. When they
were admitted to the audience of Justinian, Candish, the first of the
ambassadors, addressed the Roman emperor in these terms: “You see before
you, O mighty prince, the representatives of the strongest and most
populous of nations, the invincible, the irresistible Avars. We are
willing to devote ourselves to your service, we are able to vanquish and
destroy all the enemies who now disturb your repose. But we expect, as
the price of our alliance, as the reward of our valour, precious gifts,
annual subsidies, and fruitful possessions.”
[Sidenote: [557-565 A.D.]]
At the time of this embassy Justinian had reigned above thirty, he had
lived above seventy-five years; his mind, as well as his body, was
feeble and languid; and the conqueror of Africa and Italy, careless of
the permanent interest of his people, aspired only to end his days in
the bosom even of inglorious peace. In a studied oration, he imparted
to the senate his resolution to dissemble the insult and to purchase
the friendship of the Avars; and the whole senate, like the mandarins
of China, applauded the incomparable wisdom and foresight of their
sovereign. The instruments of luxury were immediately prepared to
captivate the barbarians; silken garments, soft and splendid beds, and
chains and collars encrusted with gold. The ambassadors, content with
such liberal reception, departed from Constantinople, and Valentin, one
of the emperor’s guards, was sent with a similar character to their camp
at the foot of Mount Caucasus. As their destruction or their success must
be alike advantageous to the empire, he persuaded them to invade the
enemies of Rome; and they were easily tempted, by gifts and promises, to
gratify their ruling inclinations. These fugitives, who fled before the
Turkish arms, passed the Tanais and Borysthenes, and boldly advanced into
the heart of Poland and Germany, violating the law of nations and abusing
the rights of victory.
Before ten years had elapsed, their camps were seated on the Danube and
the Elbe, many Bulgarian and Slavonian names were obliterated from the
earth, and the remainder of their tribes are found, as tributaries and
vassals, under the standard of the Avars. The chagan, the peculiar title
of their king, still affected to cultivate the friendship of the emperor;
and Justinian entertained some thoughts of fixing them in Pannonia, to
balance the prevailing power of the Lombards. But the virtue or treachery
of an Avar betrayed the secret enmity and ambitious designs of their
countrymen; and they loudly complained of the timid, though jealous,
policy of detaining their ambassadors, and denying the arms which they
had been allowed to purchase in the capital of the empire.
Perhaps the apparent change in the dispositions of the emperors may
be ascribed to the embassy which was received from the conquerors
of the Avars. The immense distance, which eluded their arms, could
not extinguish their resentment; the Turkish ambassadors pursued the
footsteps of the vanquished to the Jaik, the Volga, Mount Caucasus, the
Euxine, and Constantinople, and at length appeared before the successor
of Constantine, to request that he would not espouse the cause of rebels
and fugitives. The emperor renounced, or seemed to renounce, the fugitive
Avars, but he accepted the alliance of the Turks; and the ratification of
the treaty was carried by a Roman minister to the foot of Mount Altai.
Under the successors of Justinian, the friendship of the two nations was
cultivated by frequent and cordial intercourse.[c]
RELATIONS OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE WITH PERSIA
[Sidenote: [400-527 A.D.]]
The Asiatic frontier of the Roman Empire was less favourable for attack
than defence. The range of the Caucasus was occupied, as it still is,
by a cluster of small nations of various languages, strongly attached
to their independence, which the nature of their country enabled them
to maintain amidst the wars and conflicting negotiations of the Romans,
Persians, and Huns, by whom they were surrounded. The kingdom of Colchis
(Mingrelia) was in permanent alliance with the Romans, and the sovereign
received a regular investiture from the emperor. The Tzans, who inhabited
the mountains about the sources of the Phasis, enjoyed a subsidiary
alliance with Justinian until their plundering expeditions within the
precincts of the empire induced him to garrison their country. Iberia, to
the east of Colchis, the modern Georgia, formed an independent kingdom
under the protection of Persia.
Armenia, as an independent kingdom, had long formed a slight counterpoise
between the Roman and Persian empires. In the reign of Theodosius II
it had been partitioned by its powerful neighbours; and about the year
429, it had lost the shadow of independence which it had been allowed
to retain. The greater part of Armenia had fallen to the share of the
Persians; but as the people were Christians, and possessed their own
church and literature, they had maintained their nationality uninjured
after the loss of their political government. The western or Roman part
of Armenia was bounded by the mountains in which the Araxes, the Boas,
and the Euphrates take their rise; and it was defended against Persia by
the fortress of Theodosiopolis (Erzerum), situated on the very frontier
of Pers-Armenia. From Theodosiopolis the empire was bounded by ranges of
mountains which cross the Euphrates and extend to the river Nymphæus,
and here the city of Martyropolis, the capital of Roman Armenia, east of
the Euphrates, was situated. From the junction of the Nymphæus with the
Tigris the frontier again followed the mountains to Dara, and from thence
it proceeded to the Chaboras and the fortress of Circesium.
The Arabs or Saracens, who inhabited the district between Circesium and
Idumæa, were divided into two kingdoms: that of Ghassan, towards Syria,
maintained an alliance with the Romans; and that of Hira, to the east,
enjoyed the protection of Persia. Palmyra, which had fallen into ruins
after the time of Theodosius II, was repaired and garrisoned; and the
country between the gulfs of Ailath and Suez, forming a province called
the Third Palestine, was protected by a fortress constructed at the foot
of Mount Sinai, and occupied by a strong body of troops.
Such a frontier, though it presented great difficulties in the way of
invading Persia, afforded admirable means for protecting the empire;
and accordingly it had very rarely indeed happened that a Persian
army had ever penetrated into a Roman province. It was reserved for
Justinian’s reign to behold the Persians break through the defensive
line, and contribute to the ruin of the wealth and the destruction of the
civilisation of some of the most flourishing and enlightened portions
of the Eastern Empire. The wars which Justinian carried on with Persia
reflect little glory on his reign; but the celebrated name of his rival,
the great Chosroes Nushirvan, has rendered his misfortunes and misconduct
venial in the eyes of historians.
The Persian and Roman empires were at this time nearly equal in power
and civilisation; both were ruled by princes whose reigns form national
epochs, yet history affords ample evidence that the brilliant exploits
of both these sovereigns were effected by a wasteful expenditure of the
national resources and by a consumption of the lives and capital of their
subjects which proved irreparable. Neither empire was ever able to regain
its former state of prosperity, nor could society recover the shock which
it had received. The governments were too demoralised to venture on
political reforms, and the people too ignorant and too feeble to attempt
a national revolution.
The governments of declining countries often give but slight signs
of their weaknesses and approaching dissolution as long as the
ordinary relations of war and peace require to be maintained only with
habitual friends or enemies, though the slightest exertion, created by
extraordinary circumstances, may cause the political fabric to fall to
pieces. The armies of the Eastern Empire and of Persia had, by long
acquaintance with the military force of one another, found the means of
balancing any peculiar advantage of their enemy by a modification of
tactics, or by an improvement in military discipline, which neutralised
its effect. War between the two states was consequently carried on
according to a regular routine of service, and was continued during a
succession of campaigns in which much blood and treasure were expended,
and much glory gained, with very little change in the relative military
power, and none in the frontiers, of the two empires.
[Sidenote: [527-532 A.D.]]
The avarice of Justinian, or his inconstant plans, often induced him to
leave the eastern frontier of the empire very inadequately garrisoned;
and this frontier presented an extent of country against which a Persian
army, concentrated behind the Tigris, could choose its point of attack.
The option of carrying the war into Syria, Mesopotamia, Armenia, or
Colchis generally lay with the Persians; and Chosroes attempted to
penetrate into the empire by every portion of this frontier during his
long wars. The Roman army, in spite of the change which had taken place
in its arms and organisation, still retained its superiority.[b]
The first war with the Persians had followed close upon Justinian’s
accession. He had sent Belisarius to build a fortress near Nisibis in
528; the Persians under Prince Xerxes invaded Mesopotamia and defeated
the Romans with heavy loss. The next year was devoted to raids by both
sides, but in 530 Belisarius, then only twenty-five, won a victory at
Daras. “This being,” says Procopius,[d] “the first defeat suffered by
the Persians for a long time.” The next year, however, at Callinicum,
Belisarius was badly defeated, and while Procopius, his secretary, says
he fought bravely, Johannes Malalas[n] accuses him of cowardice. At any
rate he was recalled, and his successor Mundus won some glory. Then the
old King Kobad died and his famous son Chosroes I came to the Persian
throne.[a]
[Sidenote: [532-562 A.D.]]
And now the war in which Justinian had found the empire engaged on his
succession was terminated by a peace called “the Everlasting Peace,”
which the Romans purchased by the payment of eleven thousand pounds of
gold to Chosroes. The Persian monarch required peace to regulate the
affairs of his own kingdom; and the calculation of Justinian that the
sum which he paid to Persia was much less than the expense of continuing
the war, though correct, was injudicious, as it really conveyed an
admission of inferiority and weakness. Justinian’s object had been to
place the great body of his military forces at liberty, in order to
direct his exclusive attention to recovering the lost provinces of the
Western Empire. Had he availed himself of peace with Persia to diminish
the burdens on his subjects, and consolidate the defence of the empire
instead of extending its frontiers, he might perhaps have re-established
the Roman power. As soon as Chosroes heard of the conquests of Justinian
in Africa, Sicily, and Italy, his jealousy induced him to renew the war.
The solicitations of an embassy sent by Witiges are said to have had some
effect in determining him to take up arms.
In 540 Chosroes invaded Syria with a powerful army, and laid siege
to Antioch, the second city of the empire in population and wealth.
He offered to raise the siege on receiving payment of one thousand
pounds’ weight of gold, but this small sum was refused. Antioch was
taken by storm, its buildings were committed to the flames, and its
inhabitants were carried away captive and settled as colonists in
Persia. Hierapolis, Berœa (Aleppo), Apamea, and Chalcis escaped this
fate by paying the ransom demanded from each. To save Syria from utter
destruction, Belisarius was sent to take the command of an army assembled
for its defence, but he was ill supported, and his success was by no
means brilliant. The fact that he saved Syria from utter devastation,
nevertheless, rendered his campaign of 543 by no means unimportant for
the empire.[b]
[Illustration: A PERSIAN NOBLE
(Based on Bardon)]
In 545 a truce for five years was signed, Justinian paying two thousand
pounds of gold. In 549 the Romans yielded to the appeal of the Lazi and
sent troops to aid them to shake off the Persian yoke. After various
sieges, a new truce was concluded in 551, the Romans paying twenty-six
hundred pounds of gold. Hostilities went on, none the less, with a
result, as Bury[e] notes, that the Persians failed of their design
to gain access to the Euxine, and “that on the waters of the sea the
Romans were to remain without rivals.” The Romans had, however, to pay,
as usual, the price.[a] The war had been carried on for twenty years,
but during the latter period of its duration military operations had
been confined to Colchis. It was terminated in 562 by a truce for fifty
years, which effected little change in the frontiers of the empire. The
most remarkable clause of this treaty of peace imposed on Justinian the
disgraceful obligation of paying Chosroes an annual subsidy of thirty
thousand pieces of gold [£18,750 or $93,750]; and he was compelled
immediately to advance the sum of 210,000 pounds, for seven years. The
sum, it is true, was not very great, but the condition of the Roman
Empire was sadly changed, when it became necessary to purchase peace from
all its neighbours with gold, and with gold to find mercenary troops to
carry on its wars. The moment, therefore, a supply of gold failed in the
imperial treasury, the safety of the Roman power was compromised.
The weakness of the Roman Empire, and the necessity of finding allies
in the East, in order to secure a share of the lucrative commerce of
which Persia had long possessed a monopoly, induced Justinian to keep up
friendly communications with the king of Ethiopia (Abyssinia). Elesboas,
who then occupied the Ethiopian throne, was a prince of great power, and
a steady ally of the Romans. The wars of this Christian monarch in Arabia
are related by the historians of the empire; and Justinian endeavoured,
by this means, to transfer the silk trade with India from Persia to the
route by the Red Sea.
The attempt failed from the great length of the sea voyage, and the
difficulties of adjusting the intermediate commerce of the countries on
this line of communication; but still the trade of the Red Sea was so
great that the king of Ethiopia, in the reign of Justin, was able to
collect a fleet of seven hundred native vessels, and six hundred Roman
and Persian merchantmen, which he employed to transport his troops into
Arabia.[b]
THE REVOLT IN AFRICA
[Sidenote: [535-545 A.D.]]
The review of the nations from the Danube to the Nile has exposed on
every side the weakness of the Romans; and our wonder is reasonably
excited that they should presume to enlarge an empire, whose ancient
limits they were incapable of defending. But the wars, the conquests,
and the triumphs of Justinian are the feeble and pernicious efforts of
old age, which exhaust the remains of strength and accelerate the decay
of the powers of life. He exulted in the glorious act of restoring
Africa and Italy to the republic; but the calamities which followed the
departure of Belisarius betrayed the impotence of the conqueror and
accomplished the ruin of those unfortunate countries.
From his new acquisitions, Justinian expected that his avarice, as
well as pride, should be richly gratified. A rapacious minister of the
finances closely pursued the footsteps of Belisarius; and as the old
registers of tribute had been burned by the Vandals, he indulged his
fancy in a liberal calculation and arbitrary assessment of the wealth
of Africa. The increase of taxes, which were drawn away by a distant
sovereign, and a general resumption of the patrimony or crown lands
soon dispelled the intoxication of the public joy; but the emperor was
insensible to the modest complaints of the people, till he was awakened
and alarmed by the clamours of military discontent. Many of the Roman
soldiers had married the widows and daughters of the Vandals. As their
own, by the double right of conquest and inheritance, they claimed the
estates which Genseric had assigned to his victorious troops. They heard
with disdain the cold and selfish representations of their officers that
the liberality of Justinian had raised them from a savage or servile
condition; that they were already enriched by the spoils of Africa, the
treasure, the slaves, and the movables of the vanquished barbarians; and
that the ancient and lawful patrimony of the emperors would be applied
only to the support of that government on which their own safety and
reward must ultimately depend.
The mutiny was secretly inflamed by a thousand soldiers, for the most
part Heruli, who had imbibed the doctrines and were instigated by the
clergy of the Arian sect; and the cause of perjury and rebellion was
sanctified by the dispensing powers of fanaticism. The Arians deplored
the ruin of their church, triumphant above a century in Africa; and they
were justly provoked by the laws of the conqueror, which interdicted the
baptism of their children and the exercise of all religious worship. Of
the Vandals chosen by Belisarius, the far greater part, in the honours of
the eastern service, forgot their country and religion. But a generous
band of four hundred obliged the mariners, when they were in sight of the
isle of Lesbos, to alter their course; they touched on Peloponnesus, ran
ashore on a desert coast of Africa, and boldly erected on Mount Aurasius
the standard of independence and revolt.
While the troops of the province disclaimed the commands of their
superiors, a conspiracy was formed at Carthage against the life of
Solomon, who filled with honour the place of Belisarius; and the Arians
had piously resolved to sacrifice the tyrant at the foot of the altar,
during the awful mysteries of the festival of Easter. Fear or remorse
restrained the daggers of the assassins, but the patience of Solomon
emboldened their discontent; and at the end of ten days a furious
sedition was kindled in the circus, which desolated Africa above ten
years. The pillage of the city and the indiscriminate slaughter of its
inhabitants were suspended only by darkness, sleep, and intoxication; the
governor, with seven companions, among whom was the historian Procopius,
escaped to Sicily. Two-thirds of the army were involved in the guilt
of treason; and eight thousand insurgents, assembling in the fields of
Bulla, elected Stozas for their chief, a private soldier who possessed,
in a superior degree, the virtues of a rebel. Under the mask of freedom,
his eloquence could lead, or at least impel, the passions of his equals.
He raised himself to a level with Belisarius and the nephew of the
emperor, by daring to encounter them in the field; and the victorious
generals were compelled to acknowledge that Stozas deserved a purer cause
and a more legitimate command. Vanquished in battle, he dexterously
employed the arts of negotiation; a Roman army was seduced from their
allegiance, and the chiefs, who had trusted to his faithless promise,
were murdered by his order in a church of Numidia.
When every resource, either of force or perfidy, was exhausted, Stozas
with some desperate Vandals retired to the wilds of Mauretania, obtained
the daughter of a barbarian prince, and eluded the pursuit of his enemies
by the report of his death. The personal weight of Belisarius, the rank,
the spirit, and the temper of Germanus, the emperor’s nephew, and the
vigour and success of the second administration of the eunuch Solomon,
restored the modesty of the camp, and maintained, for a while, the
tranquillity of Africa. But the vices of the Byzantine court were felt
in that distant province; the troops complained that they were neither
paid nor relieved; and as soon as the public disorders were sufficiently
mature, Stozas was again alive, in arms, and at the gates of Carthage. He
fell in a single combat, but he smiled in the agonies of death, when he
was informed that his own javelin had reached the heart of his antagonist.
[Sidenote: [545-558 A.D.]]
The example of Stozas, and the assurance that a fortunate soldier
had been the first king, encouraged the ambition of Gontharis, and
he promised by a private treaty to divide Africa with the Moors, if,
with their dangerous aid, he should ascend the throne of Carthage.
The feeble Areobindus, unskilled in the affairs of peace and war, was
raised by his marriage with the niece of Justinian to the office of
exarch. He was suddenly oppressed by a sedition of the guards; and his
abject supplications, which provoked the contempt, could not move the
pity, of the inexorable tyrant. After a reign of thirty days, Gontharis
himself was stabbed at a banquet, by the hand of Artaban; and it is
singular enough that an Armenian prince, of the royal family of Arsaces,
should re-establish at Carthage the authority of the Roman Empire. In
the conspiracy which unsheathed the dagger of Brutus against the life
of Cæsar, every circumstance is curious and important to the eyes of
posterity; but the guilt or merit of these loyal or rebellious assassins
could interest only the contemporaries of Procopius, who, by their hopes
and fears, their friendship or resentment, were personally engaged in the
revolutions of Africa.
That country was rapidly sinking into the state of barbarism, from
whence it had been raised by the Phœnician colonies and Roman laws; and
every step of intestine discord was marked by some deplorable victory
of savage man over civilised society. The Moors, though ignorant of
justice, were impatient of oppression; their vagrant life and boundless
wilderness disappointed the arms and eluded the chains of a conqueror,
and experience had shown that neither oaths nor obligations could secure
the fidelity of their attachment. The victory of Mount Aurasius had awed
them into momentary submission; but if they respected the character of
Solomon, they hated and despised the pride and luxury of his two nephews,
Cyrus and Sergius, on whom their uncle had imprudently bestowed the
provincial governments of Tripolis and Pentapolis.
[Illustration: GOLD MEDALLION OF JUSTINIAN]
[Sidenote: [558-559 A.D.]]
A Moorish tribe encamped under the walls of Leptis, to renew their
alliance, and receive from the governor the customary gifts. Fourscore
of their deputies were introduced as friends into the city; but, on
the dark suspicion of a conspiracy, they were massacred at the table
of Sergius; and the clamour of arms and revenge was re-echoed through
the valleys of Mount Atlas, from both the Syrtes to the Atlantic Ocean.
A personal injury, the unjust execution or murder of his brother,
rendered Antalas the enemy of the Romans. The defeat of the Vandals had
formerly signalised his valour; the rudiments of justice and prudence
were still more conspicuous in a Moor; and while he laid Hadrumetum in
ashes, he calmly admonished the emperor that the peace of Africa might
be secured by the recall of Solomon and his unworthy nephews. The exarch
led forth his troops from Carthage; but at the distance of six days’
journey, in the neighbourhood of Tebeste,[26] he was astonished by the
superior numbers and fierce aspect of the barbarians. He proposed a
treaty, solicited a reconciliation, and offered to bind himself by the
most solemn oaths. “By what oaths can he bind himself?” interrupted the
indignant Moors. “Will he swear by the Gospels, the divine books of the
Christians? It was on those books that the faith of his nephew Sergius
was pledged to eighty of our innocent and unfortunate brethren. Before we
trust them a second time, let us try their efficacy in the chastisement
of perjury, and the vindication of their own honour.” Their honour was
vindicated in the field of Tebeste, by the death of Solomon and the total
loss of his army.
The arrival of fresh troops and more skilful commanders[27] soon checked
the insolence of the Moors; seventeen of their princes were slain in the
same battle; and the doubtful and transient submission of their tribes
was celebrated with lavish applause by the people of Constantinople.
Successive inroads had reduced the province of Africa to one-third of
the measure of Italy; yet the Roman emperors continued to reign above
a century over Carthage and the fruitful coast of the Mediterranean.
But the victories and the losses of Justinian were alike pernicious to
mankind; and such was the desolation of Africa that in many parts a
stranger might wander whole days without meeting the face either of a
friend or an enemy.
The nation of the Vandals had disappeared; they once amounted to 160,000
warriors, without including the children, the women, or the slaves. Their
numbers were infinitely surpassed by the number of the Moorish families
extirpated in a relentless war; and the same destruction was retaliated
on the Romans and their allies, who perished by the climate, their mutual
quarrels, and the rage of the barbarians. When Procopius first landed,
he admired the populousness of the cities and country, strenuously
exercised in the labours of commerce and agriculture. In less than twenty
years, that busy scene was converted into a silent solitude; the wealthy
citizens escaped to Sicily and Constantinople; and the secret historian
has confidently affirmed that five millions of Africans were consumed by
the wars and government of the emperor Justinian.
INVASION OF THE COTRIGUR HUNS
[Sidenote: [559-563 A.D.]]
The repose of the aged Belisarius was crowned by a last victory which
saved the emperor and the capital. The barbarians who annually visited
the provinces of Europe were less discouraged by some accidental defeat
than they were excited by the double hope of spoil and of subsidy.
In the thirty-second winter of Justinian’s reign, the Danube was deeply
frozen; Zabergan led the cavalry of the Cotrigur (or Cotugur) Huns,
and his standard was followed by a promiscuous multitude. The savage
chief passed, without opposition, the river and the mountains, spread
his troops over Macedonia and Thrace, and advanced with no more than
seven thousand horse to the long walls which should have defended the
territory of Constantinople. But the works of man are impotent against
the assaults of nature; a recent earthquake had shaken the foundations
of the wall, and the forces of the empire were employed on the distant
frontiers of Italy, Africa, and Persia. The seven schools, or companies
of the guards or domestic troops, had been augmented to the number of
fifty-five hundred men, whose ordinary station was in the peaceful cities
of Asia. But the places of the brave Armenians were insensibly supplied
by lazy citizens, who purchased an exemption from the duties of civil
life, without being exposed to the dangers of military service. Of such
soldiers, few could be tempted to sally from the gates; and none could be
persuaded to remain in the field unless they wanted strength and speed to
escape from the Cotrigurs.
The report of the fugitives exaggerated the numbers and fierceness of
an enemy who had polluted holy virgins and abandoned new-born infants
to the dogs and vultures;[28] a crowd of rustics, imploring food and
protection, increased the consternation of the city, and the tents of
Zabergan were pitched at the distance of twenty miles, on the banks of
a small river which encircles Melanthias, and afterwards falls into the
Propontis. Justinian trembled; and those who had only seen the emperor
in his old age, were pleased to suppose that he had lost the alacrity
and vigour of his youth. By his command, the vessels of gold and silver
were removed from the churches in the neighbourhood and even the suburbs
of Constantinople; the ramparts were lined with trembling spectators;
the golden gate was crowded with useless generals and tribunes, and the
senate shared the fatigues and the apprehensions of the populace.
But the eyes of the prince and people were directed to a feeble veteran,
who was compelled by the public danger to resume the armour in which he
had entered Carthage and defended Rome. The horses of the royal stables,
of private citizens, and even of the circus, were hastily collected; the
emulation of the old and young was roused by the name of Belisarius,
and his first encampment was in the presence of a victorious enemy. His
prudence, and the labour of the friendly peasants, secured with a ditch
and rampart the repose of the night; innumerable fires and clouds of
dust were artfully contrived to magnify the opinion of his strength; his
soldiers suddenly passed from despondency to presumption, and while ten
thousand voices demanded the battle, Belisarius dissembled his knowledge
that in the hour of trial he must depend on the firmness of three hundred
veterans.
The next morning the Cotrigur cavalry advanced to the charge. But they
heard the shouts of multitudes, they beheld the arms and discipline of
the front; they were assaulted on the flanks by two ambuscades which rose
from the woods; their foremost warriors fell by the hand of the aged
hero and his guards; and the swiftness of their evolutions was rendered
useless by the close attack and rapid pursuit of the Romans. In this
action (so speedy was their flight) the Cotrigur Huns lost only four
hundred horse; but Constantinople was saved; and Zabergan, who felt the
hand of a master, withdrew to a respectful distance. But his friends
were numerous in the councils of the emperor, and Belisarius obeyed with
reluctance the commands of envy and Justinian, which forbade him to
achieve the deliverance of his country.
On his return to the city, the people, still conscious of their danger,
accompanied his triumph with acclamations of joy and gratitude, which
were imputed as a crime to the victorious general. But when he entered
the palace the courtiers were silent, and the emperor, after a cold and
thankless embrace, dismissed him to mingle with the train of slaves.
Yet so deep was the impression of his glory on the minds of men that
Justinian, in the seventy-seventh year of his age, was encouraged to
advance near forty miles from the capital, and to inspect in person the
restoration of the long wall. The Cotrigurs wasted the summer in the
plains of Thrace; but they were inclined to peace by the failure of their
rash attempts on Greece and the Chersonesus. A menace of killing their
prisoners quickened the payment of heavy ransoms; and the departure of
Zabergan was hastened by the report that double-prowed vessels were built
on the Danube to intercept his passage. The danger was soon forgotten;
and a vain question, whether their sovereign had shown more wisdom or
weakness, amused the idleness of the city.
END OF BELISARIUS
[Sidenote: [563-565 A.D.]]
About two years after the last victory of Belisarius, the emperor
returned from a Thracian journey of health, or business, or devotion.
Justinian was afflicted by a pain in his head; and his private entry
countenanced the rumour of his death. Before the third hour of the day,
the bakers’ shops were plundered of their bread, the houses were shut,
and every citizen, with hope or terror, prepared for the impending
tumult. The senators themselves, fearful and suspicious, were convened at
the ninth hour; and the prefect received their commands to visit every
quarter of the city, and proclaim a general illumination for the recovery
of the emperor’s health. The ferment subsided, but every accident
betrayed the impotence of the government and the factious temper of the
people; the guards were disposed to mutiny as often as their quarters
were changed or their pay was withheld; the frequent calamities of fires
and earthquakes afforded the opportunities of disorder; the disputes of
the blues and greens, of the orthodox and heretics, degenerated into
bloody battles; and in the presence of the Persian ambassador, Justinian
blushed for himself and for his subjects.
Capricious pardon and arbitrary punishment embittered the irksomeness
and discontent of a long reign; a conspiracy was formed in the palace;
and unless we are deceived by the names of Marcellus and Sergius, the
most virtuous and the most profligate of the courtiers were associated
in the same designs. They had fixed the time of the execution; their
rank gave them access to the royal banquet; and their black slaves were
stationed in the vestibule and porticoes, to announce the death of the
tyrant and to excite a sedition in the capital. But the indiscretion
of an accomplice saved the poor remnant of the days of Justinian. The
conspirators were detected and seized, with daggers hidden under their
garments; Marcellus died by his own hand, and Sergius was dragged from
the sanctuary. Pressed by remorse, or tempted by the hopes of safety, he
accused two officers of the household of Belisarius; and torture forced
them to declare that they had acted according to the secret instructions
of their patron.
Posterity will not hastily believe that a hero who, in the vigour of
life, had disdained the fairest offers of ambition and revenge, would
stoop to the murder of his prince whom he could not long expect to
survive. His followers were impatient to fly; but flight must have been
supported by rebellion, and he had lived enough for nature and for glory.
Belisarius appeared before the council with less fear than indignation.
After forty years’ service, the emperor had prejudged his guilt; and
injustice was sanctified by the presence and authority of the patriarch.
The life of Belisarius was graciously spared; but his fortunes were
sequestered, and from December to July he was guarded as a prisoner in
his own palace. At length his innocence was acknowledged; his freedom and
honours were restored; and death, which might be hastened by resentment
and grief, removed him from the world about eight months after his
deliverance (March, 565).
The name of Belisarius can never die; but instead of the funeral, the
monuments, the statues so justly due to his memory, it appears that
his treasure, the spoils of the Goths and Vandals, were immediately
confiscated by the emperor. Some decent portion was reserved, however,
for the use of his widow; and as Antonina had much to repent, she devoted
the last remains of her life and fortune to the foundation of a convent.
Such is the simple and genuine narrative of the fall of Belisarius
and the ingratitude of Justinian. That he was deprived of his eyes,
and reduced by envy to beg his bread--“Give a penny to Belisarius the
general!”--is a fiction of later times, which has obtained credit, or
rather favour, as a strange example of the vicissitudes of fortune.
[Illustration: A BYZANTINE CASTLE]
DEATH OF JUSTINIAN
[Sidenote: [527-565 A.D.]]
If the emperor could rejoice in the death of Belisarius, he enjoyed
the base satisfaction only eight months, the last period of a reign of
thirty-eight and a life of eighty-three years. It would be difficult to
trace the character of a prince who is not the most conspicuous object
of his own times; but the confessions of an enemy may be received as the
safest evidence of his virtues. The resemblance of Justinian to the bust
of Domitian is maliciously urged; with the acknowledgment, however, of a
well-proportioned figure, a ruddy complexion, and a pleasing countenance.
The emperor was easy of access, patient of hearing, courteous and affable
in discourse, and a master of the angry passions which rage with such
destructive violence in the breast of a despot. Procopius[p] praises
his temper, to reproach him with calm and deliberate cruelty; but in
the conspiracies which attacked his authority and person, a more candid
judge will approve the justice, or admire the clemency, of Justinian.
He excelled in the private virtues of chastity and temperance; but the
impartial love of beauty would have been less mischievous than his
conjugal tenderness for Theodora, and his abstemious diet was regulated
not by the prudence of a philosopher but the superstition of a monk. His
repasts were short and frugal; on solemn fasts he contented himself with
water and vegetables; and such was his strength, as well as fervour,
that he frequently passed two days and as many nights without tasting
any food. The measure of his sleep was not less rigorous; after the
repose of a single hour, the body was awakened by the soul, and, to the
astonishment of his chamberlains, Justinian walked or studied till the
morning light. Such restless application prolonged his time for the
acquisition of knowledge and the despatch of business; and he might
seriously deserve the reproach of confounding, by minute and preposterous
diligence, the general order of his administration.
The emperor professed himself a musician and architect, a poet and
philosopher, a lawyer and theologian; and if he failed in the enterprise
of reconciling the Christian sects, the review of the Roman jurisprudence
is a noble monument of his spirit and industry. In the government of the
empire, he was less wise or less successful. The age was unfortunate;
the people was oppressed and discontented; Theodora abused her power;
a succession of bad ministers disgraced his judgment; and Justinian
was neither beloved in his life nor regretted at his death. The love
of fame was deeply implanted in his breast, but he condescended to the
poor ambition of titles, honours, and contemporary praise; and while he
laboured to fix the admiration, he forfeited the esteem and affection of
the Romans.
The design of the African and Italian wars was boldly conceived and
executed; and his penetration discovered the talents of Belisarius in the
camp, of Narses in the palace. But the name of the emperor is eclipsed
by the names of his victorious generals; and Belisarius still lives, to
upbraid the envy and ingratitude of his sovereign. The partial favour
of mankind applauds the genius of a conqueror who leads and directs his
subjects in the exercise of arms.
The characters of Philip II and of Justinian are distinguished by the
cold ambition which delights in war and declines the dangers of the
field. Yet a colossal statue of bronze represented the emperor on
horseback preparing to march against the Persians in the habit and armour
of Achilles. In the great square before the church of St. Sophia, this
monument was raised on a brass column and a stone pedestal of seven
steps; and the pillar of Theodosius, which weighed seventy-four hundred
pounds of silver, was removed from the same place by the avarice and
vanity of Justinian. Future princes were more just or indulgent to his
memory; the elder Andronicus, in the beginning of the fourteenth century,
repaired and beautified his equestrian statue; since the fall of the
empire it has been melted into cannon by the victorious Turks.
JUSTINIAN AS A LEGISLATOR
The vain titles of the victories of Justinian are crumbled into dust;
but the name of the legislator is inscribed on a fair and everlasting
monument. Under his reign, and by his care, the civil jurisprudence was
digested in the immortal works of the _Code_, the _Pandects_, and the
_Institutions_: the public reason of the Romans has been silently or
studiously transfused into the domestic institutions of Europe, and the
laws of Justinian still command the respect or obedience of independent
nations. Wise or fortunate is the prince who connects his own reputation
with the honour and interest of a perpetual order of men. The defence
of their founder is the first cause which in every age had exercised
the zeal and industry of the civilians. They piously commemorate his
virtues, dissemble or deny his failings, and fiercely chastise the guilt
or folly of the rebels who presume to sully the majesty of the purple.
The idolatry of love has provoked, as it usually happens, the rancour
of opposition; the character of Justinian has been exposed to the blind
vehemence of flattery and invective, and the injustice of a sect (the
anti-Tribonians) has refused all praise and merit to the prince, his
ministers, and his laws.
When Justinian ascended the throne, the reformation of the Roman
jurisprudence was an arduous but indispensable task. In the space of ten
centuries, the infinite variety of laws and legal opinions had filled
many thousand volumes, which no fortune could purchase and no capacity
could digest. Books could not easily be found; and the judges, poor in
the midst of riches, were reduced to the exercise of their illiterate
discretion. The subjects of the Greek provinces were ignorant of the
language that disposed of their lives and properties; and the barbarous
dialect of the Latins was imperfectly studied in the academies of Berytus
and Constantinople. As an Illyrian soldier, that idiom was familiar to
the infancy of Justinian; his youth had been instructed by the lessons
of jurisprudence, and his imperial choice selected the most learned
civilians of the East to labour with their sovereign in the work of
reformation. The theory of professors was assisted by the practice of
advocates and the experience of magistrates; and the whole undertaking
was animated by the spirit of Tribonian. This extraordinary man, the
object of so much praise and censure, was a native of Side in Pamphilia;
and his genius, like that of Bacon, embraced, as his own, all the
business and knowledge of the age.
In the first year of his reign, Justinian directed the faithful
Tribonian, and nine learned associates, to revise the ordinances of his
predecessors, as they were contained, since the time of Hadrian, in the
Gregorian, Hermogenian, and Theodosian codes; to purge the errors and
contradictions, to retrench whatever was obsolete or superfluous, and
to select the wise and salutary laws best adapted to the practice of
the tribunals and the use of his subjects. The work was accomplished in
fourteen months; and the twelve books or tables, which the new decemvirs
produced, might be designed to imitate the labours of their Roman
predecessors. The new _Code_ of Justinian was honoured with his name, and
confirmed by his royal signature; authentic transcripts were multiplied
by the pens of notaries and scribes. A more arduous operation was still
behind--to extract the spirit of jurisprudence from the decisions
and conjectures, the questions and disputes, of the Roman civilians.
Seventeen lawyers, with Tribonian at their head, were appointed by the
emperor to exercise an absolute jurisdiction over the works of their
predecessors. If they had obeyed his commands in ten years, Justinian
would have been satisfied with their diligence; and the rapid composition
of the _Digest of Pandects_, in three years, will deserve praise or
censure, according to the merit of the execution. From the library
of Tribonian, they chose forty, the most eminent civilians of former
times; two thousand treatises were comprised in an abridgment of fifty
books; and it has been carefully recorded that three millions of lines
or sentences were reduced, in this abstract, to the moderate number of
150,000. The edition of this great work was delayed a month after that
of the _Institutions_; and it seemed reasonable that the elements should
precede the digest of the Roman law. As soon as the emperor had approved
their labours, he ratified, by his legislative power, the speculations
of these private citizens: their commentaries on the twelve tables, the
perpetual edict, the laws of the people, and the decrees of the senate,
succeeded to the authority of the text; and the text was abandoned,
as a useless, though venerable, relic of antiquity. The _Code_, the
_Pandects_, and the _Institutions_ were declared to be the legitimate
system of civil jurisprudence; they alone were admitted in the tribunals,
and they alone were taught in the academies of Rome, Constantinople,
and Berytus. Justinian addressed to the senate and provinces his
eternal oracles; and his pride, under the mask of piety, ascribed the
consummation of this great design to the support and inspiration of the
Deity.
Since the emperor declined the fame and envy of original composition,
we can only require at his hands method, choice, and fidelity, the
humble, though indispensable, virtues of a compiler. Among the various
combinations of ideas, it is difficult to assign any reasonable
preference; but as the order of Justinian is different in his three
works, it is possible that all may be wrong; and it is certain that
two cannot be right. In the selection of ancient laws, he seems to
have viewed his predecessors without jealousy, and with equal regard:
the series could not ascend above the reign of Hadrian, and the narrow
distinction of paganism and Christianity, introduced by the superstition
of Theodosius, had been abolished by the consent of mankind. But the
jurisprudence of the _Pandects_ is circumscribed within a period of
a hundred years, from the perpetual edict to the death of Severus
Alexander: the civilians who lived under the first Cæsars are seldom
permitted to speak, and only three names can be attributed to the age of
the republic. The favourite of Justinian (it has been fiercely urged)
was fearful of encountering the light of freedom and the gravity of
Roman sages. Tribonian condemned to oblivion the genuine and native
wisdom of Cato, the Scævolas, and Sulpicius; while he invoked spirits
more congenial to his own, the Syrians, Greeks, and Africans, who
flocked to the imperial court to study Latin as a foreign tongue, and
jurisprudence as a lucrative profession. But the ministers of Justinian
were instructed to labour, not for the curiosity of antiquarians, but
for the immediate benefit of his subjects. It was their duty to select
the useful and practicable parts of the Roman law; and the writings
of the old republicans, however curious or excellent, were no longer
suited to the new system of manners, religion, and government. Perhaps,
if the preceptors and friends of Cicero were still alive, our candour
would acknowledge that, except in purity of language, their intrinsic
merit was excelled by the school of Papinian and Ulpian. The science of
the laws is the slow growth of time and experience, and the advantage
both of method and materials is naturally assumed by the most recent
authors. The civilians of the reign of the Antonines had studied the
works of their predecessors: their philosophic spirit had mitigated the
rigour of antiquity, simplified the forms of proceeding, and emerged
from the jealousy and prejudice of the rival sects. The choice of the
authorities that compose the _Pandects_ depended on the judgment of
Tribonian; but the power of his sovereign could not absolve him from
the sacred obligations of truth and fidelity. As the legislator of the
empire, Justinian might repeal the acts of the Antonines, or condemn as
seditious the free principles which were maintained by the last of the
Roman lawyers. But the existence of past facts is placed beyond the reach
of despotism; and the emperor was guilty of fraud and forgery when he
corrupted the integrity of their text, inscribed with their venerable
names the words and ideas of his servile reign, and suppressed by the
hand of power the pure and authentic copies of their sentiments. The
changes and interpolations of Tribonian and his colleagues are excused by
the pretence of uniformity: but their cares have been insufficient, and
the antinomies, or contradictions, of the _Code_ and _Pandects_ still
exercise the patience and subtlety of modern civilians.
But the emperor was unable to fix his own inconstancy; and while he
boasted of renewing the exchange of Diomede, of transmuting brass into
gold, he discovered the necessity of purifying his gold from the mixture
of baser alloy. Six years had not elapsed from the publication of the
_Code_, before he condemned the imperfect attempt by a new and more
accurate edition of the same work, which he enriched with two hundred
of his own laws, and fifty decisions of the darkest and most intricate
points of jurisprudence. Every year, or according to Procopius each day,
of his long reign, was marked by some legal innovation. Many of his acts
were rescinded by himself; many were rejected by his successors; many
have been obliterated by time; but the number of sixteen edicts, and one
hundred and sixty-eight novels has been admitted into the authentic body
of the civil jurisprudence. In the opinion of a philosopher superior to
the prejudices of his profession, these incessant, and for the most part
trifling, alterations, can be only explained by the venal spirit of a
prince who sold without shame his judgments and his laws.
Monarchs seldom condescend to become the preceptors of their subjects;
and some praise is due to Justinian, by whose command an ample system was
reduced to a short and elementary treatise. Among the various institutes
of the Roman law, those of Caius were the most popular in the East and
West; and their use may be considered as an evidence of their merit.
They were selected by the imperial delegates, Tribonian, Theophilus, and
Dorotheus; and the freedom and purity of the Antonines was encrusted
with the coarser materials of a degenerate age. The same volume which
introduced the youth of Rome, Constantinople, and Berytus to the gradual
study of the _Code_ and _Pandects_, is still precious to the historian,
the philosopher, and the magistrate. The _Institutions_ of Justinian are
divided into four books: they proceed, with no contemptible method, from
Persons to Things, and from Things to Actions; and the article of Private
Wrongs is terminated by the principles of Criminal Law.[c]
The faults or merits of Justinian’s system of laws belong to the lawyers
entrusted with the execution of his project, but the honour of having
commanded this work may be ascribed to the emperor alone. It is to be
regretted that the position of an absolute sovereign is so liable to
temptation from passing events, that Justinian himself could not refrain
from injuring the surest monument of his fame, by later enactments,
which mark too clearly that they emanated either from his own increasing
avarice, or from weakness in yielding to the passions of his wife or
courtiers.
It could not be expected that his political sagacity should have devised
the means of securing the rights of his subjects against the arbitrary
exercise of his own power; but he might have consecrated the great
principle of equity, that legislation can never act as a retrospective
decision; and he might have ordered his magistrates to adopt the oath
of the Egyptian judges, who swore, when they entered an office, that
they would never depart from the principles of equity (law), and that if
the sovereign ordered them to do wrong, they would not obey. Justinian,
however, was too much of a despot, and too little of a statesman, to
proclaim the law, even while retaining the legislative power in his
person, to be superior to the executive branch of the government.
But in maintaining that the laws of Justinian might have been rendered
more perfect, and have been framed to confer greater benefits on
mankind, it is not to be denied that the work is one of the most
remarkable monuments of human wisdom; and we should remember with
gratitude, that for thirteen hundred years the Pandects served as the
magazine or source of legal lore, and constitution of civil rights, to
the Christian world, both in the East and in the West; and if it has
now become an instrument of administrative tyranny in the continental
monarchies of Europe, the fault is in the nations who refuse to follow
out the principles of equity logically in regulating the dispensation of
justice, and do not raise the law above the sovereign, nor render every
minister and public servant amenable to the regular tribunals for every
act he may commit in the exercise of his official duty, like the humblest
citizen.
The government of Justinian’s empire was Roman, its official language was
Latin. Oriental habits and usages, as well as time and despotic power,
had indeed introduced modifications in the old forms; but it would be an
error to consider the imperial administration as having assumed a Greek
character. The accident of the Greek language having become the ordinary
dialect in use at court, and of the church in the Eastern Empire being
deeply tinctured with Greek feelings, is apt to create an impression
that the Eastern Empire had lost something of its Roman pride, in order
to adopt a Greek character. The circumstance that its enemies often
reproached it with being Greek, is a proof that the imputation was viewed
as an insult. As the administration was entirely Roman, the laws of
Justinian--the Code, the Pandects, and the Institutions--were published
in Latin, though many of the later edicts (novels) were published in
Greek. Nothing can illustrate in a stronger manner the artificial and
anti-national position of the Eastern Roman Empire than this fact, that
the Latin language was used in the promulgation of a system of laws for
an empire, the language of whose church and literature was Greek. Latin
was preserved in official business, and in public ceremonials, from
feelings of pride connected with the ancient renown of the Romans and
the dignity of the Roman Empire. So strong is the hold which antiquated
custom maintains over the minds of men, that even a professed reformer,
like Justinian, could not break through so irrational an usage as the
publication of his laws in a language incomprehensible to most of those
for whose use they were framed.
The laws and legislation of Justinian throw only an indistinct and vague
light on the state of the Greek population. They were drawn entirely from
Roman sources, calculated for a Roman state of society, and occupied with
Roman forms and institutions. Justinian was so anxious to preserve them
in all their purity that he adopted two measures to secure them from
alteration. The copyists were commanded to refrain from any abridgment,
and the commentators were ordered to follow the literal sense of the
laws. All schools of law were likewise forbidden, except those of
Constantinople, Rome, and Berytus, a regulation which must have been
adopted to guard the Roman law from being corrupted by falling into the
hands of Greek teachers, and becoming confounded with the customary law
of the various Greek provinces. This restriction, and the importance
attached to it by the emperor, prove that the Roman law was now the
universal rule of conduct in the empire.
Justinian took every measure which prudence could dictate to secure
the best and purest legal instruction and administration for the Roman
tribunals; but only a small number of students could study in the
licensed schools, and Rome, one of these schools, was, at the time of the
publication of the law, in the hands of the Goths. It is therefore not
surprising that a rapid decline in the knowledge of Roman law commenced
very shortly after the promulgation of Justinian’s legislation.
Justinian’s laws were soon translated into Greek without the emperor’s
requiring that these paraphrases should be literal; and Greek
commentaries of an explanatory nature were published. His novels were
subsequently published in Greek when the case required it; but it is
evident that any remains of Greek laws and customs were rapidly yielding
to the superior system of Roman legislation, perfected as this was by
the judicious labours of Justinian’s councillors. Some modifications
were made in the jurisdiction of the judges and municipal magistrates at
this time; and we must admit the testimony of Procopius as a proof that
Justinian sold judicial offices, though the vagueness of the accusation
does not afford us the means of ascertaining under what pretext the
change in the earlier system was adopted. It is perhaps impossible
to determine what share of authority the Greek municipal magistrates
retained in the administration of justice and police, after the reforms
effected by Justinian in their financial affairs, and the seizure of a
large part of their local revenues. The existence of Greek corporations
in Italy shows that they possessed an acknowledged existence in the Roman
Empire.[b]
BURY’S ESTIMATE OF JUSTINIAN
The sixth century may be called the age of Justinian. He may be likened
to a colossal Janus bestriding the way of passage between the ancient
and mediæval worlds. On the one side his face was turned towards the
past. His ideal, we are told, was to restore the proud aspect of the old
Roman Empire, and this was chiefly realised by the conquests in Italy,
Africa, and Spain. The great juristic works executed at the beginning of
his reign breathe to some degree the spirit of ancient Rome. Moreover he
represents the last stage in the evolution of the Roman imperium; in him
was fulfilled its ultimate absolutism.
In four departments Justinian has won an immortal name: in warfare, in
law, in architecture, and in church history. Standing on the shore of
the mediæval or modern period, he cast into the waters of the future
great stones which created immense circles. His military achievements
decided the course of the history of Italy, and affected the development
of western Europe; his legal works are inextricably woven into the
web of European civilisation; his St. Sophia is one of the greatest
monuments of the world, one of the visible signs of the continuity of
history, a standing protest against the usurpation of the Turk; and his
ecclesiastical authority influenced the distant future of Christendom.[e]
FOOTNOTES
[13] [For a fuller account of the war in Italy, see the latter part of
this volume, under “The Western Empire.”]
[14] [“With the conquest of Rome by Belisarius,” says Finlay,[b] “the
history of the ancient city may be considered as terminating; and with
his defence against Witiges commences the history of the Middle Ages--of
the time of destruction and change.” Similarly, though from different
reasons, Bury[e] says of the plague of 542 A.D., “If we may speak of
watersheds in history, this plague marks the watershed of what we call
the ancient and what we call the mediæval age. Really nothing is more
striking than the difference between the first half and the last half of
Justinian’s reign.”]
[15] [According to Bury,[e] “Alexander was called ‘Scissors’ from his
practice of clipping coins.” Procopius says he “alienated the minds of
the Italians from Justinian; and none of the soldiers were willing to
undergo the hazard of war.”]
[16] [Bury[e] says that the place is in dispute, some placing it near
Sassoferrato, and others near Scheggia. He feels that we are justified in
placing the date as July or August, 552.]
[17] [“Belisarius,” says Freeman,[f] “was perhaps the greatest commander
that ever lived, as he did the greatest things with the smallest means.”]
[18] [This is the old theory, and Hodgkin[g] says, “I confess that, to
me, the old-fashioned derivation, that which was accepted by Isidore[h]
and Paulus, still seems the most probable.” The word _bard_, usually
allied to the Latin _barba_, “beard,” has also been referred to the old
High German _barta_, “axe,” and to _bord_, “shore,” and some writers
would translate Langobards as “Long-axe-men” or “Long-shore-men.”]
[19] [Hodgkin[g] says “three hundred years.”]
[20] [Paulus Diaconus[i] tells the story, I. 20. Rodulf was then king
of the Heruli, and his brother was killed by the servants of King Tato,
“seventh Lombard king.”]
[21] [Hodgkin[g] calls the Heruli “a perpetual puzzle to ethnologists,”
and quotes Zeuss,[j] who calls them “the most unstable of German tribes.”
Their seat at the moment in question is also variously guessed at,
Hodgkin inclining to Hungary. This fatal battle took place about 508. The
Lombards were Arians,--how they were converted we do not know,--and they
brought into Italy a hierarchy of bishops, priests, and deacons.]
[22] [Jordanes[k] says that “on both sides there fell over 6000 men. No
equal battle has been heard of in our times since the days of Attila,
except that of Calluc against the same Gepidæ, or of Mundo with the
Goths.” The date was about 554.]
[23] [Bury[e] says, “the Bulgarians soon cease to be mentioned and it
appears probable that they were subjugated by the neighbouring Slavs.” He
adds that these Bulgarians of the sixth century had nothing to do with
the foundation of the Bulgarian Kingdom in the seventh century.]
[24] [Procopius[d] calls the Bulgarians “Huns.” Roesler[l] calls the
Cotrigur Huns “Bulgarians.” The origins of these races will be taken up
more fully in the later volumes of modern history.]
[25] [Such a slaughter requires a far larger population than the obscure
town of Topirus could probably have possessed.]
[26] [Now Tibesh in Algiers.]
[27] [“The glory of Belisarius deserves to be contrasted with the
oblivion which has covered the exploits of Johannes the Patrician, one
of the ablest generals of Justinian. This experienced general assumed
the command in Africa when the province had fallen into a state of
great disorder; the inhabitants were exposed to a dangerous coalition
of the Moors, and the Roman army was in such a state of destitution
that their leader was compelled to import the necessary provisions for
his troops. Though Johannes defeated the Moors, and restored prosperity
to the province, his name is almost forgotten. His actions and talents
only affected the interests of the Byzantine Empire, and prolonged the
existence of the Roman province of Africa; they exerted no influence on
the fate of any of the European nations whose history has been the object
of study in modern times, so that they were utterly forgotten when the
discovery of the poetry of Corippus, one of the last and worst of the
Roman poets, rescued them from complete oblivion.”--FINLAY.[b]]
[28] [“As if,” comments Agathias,[o] “this alone had been the purpose of
their appearance in the world.”]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER V. REIGN OF JUSTIN II TO HERACLIUS
[565-629 A.D.]
[Sidenote: [565-574 A.D.]]
During the last years of Justinian, his infirm mind was devoted to
heavenly contemplation, and he neglected the business of the lower world.
His subjects were impatient of the long continuance of his life and
reign; yet all who were capable of reflection apprehended the moment of
his death, which might involve the capital in tumult and the empire in
civil war. Seven nephews of the childish monarch, the sons or grandsons
of his brother and sister, had been educated in the splendour of a
princely fortune; they had been shown in high commands to the provinces
and armies; their characters were known, their followers were zealous,
and as the jealousy of age postponed the declaration of a successor, they
might expect with equal hopes the inheritance of their uncle. He expired
in his palace after a reign of thirty-eight years; and the decisive
opportunity was embraced by the friends of Justin, the son of Vigilantia.
At the hour of midnight, his domestics were awakened by an importunate
crowd, who thundered at his door, and obtained admittance by revealing
themselves to be the principal members of the senate. These welcome
deputies announced the recent and momentous secret of the emperor’s
decease; reported, or perhaps invented, his dying choice of the best
beloved and the most deserving of his nephews, and conjured Justin to
prevent the disorders of the multitude, if they should perceive, with the
return of light, that they were left without a master. After composing
his countenance to surprise, sorrow, and decent modesty, Justin, by the
advice of his wife Sophia, submitted to the authority of the senate.
He was conducted with speed and silence to the palace; the guards
saluted their new sovereign, and the martial and religious rites of his
coronation were diligently accomplished. By the hands of the proper
officers he was invested with the imperial garments, the red buskins,
white tunic, and purple robe. A fortunate soldier, whom he instantly
promoted to the rank of tribune, encircled his neck with a military
collar; four robust youths exalted him on a shield; he stood firm and
erect to receive the adoration of his subjects, and their choice was
sanctified by the benediction of the patriarch, who imposed the diadem on
the head of an orthodox prince.
The Hippodrome was already filled with innumerable multitudes; and no
sooner did the emperor appear on his throne than the voices of the blue
and green factions were confounded in the same loyal acclamations. In the
speeches which Justin addressed to the senate and people, he promised
to correct the abuses which had disgraced the age of his predecessor,
displayed the maxims of a just and beneficent government, and declared
that, on the approaching calends of January, he would revive, in his
own person, the name and liberality of a Roman consul. The immediate
discharge of his uncle’s debts exhibited a solid pledge of his faith and
generosity; a train of porters laden with bags of gold advanced into the
midst of the Hippodrome, and the hopeless creditors of Justinian accepted
this equitable payment as a voluntary gift. Before the end of three
years his example was imitated and surpassed by the empress Sophia, who
delivered many indigent citizens from the weight of debt and usury; an
act of benevolence the best entitled to gratitude, since it relieves the
most intolerable distress, but in which the bounty of a prince is the
most liable to be abused by the claims of prodigality and fraud.
On the seventh day of his reign Justin gave audience to the ambassadors
of the Avars, and the scene was decorated to impress the barbarians with
astonishment, veneration, and terror. The late emperor had cultivated,
declared Targetius, the chief of the embassy, with annual and costly
gifts, the friendship of a grateful monarch, and the enemies of Rome
had respected the allies of the Avars. The same prudence would instruct
the nephew of Justinian to imitate the liberality of his uncle, and to
purchase the blessings of peace from an invincible people, who delighted
and excelled in the exercise of war. The reply of the emperor was
delivered in the same strain of haughty defiance, and he derived his
confidence from the God of the Christians, the ancient glory of Rome,
and the recent triumphs of Justinian. “The empire,” said he, “abounds
with men and horses, and arms sufficient to defend our frontiers and to
chastise the barbarians. You offer aid, you threaten hostilities; we
despise your enmity and your aid. The conquerors of the Avars solicit
our alliance; shall we dread their fugitives and exiles? The bounty of
our uncle was granted to your misery, to your humble prayers. From us
you shall receive a more important obligation, the knowledge of your own
weakness. Retire from our presence; the lives of ambassadors are safe;
and if you return to implore our pardon, perhaps you will taste of our
benevolence.”[29]
On the report of his ambassadors, the chagan was awed by the apparent
firmness of a Roman emperor, of whose character and resources he was
ignorant. Instead of executing his threats against the Eastern Empire, he
marched into the poor and savage countries of Germany, which were subject
to the dominion of the Franks. After two doubtful battles, he consented
to retire; and the Austrasian king relieved the distress of his camp with
an immediate supply of corn and cattle. Such repeated disappointments had
chilled the spirit of the Avars; and their power would have dissolved
away in the Sarmatian desert, if the alliance of Alboin, king of the
Lombards, had not given a new object to their arms, and a lasting
settlement to their wearied fortunes.
The annals of the second Justin are marked with disgrace abroad and
misery at home. In the West the Roman Empire was afflicted by the loss
of Italy, the desolation of Africa, and the conquests of the Persians.
Injustice prevailed both in the capital and the provinces; the rich
trembled for their property, the poor for their safety, the ordinary
magistrates were ignorant or venal, the occasional remedies appear
to have been arbitrary and violent, and the complaints of the people
could no longer be silenced by the splendid names of a legislator and a
conqueror.
The opinion which imputes to the prince all the calamities of his times
may be countenanced by the historian as a serious truth or a salutary
prejudice. Yet a candid suspicion will arise that the sentiments of
Justin were pure and benevolent, and that he might have filled his
station without reproach if the faculties of his mind had not been
impaired by disease, which deprived the emperor of the use of his feet
and confined him to the palace, a stranger to the complaints of the
people and the vices of the government. The tardy knowledge of his own
impotence determined him to lay down the weight of the diadem; and in the
choice of a worthy substitute, he showed some symptoms of a discerning
and even magnanimous spirit.
The only son of Justin and Sophia died in his infancy; their daughter
Arabia was the wife of Baduarius, superintendent of the palace, and
afterwards commander of the Italian armies, who vainly aspired to confirm
the rights of marriage by those of adoption. While the empire appeared
an object of desire, Justin was accustomed to behold with jealousy and
hatred his brothers and cousins, the rivals of his hopes; nor could
he depend on the gratitude of those who would accept the purple as a
restitution, rather than a gift. Of these competitors, one had been
removed by exile, and afterwards by death; and the emperor himself had
inflicted such cruel insults on another, that he must either dread his
resentment or despise his patience. This domestic animosity was refined
into a generous resolution of seeking a successor, not in his family, but
in the republic; and the artful Sophia recommended Tiberius, his faithful
captain of the guards, whose virtues and fortune the emperor might
cherish as the fruit of his judicious choice.
[Sidenote: [574-578 A.D.]]
The ceremony of his elevation to the rank of cæsar, or augustus, was
performed in the portico of the palace, in the presence of the patriarch
and the senate. Justin collected the remaining strength of his mind and
body; but the popular belief that his speech was inspired by the Deity
betrays a very humble opinion both of the man and of the times: “You
behold,” said the emperor, “the ensigns of supreme power. You are about
to receive them not from my hand, but from the hand of God. Honour them,
and from them you will derive honour. Respect the empress your mother;
you are now her son; before, you were her servant. Delight not in blood;
abstain from revenge; avoid those actions by which I have incurred the
public hatred; and consult the experience, rather than the example,
of your predecessor. As a man, I have sinned; as a sinner, even in
this life, I have been severely punished; but these servants,” and he
pointed to his ministers, “who have abused my confidence, and inflamed
my passions, will appear with me before the tribunal of Christ. I have
been dazzled by the splendour of the diadem; be thou wise and modest;
remember what you have been, remember what you are. You see around us
your slaves and your children; with the authority, assume the tenderness,
of a parent. Love your people like yourself; cultivate the affections,
maintain the discipline of the army; protect the fortunes of the rich,
relieve the necessities of the poor.”[30]
The assembly, in silence and in tears, applauded the counsels and
sympathised with the repentance of their prince: the patriarch rehearsed
the prayers of the church; Tiberius received the diadem on his knees,
and Justin, who in his abdication appeared most worthy to reign,
addressed the new monarch in the following words: “If you consent, I
live; if you command, I die; may the God of heaven and earth infuse into
your heart whatever I have neglected or forgotten.” The four last years
of the emperor Justin were passed in tranquil obscurity; his conscience
was no longer tormented by the remembrance of those duties which he was
incapable of discharging, and his choice was justified by the filial
reverence and gratitude of Tiberius.[b]
The reigns of Justinian and Justin mark a significant turning-point in
history. As early as the reign of Justinian the official fiction, by
which Latin was assumed to be the language of the empire, had shown signs
of breaking down; from this time forward it steadily yields ground to
Greek. The Lombard and Syrian annalists were not slow to mark the change;
they indicate it by heading the list of “Greek” emperors with the name of
Maurice.[h]
Johannes of Ephesus[d] quotes a satire pasted up by some wit reflecting
the opinion of the time in a manner unflattering to Justin:
“Build, build aloft thy pillar,
And raise it vast and high;
Then mount and stand upon it,
Soaring proudly in the sky:
Eastward, south and north and westward,
Wherever thou shalt gaze,
Nought thou’lt see but desolations,
The work of thy own days.”
REIGN OF TIBERIUS
[Sidenote: [578-582 A.D.]]
Among the virtues of Tiberius, his beauty (he was one of the tallest
and most comely of the Romans) might introduce him to the favour of
Sophia; and the widow of Justin was persuaded that she should preserve
her station and influence under the reign of a second and more youthful
husband. But if the ambitious candidate had been tempted to flatter and
dissemble, it was no longer in his power to fulfil her expectations or
his own promise. The factions of the Hippodrome demanded, with some
impatience, the name of their new empress; both the people and Sophia
were astonished by the proclamation of Anastasia, the secret, though
lawful, wife of the emperor Tiberius.[31] Whatever could alleviate
the disappointment of Sophia, imperial honours, a stately palace, a
numerous household, was liberally bestowed by the piety of her adopted
son; on solemn occasions he attended and consulted the widow of his
benefactor; but her ambition disdained the vain semblance of royalty, and
the respectful appellation of mother served to exasperate, rather than
appease, the rage of an injured woman. While she accepted, and repaid
with a courtly smile, the fair expressions of regard and confidence,
a secret alliance was concluded between the dowager empress and her
ancient enemies; and Justinian, the son of Germanus, was employed as the
instrument of her revenge.
On the first intelligence of her designs Tiberius returned to
Constantinople, and the conspiracy was suppressed by his presence and
firmness. From the pomp and honours which she had abused, Sophia was
reduced to a modest allowance; Tiberius dismissed her train, intercepted
her correspondence, and committed to a faithful guard the custody of
her person. But the services of Justinian were not considered by that
excellent prince as an aggravation of his offences; after a mild reproof,
his treason and ingratitude were forgiven; and it was commonly believed
that the emperor entertained some thoughts of contracting a double
alliance with the rival of his throne.
[Illustration: BYZANTINE SPUR AND BIT]
With the odious name of Tiberius, he assumed the more popular appellation
of Constantine, and imitated the purer virtues of the Antonines. After
recording the vice or folly of so many Roman princes, it is pleasing to
repose, for a moment, on a character conspicuous by the qualities of
humanity, justice, temperance, and fortitude; to contemplate a sovereign
affable in his palace, pious in the church, impartial on the seat of
judgment, and victorious, at least by his generals, in the Persian War.
The most glorious trophy of his victory consisted in a multitude of
captives whom Tiberius entertained, redeemed, and dismissed to their
native homes with the charitable spirit of a Christian hero. The merits
or misfortunes of his subjects had a dearer claim on him, and he measured
his bounty not so much by their expectations as by his own dignity. This
maxim, however dangerous in a trustee of the public wealth, was balanced
by a principle of humanity and justice which taught him to abhor the gold
extracted from the tears of the people.
The wise and equitable laws of Tiberius excited the praise and regret
of succeeding times.[32] Constantinople believed that the emperor had
discovered a treasure; but his genuine treasure consisted in the practice
of liberal economy, and the contempt of all vain and superfluous expense.
The Romans of the East would have been happy if the best gift of Heaven,
a patriot king, had been confirmed as a proper and permanent blessing.
But in less than four years after the death of Justin, his worthy
successor sank into a mortal disease, which left him only sufficient time
to restore the diadem, according to the tenure by which he held it, to
the most deserving of his fellow-citizens. He selected Maurice from the
crowd, a judgment more precious than the purple itself. The patriarch
and senate were summoned to the bed of the dying prince; he bestowed his
daughter and the empire; and his last advice was solemnly delivered by
the voice of the quæstor. Tiberius expressed his hope that the virtues of
his son and successor would erect the noblest mausoleum to his memory.
THE EMPEROR MAURICE (582-602) AND THE WAR WITH PERSIA
[Sidenote: [582-602 A.D.]]
The emperor Maurice derived his origin from ancient Rome, but his
immediate parents were settled at Arabissus in Cappadocia, and their
singular felicity preserved them alive to behold and partake the fortune
of their august son. The youth of Maurice was spent in the profession of
arms; Tiberius promoted him to the command of a new and favourite legion
of twelve thousand confederates; his valour and conduct were signalised
in the Persian War; and he returned to Constantinople to accept, as
his just reward, the inheritance of the empire. Maurice ascended the
throne at the mature age of forty-three years; and he reigned above
twenty years over the East and over himself; expelling from his mind the
wild democracy of passions, and establishing (according to the quaint
expression of Evagrius) a perfect aristocracy of reason and virtue.
Some suspicion will degrade the testimony of a subject, though he
protests that his secret praise should never reach the ear of his
sovereign, and some failings seem to place the character of Maurice below
the purer merit of his predecessor. His cold and reserved demeanour might
be imputed to arrogance; his justice was not always exempt from cruelty,
nor his clemency from weakness; and his rigid economy too often exposed
him to the reproach of avarice. But the rational wishes of an absolute
monarch must tend to the happiness of his people; Maurice was endowed
with sense and courage to promote that happiness, and his administration
was directed by the principles and example of Tiberius. The pusillanimity
of the Greeks had introduced so complete a separation between the offices
of king and of general, that a private soldier, who had deserved and
obtained the purple, seldom or never appeared at the head of his armies.
Yet the emperor Maurice enjoyed the glory of restoring the Persian
monarch to his throne; his lieutenants waged a doubtful war against the
Avars of the Danube; and he cast an eye of pity, of ineffectual pity, on
the abject and distressful state of his Italian provinces.
From Italy the emperors were incessantly tormented by tales of misery
and demands of succour, which extorted the humiliating confession of
their own weakness. The expiring dignity of Rome was only marked by the
freedom and energy of her complaints. “If you are incapable,” she said,
“of delivering us from the sword of the Lombards, save us at least from
the calamity of famine.” Tiberius forgave the reproach, and relieved the
distress; a supply of corn was transported from Egypt to the Tiber; and
the Roman people, invoking the name not of Camillus but of St. Peter,
repulsed the barbarians from their walls. But the relief was accidental,
the danger was perpetual and pressing; and the clergy and senate,
collecting the remains of their ancient opulence, a sum of three thousand
pounds of gold, despatched the patrician Pamphronius to lay their gifts
and their complaints at the foot of the Byzantine throne. The attention
of the court and the forces of the East were diverted by the Persian
War; but the justice of Tiberius applied the subsidy to the defence of
the city; and he dismissed the patrician with his best advice, either to
bribe the Lombard chiefs or to purchase the aid of the kings of France.
The arts of negotiation, unknown to the simple greatness of the senate
and the cæsars, were assiduously cultivated by the Byzantine princes; and
the memorials of their perpetual embassies repeat, with the same uniform
prolixity, the language of falsehood and declamation, the insolence of
the barbarians, and the servile temper of the tributary Greeks.
THE PERSIAN WAR (572-591)
[Sidenote: [572-576 A.D.]]
In the useless altercations that precede and justify the quarrels of
princes, the Greeks and the barbarians accused each other of violating
the peace which had been concluded between the two empires about four
years before the death of Justinian. The sovereign of Persia and India
aspired to reduce under his obedience the province of Yemen or Arabia
Felix--the distant land of myrrh and frankincense, which had escaped,
rather than opposed, the conquerors of the East. After the defeat of
Abrahah under the walls of Mecca, the discord of his sons and brothers
gave an easy entrance to the Persians; they chased the strangers of
Abyssinia beyond the Red Sea, and a native prince of the ancient
Homerites was restored to the throne as the vassal or viceroy of the
great Nushirvan. But the nephew of Justinian declared his resolution to
avenge the injuries of his Christian ally the prince of Abyssinia, as
they suggested a decent pretence to discontinue the annual tribute, which
was poorly disguised by the name of pension. The churches of Pers-Armenia
were oppressed by the intolerant spirit of the magi; they secretly
invoked the protector of the Christians, and after the pious murder of
their satraps, the rebels were avowed and supported as the brethren
and subjects of the Roman emperor. The complaints of Nushirvan were
disregarded by the Byzantine court; Justin yielded to the importunities
of the Turks, who offered an alliance against the common enemy; and the
Persian monarchy was threatened at the same instant by the united forces
of Europe, of Ethiopia, and of Scythia.
At the age of fourscore, the sovereign of the East would perhaps have
chosen the peaceful enjoyment of his glory and greatness; but as soon
as war became inevitable, he took the field with the alacrity of youth,
whilst the aggressor trembled in the palace of Constantinople. Nushirvan,
or Chosroes, conducted in person the siege of Dara; and although that
important fortress had been left destitute of troops and magazines, the
valour of the inhabitants resisted above five months the archers, the
elephants, and the military engines of the Great King.
[Sidenote: [576-589 A.D.]]
In the meanwhile his general Adarman advanced from Babylon, traversed the
desert, passed the Euphrates, insulted the suburbs of Antioch, reduced
to ashes the city of Apamea, and laid the spoils of Syria at the feet
of his master, whose perseverance, in the midst of winter, at length
subverted the bulwark of the East. But these losses, which astonished the
provinces and the court, produced a salutary effect in the repentance and
abdication of the emperor Justin; a new spirit arose in the Byzantine
councils; and a truce of three years was obtained by the prudence of
Tiberius. That seasonable interval was employed in the preparations
of war; and the voice of rumour proclaimed to the world that, from
the distant countries of the Alps and the Rhine, from Scythia, Mœsia,
Pannonia, Illyricum, and Isauria, the strength of the imperial cavalry
was reinforced with 150,000 soldiers. Yet the king of Persia, without
fear or without faith, resolved to prevent the attack of the enemy,
again passed the Euphrates, and dismissing the ambassadors of Tiberius,
arrogantly commanded them to await his arrival at Cæsarea, the metropolis
of the Cappadocian provinces.
The two armies encountered each other in the battle of Melitene; the
barbarians, who darkened the air with a cloud of arrows, prolonged
their line and extended their wings across the plain; while the Romans,
in deep and solid bodies, expected to prevail in closer action by the
weight of their swords and lances. A Scythian chief, who commanded their
right wing, suddenly turned the flank of the enemy, attacked their
rear-guard in the presence of Chosroes, penetrated to the midst of the
camp, pillaged the royal tent, profaned the eternal fire, loaded a train
of camels with the spoils of Asia, cut his way through the Persian host,
and returned with songs of victory to his friends, who had consumed the
day in single combats or ineffectual skirmishes. The darkness of the
night, and the separation of the Romans, afforded the Persian monarch an
opportunity of revenge; and one of their camps was swept away by a rapid
and impetuous assault. But the review of his loss and the consciousness
of his danger determined Chosroes to a speedy retreat; he burned, in his
passage, the vacant town of Melitene, and, without consulting the safety
of his troops, boldly swam the Euphrates on the back of an elephant.
After this unsuccessful campaign, the want of magazines, and perhaps
some inroad of the Turks, obliged him to disband or divide his forces;
the Romans were left masters of the field, and their general Justinian,
advancing to the relief of the Pers-Armenian rebels, erected his standard
on the banks of the Araxes.
The great Pompey had formerly halted within three days’ march of the
Caspian; that inland sea was explored for the first time by a hostile
fleet, and seventy thousand captives were transplanted from Hyrcania to
the isle of Cyprus. On the return of spring, Justinian descended into the
fertile plains of Assyria, the flames of war approached the residence
of Nushirvan, the indignant monarch sank into the grave, and his last
edict restrained his successors from exposing their person in a battle
against the Romans. Yet the memory of this transient affront was lost in
the glories of a long reign; and his formidable enemies, after indulging
their dream of conquest, again solicited a short respite from the
calamities of war.
The throne of Chosroes Nushirvan was filled by Hormuz, or Hormisdas, the
eldest or most favoured of his sons (579). In every word and in every
action the son of Nushirvan degenerated from the virtues of his father.
His avarice defrauded the troops; his jealous caprice degraded the
satraps; the palace, the tribunals, the waters of the Tigris were stained
with the blood of the innocent, and the tyrant exulted in the sufferings
and execution of thirteen thousand victims. As the excuse of his cruelty,
he sometimes condescended to observe that the fears of the Persians
would be productive of hatred, and that their hatred must terminate in
rebellion; but he forgot that his own guilt and folly had inspired the
sentiments which he deplored, and prepared the event which he so justly
apprehended. Exasperated by long and hopeless oppression, the provinces
of Babylon, Susa, and Carmania erected the standard of revolt; and the
princes of Arabia, India, and Scythia refused the customary tribute to
the unworthy successor of Nushirvan. The arms of the Romans, in slow
sieges and frequent inroads, afflicted the frontiers of Mesopotamia and
Assyria; one of their generals professed himself the disciple of Scipio,
and the soldiers were animated by a miraculous image of Christ, whose
mild aspect should never have been displayed in the front of battle. At
the same time the eastern provinces of Persia were invaded by the great
khan, who passed the Oxus at the head of three or four hundred thousand
Turks. The imprudent Hormuz accepted their perfidious and formidable aid;
the cities of Khorasan or Bactriana were commanded to open their gates;
the march of the barbarians towards the mountains of Hyrcania revealed
the correspondence of the Turkish and Roman arms; and their union must
have subverted the throne of the house of Sassan.
Persia had been lost by a king; it was saved by a hero. While the nation
trembled, while Hormuz disguised his terror by the name of suspicion,
and his servants concealed their disloyalty under the mask of fear,
Bahram alone displayed his undaunted courage and apparent fidelity;
and as soon as he found that no more than twelve thousand soldiers
would follow him against the enemy, he prudently declared that to this
fatal number heaven had reserved the honours of the triumph. The steep
and narrow descent of the Pule Rudbar, or Hyrcanian rock, is the only
pass through which an army can penetrate into the territory of Rei and
the plains of Media. From the commanding heights, a band of resolute
men might overwhelm with stones and darts the myriads of the Turkish
host; their emperor and his son were transpierced with arrows, and the
fugitives were left, without council or provisions, to the revenge of an
injured people.
[Sidenote: [589-590 A.D.]]
The patriotism of the Persian general was stimulated by his affection for
the city of his forefathers; in the hour of victory every peasant became
a soldier, and every soldier a hero; and their ardour was kindled by the
gorgeous spectacles of beds, and thrones, and tables of massy gold, the
spoils of Asia, and the luxury of the hostile camp. A prince of a less
malignant temper could not easily have forgiven his benefactor, and the
secret hatred of Hormuz was envenomed by a malicious report that Bahram
had privately retained the most precious fruits of his Turkish victory.
But the approach of a Roman army on the side of the Araxes compelled the
implacable tyrant to smile and to applaud; and the toils of Bahram were
rewarded with the permission of encountering a new enemy, by their skill
and discipline more formidable than a Scythian multitude.
[Illustration: BYZANTINE COLOURED GLASS BRACELETS]
Elated by his recent success, he despatched a herald with a bold defiance
to the camp of the Romans, requesting them to fix a day of battle, and
to choose whether they would pass the river themselves or allow a free
passage to the arms of the Great King. The lieutenant of the emperor
Maurice preferred the safer alternative, and this local circumstance,
which would have enhanced the victory of the Persians, rendered their
defeat more bloody and their escape more difficult. But the loss of
his subjects and the danger of his kingdom were overbalanced in the
mind of Hormuz by the disgrace of his personal enemy; and no sooner
had Bahram collected and reviewed his forces, than he received from a
royal messenger the insulting gift of a distaff, a spinning-wheel, and a
complete suit of female apparel. Obedient to the will of his sovereign,
he showed himself to the soldiers in this unworthy disguise; they
resented his ignominy and their own; a shout of rebellion ran through
their ranks, and the general accepted their oath of fidelity and vows of
revenge. A second messenger, who had been commanded to bring the rebel in
chains, was trampled under the feet of an elephant, and manifestoes were
diligently circulated, exhorting the Persians to assert their freedom
against an odious and contemptible tyrant. The defection was rapid and
universal; his loyal slaves were sacrificed to the public fury, and the
troops deserted to the standard of Bahram.
[Sidenote: [590-591 A.D.]]
As the passes were faithfully guarded, Hormuz could only compute the
number of his enemies by the testimony of a guilty conscience and the
daily defection of those who, in the hour of his distress, avenged their
wrongs or forgot their obligations. He proudly displayed the ensigns
of royalty; but the city and palace of Modain had already escaped from
the hand of the tyrant. Among the victims of his cruelty, Bindoes, a
Sassanian prince, had been cast into a dungeon; his fetters were broken
by the zeal and courage of a brother; and he stood before the king at the
head of those trusty guards who had been chosen as the ministers of his
confinement, and perhaps of his death. Alarmed by the hasty intrusion
and bold reproaches of the captive, Hormuz looked round, but in vain,
for advice or assistance; discovered that his strength consisted in the
obedience of others, and patiently yielded to the single arm of Bindoes,
who dragged him from the throne to the same dungeon in which he himself
had been so lately confined.
Chosroes, the eldest of the sons of Hormuz, escaped from the city.
Attended only by his concubines, and a troop of thirty guards, he
secretly departed from the capital, followed the banks of the Euphrates,
traversed the desert, and halted at the distance of ten miles from
Circesium. About the third watch of the night the Roman prefect was
informed of his approach, and he introduced the royal stranger to the
fortress at the dawn of day. From thence the king of Persia was conducted
to the more honourable residence of Hierapolis; and Maurice dissembled
his pride and displayed his benevolence, at the reception of the letters
and ambassadors of the grandson of Nushirvan. They humbly represented the
vicissitudes of fortune and the common interest of princes, exaggerated
the ingratitude of Bahram, the agent of the evil principle, and urged,
with specious argument, that it was for the advantage of the Romans
themselves to support the two monarchies which balance the world, the
two great luminaries by whose salutary influence it is vivified and
adorned. The anxiety of Chosroes was soon relieved by the assurance
that the emperor had espoused the cause of justice and royalty; but
Maurice prudently declined the expense and delay of his useless visit to
Constantinople.
In the name of his generous benefactor, a rich diadem was presented to
the fugitive prince, with an inestimable gift of jewels and gold; a
powerful army was assembled on the frontiers of Syria and Armenia, under
the command of the valiant and faithful Narses, and this general, of
his own nation and his own choice, was directed to pass the Tigris and
never to sheath his sword till he had restored Chosroes to the throne of
his ancestors. After the junction of the imperial troops, which Bahram
vainly struggled to prevent, the contest was decided by two battles
on the banks of the Zab and the confines of Media. The Romans, with
the faithful subjects of Persia, amounted to sixty thousand, while the
whole force of the usurper did not exceed forty thousand men; the two
generals signalised their valour and ability, but the victory was finally
determined by the prevalence of numbers and discipline. With the remnant
of a broken army, Bahram fled towards the eastern provinces of the Oxus;
the enmity of Persia reconciled him to the Turks; but his days were
shortened by poison, perhaps the most incurable of poisons--the stings
of remorse and despair and the bitter remembrance of lost glory. Yet
the modern Persians still commemorate the exploits of Bahram; and some
excellent laws have prolonged the duration of his troubled and transitory
reign.
The restoration of Chosroes was celebrated with feasts and executions;
and the music of the royal banquet was often disturbed by the groans
of dying or mutilated criminals. A band of a thousand Romans, who
continued to guard the person of Chosroes, proclaimed his confidence
in the fidelity of the strangers; his growing strength enabled him to
dismiss this unpopular aid, but he steadily professed the same gratitude
and reverence to his adopted father; and till the death of Maurice the
peace and alliance of the two empires were faithfully maintained. Yet the
mercenary friendship of the Roman prince had been purchased with costly
and important gifts; the strong cities of Martyropolis and Dara were
restored, and the Pers-Armenians became the willing subjects of an empire
whose eastern limit was extended, beyond the example of former times,
as far as the banks of the Araxes and the neighbourhood of the Caspian.
A pious hope was indulged that the church, as well as the state, might
triumph in this revolution; but if Chosroes had sincerely listened to the
Christian bishops, the impression was erased by the zeal and eloquence of
the magi; if he was armed with philosophic indifference, he accommodated
his belief, or rather his professions, to the various circumstances of an
exile and a sovereign.
THE AVARS
[Sidenote: [570-602 A.D.]]
While the majesty of the Roman name was revived in the East, the prospect
of Europe is less pleasing and less glorious. By the departure of the
Lombards and the ruin of the Gepidæ, the balance of power was destroyed
on the Danube; and the Avars spread their permanent dominion from the
foot of the Alps to the sea coast of the Euxine. The reign of Baian is
the brightest era of their monarchy; their chagan, who occupied the
rustic palace of Attila, appears to have imitated his character and
policy; but as the same scenes were repeated in a smaller circle, a
minute representation of the copy would be devoid of the greatness and
novelty of the original. The pride of the second Justin, of Tiberius
and Maurice, was humbled by a proud barbarian, more prompt to inflict
than exposed to suffer the injuries of war; and as often as Asia was
threatened by the Persian arms, Europe was oppressed by the dangerous
inroads or costly friendship of the Avars.
When the Roman envoys approached the presence of the chagan, they were
commanded to wait at the door of his tent till, at the end perhaps of
ten or twelve days, he condescended to admit them. If the substance or
the style of their message was offensive to his ear, he insulted, with
real or affected fury, their own dignity and that of their prince; their
baggage was plundered, and their lives were only saved by the promise
of a richer present and a more respectful address. But his sacred
ambassadors enjoyed and abused an unbounded license in the midst of
Constantinople; they urged, with importunate clamours, the increase of
tribute or the restitution of captives and deserters; and the majesty of
the empire was almost equally degraded by a base compliance, or by the
false and fearful excuses with which they eluded such insolent demands.
In the language of a barbarian without guile, the prince of the Avars
affected to complain of the insincerity of the Greeks; yet he was
not inferior to the most civilised nations in the refinements of
dissimulation and perfidy. As the successor of the Lombards, the chagan
asserted his claim to the important city of Sirmium, the ancient bulwark
of the Illyrian provinces. The plains of lower Hungary were covered with
the Avar horse, and a fleet of large boats was built in the Hercynian
wood, to descend the Danube and to transport into the Savus the materials
of a bridge. But as the strong garrison of Singidunum, which commanded
the conflux of the two rivers, might have stopped their passage and
baffled his designs, he dispelled their apprehensions by a solemn oath
that his views were not hostile to the empire. He swore by his sword,
the symbol of the god of war, that he did not, as the enemy of Rome,
construct a bridge upon the Savus. “If I violate my oath,” pursued the
intrepid Baian, “may I myself, and the last of my nation, perish by the
sword; may the heavens and fire, the deity of the heavens, fall upon our
heads! may the forests and mountains bury us in their ruins! and the
Savus returning, against the laws of nature, to his source, overwhelm us
in his angry waters!”
After this barbarous imprecation, he calmly inquired what oath was most
sacred and venerable among the Christians, what guilt of perjury it was
most dangerous to incur. The bishop of Singidunum presented the Gospel,
which the chagan received with devout reverence. “I swear,” said he, “by
the God who has spoken in this holy book, that I have neither falsehood
on my tongue nor treachery in my heart.” As soon as he rose from his
knees, he accelerated the labour of the bridge, and despatched an envoy
to proclaim what he no longer wished to conceal. “Inform the emperor,”
said the perfidious Baian, “that Sirmium is invested on every side.
Advise his prudence to withdraw the citizens and their effects, and to
resign a city which it is now impossible to relieve or defend.”
Without the hope of relief, the defence of Sirmium was prolonged above
three years; the walls were still untouched; but famine was enclosed
within the walls, till a merciful capitulation allowed the escape of
the naked and hungry inhabitants. Singidunum, at the distance of fifty
miles, experienced a more cruel fate; the buildings were razed, and the
vanquished people was condemned to servitude and exile. Yet the ruins of
Sirmium are no longer visible; the advantageous situation of Singidunum
soon attracted a new colony of Slavonians, and the conflux of the Savus
and Danube is still guarded by the fortifications of Belgrade, or the
White City, so often and so obstinately disputed by the Christian and
Turkish arms. From Belgrade to the walls of Constantinople, a line may
be measured of six hundred miles; that line was marked with flames and
with blood; the horses of the Avars were alternately bathed in the Euxine
and the Adriatic; and the Roman pontiff, alarmed by the approach of a
more savage enemy, was reduced to cherish the Lombards as the protectors
of Italy. The despair of a captive, whom his country refused to ransom,
disclosed to the Avars the invention and practice of military engines;
but in the first attempts, they were rudely framed and awkwardly managed;
and the resistance of Diocletianopolis and Berœa, of Philippopolis and
Hadrianopolis, soon exhausted the skill and patience of the besiegers.
The warfare of Baian was that of a Tatar; yet his mind was susceptible
of a humane and generous sentiment: he spared Anchialus, whose salutary
waters had restored the health of the best beloved of his wives; and
the Romans confessed that their starving army was fed and dismissed by
the liberality of a foe. His empire extended over Hungary, Poland, and
Prussia, from the mouth of the Danube to that of the Oder; and his new
subjects were divided and transplanted by the jealous policy of the
conqueror. The eastern regions of Germany, which had been left vacant by
the emigration of the Vandals, were replenished with Slavonian colonists;
the same tribes are discovered in the neighbourhood of the Adriatic and
of the Baltic, and with the name of Baian himself the Illyrian cities
of Neisse and Lissa are again found in the heart of Silesia. In the
disposition both of his troops and provinces the chagan exposed the
vassals, whose lives he disregarded, to the first assault; and the swords
of the enemy were blunted before they encountered the native valour of
the Avars.
[Sidenote: [592-594 A.D.]]
The Persian alliance restored the troops of the East to the defence
of Europe; and Maurice, who had supported for ten years the insolence
of the chagan, declared his resolution to march in person against the
barbarians. In the space of two centuries, none of the successors
of Theodosius had appeared in the field; their lives were supinely
spent in the palace of Constantinople, and the Greeks could no longer
understand that the name of emperor, in its primitive sense, denoted the
chief of the armies of the republic. The martial ardour of Maurice was
opposed by the grave flattery of the senate, the timid superstition of
the patriarch, and the tears of the empress Constantina; and they all
conjured him to devolve on some meaner general the fatigues and perils of
a Scythian campaign.
[Illustration: A BYZANTINE SACRED VESSEL]
Deaf to their advice and entreaty, the emperor boldly advanced seven
miles from the capital; the sacred ensign of the cross was displayed
in the front, and Maurice reviewed, with conscious pride, the arms
and numbers of the veterans who had fought and conquered beyond the
Tigris. Anchialus saw the last term of his progress by sea and land.
He solicited, without success, a miraculous answer to his nocturnal
prayers; his mind was confounded by the death of a favourite horse, the
encounter of a wild boar, a storm of wind and rain, and the birth of a
monstrous child; and he forgot that the best of omens is to unsheathe
our sword in the defence of our country. Under the pretence of receiving
the ambassadors of Persia, the emperor returned to Constantinople,
exchanged the thoughts of war for those of devotion, and disappointed
the public hope by his absence and the choice of his lieutenants. The
blind partiality of fraternal love might excuse the promotion of his
brother Peter, who fled with equal disgrace from the barbarians, from
his own soldiers, and from the inhabitants of a Roman city. That city,
if we may credit the resemblance of name and character, was the famous
Azimuntium, which had alone repelled the tempest of Attila. The example
of her warlike youth was propagated to succeeding generations; and they
obtained, from the first or second Justin, an honourable privilege, that
their valour should be always reserved for the defence of their native
country. The brother of Maurice attempted to violate this privilege, and
to mingle a patriot band with the mercenaries of his camp; they retired
to the church. He was not awed by the sanctity of the place; the people
rose in their cause, the ramparts were manned; and Peter proved himself a
coward.
[Sidenote: [594-600 A.D.]]
The military fame of Comentiolus is the object of satire or comedy rather
than of serious history, since he was even deficient in the vile and
vulgar qualification of personal courage. His solemn councils, strange
evolutions, and secret orders always supplied an apology for flight or
delay. If he marched against the enemy, the pleasant valleys of Mount
Hæmus opposed an insuperable barrier; but in his retreat he explored
with fearless curiosity the most difficult and obsolete paths, which had
almost escaped the memory of the oldest native. The only blood which he
lost was drawn, in a real or affected malady, by the lancet of a surgeon;
and his health, which felt with exquisite sensibility the approach of
the barbarians, was uniformly restored by the repose and safety of the
winter season. A prince who could promote and support this unworthy
favourite must derive no glory from the accidental merit of his colleague
Priscus. In five successive battles, which seem to have been conducted
with skill and resolution, 17,200 barbarians were made prisoners; near
sixty thousand, with four sons of the chagan, were slain. The Roman
general surprised a peaceful district of Gepidæ, who slept under the
protection of the Avars; and his last trophies were erected on the banks
of the Danube and the Theiss. Since the death of Trajan, the arms of the
empire had not penetrated so deeply into the old Dacia; yet the success
of Priscus was transient and barren, and he was soon recalled, by the
apprehension that Baian, with dauntless spirit and recruited forces, was
preparing to avenge his defeat under the walls of Constantinople.
STATE OF THE ROMAN ARMIES
The theory of war was not more familiar to the camps of Cæsar and
Trajan than to those of Justinian and Maurice. The iron of Tuscany
or Pontus still received the keenest temper from the skill of the
Byzantine workmen. The magazines were plentifully stored with every
species of offensive and defensive arms. In the construction and use of
ships, engines, and fortifications, the barbarians admired the superior
ingenuity of a people whom they so often vanquished in the field. The
science of tactics, the order, evolutions, and stratagems of antiquity,
were transcribed and studied in the books of the Greeks and Romans. But
the solitude or degeneracy of the provinces could no longer supply a race
of men to handle those weapons, to guard those walls, to navigate those
ships, and to reduce the theory of war into bold and successful practice.
The genius of Belisarius and Narses had been formed without a master, and
expired without a disciple. Neither honour, nor patriotism, nor generous
superstition, could animate the lifeless bodies of slaves and strangers,
who had succeeded to the honours of the legions. It was in the camp alone
that the emperor should have exercised a despotic command; it was only in
the camps that his authority was disobeyed and insulted; he appeased and
inflamed with gold the licentiousness of the troops; but their vices were
inherent, their victories were accidental, and their costly maintenance
exhausted the substance of a state which they were unable to defend.
After a long and pernicious indulgence, the cure of this inveterate evil
was undertaken by Maurice; but the rash attempt, which drew destruction
on his own head, tended only to aggravate the disease. A reformer should
be exempt from the suspicion of interest, and he must possess the
confidence and esteem of those whom he proposes to reclaim. The troops of
Maurice might listen to the voice of a victorious leader; they disdained
the admonitions of statesmen and sophists; and when they received an
edict which deducted from their pay the price of their arms and clothing,
they execrated the avarice of a prince insensible of the dangers and
fatigues from which he had escaped.
The camps both of Asia and Europe were agitated with frequent and furious
seditions; the enraged soldiers of Edessa pursued, with reproaches,
with threats, with wounds, their trembling generals; they overturned
the statues of the emperor, cast stones against the miraculous image
of Christ, and either rejected the yoke of all civil and military
laws or instituted a dangerous model of voluntary subordination. The
monarch, always distant and often deceived, was incapable of yielding
or persisting according to the exigence of the moment. But the fear of
a general revolt induced him too readily to accept any act of valour or
any expression of loyalty as an atonement for the popular offence; the
new reform was abolished as hastily as it had been announced, and the
troops, instead of punishment and restraint, were agreeably surprised
by a gracious proclamation of immunities and rewards. But the soldiers
accepted without gratitude the tardy and reluctant gifts of the emperor;
their insolence was elated by the discovery of his weakness and their
own strength, and their mutual hatred was inflamed beyond the desire of
forgiveness or the hope of reconciliation.
The historians of the times adopt the vulgar suspicion that Maurice
conspired to destroy the troops whom he had laboured to reform; the
misconduct and favour of Comentiolus are imputed to this malevolent
design; and every age must condemn the inhumanity or avarice of a prince
who, by the trifling ransom of six thousand pieces of gold, might have
prevented the massacre of twelve thousand prisoners in the hands of the
chagan.[33] In the just fervour of indignation, an order was signified
to the army of the Danube that they should spare the magazines of the
province, and establish their winter quarters in the hostile country of
the Avars. The measure of their grievances was full; they pronounced
Maurice unworthy to reign, expelled or slaughtered his faithful
adherents, and, under the command of Phocas, a simple centurion, returned
by hasty marches to the neighbourhood of Constantinople.
REBELLION AGAINST MAURICE
[Sidenote: [600-602 A.D.]]
After a long series of legal successions, the military disorders of
the third century were again revived; yet such was the novelty of
the enterprise that the insurgents were awed by their own rashness.
They hesitated to invest their favourite with the vacant purple; and
while they rejected all treaty with Maurice himself, they held a
friendly correspondence with his son Theodosius, and with Germanus,
the father-in-law of the royal youth. So obscure had been the former
condition of Phocas that the emperor was ignorant of the name and
character of his rival; but as soon as he learned that the centurion,
though bold in sedition, was timid in the face of danger, “Alas!” cried
the desponding prince, “if he is a coward, he will surely be a murderer.”
Yet if Constantinople had been firm and faithful, the murderer might
have spent his fury against the walls; and the rebel army would have
been gradually consumed or reconciled by the prudence of the emperor.
In the games of the circus, which he repeated with unusual pomp,
Maurice disguised, with smiles of confidence, the anxiety of his heart,
condescended to solicit the applause of the factions, and flattered
their pride by accepting from their respective tribunes a list of nine
hundred blues and fifteen hundred greens, whom he affected to esteem as
the solid pillars of his throne. Their treacherous or languid support
betrayed his weakness and hastened his fall; the green faction were the
secret accomplices of the rebels, and the blues recommended lenity and
moderation in a contest with their Roman brethren.
The rigid and parsimonious virtues of Maurice had long since alienated
the hearts of his subjects; as he walked barefoot in a religious
procession, he was rudely assaulted with stones, and his guards were
compelled to present their iron maces in the defence of his person. A
fanatic monk ran through the streets with a drawn sword, denouncing
against him the wrath and the sentence of God; and a vile plebeian, who
represented his countenance and apparel, was seated on an ass and pursued
by the imprecations of the multitude.
The emperor suspected the popularity of Germanus with the soldiers
and citizens; he feared, he threatened, but he delayed to strike; the
patrician fled to the sanctuary of the church; the people rose in his
defence, the walls were deserted by the guards, and the lawless city was
abandoned to the flames and rapine of a nocturnal tumult. In a small bark
the unfortunate Maurice, with his wife and nine children, escaped to the
Asiatic shore; but the violence of the wind compelled him to land at
the church of St. Autonomus, near Chalcedon, from whence he despatched
Theodosius, his eldest son, to implore the gratitude and friendship
of the Persian monarch. For himself he refused to fly; his body was
tortured with sciatic pains, his mind was enfeebled by superstition; he
patiently awaited the event of the revolution, and addressed a fervent
and public prayer to the Almighty, that the punishment of his sins might
be inflicted in this world rather than in a future life.
[Illustration: A BYZANTINE OFFICER]
After the abdication of Maurice, the two factions disputed the choice
of an emperor; but the favourite of the blues was rejected by the
jealousy of their antagonists, and Germanus himself was hurried along
by the crowds, who rushed to the palace of Hebdomon, seven miles from
the city, to adore the majesty of Phocas the centurion. A modest wish
of resigning the purple to the rank and merit of Germanus was opposed
by his resolution, more obstinate and equally sincere; the senate and
clergy obeyed his summons; and as soon as the patriarch was assured of
his orthodox belief, he consecrated the successful usurper in the church
of St. John the Baptist. On the third day, amidst the acclamations of
a thoughtless people, Phocas made his public entry in a chariot drawn
by four white horses; the revolt of the troops was rewarded by a lavish
donative, and the new sovereign, after visiting the palace, beheld from
his throne the games of the Hippodrome. In a dispute of precedency
between the two factions, his partial judgment inclined in favour of
the greens. “Remember that Maurice is still alive,” resounded from
the opposite side; and the indiscreet clamour of the blues admonished
and stimulated the cruelty of the tyrant. The ministers of death were
despatched to Chalcedon; they dragged the emperor from his sanctuary; and
the five sons of Maurice were successively murdered before the eyes of
their agonising parent. At each stroke, which he felt in his heart, he
found strength to rehearse a pious ejaculation: “Thou art just, O Lord!
and thy judgments are righteous.” And such, in the last moments, was his
rigid attachment to truth and justice, that he revealed to the soldiers
the pious falsehood of a nurse who presented her own child in the place
of a royal infant.
The tragic scene was finally closed by the execution of the emperor
himself, in the twentieth year of his reign and the sixty-third of his
age (602). The bodies of the father and his five sons were cast into the
sea, their heads were exposed at Constantinople to the insults or pity
of the multitude; and it was not till some signs of putrefaction had
appeared that Phocas connived at the private burial of these venerable
remains. In that grave the faults and errors of Maurice were kindly
interred. His fate alone was remembered; and at the end of twenty years,
in the recital of the history of Theophylact, the mournful tale was
interrupted by the tears of the audience.
PHOCAS EMPEROR (602-610)
[Sidenote: [602-610 A.D.]]
Such tears must have flowed in secret, and such compassion would have
been criminal, under the reign of Phocas, who was peaceably acknowledged
in the provinces of the East and West. The images of the emperor and
his wife, Leontia, were exposed in the Lateran to the veneration of the
clergy and senate of Rome, and afterwards deposited in the palace of the
Cæsars, between those of Constantine and Theodosius. As a subject and a
Christian, it was the duty of Gregory to acquiesce in the established
government; but the joyful applause with which he salutes the fortune of
the assassin has sullied with indelible disgrace the character of the
saint.
The successor of the Apostles might have inculcated with decent firmness
the guilt of blood and the necessity of repentance; he is content to
celebrate the deliverance of the people and the fall of the oppressor;
to rejoice that the piety and benignity of Phocas have been raised
by providence to the imperial throne; to pray that his hands may be
strengthened against all his enemies; and to express a wish, perhaps a
prophecy, that, after a long and triumphant reign, he may be transferred
from a temporal to an everlasting kingdom. We have already traced the
steps of a revolution so pleasing, in Gregory’s opinion, both to heaven
and earth; and Phocas does not appear less hateful in the exercise than
in the acquisition of power. The pencil of an impartial historian has
delineated the portrait of a monster--his diminutive and deformed person,
the closeness of his shaggy eyebrows, his red hair, his beardless chin,
and his cheek disfigured and discoloured by a formidable scar. Ignorant
of letters, of laws, and even of arms, he indulged in the supreme rank a
more ample privilege of lust and drunkenness, and his brutal pleasures
were either injurious to his subjects or disgraceful to himself. Without
assuming the office of a prince, he renounced the profession of a
soldier; and the reign of Phocas afflicted Europe with ignominious peace
and Asia with desolating war. His savage temper was inflamed by passion,
hardened by fear, exasperated by resistance or reproach.
The flight of Theodosius to the Persian court had been intercepted by a
rapid pursuit or a deceitful message; he was beheaded at Nicæa, and the
last hours of the young prince were soothed by the comforts of religion
and the consciousness of innocence. Yet this phantom disturbed the repose
of the usurper; a whisper was circulated through the East that the son
of Maurice was still alive; the people expected their avenger, and the
widow and daughters of the late emperor would have adopted as their
son and brother the vilest of mankind. In the massacre of the imperial
family, the mercy, or rather the discretion, of Phocas had spared these
unhappy females, and they were decently confined to a private house.
But the spirit of the empress Constantina, still mindful of her father,
her husband, and her sons, aspired to freedom and revenge. At the dead
of night, she escaped to the sanctuary of St. Sophia; but her tears,
and the gold of her associate Germanus, were insufficient to provoke an
insurrection. Her life was forfeited to revenge, and even to justice: but
the patriarch obtained and pledged an oath for her safety; a monastery
was allotted for her prison, and the widow of Maurice accepted and abused
the lenity of his assassin.
The discovery or the suspicion of a second conspiracy dissolved the
engagements and rekindled the fury of Phocas. A matron who commanded the
respect and pity of mankind, the daughter, wife, and mother of emperors,
was tortured like the vilest malefactor, to force a confession of her
designs and associates; and the empress Constantina, with her three
innocent daughters, was beheaded at Chalcedon, on the same ground which
had been stained with the blood of her husband and five sons. After such
an example, it would be superfluous to enumerate the names and sufferings
of meaner victims. Their condemnation was seldom preceded by the forms
of trial, and their punishment was embittered by the refinements of
cruelty: their eyes were pierced, their tongues were torn from the root,
the hands and feet were amputated; some expired under the lash, others
in the flames, others again were transfixed with arrows; and a simple
speedy death was mercy which they could rarely obtain. The Hippodrome,
the sacred asylum of the pleasures and the liberty of the Romans, was
polluted with heads and limbs and mangled bodies; and the companions
of Phocas were the most sensible that neither his favour, nor their
services, could protect them from a tyrant, the worthy rival of the
Caligulas and Domitians of the first age of the empire.
A daughter of Phocas, his only child, was given in marriage to the
patrician Crispus, and the royal images of the bride and bridegroom
were indiscreetly placed in the circus by the side of the emperor. The
father must desire that his posterity should inherit the fruit of his
crimes, but the monarch was offended by this premature and popular
association: the tribunes of the green faction, who accused the officious
error of their sculptors, were condemned to instant death: their lives
were granted to the prayers of the people; but Crispus might reasonably
doubt whether a jealous usurper could forget and pardon his involuntary
competition. The green faction was alienated by the ingratitude of Phocas
and the loss of their privileges; every province of the empire was ripe
for rebellion; and Heraclius, exarch of Africa, persisted above two years
in refusing all tribute and obedience to the centurion who disgraced the
throne of Constantinople.
By the secret emissaries of Crispus and the senate, the independent
exarch was solicited to save and to govern his country; but his ambition
was chilled by age, and he resigned the dangerous enterprise to his
son Heraclius, and to Nicetas, the son of Gregory, his friend and
lieutenant. The powers of Africa were armed by the two adventurous
youths; they agreed that the one should navigate the fleet from Carthage
to Constantinople, that the other should lead an army through Egypt and
Asia, and that the imperial purple should be the reward of diligence
and success. A faint rumour of their undertaking was conveyed to the
ears of Phocas, and the wife and mother of the younger Heraclius were
secured as the hostages of his faith: but the treacherous art of Crispus
extenuated the distant peril, the means of defence were neglected or
delayed, and the tyrant supinely slept till the African navy cast anchor
in the Hellespont. Their standard was joined at Abydos by the fugitives
and exiles who thirsted for revenge; the ships of Heraclius, whose
lofty masts were adorned with the holy symbols of religion, steered
their triumphant course through the Propontis; and Phocas beheld from
the windows of the palace his approaching and inevitable fate. The
green faction was tempted by gifts and promises to oppose a feeble and
fruitless resistance to the landing of the Africans; but the people, and
even the guards, were determined by the well-timed defection of Crispus;
and the tyrant was seized by a private enemy, who boldly invaded the
solitude of the palace. Stripped of the diadem and purple, clothed in a
vile habit, and loaded with chains, he was transported in a small boat
to the imperial galley of Heraclius, who reproached him with the crimes
of his abominable reign. “Wilt thou govern better?” were the last words
of the despair of Phocas. After suffering each variety of insult and
torture, his head was severed from his body, the mangled trunk was cast
into the flames, and the same treatment was inflicted on the statues of
the vain usurper and the seditious banner of the green faction (610 A.D.).
HERACLIUS EMPEROR (610-641)
The voice of the clergy, the senate, and the people, invited Heraclius to
ascend the throne which he had purified from guilt and ignominy; after
some graceful hesitation, he yielded to their entreaties. His coronation
was accompanied by that of his wife Eudocia; and their posterity, till
the fourth generation, continued to reign over the Empire of the East.
The voyage of Heraclius had been easy and prosperous, the tedious march
of Nicetas was not accomplished before the decision of the contest;
but he submitted without a murmur to the fortune of his friend, and
his laudable intentions were rewarded with an equestrian statue and a
daughter of the emperor. It was more difficult to trust the fidelity of
Crispus, whose recent services were recompensed by the command of the
Cappadocian army. His arrogance soon provoked, and seemed to excuse, the
ingratitude of his new sovereign. In the presence of the senate, the
son-in-law of Phocas was condemned to embrace the monastic life; and the
sentence was justified by the weighty observation of Heraclius that the
man who had betrayed his father could never be faithful to his friend.
Even after his death, the republic was afflicted by the crimes of Phocas,
which armed with a pious cause the most formidable of her enemies.
According to the friendly and equal forms of the Byzantine and Persian
courts, he announced his exaltation to the throne; and his ambassador
Lilius, who had presented him with the heads of Maurice and his sons,
was the best qualified to describe the circumstances of the tragic
scene. However it might be varnished by fiction or sophistry, Chosroes
turned with horror from the assassin, imprisoned the pretended envoy,
disclaimed the usurper, and declared himself the avenger of his father
and benefactor. The sentiments of grief and resentment, which humanity
would feel and honour would dictate, promoted, on this occasion, the
interest of the Persian king; and his interest was powerfully magnified
by the national and religious prejudices of the magi and satraps. In a
strain of artful adulation which assumed the language of freedom, they
presumed to censure the excess of his gratitude and friendship for the
Greeks--a nation with whom it was dangerous to conclude either peace or
alliance; whose superstition was devoid of truth and justice, and who
must be incapable of any virtue, since they could perpetrate the most
atrocious of crimes--the impious murder of their sovereign. For the crime
of an ambitious centurion, the nation which he oppressed was chastised
with the calamities of war; and the same calamities, at the end of twenty
years, were retaliated and redoubled on the heads of the Persians. The
general who had restored Chosroes to the throne, still commanded in the
East; and the name of Narses was the formidable sound with which the
Assyrian mothers were accustomed to terrify their infants.
[Illustration: JERUSALEM]
But the hero could not depend on the faith of a tyrant; and the tyrant
was conscious how little he deserved the obedience of a hero. Narses was
removed from his military command; he reared an independent standard at
Hierapolis in Syria: he was betrayed by fallacious promises, and burned
alive in the market-place of Constantinople. Deprived of the only chief
whom they could fear or esteem, the bands which he had led to victory
were twice broken by the cavalry, trampled by the elephants, and pierced
by the arrows of the barbarians; and a great number of the captives
were beheaded on the field of battle by the sentence of the victor,
who might justly condemn these seditious mercenaries as the authors or
accomplices of the death of Maurice. Under the reign of Phocas, the
fortifications of Merdin, Dara, Amida, and Edessa were successively
besieged, reduced, and destroyed by the Persian monarch; he passed the
Euphrates, occupied the Syrian cities, Hierapolis, Chalcis, and Berœa or
Aleppo, and soon encompassed the walls of Antioch with his irresistible
arms. The rapid tide of success discloses the decay of the empire, the
incapacity of Phocas, and the disaffection of his subjects; and Chosroes
provided a decent apology for their submission or revolt, by an impostor
who attended his camp as the son of Maurice and the lawful heir of the
monarchy.
The first intelligence from the East which Heraclius received, was that
of the loss of Antioch; but the aged metropolis, so often overturned
by earthquakes and pillaged by the enemy, could supply but a small
and languid stream of treasure and blood. The Persians were equally
successful and more fortunate in the sack of Cæsarea, the capital of
Cappadocia.
After the reduction of Galilee, and the region beyond the Jordan, whose
resistance appears to have delayed the fate of the capital, Jerusalem
itself was taken by assault. The sepulchre of Christ, and the stately
churches of Helena and Constantine, were consumed, or at least damaged,
by the flames; the devout offerings of three hundred years were rifled
in one sacrilegious day; the patriarch Zachariah and the True Cross were
transported into Persia; and the massacre of ninety thousand Christians
is imputed to the Jews and Arabs who swelled the disorder of the Persian
march. The fugitives of Palestine were entertained at Alexandria by the
charity of Joannes the archbishop, who is distinguished among a crowd of
saints by the epithet of alms-giver; and the revenues of the church, with
a treasure of three hundred thousand pounds, were restored to the true
proprietors, the poor of every country and every denomination.
[Sidenote: [615-617 A.D.]]
But Egypt itself, the only province which had been exempt, since the time
of Diocletian, from foreign and domestic war, was again subdued by the
successors of Cyrus. Pelusium, the key of that impervious country, was
surprised by the cavalry of the Persians; they passed, with impunity,
the innumerable channels of the Delta, and explored the long valley of
the Nile, from the pyramids of Memphis to the confines of Ethiopia.
Alexandria might have been relieved by a naval force, but the archbishop
and the prefect embarked for Cyprus; and Chosroes entered the second city
of the empire, which still preserved a wealthy remnant of industry and
commerce. His western trophy was erected, not on the walls of Carthage,
but in the neighbourhood of Tripoli; the Greek colonies of Cyrene
were finally extirpated; and the conqueror, treading in the footsteps
of Alexander, returned in triumph through the sands of the Libyan
desert. In the same campaign, another army advanced from the Euphrates
to the Thracian Bosporus; Chalcedon surrendered after a long siege,
and a Persian camp was maintained above ten years in the presence of
Constantinople. The sea coast of Pontus, the city of Ancyra, and the isle
of Rhodes, are enumerated among the last conquests of the great king;
and if Chosroes had possessed any maritime power, his boundless ambition
would have spread slavery and desolation over the provinces of Europe.
[Illustration: A BYZANTINE PRIEST]
From the long-disputed banks of the Tigris and Euphrates, the reign of
the grandson of Nushirvan was suddenly extended to the Hellespont and
the Nile, the ancient limits of the Persian monarchy. But the provinces,
which had been fashioned by the habits of six hundred years to the
virtues and vices of the Roman government, supported with reluctance
the yoke of the barbarians. The idea of a republic was kept alive by the
institutions, or at least by the writings, of the Greeks and Romans, and
the subjects of Heraclius had been educated to pronounce the words of
liberty and law. But it has always been the pride and policy of oriental
princes to display the titles and attributes of their omnipotence; to
upbraid a nation of slaves with their true name and abject condition, and
to enforce, by cruel and insolent threats, the rigour of their absolute
commands.
The Christians of the East were scandalised by the worship of fire and
the impious doctrine of the two principles; the magi were not less
intolerant than the bishops, and the martyrdom of some native Persians,
who had deserted the religion of Zoroaster, was conceived to be the
prelude of a fierce and general persecution. By the oppressive laws
of Justinian, the adversaries of the church were made the enemies of
the state; the alliance of the Jews, Nestorians, and Jacobites had
contributed to the success of Chosroes, and his partial favour to the
sectaries provoked the hatred and fears of the Catholic clergy. Conscious
of their fear and hatred, the Persian conqueror governed his new subjects
with an iron sceptre; and as if he suspected the stability of his
dominion, he exhausted their wealth by exorbitant tributes and licentious
rapine, despoiled or demolished the temples of the East, and transported
to his hereditary realms the gold, the silver, the precious marbles, the
arts, and the artists of the Asiatic cities.
While the Persian monarch contemplated the wonders of his art and power,
he received an epistle from an obscure citizen of Mecca, inviting him to
acknowledge Mohammed as the apostle of God. He rejected the invitation,
and tore the epistle. “It is thus,” exclaimed the Arabian prophet, “that
God will tear the kingdom, and reject the supplications of Chosroes.”
Placed on the verge of the two great empires of the East, Mohammed
observed with secret joy the progress of their mutual destruction; and in
the midst of the Persian triumphs, he ventured to foretell that, before
many years should elapse, victory would again return to the banners of
the Romans.
HERACLIUS PLANS TO REMOVE THE CAPITAL TO CARTHAGE (618)
[Sidenote: [618 A.D.]]
At the time when this prediction is said to have been delivered, no
prophecy could be more distant from its accomplishment, since the first
twelve years of Heraclius announced the approaching dissolution of the
empire. If the motives of Chosroes had been pure and honourable, he
must have ended the quarrel with the death of Phocas, and he would have
embraced, as his best ally, the fortunate African who had so generously
avenged the injuries of his benefactor Maurice. The prosecution of the
war revealed the true character of the barbarian; and the suppliant
embassies of Heraclius to beseech his clemency that he would spare the
innocent, accept a tribute, and give peace to the world, were rejected
with contemptuous silence or insolent menace. Syria, Egypt, and the
provinces of Asia were subdued by the Persian arms, while Europe, from
the confines of Istria to the long wall of Thrace, was oppressed by the
Avars, unsatiated with the blood and rapine of the Italian War.
By these implacable enemies, Heraclius, on either side, was insulted
and besieged: and the Roman Empire was reduced to the walls of
Constantinople, with the remnant of Greece, Italy, and Africa, and some
maritime cities, from Tyre to Trebizond, of the Asiatic coast. After the
loss of Egypt, the capital was afflicted with famine and pestilence; and
the emperor, incapable of resistance and hopeless of relief, had resolved
to transfer his person and government to the more secure residence of
Carthage. His ships were already laden with the treasures of the palace;
but his flight was arrested by the patriarch, who armed the powers of
religion in the defence of his country, led Heraclius to the altar of St.
Sophia, and extorted a solemn oath, that he would live and die with the
people whom God had entrusted to his care.
The chagan was encamped in the plains of Thrace; but he dissembled his
perfidious designs, and solicited an interview with the emperor near the
town of Heraclea. Their reconciliation was celebrated with equestrian
games; the senate and people in their gayest apparel resorted to the
festival of peace; and the Avars beheld, with envy and desire, the
spectacle of Roman luxury. On a sudden the Hippodrome was encompassed
by the Scythian cavalry, who had pressed their secret and nocturnal
march: the tremendous sound of the chagan’s whip gave the signal of the
assault; and Heraclius, wrapping his diadem round his arm, was saved with
extreme hazard by the fleetness of his horse. So rapid was the pursuit,
that the Avars almost entered the golden gate of Constantinople with the
flying crowds; but the plunder of the suburbs rewarded their treason,
and they transported beyond the Danube 270,000 captives. On the shore of
Chalcedon, the emperor held a safer conference with a more honourable
foe, who, before Heraclius descended from his galley, saluted with
reverence and pity the majesty of the purple.
The friendly offer of Sain, the Persian general, to conduct an embassy to
the presence of the Great King, was accepted with the warmest gratitude,
and the prayer for pardon and peace was humbly presented by the prætorian
prefect, the prefect of the city, and one of the first ecclesiastics
of the patriarchal church. But the lieutenant of Chosroes had fatally
mistaken the intentions of his master. “It was not an embassy,” said the
tyrant of Asia, “it was the person of Heraclius, bound in chains, that he
should have brought to the foot of my throne. I will never give peace to
the emperor of Rome till he has abjured his crucified God, and embraced
the worship of the sun.” Sain was flayed alive, according to the inhuman
practice of his country; and the separate and rigorous confinement of
the ambassadors violated the law of nations, and the faith of an express
stipulation. Yet the experience of six years at length persuaded the
Persian monarch to renounce the conquest of Constantinople, and to
specify the annual tribute or ransom of the Roman Empire: a thousand
talents of gold, a thousand talents of silver, a thousand silk robes,
a thousand horses, and a thousand virgins. Heraclius subscribed these
ignominious terms; but the time and space which he obtained to collect
such treasure from the poverty of the East was industriously employed in
the preparations of a bold and desperate attack.
THE AWAKENING OF HERACLIUS
[Sidenote: [616-622 A.D.]]
Of the characters conspicuous in history, that of Heraclius is one of
the most extraordinary and inconsistent. In the first and the last
years of a long reign, the emperor appears to be the slave of sloth, of
pleasure, or of superstition, the careless and impotent spectator of the
public calamities. But the languid mists of the morning and evening are
separated by the brightness of the meridian sun: the Arcadius of the
palace arose the Cæsar of the camp; and the honour of Rome and Heraclius
was gloriously retrieved by the exploits and trophies of six adventurous
campaigns.
It was the duty of the Byzantine historians to have revealed the causes
of his slumber and vigilance. At this distance we can only conjecture,
that he was endowed with more personal courage than political resolution;
that he was detained by the charms, and perhaps the arts, of his
niece Martina, with whom, after the death of Eudocia, he contracted
an incestuous marriage; and that he yielded to the base advice of the
counsellors, who urged as a fundamental law that the life of the emperor
should never be exposed in the field. Perhaps he was awakened by the
last insolent demand of the Persian conqueror; but at the moment when
Heraclius assumed the spirit of a hero, the only hopes of the Romans were
drawn from the vicissitudes of fortune which might threaten the proud
prosperity of Chosroes, and must be favourable to those who had attained
the lowest period of depression.
To provide for the expenses of war was the first care of the emperor; and
for the purpose of collecting the tribute, he was allowed to solicit the
benevolence of the Eastern provinces. But the revenue no longer flowed
in the usual channels; the credit of an arbitrary prince is annihilated
by his power; and the courage of Heraclius was first displayed in daring
to borrow the consecrated wealth of churches, under the solemn vow of
restoring, with usury, whatever he had been compelled to employ in the
service of religion and of the empire. The clergy themselves appear to
have sympathised with the public distress, and the discreet patriarch
of Alexandria, without admitting the precedent of sacrilege, assisted
his sovereign by the miraculous or seasonable revelation of a secret
treasure.[34] Of the soldiers who had conspired with Phocas, only two
were found to have survived the stroke of time and of the barbarians;
the loss, even of these seditious veterans, was imperfectly supplied by
the new levies of Heraclius, and the gold of the sanctuary united, in
the same camp, the names, and arms, and languages, of the East and West.
He would have been content with the neutrality of the Avars; and his
friendly entreaty, that the chagan would act, not as the enemy but as the
guardian of the empire, was accompanied with a more persuasive donative
of two hundred thousand pieces of gold. Two days after the festival of
Easter, the emperor, exchanging his purple for the simple garb of a
penitent and warrior, gave the signal of his departure. To the faith of
the people Heraclius recommended his children; the civil and military
powers were vested in the most deserving hands, and the discretion of
the patriarch and senate was authorised to save or surrender the city,
if they should be oppressed in his absence by the superior forces of the
enemy.
The neighbouring heights of Chalcedon were covered with tents and arms:
but if the new levies of Heraclius had been rashly led to the attack,
the victory of the Persians in the sight of Constantinople might have
been the last day of the Roman Empire. As imprudent would it have been
to advance into the provinces of Asia, leaving their innumerable cavalry
to intercept his convoys, and continually to hang on the lassitude and
disorder of his rear. But the Greeks were still masters of the sea;
a fleet of galleys, transports, and store-ships was assembled in the
harbour; the barbarians consented to embark; a steady wind carried them
through the Hellespont; the western and southern coast of Asia Minor lay
on their left hand; the spirit of their chief was first displayed in
a storm; and even the eunuchs of his train were excited to suffer and
to work by the example of their master. He landed his troops on the
confines of Syria and Cilicia, in the Gulf of Scanderoon, where the coast
suddenly turns to the south; and his discernment was expressed in the
choice of this important post.
[Sidenote: [622-623 A.D.]]
From all sides, the scattered garrisons of the maritime cities and the
mountains might repair with speed and safety to his imperial standard.
The natural fortifications of Cilicia protected, and even concealed,
the camp of Heraclius, which was pitched near Issus, on the same ground
where Alexander had vanquished the host of Darius. The angle which the
emperor occupied was deeply indented into a vast semicircle of the
Asiatic, Armenian, and Syrian provinces; and to whatsoever point of
the circumference he should direct his attack, it was easy for him to
dissemble his own motions, and to prevent those of the enemy. In the
camp of Issus, the Roman general reformed the sloth and disorder of the
veterans, and educated the new recruits in the knowledge and practice of
military virtue. Unfolding the miraculous image of Christ, he urged them
to revenge the holy altars which had been profaned by the worshippers of
fire; addressing them by the endearing appellations of sons and brethren,
he deplored the public and private wrongs of the republic. The subjects
of a monarch were persuaded that they fought in the cause of freedom;
and a similar enthusiasm was communicated to the foreign mercenaries,
who must have viewed with equal indifference the interest of Rome and of
Persia.
Heraclius himself, with the skill and patience of a centurion, inculcated
the lessons of the school of tactics, and the soldiers were assiduously
trained in the use of their weapons, and the exercises and evolutions
of the field. The cavalry and infantry, in light or heavy armour, were
divided into two parties; the trumpets were fixed in the centre, and
their signals directed the march, the charge, the retreat, or pursuit;
the direct or oblique order, the deep or extended phalanx; to represent
in fictitious combat the operations of genuine war. Whatever hardship
the emperor imposed on the troops, he inflicted with equal severity on
himself; their labour, their diet, their sleep, were measured by the
inflexible rules of discipline; and, without despising the enemy, they
were taught to repose an implicit confidence in their own valour and the
wisdom of their leader.
Cilicia was soon encompassed with the Persian arms; but their cavalry
hesitated to enter the defiles of Mount Taurus, till they were
circumvented by the evolutions of Heraclius, who insensibly gained their
rear, whilst he appeared to present his front in order of battle. By a
false motion, which seemed to threaten Armenia, he drew them, against
their wishes, to a general action. They were tempted by the artful
disorder of his camp; but when they advanced to combat, the ground,
the sun, and the expectation of both armies were unpropitious to the
barbarians; the Romans successfully repeated their tactics in a field
of battle, and the event of the day[35] declared to the world, that the
Persians were not invincible, and that a hero was invested with the
purple.
Strong in victory and fame, Heraclius boldly ascended the heights of
Mount Taurus, directed his march through the plains of Cappadocia, and
established his troops for the winter season in safe and plentiful
quarters on the banks of the river Halys. His soul was superior to the
vanity of entertaining Constantinople with an imperfect triumph: but the
presence of the emperor was indispensably required to sooth the restless
and rapacious spirit of the Avars.
TRIUMPH OF HERACLIUS
[Sidenote: [623-625 A.D.]]
Since the days of Scipio and Hannibal, no bolder enterprise has been
attempted than that which Heraclius achieved for the deliverance of the
empire. He permitted the Persians to oppress for a while the provinces,
and to insult with impunity the capital of the East; while the Roman
emperor explored his perilous way through the Black Sea and the mountains
of Armenia, penetrated into the heart of Persia, and recalled the armies
of the Great King to the defence of their bleeding country. With a select
band of five thousand soldiers, Heraclius sailed from Constantinople to
Trebizond; assembled his forces which had wintered in the Pontic regions;
and from the mouth of the Phasis to the Caspian Sea, encouraged his
subjects and allies to march with the successor of Constantine under the
faithful and victorious banner of the cross.
When the legions of Lucullus and Pompey first passed the Euphrates,
they blushed at their easy victory over the natives of Armenia. But
the long experience of war had hardened the minds and bodies of that
effeminate people; their zeal and bravery were approved in the service of
a declining empire; they abhorred and feared the usurpation of the house
of Sassan, and the memory of persecution envenomed their pious hatred of
the enemies of Christ. The limits of Armenia, as it had been ceded to the
emperor Maurice, extended as far the Araxes; the river submitted to the
indignity of a bridge; and Heraclius, in the footsteps of Mark Antony,
advanced towards the city of Tauris or Gandzaca, the ancient and modern
capital of one of the provinces of Media. At the head of forty thousand
men, Chosroes himself had returned from some distant expedition to oppose
the progress of the Roman arms; but he retreated on the approach of
Heraclius, declining the generous alternative of peace or battle.
The rapid conquests of Heraclius were suspended only by the winter
season; a motive of prudence or superstition determined his retreat
into the province of Albania, along the shores of the Caspian; and his
tents were most probably pitched in the plains of Mogan, the favourite
encampment of oriental princes. In the course of this successful inroad,
he signalised the zeal and revenge of a Christian emperor: at his
command, the soldiers extinguished the fire and destroyed the temples of
the magi; the statues of Chosroes, who aspired to divine honours, were
abandoned to the flames; and the ruin of Thebarma or Ormia, which had
given birth to Zoroaster himself, made some atonement for the injuries of
the Holy Sepulchre. A purer spirit of religion was shown in the relief
and deliverance of fifty thousand captives. Heraclius was rewarded by
their tears and grateful acclamations; but this wise measure, which
spread the fame of his benevolence, diffused the murmurs of the Persians
against the pride and obstinacy of their own sovereign.
Amidst the glories of the succeeding campaigns, Heraclius is almost lost
to our eyes, and to those of the Byzantine historians. From the spacious
and fruitful plains of Albania, the emperor appears to follow the chain
of Hyrcanian Mountains, to descend into the province of Media or Irak,
and to carry his victorious arms as far as the royal cities of Casbin
and Ispahan,[36] which had never been approached by a Roman conqueror.
Alarmed by the danger of his kingdom, the powers of Chosroes were already
recalled from the Nile and the Bosporus, and three formidable armies
surrounded, in a distant and hostile land, the camp of the emperor.
The Colchian allies prepared to desert his standard; and the fears of
the bravest veterans were expressed, rather than concealed, by their
desponding silence. “Be not terrified,” said the intrepid Heraclius,
“by the multitude of your foes. With the aid of heaven, one Roman may
triumph over a thousand barbarians. But if we devote our lives for the
salvation of our brethren, we shall obtain the crown of martyrdom, and
our immortal reward will be liberally paid by God and posterity.”[37]
These magnanimous sentiments were supported by the vigour of his actions.
He repelled the threefold attack of the Persians, improved the divisions
of their chiefs, and by a well-concerted train of marches, retreats, and
successful actions, finally chased them from the field into the fortified
cities of Media and Assyria.
[Sidenote: [625-626 A.D.]]
In the severity of the winter season, Shahr Barz (or Sarbaraza) deemed
himself secure in the walls of Salban; he was surprised by the activity
of Heraclius, who divided his troops and performed a laborious march in
the silence of the night. The flat roofs of the houses were defended with
useless valour against the darts and torches of the Romans: the satraps
and nobles of Persia, with their wives and children, and the flower of
their martial youth, were either slain or made prisoners. The general
escaped by a precipitate flight, but his golden armour was the prize
of the conqueror; and the soldiers of Heraclius enjoyed the wealth and
repose which they had so nobly deserved.
On the return of spring, the emperor traversed in seven days the
mountains of Kurdistan, and passed without resistance the rapid stream
of the Tigris. Oppressed by the weight of their spoils and captives,
the Roman army halted under the walls of Amida; and Heraclius informed
the senate of Constantinople of his safety and success, which they
had already felt by the retreat of the besiegers. The bridges of the
Euphrates were destroyed by the Persians; but as soon as the emperor
had discovered a ford, they hastily retired to defend the banks of the
Sarus, in Cilicia. That river, an impetuous torrent, was about three
hundred feet broad; the bridge was fortified with strong turrets, and
the banks were lined with barbarian archers. After a bloody conflict,
which continued till the evening, the Romans prevailed in the assault,
and a Persian of gigantic size was slain and thrown into the Sarus
by the hand of the emperor himself. The enemies were dispersed and
dismayed; Heraclius pursued his march to Sebaste in Cappadocia; and at
the expiration of three years, the same coast of the Euxine applauded his
return from a long and victorious expedition.
Instead of skirmishing on the frontier, the two monarchs who disputed the
empire of the East aimed their desperate strokes at the heart of their
rival. The military force of Persia was wasted by the marches and combats
of twenty years, and many of the veterans, who had survived the perils
of the sword and the climate, were still detained in the fortresses of
Egypt and Syria. But the revenge and ambition of Chosroes exhausted his
kingdom; and the new levies of subjects, strangers, and slaves were
divided into three formidable bodies. The first army of fifty thousand
men, illustrious by the ornament and title of the golden spears, was
destined to march against Heraclius; the second was stationed to prevent
his junction with the troops of his brother Theodorus; and the third was
commanded to besiege Constantinople, and to second the operations of the
chagan, with whom the Persian king had ratified a treaty of alliance and
partition.
THE SIEGE OF CONSTANTINOPLE (626)
Shahr Barz, the general of the third army, penetrated through the
provinces of Asia to the well-known camp of Chalcedon, and amused himself
with the destruction of the sacred and profane buildings of the Asiatic
suburbs, while he impatiently waited the arrival of his Scythian friends
on the opposite side of the Bosporus. On the 29th of June, thirty
thousand barbarians, the vanguard of the Avars, forced the long wall, and
drove into the capital a promiscuous crowd of peasants, citizens, and
soldiers. Fourscore thousand of his native subjects, and of the vassal
tribes of Gepidæ, Russians, Bulgarians, and Slavonians advanced under the
standard of the chagan; a month was spent in marches and negotiations,
but the whole city was invested on the 31st of July, from the suburbs of
Pera and Galata to the Blachernæ and seven towers; and the inhabitants
descried with terror the flaming signals of the European and Asiatic
shores.
[Illustration: TROPHY OF ROMAN ARMS AND ENSIGN]
In the meanwhile the magistrates of Constantinople repeatedly strove to
purchase the retreat of the chagan; but their deputies were rejected and
insulted; and he suffered the patricians to stand before his throne,
while the Persian envoys, in silk robes, were seated by his side. “You
see,” said the haughty barbarian, “the proofs of my perfect union with
the Great King; and his lieutenant is ready to send into my camp a select
band of three thousand warriors. Presume no longer to tempt your master
with a partial and inadequate ransom: your wealth and your city are the
only presents worthy of my acceptance. For yourselves, I shall permit you
to depart, each with an undergarment and a shirt; and, at my entreaty,
my friend Shahr Barz will not refuse a passage through his lines. Your
absent prince, even now a captive or fugitive, has left Constantinople to
its fate; nor can you escape the arms of the Avars and Persians, unless
you could soar into the air like birds, unless like fishes you could dive
into the waves.”
During ten successive days, the capital was assaulted by the Avars,
who had made some progress in the science of attack; they advanced to
sap or batter the wall, under the cover of the impenetrable tortoise;
their engines discharged a perpetual volley of stones and darts; and
twelve lofty towers of wood exalted the combatants to the height of the
neighbouring ramparts. But the senate and people were animated by the
spirit of Heraclius, who had detached to their relief a body of twelve
thousand cuirassiers; the powers of fire and mechanics were used with
superior art and success in the defence of Constantinople; and the
galleys, with two and three ranks of oars, commanded the Bosporus, and
rendered the Persians the idle spectators of the defeat of their allies.
The Avars were repulsed; a fleet of Slavonian canoes was destroyed in the
harbour; the vassals of the chagan threatened to desert, his provisions
were exhausted, and after burning his engines, he gave the signal of a
slow and formidable retreat. The devotion of the Romans ascribed this
signal deliverance to the Virgin Mary; but the mother of Christ would
surely have condemned their inhuman murder of the Persian envoys, who
were entitled to the rights of humanity, if they were not protected by
the laws of nations.
THIRD EXPEDITION OF HERACLIUS
[Sidenote: [626-627 A.D.]]
After the division of his army, Heraclius prudently retired to the banks
of the Phasis, from whence he maintained a defensive war against the
fifty thousand gold spears of Persia. His anxiety was relieved by the
deliverance of Constantinople; his hopes were confirmed by a victory of
his brother Theodorus; and to the hostile league of Chosroes with the
Avars, the Roman emperor opposed the useful and honourable alliance of
the Turks. At his liberal invitation, the horde of Khazars transported
their tents from the plains of the Volga to the mountains of Georgia;
Heraclius received them in the neighbourhood of Tiflis, and the khan with
his nobles dismounted from their horses, if we may credit the Greeks,
and fell prostrate on the ground, to adore the purple of the cæsar.
Such voluntary homage and important aid were entitled to the warmest
acknowledgments; and the emperor, taking off his own diadem, placed it
on the head of the Turkish prince, whom he saluted with a tender embrace
and the appellation of son. After a sumptuous banquet he presented Ziebel
with the plate and ornaments, the gold, the gems, and the silk, which had
been used at the imperial table, and, with his own hand, distributed rich
jewels and earrings to his new allies.
In a secret interview he produced the portrait of his daughter Eudocia,
condescended to flatter the barbarian with the promise of a fair and
august bride, obtained an immediate succour of forty thousand horse,
and negotiated a strong diversion of the Turkish arms on the side of
the Oxus. The Persians, in their turn, retreated with precipitation;
in the camp of Edessa, Heraclius reviewed an army of seventy thousand
Romans and strangers; and some months were successfully employed in
the recovery of the cities of Syria, Mesopotamia, and Armenia, whose
fortifications had been imperfectly restored. Shahr Barz still maintained
the important station of Chalcedon; but the jealousy of Chosroes, or the
artifice of Heraclius, soon alienated the mind of that powerful satrap
from the service of his king and country. A messenger was intercepted
with a real or fictitious mandate to the cadarigan, or second in command,
directing him to send, without delay, to the throne, the head of a
guilty or unfortunate general. The despatches were transmitted to Shahr
Barz himself; and as soon as he read the sentence of his own death, he
dexterously inserted the names of four hundred officers, assembled a
military council, and asked the cadarigan whether he was prepared to
execute the commands of their tyrant? The Persians unanimously declared
that Chosroes had forfeited the sceptre; a separate treaty was concluded
with the government of Constantinople; and if some considerations of
honour or policy restrained Shahr Barz from joining the standard of
Heraclius, the emperor was assured that he might prosecute, without
interruption, his designs of victory and peace.
Deprived of his firmest support, and doubtful of the fidelity of his
subjects, the greatness of Chosroes was still conspicuous in its ruins.
The number of five hundred thousand may be interpreted as an oriental
metaphor, to describe the men and arms, the horses and elephants, that
covered Media and Assyria against the invasion of Heraclius. Yet the
Romans boldly advanced from the Araxes to the Tigris, and the timid
prudence of Rhazates was content to follow them by forced marches through
a desolate country, till he received a peremptory mandate to risk the
fate of Persia in a decisive battle. Eastward of the Tigris, at the end
of the bridge of Mosul, the great Nineveh had formerly been erected; the
city, and even the ruins of the city, had long since disappeared: the
vacant space afforded a spacious field for the operations of the two
armies. But these operations are neglected by the Byzantine historians,
and, like the authors of epic poetry and romance, they ascribe the
victory, not to the military conduct, but to the personal valour of their
favourite hero.
BATTLE OF NINEVEH (627)
On this memorable day, Heraclius, on his horse Phallus,[38] surpassed
the bravest of his warriors; his lip was pierced with a spear, the steed
was wounded in the thigh, but he carried his master safe and victorious
through the triple phalanx of the barbarians. In the heat of the action,
three valiant chiefs were successively slain by the sword and lance of
the emperor; among these was Rhazates himself; he fell like a soldier,
but the sight of his head scattered grief and despair through the
fainting ranks of the Persians. His armour of pure and massy gold, the
shield of 120 plates, the sword and belt, the saddle and cuirass, adorned
the triumph of Heraclius; and if he had not been faithful to Christ and
his mother, the champion of Rome might have offered the fourth _opime_
spoils to the Jupiter of the Capitol. In the battle of Nineveh, which
was fiercely fought from daybreak to the eleventh hour, twenty-eight
standards, besides those which might be broken or torn, were taken from
the Persians; the greatest part of their army was cut in pieces, and the
victors, concealing their own loss, passed the night on the field. They
acknowledged, that on this occasion it was less difficult to kill than to
discomfit the soldiers of Chosroes; amidst the bodies of their friends,
no more than two bow-shot from the enemy, the remnant of the Persian
cavalry stood firm till the seventh hour of the night; about the eighth
hour they retired to their unrifled camp, collected their baggage, and
dispersed on all sides, from the want of orders rather than of resolution.
The diligence of Heraclius was not less admirable in the use of victory;
by a march of forty-eight miles in four-and-twenty hours, his vanguard
occupied the bridges of the great and the lesser Zab; and the cities and
palaces of Assyria were open for the first time to the Romans. By a just
gradation of magnificent scenes, they penetrated to the royal seat of
Dastagherd, and though much of the treasure had been removed, and much
had been expended, the remaining wealth appears to have exceeded their
hopes, and even to have satiated their avarice. Whatever could not be
easily transported, they consumed with fire, that Chosroes might feel the
anguish of those wounds which he had so often inflicted on the provinces
of the empire; and justice might allow the excuse, if the desolation
had been confined to the works of regal luxury, if national hatred,
military license, and religious zeal, had not wasted with equal rage the
habitations and the temples of the guiltless subject.
[Sidenote: [627-628 A.D.]]
The recovery of three hundred Roman standards, and the deliverance of
the numerous captives of Edessa and Alexandria, reflect a purer glory
on the arms of Heraclius. From the palace of Dastagherd he pursued his
march within a few miles of Modain or Ctesiphon, till he was stopped on
the banks of the Arba, by the difficulty of the passage, the rigour of
the season, and perhaps the fame of an impregnable capital. The return
of the emperor is marked by the modern name of the city of Sherhzur; he
fortunately passed Mount Zara before the snow, which fell incessantly
thirty-four days; and the citizens of Ganzaca, or Tauris, were compelled
to entertain his soldiers and their horses with an hospitable reception.
THE END OF CHOSROES (628)
When the ambition of Chosroes was reduced to the defence of his
hereditary kingdom, the love of glory, or even the sense of shame,
should have urged him to meet his rival in the field. In the battle of
Nineveh, his courage might have taught the Persians to vanquish, or
he might have fallen with honour by the lance of a Roman emperor. The
successor of Cyrus chose rather, at a secure distance, to expect the
event, to assemble the relics of the defeat, and to retire by measured
steps before the march of Heraclius, till he beheld with a sigh the
once-loved mansions of Dastagherd. Both his friends and enemies were
persuaded that it was the intention of Chosroes to bury himself under the
ruins of the city and palace; and as both might have been equally adverse
to his flight, the monarch of Asia, with Sira and three concubines,
escaped through a hole in the wall nine days before the arrival of the
Romans. The slow and stately procession in which he showed himself to
the prostrate crowd was changed to a rapid and secret journey; and the
first evening he lodged in the cottage of a peasant, whose humble door
would scarcely give admittance to the Great King. His superstition was
subdued by fear: on the third day he entered with joy the fortifications
of Ctesiphon; yet he still doubted of his safety till he had opposed the
river Tigris to the pursuit of the Romans.
It was still in the power of Chosroes to obtain a reasonable peace;
and he was repeatedly pressed by the messengers of Heraclius to spare
the blood of his subjects, and to relieve a humane conqueror from the
painful duty of carrying fire and sword through the fairest countries
of Asia. But the pride of the Persian had not yet sunk to the level
of his fortune; he derived a momentary confidence from the retreat of
the emperor; he wept with impotent rage over the ruins of his Assyrian
palaces, and disregarded too long the rising murmurs of the nation,
who complained that their lives and fortunes were sacrificed to the
obstinacy of an old man. That unhappy old man was himself tortured with
the sharpest pains, both of mind and body; and, in the consciousness
of his approaching end, he resolved to fix the tiara on the head of
Merdaza, the most favoured of his sons. But the will of Chosroes was no
longer revered, and Siroes, who gloried in the rank and merit of his
mother Sira, had conspired with the malcontents to assert and anticipate
the rights of primogeniture. Twenty-two satraps, they styled themselves
patriots, were tempted by the wealth and honours of a new reign; to
the soldiers, the heir of Chosroes promised an increase of pay; to the
Christians, the free exercise of their religion; to the captives, liberty
and rewards; and to the nation, instant peace and the reduction of taxes.
It was determined by the conspirators that Siroes, with the ensigns of
royalty, should appear in the camp; and if the enterprise should fail,
his escape was contrived to the imperial court. But the new monarch was
saluted with unanimous acclamations; the flight of Chosroes (yet where
could he have fled?) was rudely arrested, eighteen sons were massacred
before his face, and he was thrown into a dungeon, where he expired
on the fifth day. The Greeks and modern Persians minutely described
how Chosroes was insulted, and famished, and tortured, by the command
of an inhuman son, who so far surpassed the example of his father;
but at the time of his death, what tongue would relate the story of
the parricide--what eye could penetrate into the tower of darkness?
According to the faith and mercy of his Christian enemies, he sank
without hope into a still deeper abyss; and it will not be denied that
tyrants of every age and sect are the best entitled to such infernal
abodes. The glory of the house of Sassan ended with the life of Chosroes;
his unnatural son enjoyed only eight months the fruit of his crimes;
and in the space of four years the regal title was assumed by nine
candidates, who disputed with the sword or dagger the fragments of an
exhausted monarchy. Every province, and each city of Persia, was the
scene of independence, of discord, and of blood; and the state of anarchy
prevailed about eight years longer, till the factions were silenced and
united under the common yoke of the Arabian caliphs.
As soon as the mountains became passable, the emperor received the
welcome news of the success of the conspiracy, the death of Chosroes,
and the elevation of his eldest son to the throne of Persia. The authors
of the revolution, eager to display their merits in the court or camp of
Tauris, preceded the ambassadors of Siroes, who delivered the letters of
their master to his brother the emperor of the Romans. In the language
of the usurpers of every age, he imputes his own crimes to the Deity,
and, without degrading his equal majesty, he offers to reconcile the
long discord of the two nations, by a treaty of peace and alliance more
durable than brass or iron. The conditions of the treaty were easily
defined and faithfully executed.
In the recovery of the standards and prisoners which had fallen into the
hands of the Persians, the emperor imitated the example of Augustus:
their care of the national dignity was celebrated by the poets of the
times, but the decay of genius may be measured by the distance between
Horace and George of Pisidia; the subjects and brethren of Heraclius were
redeemed from persecution, slavery, and exile; but instead of the Roman
eagles, the true wood of the holy cross was restored to the importunate
demands of the successor of Constantine. The victor was not ambitious
of enlarging the weakness of the empire; the son of Chosroes abandoned
without regret the conquests of his father; the Persians who evacuated
the cities of Syria and Egypt were honourably conducted to the frontier,
and a war which had wounded the vitals of the two monarchies, produced no
change in their external and relative situation. The return of Heraclius
from Tauris to Constantinople was a perpetual triumph; and after the
exploits of six glorious campaigns, he peaceably enjoyed the sabbath
of his toils. After a long impatience, the senate, the clergy, and the
people, went forth to meet their hero, with tears and acclamations,
with olive-branches and innumerable lamps; he entered the capital in
a chariot drawn by four elephants; and as soon as the emperor could
disengage himself from the tumult of public joy, he tasted more genuine
satisfaction in the embraces of his mother and his son.
[Sidenote: [628-629 A.D.]]
The succeeding year was illustrated by a triumph of a very different
kind, the restitution of the true cross to the Holy Sepulchre. Heraclius
performed in person the pilgrimage of Jerusalem, the identity of the
relic was verified by the discreet patriarch, and this august ceremony
has been commemorated by the annual festival of the exaltation of the
cross. Before the emperor presumed to tread the consecrated ground, he
was instructed to strip himself of the diadem and purple, the pomp and
vanity of the world: but in the judgment of his clergy, the persecution
of the Jews was more easily reconciled with the precepts of the Gospel.
He again ascended his throne to receive the congratulations of the
ambassadors of France and India: and the fame of Moses, Alexander, and
Hercules was eclipsed, in the popular estimation, by the superior merit
and glory of the great Heraclius. Yet the deliverer of the East was
indigent and feeble. Of the Persian spoils, the most valuable portion had
been expended in the war, distributed to the soldiers, or buried, by an
unlucky tempest, in the waves of the Euxine.
The conscience of the emperor was oppressed by the obligation of
restoring the wealth of the clergy, which he had borrowed for their
own defence; a perpetual fund was required to satisfy these inexorable
creditors; the provinces, already wasted by the arms and avarice of
the Persians, were compelled to a second payment of the same taxes;
and the arrears of a simple citizen, the treasurer of Damascus, were
commuted to a fine of one hundred thousand pieces of gold. The loss of
two hundred thousand soldiers who had fallen by the sword, was of less
fatal importance than the decay of arts, agriculture, and population, in
this long and destructive war: and although a victorious army had been
formed under the standard of Heraclius, the unnatural effort appears to
have exhausted rather than exercised their strength. While the emperor
triumphed at Constantinople or Jerusalem, an obscure town on the confines
of Syria was pillaged by the Saracens, and they cut in pieces some troops
who advanced to its relief: an ordinary and trifling occurrence, had
it not been the prelude of a mighty revolution. These robbers were the
apostles of Mohammed; their fanatic valour had emerged from the desert;
and in the last eight years of his reign Heraclius lost to the Arabs the
same provinces which he had rescued from the Persians.[b]
FOOTNOTES
[29] [The account of this embassy is found in the poems of the African
Corippus,[c] who described in Latin hexameters the circumstances of
Justin’s accession.]
[30] [This speech which John of Ephesus[d] says was taken down in
shorthand is quoted with an apologetic claim of accuracy by Theophylactus
Simocatta.[e]]
[31] [This is the story of Theophanes,[f] but John of Ephesus[d] tells
an anecdote in direct contradiction, according to which Sophia knew of
the wife’s existence, but refused to permit her to reside at the palace,
being resolved that no other queen should reign while she lived. When,
however, Tiberius was crowned he brought Anastasia to the palace and
compelled her recognition.]
[32] [Bury,[g] however, declares that “there is considerable reason to
remove Tiberius from his pedestal,” as he “did not make a good emperor.”]
[33] [Finlay[i] suggests that these men may have been deserters, but
gives very meagre reasons for his charitable supposition.]
[34] Baronius[j] gravely relates this discovery, or rather transmutation
of barrels, not of honey but of gold. Yet the loan was arbitrary, since
it was collected by soldiers, who were ordered to leave the patriarch not
more than one hundred pounds of gold.
[35] [A lunar eclipse two days earlier, fixes the date of the battle in
January, 623.]
[36] [This is Gibbon’s[b] opinion, but Finlay[i] thinks it “rests on a
very doubtful conjecture.”]
[37] [The words are given by Theophanes[f] but Bury[g] finds the lines so
metrical that he thinks they must have been quoted from a lost work by
George of Pisidia, whose _Heraclian Persian Expedition_ and _War with the
Avars_ are important sources of information in this respect.]
[38] [According to others the name should be Phalbas or Dorkon.]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER VI. HERACLIUS AND HIS SUCCESSORS
[610-717 A.D.]
“Everyone who reads the history of Heraclius,” says Bury,[b] “is met by
the problems: how did the great hero of the last Persian War spend the
first ten years of his reign; and why did he relapse into lethargy after
his final triumph?”
Many explanations have been attempted to account for the actions of
this man, who first built up an empire, and then allowed it to crumble
under his feet. Bury’s explanation is the assumption that his will was
naturally weak and his sensibilities strong, and that for a time he was
raised above himself, as it were, by an inspired enthusiasm. When in
later years this cloak of enthusiasm was withdrawn, the weakness of his
true character was laid bare.[a]
[Sidenote: [610-641 A.D.]]
The reign of Heraclius is one of the most remarkable epochs, both in
the history of the empire and in the annals of mankind. It warded
off the almost inevitable destruction of the Roman government for
another century; it laid the foundation of that policy which prolonged
the existence of the imperial power at Constantinople under a new
modification, as the Byzantine monarchy; and it was contemporary with the
commencement of the great moral change in the condition of the people
which transformed the language and manners of the ancient world into
those of modern nations. The Eastern Empire was indebted to the talents
of Heraclius for its escape from those ages of barbarism which, for many
centuries, prevailed in all western Europe. No period of society could
offer a field for instructive study more likely to present practical
results to the highly civilised political communities of modern Europe;
yet there is no time of which the existing memorials of the constitution
and frame of society are so imperfect and unsatisfactory.
It was perhaps a misfortune for mankind that Heraclius was by birth a
Roman rather than a Greek, as his views were from that accident directed
to the maintenance of the imperial dominion, without any reference to
the national organisation of his people. His civilisation, like that of
a large portion of the ruling class in the Eastern Empire, was too far
removed from the state of ignorance into which the mass of the population
had fallen, for the one to be influenced by the feelings of the other, or
for both to act together with the energy conferred by unity of purpose
in a variety of ranks. Heraclius, being by birth and family connections
an African noble, must have regarded himself as of pure Roman blood,
superior to all national prejudices, and bound by duty and policy to
repress the domineering spirit of the Greek aristocracy in the state, and
of the Greek hierarchy in the church.
Language and manners began to give to national feelings almost as much
power in forming men into distinct societies as political arrangements.
The influence of the clergy followed the divisions established by
language, rather than the political organisation adopted by the
government: and as the clergy now formed the most popular and the ablest
portion of society, the church exerted more influence over the minds of
the people than the civil administration and the imperial power, even
though the emperor was the acknowledged sovereign and master of the
patriarchs and the pope.
It is necessary to observe here, that the established church of the
empire had ceased to be the universal Christian church. The Greeks had
rendered themselves the depositaries of its power and influence; they had
already corrupted Christianity into the Greek church; and other nations
were rapidly forming separate ecclesiastical societies to supply their
own spiritual wants. The Armenians, Syrians, and Egyptians were induced
by national aversion to the ecclesiastical tyranny of the Greeks, as well
as by spiritual preference of the doctrines of Nestorius and Eutyches, to
oppose the established church. At the time Heraclius ascended the throne,
these national and religious feelings already exercised their power of
modifying the operations of the Roman government, and of enabling mankind
to advance one step towards the establishment of individual liberty and
intellectual independence.
In order fully to comprehend the lamentable state of weakness to which
the empire was reduced, it will be necessary to take a cursory view of
the condition of the different provinces. The continual ravages of the
barbarians who occupied the country beyond the Danube had extended as far
as the southern shores of the Peloponnesus. The agricultural population
was almost exterminated, except where it was protected by the immediate
vicinity of fortified towns, or secured by the fastnesses of the
mountains. The inhabitants of all the countries between the Archipelago
and the Adriatic had been greatly diminished, and fertile provinces
remained everywhere desolate, ready to receive new occupants. As great
part of these countries yielded very little revenue to the government,
they were considered by the court of Constantinople as of hardly any
value, except in so far as they covered the capital from hostile attacks,
or commanded the commercial routes to the west of Europe. At this time
the Indian and Chinese trade had in part been forced round the north of
the Caspian Sea, in consequence of the Persian conquests in Syria and
Egypt, and the disturbed state of the country immediately to the east of
Persia. The rich produce transported by the caravans, which reached the
northern shores of the Black Sea, was then transported to Constantinople,
and from thence distributed through western Europe.
Under these circumstances, Thessalonica and Dyrrhachium became points
of great consequence to the empire, and were successfully defended by
the emperor amidst all his calamities. These two cities commanded the
extremities of the usual road between Constantinople and Ravenna, and
connected the towns on the Archipelago with the Adriatic and with Rome.
The open country was abandoned to the Avars and Slavonians, who were
allowed to effect permanent settlements even to the south of the Via
Egnatia; but none of these settlements were suffered to interfere with
the lines of communication, without which the imperial influence in
Italy would have been soon annihilated, and the trade of the West lost
to the Greeks. The ambition of the barbarians was inclined to dare any
attempt to encroach on the wealth of the Eastern Empire, and they tried
to establish a system of maritime depredations in the Archipelago; but
Heraclius was able to frustrate their schemes, though it is probable that
he owed his success more to the exertions of the mercantile population of
the Greek cities than to the exploits of his own troops.
National distinctions and religious interests tended to divide the
population, and to balance political power, much more in Italy than in
the other countries of Europe. The influence of the church in protecting
the people, the weakness of the Lombard sovereigns, from the small
numerical strength of the Lombard population, and the oppressive fiscal
government of the Roman exarchs, gave the Italians the means of creating
a national existence, amidst the conflicts of their masters. Yet so
imperfect was the unity of interests, or so great were the difficulties
of communication between the people of various parts of Italy, that the
imperial authority not only defended its own dominions with success
against foreign enemies, but also repressed with ease the ambitious or
patriotic attempts of the popes to acquire political power, and punished
equally the seditions of the people and the rebellions of the chiefs,
who, like Joannes Compsa of Neapolis and the exarch Eleutherinus, aspired
at independence.
Africa alone, of all the provinces of the empire, continued to use the
Latin language in ordinary life; and its inhabitants regarded themselves,
with some reason, as the purest descendants of the Romans. After the
victories of Johannes the Patrician, it had enjoyed a long period of
tranquillity, and its prosperity was undisturbed by any spirit of
nationality adverse to the supremacy of the empire, or by schismatic
opinions hostile to the church. The barbarous tribes to the south were
feeble enemies, and no foreign state possessed a naval force capable of
troubling its repose or interrupting its commerce. Under the able and
fortunate administration of Heraclius and Gregoras, the father and uncle
of the emperor, Africa formed the most flourishing portion of the empire.
Its prosperous condition, and the wars raging in other countries, threw
great part of the commerce of the Mediterranean into the hands of the
Africans. Wealth and population increased to such a degree that the naval
expedition of the emperor Heraclius, and the army of his cousin Nicetas,
were fitted out from the resources of Africa alone. Another strong proof
of the prosperity of the province, of its importance to the empire, and
of its attachment to the interests of the Heraclian family is afforded by
the resolution which the emperor adopted, in the ninth year of his reign,
of transferring the imperial residence from Constantinople to Carthage.
In Constantinople an immense body of idle inhabitants had been collected,
a mass that had long formed a burden on the state, and acquired a right
to a portion of its resources. A numerous nobility, and a permanent
imperial household, conceived that they formed a portion of the Roman
government from the prominent part which they acted in the ceremonial
that connected the emperor with the people. Thus, the great natural
advantages of the geographical position of the capital were neutralised
by moral and political causes; while the desolate state of the European
provinces, and the vicinity of the northern frontier, began to expose it
to frequent sieges. As a fortress and place of arms, it might still have
formed the bulwark of the empire in Europe; but while it remained the
capital, its immense unproductive population required that too large
a part of the resources of the state should be devoted to supplying it
with provisions, to guarding against the factions and the seditions of
its populace, and to maintaining in it a powerful garrison. The luxury of
the Roman court had, during ages of unbounded wealth and unlimited power,
assembled round the emperor an infinity of courtly offices, and caused an
enormous expenditure, which it was extremely dangerous to suppress and
impossible to continue.
[Illustration: A SARACENIC METAL CASKET]
No national feelings or particular line of policy connected Heraclius
with Constantinople, and his frequent absence during the active years
of his life indicates that, as long as his personal energy and health
allowed him to direct the public administration, he considered the
constant residence of the emperor in that city injurious to the general
interests of the state. On the other hand, Carthage was, at this time,
peculiarly a Roman city; and in actual wealth, in the numbers of its
independent citizens, and in the activity of its whole population,
was probably inferior to no city in the empire. It is not surprising,
therefore, that Heraclius, when compelled to suppress the public
distributions of bread in the capital, to retrench the expenditure of
his court and make many reforms in his civil government, should have
wished to place the imperial treasury and his own resources in a place
of greater security, before he engaged in his desperate struggle with
Persia. The wish, therefore, to make Carthage the capital of the Roman
Empire may, with far greater probability, be connected with the gallant
project of his eastern campaigns, than with the cowardly or selfish
motives attributed to him by the Byzantine writers. Carthage offered
military resources for recovering possession of Egypt and Syria, of
which we can only now estimate the extent by taking into consideration
the expedition that placed Heraclius himself on the throne. Many reasons
connected with the constitution of the civil government of the empire
might likewise be adduced as tending to influence the preference.
THE PROVINCES UNDER HERACLIUS
Egypt, from its wonderful natural resources and its numerous and
industrious population, had long been the most valuable province of the
empire. It poured a very great portion of its gross produce into the
imperial treasury; for its agricultural population, being destitute
of all political power and influence, were compelled to pay, not only
taxes, but a tribute, which was viewed as a rent for the soil, to the
Roman government. At this time, however, the wealth of Egypt was on the
decline. The circumstances which had driven the trade of India to the
north, had caused a great decrease in the demand for the grain of Egypt
on the shores of the Red Sea, and for its manufactures in Arabia and
Ethiopia. The canal between the Nile and the Red Sea, whose existence is
intimately connected with the prosperity of these countries, had been
neglected during the government of Phocas.
A large portion of the Greek population of Alexandria had been ruined,
because an end had been put to the public distributions of grain, and
poverty had invaded the fertile land of Egypt. Joannes the Almsgiver,
who was patriarch and imperial prefect in the reign of Heraclius,
did everything in his power to alleviate this misery. He established
hospitals, and devoted the revenues of his see to charity; but he was an
enemy to heresy, and consequently he was hardly looked on as a friend by
the native population. National feelings, religious opinions, and local
interests, had always nourished, in the minds of the native Egyptians, a
deep-rooted hatred of the Roman administration and of the Greek church;
and this feeling of hostility only became more concentrated after the
union of the offices of prefect and patriarch by Justinian. A complete
line of separation existed between the Greek colony of Alexandria and
the native population, who, during the decline of the Greeks and Jews of
Alexandria, intruded themselves into political business, and gained some
degree of official importance. The cause of the emperor was now connected
with the commercial interests of the Greek and Melchite parties, but
these ruling classes were regarded by the agricultural population of
the rest of the province as interlopers on their sacred Jacobite soil.
Joannes the Almsgiver, though a Greek patriarch and an imperial prefect,
was not perfectly free from the charge of heresy, nor, perhaps, of
employing the revenues under his control with more attention to charity
than to public utility.
The exigencies of Heraclius were so great that he sent his cousin the
patrician Nicetas to Egypt, in order to seize the immense wealth which
the patriarch Joannes was said to possess. In the following year the
Persians invaded the province; and the patrician and patriarch, unable
to defend even the city of Alexandria, fled to Cyprus, while the enemy
was allowed to subdue the valley of the Nile to the borders of Libya and
Ethiopia, without meeting any opposition from the imperial forces, and
apparently with the good wishes of the Egyptians. The plunder obtained
from public property and slaves was immense; and as the power of the
Greeks was annihilated, the native Egyptians availed themselves of the
opportunity to acquire a dominant influence in the administration of
their country.
For ten years the province owned allegiance to Persia, though it
enjoyed a certain degree of doubtful independence under the immediate
government of a native intendant-general of the land revenues named
Mokaukas, who subsequently, at the time of the Saracen conquest, acted
a conspicuous part in the history of his country. During the Persian
supremacy, he became so influential in the administration that he is
styled by several writers the prince of Egypt. Mokaukas, under the
Roman government, had conformed to the established church, in order to
hold an official situation, but he was, like most of his countrymen, at
heart a monophysite, and consequently inclined to oppose the imperial
administration, both from religious and political motives. Yet it appears
that a portion of the monophysite clergy steadily refused to submit
to the Persian government; and Benjamin their patriarch retired from
his residence at Alexandria when that city fell into the hands of the
Persians, and did not return until Heraclius had recovered possession of
Egypt.
Mokaukas established himself in the city of Babylon, or Misr, which
had grown up, on the decline of Memphis, to be the native capital of
the province and the chief city in the interior. The moment appears to
have been extremely favourable for the establishment of an independent
state by the monophysite Egyptians, since, amidst the conflicts of the
Persian and Roman empires, the immense revenues and supplies of grain
formerly paid to the emperor might have been devoted to the defence of
the country. But the native population appears, from the conduct of the
patriarch Benjamin, not to have been united in its views; and probably
the agricultural classes, though numerous, living in abundance, and firm
in their monophysite tenets, had not the knowledge necessary to aspire
at national independence, the strength of character required to achieve
it, or the command of the precious metals necessary to purchase the
service of mercenary troops and provide the materials of war. They had
been so long deprived of arms and of all political rights, that they
had probably adopted the opinion prevalent among the subjects of all
despotic governments, that public functionaries are invariably knaves,
and that the oppression of the native is more grievous than the yoke of
a stranger. The moral defects of the people could certainly, at this
favourable conjuncture, alone have prevented the establishment of an
independent Egyptian and Jacobite state.
It is said that about this time a prophecy was current, which declared
that the Roman Empire would be overthrown by a circumcised people. This
report may have been spread by the Jews, in order to excite their own
ardour and assist their projects of rebellion; but the prophecy was
saved from oblivion by the subsequent conquests of the Saracens, which
could never have been foreseen by its authors. The conduct of the Jews
excited the bigotry, as it may have awakened the fears, of the imperial
government, and both Phocas and Heraclius attempted to exterminate the
Jewish religion and if possible to put an end to the national existence.
Heraclius not only practised every species of cruelty himself to effect
this object within the bounds of his own dominions, but he even made
the forced conversion or banishment of the Jews a prominent feature in
his diplomacy. He consoled himself for the loss of most of the Roman
possessions in Spain, by inducing Sisibut to insert an article in the
treaty of peace concluded in 614, engaging the Gothic monarch to force
baptism on the Jews; and he considered that, even though he failed in
persuading the Franks to co-operate with him against the Avars, in the
year 620, he had rendered the empire and Christianity some service by
inducing Dagobert to join in the project of exterminating the unfortunate
Jews.
Asia Minor had become the chief seat of the Roman power in the time of
Heraclius, and the only portion in which the majority of the population
was attached to the imperial government and to the Greek church. Before
the reign of Phocas, it had escaped any extensive devastation, so that
it still retained much of its ancient wealth and splendour; and the
social life of the people was still modelled on the institutions and
usages of preceding ages. A considerable internal trade was carried on;
and the great roads, being kept in a tolerable state of repair, served
as arteries for the circulation of commerce and civilisation. That it
had, nevertheless, suffered very severely in the general decline caused
by over-taxation, and by reduced commerce, neglected agriculture, and
diminished population, is attested by the magnificent ruins of cities
which had already fallen to decay, and which never again recovered their
ancient prosperity.
The power of the central administration over its immediate officers
was almost as completely destroyed in Asia Minor as in the more
distant provinces of the empire. A remarkable proof of this general
disorganisation of the government is found in the history of the early
years of the reign of Heraclius; and one deserving particular attention
from its illustrating both his personal character and the state of the
empire. Crispus, the son-in-law of Phocas, had materially assisted
Heraclius in obtaining the throne; and as a recompense, he was charged
with the administration of Cappadocia, one of the richest provinces of
the empire, along with the chief command of the troops in his government.
Crispus, a man of influence, and of a daring, heedless character, soon
ventured to act, not only with independence, but even with insolence,
towards the emperor. He neglected the defence of his province; and when
Heraclius visited Cæsarea to examine into its state and prepare the
means of carrying on the war against Persia in person, he displayed
a spirit of insubordination and an assumption of importance which
amounted to treason. Heraclius, who possessed the means of restraining
his fiery temperament, visited the too-powerful officer in his bed,
which he kept under a slight or affected illness, and persuaded him to
visit Constantinople. On his appearance in the senate, he was arrested,
and compelled to become a monk. His authority and position rendered it
absolutely necessary for Heraclius to punish his presumption, before he
could advance with safety against the Persians.
Many less important personages, in various parts of the empire, acted
with equal independence, without the emperor’s considering that it was
either necessary to observe, or prudent to punish, their ambition. The
decline of the power of the central government, the increasing ignorance
of the people, the augmented difficulties in the way of communication,
and the general insecurity of property and life, effected extensive
changes in the state of society, and threw political influence into the
hands of the local governors, the municipal and provincial chiefs, and
the whole body of the clergy.
BARRIERS AGAINST THE NORTHERN BARBARIANS
Heraclius appears to have formed the plan of establishing a permanent
barrier in Europe against the encroachments of the Avars and Slavonians.
For the furtherance of this project, it was evident that he could derive
no assistance from the inhabitants of the provinces to the south of
the Danube. The imperial armies, too, which in the time of Maurice had
waged an active war in Illyricum and Thrace and frequently invaded the
territories of the Avars, had melted away during the disorders of the
reign of Phocas. The loss was irreparable; for in Europe no agricultural
population remained to supply the recruits required to form a new army.
The only feasible plan for circumscribing the ravages of the northern
enemies of the empire which presented itself, was the establishment
of powerful colonies of tribes hostile to the Avars and their eastern
Slavonian allies, in the deserted provinces of Dalmatia and Illyricum.
To accomplish this object Heraclius induced the Serbs, or western
Slavonians, who occupied the country about the Carpathian Mountains and
who had successfully opposed the extension of the Avar empire in that
direction, to abandon their ancient seats, and move down to the south
into the provinces between the Adriatic and the Danube. The Roman and
Greek population of these provinces had been driven towards the sea coast
by the continual incursions of the northern tribes, and the desolate
plains of the interior had been occupied by a few Slavonian subjects and
vassals of the Avars. The most important of the western Slavonian tribes
who moved southward at the invitation of Heraclius were the Servians
and Croatians, who settled in the countries still peopled by their
descendants. Their original settlements were formed in consequence of
friendly arrangements, and, doubtless, under the sanction of an express
treaty; for the Slavonian people of Illyricum and Dalmatia long regarded
themselves as bound to pay a certain degree of territorial allegiance to
the Eastern Empire.
[Illustration: A SARACEN]
The measures of Heraclius were carried into execution with skill and
vigour. From the borders of Istria to the territory of Dyrrhachium, the
whole country was occupied by a variety of tribes of Servian or western
Slavonic origin, hostile to the Avars. These colonies, unlike the earlier
invaders of the empire, were composed of agricultural communities; and to
the facility which this circumstance afforded them of adopting into their
political system any remnant of the old Slavonic population of their
conquests, it seems just to attribute the permanency and prosperity of
their settlements. Unlike the military races of Goths, Huns, and Avars,
who had preceded them, the Servian nations increased and flourished
in the lands which they had colonised; and by the absorption of every
relic of the ancient population, they formed political communities and
independent states, which offered a firm barrier to the Avars and other
hostile nations.
The fame of Heraclius would have rivalled that of Alexander, Hannibal, or
Cæsar, had he expired at Jerusalem, after the successful termination of
the Persian War. He had established peace throughout the empire, restored
the strength of the Roman government, revived the power of Christianity
in the East, and replanted the holy cross on Mount Calvary. His glory
admitted of no addition. Unfortunately, the succeeding years of his reign
have, in the general opinion, tarnished his fame. Yet these years were
devoted to many arduous labours; and it is to the wisdom with which he
restored the strength of his government during this time of peace that we
must attribute the energy of the Asiatic Greeks who arrested the great
tide of Mohammedan conquest at the foot of Mount Taurus. Though the
military glory of Heraclius was obscured by the brilliant victories of
the Saracens, still his civil administration ought to receive its meed
of praise, when we compare the resistance made by the empire which he
reorganised with the facility which the followers of Mohammed found in
extending their conquests over every other land from India to Spain.
RELIGIOUS ACTIVITIES OF HERACLIUS
The policy of Heraclius was directed to the establishment of a bond of
union, which should connect all the provinces of his empire into one
body, and he hoped to replace the want of national unity by identity of
religious belief. The church was far more closely connected with the
people than any other institution, and the emperor, as political head
of the church, hoped to direct a well-organised body of churchmen.
But Heraclius engaged in the impracticable task of imposing a rule of
faith on his subjects, without assuming the office, or claiming the
authority of a prophet or a saint. His measures, consequently, like
all ecclesiastical and religious reforms which are adopted solely from
political motives, only produced additional discussions and difficulties.
In the year 630, he propounded the doctrine that in Christ, after the
union of the two natures, there was but one will and one operation.
Without gaining over any great body of the schismatics whom he wished to
restore to the communion of the established church by his new rule of
faith, he was himself generally stigmatised as a heretic. The epithet
Monothelite was applied to him and to his doctrine, to show that neither
was orthodox.
In the hope of putting an end to the disputes which he had rashly
awakened, he again, in 639, attempted to legislate for the church, and
published his celebrated _Ecthesis_, which, though it attempts to remedy
the effects of his prior proceedings, by forbidding all controversy on
the question of the single or double operation of the will in Christ,
nevertheless includes a declaration in favour of unity. The bishop of
Rome, already aspiring after an increase of his spiritual authority,
though perhaps not yet contemplating the possibility of perfect
independence, entered actively into the opposition excited by the
publication of the _Ecthesis_, and was supported by a considerable party
in the Eastern church, while he directed the proceedings of the whole of
the Western clergy.
On a careful consideration of the religious position of the empire,
it cannot appear surprising that Heraclius should have endeavoured to
reunite the Nestorians, Eutychians, and Jacobites to the established
church, particularly when we remember how closely the influence of
the church was connected with the administration of the state, and
how completely religious passions replaced national feelings in these
secondary ages of Christianity. The union was an indispensable step to
the re-establishment of the imperial power in the provinces of Egypt,
Syria, Mesopotamia, and Armenia; and it must not be overlooked that the
theological speculations and ecclesiastical reforms of Heraclius were
approved of by the wisest councillors whom he had been able to select to
aid him in the government of the empire. The state of society required
some strong remedy, and Heraclius only erred in adopting the plan which
had always been pursued by absolute monarchs, namely, that of making the
sovereign’s opinion the rule of conduct for his subjects. We can hardly
suppose that Heraclius would have succeeded better, had he assumed the
character or deserved the veneration due to a saint.
The marked difference which existed between the higher and educated
classes in the East, and the ignorant and superstitious populace,
rendered it next to impossible that any line of conduct could secure the
judgment of the learned, and awaken the fanaticism of the people. As a
further apology for Heraclius it may be noticed that his acknowledged
power over the orthodox clergy was much greater than that which was
possessed by the Byzantine emperors at a later period, or that which
was admitted by the Latin church after its separation. In spite of all
the advantages which he possessed, his attempt ended in a most signal
failure; yet no experience could ever induce his successors to avoid his
error. His effort to strengthen his power by establishing a principle of
unity, aggravated all the evils which he intended to cure; for while the
monophysites and the Greeks were as little disposed to unite as ever, the
authority of the Eastern church, as a body, was weakened by the creation
of a new schism, and the incipient divisions between the Greeks and the
Latins, assuming a national character, began to prepare the way for the
separation of the two churches.
While Heraclius was endeavouring to restore the strength of the empire
in the East, and enforce unity of religious views,--the pursuit of which
has ever been one of the greatest errors of the human mind,--Mohammed,
by a juster application of the aspiration of mankind after unity, had
succeeded in uniting Arabia into one state and in persuading it to
adopt one religion. The force of this new empire of the Saracens was
directed against those provinces of the Roman Empire which Heraclius
had been anxiously endeavouring to reunite in spirit to his government.
The difficulties of their administration had compelled the emperor to
fix his residence for some years in Syria, and he was well aware of
the uncertainty of their allegiance, before the Saracens commenced
their invasion. The successes of the Mohammedan arms, and the retreat
of the emperor, carrying off with him the holy cross from Jerusalem,
have induced historians to suppose that his latter years were spent in
sloth, and marked by weakness. His health, however, was in so precarious
a state that he could no longer direct the operations of his army in
person; at times, indeed, he was incapable of all bodily exertion.
Yet the resistance which the Saracens encountered in Syria was very
different from the ease with which it had yielded to the Persians at the
commencement of the emperor’s reign, and attests that his administration
had not been without fruit.
Many of his reforms could only have been effected after the conclusion
of the Persian War, when he recovered possession of Syria and Egypt.
He seems indeed never to have omitted an opportunity of strengthening
his position; and when a chief of the Huns or Bulgarians threw off his
allegiance to the Avars, Heraclius is recorded to have immediately
availed himself of the opportunity to form an alliance, in order to
circumscribe the power of his dangerous northern enemy. Unfortunately,
few traces can be gleaned from the Byzantine writers of the precise
acts by which he effected his reforms; and the most remarkable facts,
illustrating the political history of the time, must be collected from
incidental notices, preserved in the treatise of the emperor Constantine
Porphyrogenitus, concerning the administration of the empire, written for
the instruction of his son Romanus.
WARS WITH THE MOHAMMEDANS
[Sidenote: [633-640 A.D.]]
In the year 633 the Mohammedans invaded Syria, where their progress was
rapid, although Heraclius himself was in the neighbourhood. The imperial
troops made considerable effort to support the military renown of the
Roman armies, but were almost universally unsuccessful. The emperor
intrusted the command of the army to his brother Theodore, who had
distinguished himself in the Persian wars. Vartan, who commanded after
Theodore, had also distinguished himself in the last glorious campaign
in Persia. [As we have already said] the health of Heraclius prevented
his taking the field in person, and the absence of all moral checks
in the Roman administration, and the total want of patriotism in the
officers and troops at this period, rendered the personal influence of
the emperor necessary at the head of his armies in order to preserve due
subordination, and enforce union among the leading men of the empire.
Towards the end of the year 633, the troops of Abu Bekr laid siege to
Bostra, a strong frontier town of Syria, which was surrendered early in
the following year by the treachery of its governor. During the campaign
of 634 the Roman armies were defeated at Adjnadin, in the south of
Palestine, and at a bloody and decisive battle on the banks of the river
Yermouk, in which it is said that the imperial troops were commanded by
the emperor’s brother Theodore. Theodore was replaced by Vartan, but the
rebellion of Vartan’s army and another defeat terminated this general’s
career. In the third year of the war the Saracens gained possession of
Damascus by capitulation, and they guaranteed to the inhabitants the
full exercise of their municipal privileges, allowed them to use their
local mint, and left the orthodox in possession of the great church of
St. John. About the same time, Heraclius quitted Edessa and returned to
Constantinople, carrying with him the holy cross which he had recovered
from the Persians, and deposited at Jerusalem with great solemnity only
six years before, but which he now considered it necessary to remove
into Europe for greater safety. His son, Heraclius Constantine, who had
received the imperial title when an infant, remained in Syria to supply
his place and direct the military operations for the defence of the
province. Wherever the imperial garrison was not sufficient to overawe
the inhabitants, the native Syrians sought to make any arrangement with
the Arabs which would insure their towns from plunder, feeling satisfied
that the Arab authorities could not use their power with greater rapacity
and cruelty than the imperial officers. The Romans still retained some
hope of reconquering Syria, until the loss of another decisive battle in
the year 636 compelled them to abandon the province. In the following
year, 637 A.D., the Arabs advanced to Jerusalem, and the surrender of the
Holy City was marked by arrangements between the patriarch Sophronius
and the caliph Omar. The facility with which the Greek patriarch of
Jerusalem, Sophronius, at this time, and the patriarch of Constantinople,
Gennaddius, at the time of the conquest of the Byzantine Empire by
Muhammed II (1453 A.D.), became the ministers of their Mohammedan
conquerors, shows the slight hold which national feelings retained over
the minds of the orthodox Greek clergy. Heraclius concentrated an army
at Amida (Diarbekr) in the year 638, which made a bold attempt to regain
possession of the north of Syria. Emesa was besieged; but the Saracens
soon assembled an overwhelming force; the Romans were defeated, the
conquest of Syria was completed.
The Arab conquest not only put an end to the political power of the
Romans, which had lasted seven hundred years, but it also soon rooted
out every trace of the Greek civilisation introduced by the conquests of
Alexander the Great, and which had flourished in the country for upwards
of nine centuries. The year after Syria was subdued, Mesopotamia was
invaded, and proved an easy conquest.
As soon as the Arabs had completed the conquest of Syria, they invaded
Egypt. The emperor Heraclius sent an Armenian governor, Manuel, with a
body of troops, to defend the province. The fortune of the Arabs again
prevailed, and the Roman army was defeated. If the accounts of historians
can be relied on, it would seem that the population of Egypt had suffered
less from the vicious administration of the Roman Empire, and from the
Persian invasion, than any other part of their dominions; for about the
time of its conquest by the Romans it contained seven millions and a
half, exclusive of Alexandria, and its population was now estimated at
six millions.
[Illustration: COMBAT OF ROMAN GALLEYS]
A year after Amru had completed the conquest of Egypt, he had established
the water communication between the Nile and the Red Sea: and, by sending
large supplies of grain by the canal to Suez, he was able to relieve the
inhabitants of Mecca, who were suffering from famine. After more than one
interruption from neglect, the policy of the caliphs of Baghdad allowed
it to fall into decay, and it was filled up by Almansor, 762-767 A.D.
[Sidenote: [640-646 A.D.]]
As soon as the Arabs had settled the affairs of the native population,
they laid siege to Alexandria. This city made a vigorous defence, and
Heraclius exerted himself to succour it; but, though it held out for
several months, it was at last taken by the Arabs, for the troubles
which occurred at Constantinople after the death of Heraclius prevented
the Roman government from sending reinforcements to the garrison. The
confidence of the Saracens induced them to leave a feeble corps for
its defence after they had taken it; and the Roman troops, watching an
opportunity for renewing the war, recovered the city, and massacred the
Mohammedans, but were soon compelled to retire to their ships, and make
their escape. In less than five years (646 A.D.), a Roman army, sent
by the emperor Constans under the command of Manuel, again recovered
possession of Alexandria, by the assistance of the Greek inhabitants who
had remained in the place; but the Mohammedans soon appeared before the
city, and, with the assistance of the Egyptians, compelled the imperial
troops to abandon their conquest.[39] The walls of Alexandria were thrown
down, the Greek population driven out, and the commercial importance of
the city destroyed. Thus perished one of the most remarkable colonies
of the Greek nation, and one of the most renowned seats of that Greek
civilisation of which Alexander the Great had laid the foundations in the
East, after having flourished in the highest degree of prosperity for
nearly a thousand years.
The conquest of Cyrenaīca followed the subjugation of Egypt as an
immediate consequence. The Greeks are said to have planted their first
colonies in this country 631 years before the Christian era, and twelve
centuries of uninterrupted possession appeared to have constituted them
the perpetual tenants of the soil; but the Arabs were very different
masters from the Romans, and under their domination the Greek race soon
became extinct in Africa. It is not necessary here to follow the Saracens
in their farther conquests westward. In a short time both Latin and Greek
civilisation was exterminated on the southern shores of the Mediterranean.
Though Heraclius failed in gaining over the Syrians and Egyptians,
yet he succeeded completely in reuniting the Greeks of Asia Minor to
his government, and in attaching them to the empire. His success may
be estimated from the failure of the Saracens in their attacks on the
population of this province. The moment the Mohammedan armies were
compelled to rely on their military skill and religious enthusiasm,
and were unable to derive any profit from the hostile feeling of the
inhabitants to the imperial government, their career of conquest was
checked; and almost a century before Charles Martel stopped their
progress in the west of Europe, the Greeks had arrested their conquests
in the East, by the steady resistance which they offered in Asia Minor.
The difficulties of Heraclius were very great. The Roman armies were
still composed of a rebellious soldiery collected from many discordant
nations; and the only leaders whom the emperor could venture to trust
with important military commands, were his immediate relations, like
his brother Theodore and his son Heraclius Constantine, or soldiers
of fortune who could not aspire at the imperial dignity. The apostasy
and treachery of a considerable number of the Roman officers in Syria
warranted Heraclius in regarding the defence of that province as utterly
hopeless; but the meagre historians of his reign can hardly be received
as conclusive authorities, to prove that on his retreat he displayed an
unseemly despair, or a criminal indifference. The fact that he carried
the holy cross, which he had restored to Jerusalem, along with him to
Constantinople, attests that he had lost all expectation of defending
the Holy City; but his exclamation of “Farewell, Syria!” was doubtless
uttered in the bitterness of his heart, on seeing a great part of the
labours of his life for the restoration of the Roman Empire utterly vain.
The disease which had long undermined his constitution finally put an
end to his life about five years after his return to Constantinople. He
died in March, 641, after one of the most remarkable reigns recorded in
history, chequered by the greatest successes and reverses, during which
the social condition of mankind underwent a considerable change, and the
germs of modern society began to sprout; yet there is, unfortunately, no
period of man’s annals covered with greater obscurity.
THE REIGN OF CONSTANS II (641-668 A.D.)
[Sidenote: [641-668 A.D.]]
After the death of Heraclius, the short reigns of his sons, Constantine
III, or Heraclius Constantine, and Heracleonas, were disturbed by court
intrigues and the disorders which naturally result from the want of
a settled law of succession. In such conjunctures the people and the
courtiers learn alike to traffic in sedition. Before the termination of
the year in which Heraclius died, his grandson Constans II mounted the
imperial throne at the age of eleven, in consequence of the death of his
father Constantine, and the dethronement of his uncle Heracleonas.[40]
An oration made by the young prince to the senate after his accession,
in which he invoked the aid of that body, and spoke of their power in
terms of reverence, warrants the conclusion that the aristocracy had
again recovered its influence over the imperial administration; and that,
though the emperor’s authority was still held to be absolute by the
constitution of the empire, it was really controlled by the influence of
the persons holding ministerial offices.[41]
Constans grew up to be a man of considerable abilities and of an
energetic character, but possessed of violent passions, and destitute of
all the amiable feelings of humanity. The early part of his reign, during
which the imperial ministers were controlled by the selfish aristocracy,
was marked by the loss of several portions of the empire. The Lombards
extended their conquests in Italy from the maritime Alps to the frontiers
of Tuscany; and the exarch of Ravenna was defeated with considerable loss
near Mutina; but still they were unable to make any serious impression
on the exarchate. Armenia was compelled to pay tribute to the Saracens.
Cyprus was rendered tributary to the caliph, though the amount of the
tribute imposed was only seventy-two hundred pieces of gold--half of what
it had previously paid to the emperor. This trifling sum can have hardly
amounted to the moiety of the surplus usually paid into the imperial
treasury after all the expenses of the local government were defrayed,
and cannot have borne any relation to the amount of taxation levied by
the Roman emperors.
RELIGIOUS FEUDS
[Sidenote: [641-653 A.D.]]
As soon as Constans was old enough to assume the direction of public
business, the two great objects of his policy were the establishment
of the absolute power of the emperor over the orthodox church, and the
recovery of the lost provinces of the empire. With the view of obtaining
and securing a perfect control over the ecclesiastical affairs of
his dominions, he published an edict, called the _Type_, in the year
648, when he was only eighteen years old. It was prepared by Paul the
patriarch of Constantinople and was intended to terminate the disputes
produced by the _Ecthesis_ of Heraclius. All parties were commanded
by the _Type_ to observe a profound silence on the previous quarrels
concerning the operation of the will in Christ. Liberty of conscience was
an idea almost unknown to any but the Mohammedans, so that Constans never
thought of appealing to any such right; and no party in the Christian
church was inclined to waive its orthodox authority of enforcing its own
opinions upon others.
The Latin church, led by the bishop of Rome, was always ready to oppose
the Greek clergy, who enjoyed the favour of the imperial court, and
this jealousy engaged the pope in violent opposition to the _Type_. But
the bishop of Rome was not then so powerful as the popes became at a
subsequent period, so that he durst not attempt directly to question
the authority of the emperor in regulating such matters. Perhaps it
appeared to him hardly prudent to rouse the passions of a young prince
of eighteen, who might prove not very bigoted in his attachment to any
party, as, indeed, the provisions of the _Type_ seemed to indicate.
[Illustration: ROBES OF A POPE OF THE SEVENTH CENTURY]
The pope Theodore therefore directed the whole of his ecclesiastical fury
against the patriarch of Constantinople, whom he excommunicated with
circumstances of singular and impressive violence. He descended with his
clergy into the dark tomb of St. Peter in the Vatican, now under the
centre of the dome in the vault of the great cathedral of Christendom,
consecrated the sacred cup, and, having dipped his pen in the blood of
Christ, signed an act of excommunication, condemning a brother bishop to
the pains of hell. To this indecent proceeding Paul the patriarch replied
by persuading the emperor to persecute the clergy who adhered to the
pope’s opinion, in a more regular and legal manner, by depriving them of
their temporalities, and condemning them to banishment.
The pope was supported by nearly the whole body of the Latin clergy, and
even by a considerable party in the East; yet, when Martin, the successor
of Theodore, ventured to anathematise the _Ecthesis_ and the _Type_, he
was seized by order of Constans, conveyed to Constantinople, tried, and
condemned on a charge of having supported the rebellion of the exarch
Olympius, and of having remitted money to the Saracens. The emperor, at
the intercession of the patriarch Paul, commuted his punishment to exile,
and the pope died in banishment at Cherson in Tauris. Though Constans did
not succeed in inculcating his doctrines on the clergy, he completely
succeeded in enforcing public obedience to his decrees in the church,
and the fullest acknowledgment of his supreme power over the persons
of the clergy. These disputes between the heads of the ecclesiastical
administration of the Greek and Latin churches afforded an excellent
pretext for extending the breach, which had its real origin in national
feelings and clerical interests, and was only widened by the difficult
and not very intelligible distinctions of monothelitism. Constans
himself, by his vigour and personal activity in this struggle, incurred
the bitter hatred of a large portion of the clergy, and his conduct has
been unquestionably the object of much misrepresentation and calumny.
THE GROWING DANGER FROM THE SARACENS
[Sidenote: [650-658 A.D.]]
The attention of Constans to ecclesiastical affairs induced him to visit
Armenia, where his attempts to unite the people to his government by
regulating the affairs of their church, were as unsuccessful as his
religious interference elsewhere. Dissensions were increased; one of
the imperial officers of high rank rebelled; and the Saracens availed
themselves of this state of things to invade both Armenia and Cappadocia,
and succeeded in rendering several districts tributary. The increasing
power of Moawyah, the Arab general, induced him to form a project for
the conquest of Constantinople, and he began to fit out a great naval
expedition at Tripolis in Syria. A daring enterprise of two brothers,
Christian inhabitants of the place, rendered the expedition abortive.
These two Tripolitans and their partisans broke open the prisons in which
the Roman captives were confined, and placing themselves at the head of
an armed band which they had hastily formed, seized the city, slew the
governor, and burned the fleet.
A second armament was at length prepared by the energy of Moawyah, and
as it was reported to be directed against Constantinople, the emperor
Constans took upon himself the command of his own fleet. He met the
Saracen expedition off Mount Phœnix in Lycia and attacked it with
great vigour. Twenty thousand Romans are said to have perished in the
battle; and the emperor himself owed his safety to the valour of one of
the Tripolitan brothers, whose gallant defence of the imperial galley
enabled the emperor to escape before its valiant defender was slain and
the vessel fell into the hands of the Saracens. The emperor retired to
Constantinople, but the hostile fleet had suffered too much to attempt
any further operations, and the expedition was abandoned for that year.
The death of Othman, and the pretensions of Moawyah (or Muaviah) to
the caliphate, withdrew the attention of the Arabs from the empire for
a short time, and Constans turned his forces against the Slavonians,
in order to deliver the European provinces from their ravages. They
were totally defeated, numbers were carried off as slaves, and many
were compelled to submit to the imperial authority. No certain grounds
exist for determining whether this expedition was directed against the
Slavonians who had established themselves between the Danube and Mount
Hæmus, or against those who had settled in Macedonia. The name of no town
is mentioned in the accounts of the campaign.
[Sidenote: [658-665 A.D.]]
When the affairs of the European provinces, in the vicinity of the
capital, were tranquillised, Constans again prepared to engage the Arabs;
and Moawyah, having need of all the forces he could command for his
contest with Ali, the son-in-law of Mohammed, consented to make peace, on
terms which contrast curiously with the perpetual defeats which Constans
is always represented by the orthodox historians of the empire to have
suffered. The Saracens engaged to confine their forces within Syria and
Mesopotamia, and Moawyah consented to pay Constans, for the cessation
of hostilities, the sum of a thousand pieces of silver, and to furnish
him with a slave and a horse for every day during which the peace should
continue (659 A.D.).
During the subsequent year, Constans condemned to death his brother
Theodosius, whom he had compelled to enter the priesthood. The cause of
this crime, or the pretext for it, is not mentioned. From this brother’s
hand, the emperor had often received the sacrament; and the fratricide
is supposed to have rendered a residence at Constantinople insupportable
to the conscience of the criminal, who was reported nightly to behold
the spectre of his brother offering him the consecrated cup, filled
with human blood, and exclaiming, “Drink, brother!” Certain it is that,
two years after his brother’s death, Constans quitted his capital,
with the intention of never returning; and he was only prevented, by
an insurrection of the people, from carrying off the empress and his
children. He meditated the reconquest of Italy from the Lombards, and
proposed rendering Rome again the seat of empire. On his way to Italy
the emperor stopped at Athens, where he assembled a considerable body of
troops. This casual mention of Athens by Latin writers affords strong
evidence of the tranquil, flourishing, and populous condition of the
city and country around. The Slavonian colonies in Greece must, at this
time, have owned perfect allegiance to the imperial power, or Constans
would certainly have employed his army in reducing them to subjection.
From Athens, the emperor sailed to Italy; he landed with his forces at
Tarentum, and attempted to take Beneventum, the chief seat of the Lombard
power in the south of Italy. His troops were twice defeated, and he then
abandoned all his projects of conquest.
The emperor himself repaired to Rome. His visit lasted only a fortnight.
According to the writers who describe the event, he consecrated twelve
days to religious ceremonies and processions, and the remaining two he
devoted to plundering the wealth of the church. His personal acquaintance
with the affairs of Italy and the state of Rome, soon convinced him
that the Eternal City was ill adapted for the capital of the empire,
and he quitted it for Sicily, where he fixed on Syracuse for his
future residence. Grimwald, the able monarch of the Lombards, and his
son Romwald, the duke of Beneventum, continued the war in Italy with
vigour. Brundusium and Tarentum were captured, and the Romans expelled
from Calabria, so that Otranto and Gallipoli were the only towns on the
eastern coast of which Constans retained possession.
[Sidenote: [665-668 A.D.]]
When residing in Sicily Constans directed his attention to the state of
Africa. His measures are not detailed with precision, but were evidently
distinguished by the usual energy and caprice which marked his whole
conduct. He recovered possession of Carthage, and of several cities which
the Arabs had rendered tributary; but he displeased the inhabitants
of the province, by compelling them to pay to himself the same amount
of tribute as they had agreed by treaty to pay to the Saracens; and
as Constans could not expel the Saracen forces from the province, the
amount of the public taxes of the Africans was thus often doubled, since
both parties were able to levy the contributions which they demanded.
Moawyah sent an army from Syria, and Constans one from Sicily, to decide
who should become sole master of the country. A battle was fought
near Tripolis; and though the army of Constans consisted of thirty
thousand men, it was completely defeated. Yet the victorious army of the
Saracens was unable to take the small town of Geloula (Usula), until
the accidental fall of a portion of the ramparts laid it open to their
assault; and this trifling conquest was followed by no farther success.
In the East, the empire was exposed to greater danger, yet the enemies of
Constans were eventually unsuccessful in their projects. In consequence
of the rebellion of the Armenian troops, whose commander, Sapor, assumed
the title of emperor, the Saracens made a successful incursion into
Asia Minor, captured the city of Amorium, in Phrygia, and placed in it
a garrison of five thousand men; but the imperial general appointed by
Constans soon drove out this powerful garrison, and recovered the place.
It appears, therefore, that in spite of all the defeats which Constans
is reported to have suffered, the empire underwent no very sensible
diminution of its territory during his reign, and he certainly left
its military forces in a more efficient condition than he found them.
He was assassinated in a bath at Syracuse, by an officer of his own
household, in the year 668, at the age of thirty-eight, after a reign
of twenty-seven years. The fact of his having been murdered by one of
his own household, joined to the capricious violence that marked many
of his public acts, warrants the supposition that his character was
of the unamiable and unsteady nature, which rendered the accusation
of fratricide, so readily believed by his contemporaries, by no means
impossible. It must, however, be admitted, that the occurrences of his
reign afford irrefragable testimony that his heretical opinions have
induced orthodox historians to give an erroneous colouring to many
circumstances, since the undoubted results do not correspond with their
descriptions of the passing events.
REIGN OF CONSTANTINE IV (668-685 A.D.)
Constantine IV, called Pogonatus, or the Bearded, has been regarded by
posterity with a high degree of favour. Yet his merit seems to have
consisted in his superior orthodoxy, rather than in his superior talents
as emperor. The concessions which he made to the see of Rome, and the
moderation that he displayed in all ecclesiastical affairs, placed his
conduct in strong contrast with the stern energy with which his father
had enforced the subjection of the orthodox ecclesiastics to the civil
power, and gained for him the praise of the priesthood, whose eulogies
have exerted no inconsiderable influence on all historians. Constantine,
however, was certainly an intelligent and just prince; he did not possess
the stubborn determination and talents of his father, and was destitute
also of his violent passions and imprudent character.
[Sidenote: [668-681 A.D.]]
As soon as Constantine was informed of the murder of his father, and
that a rebel had assumed the purple in Sicily, he hastened thither in
person to avenge his death, and extinguish the rebellion. To satisfy his
vengeance, the patrician Justinian, a man of high character, compromised
in the rebellion, was treated with great severity, and his son Germanus
with a degree of inhumanity that would have been recorded by the clergy
against Constans as an instance of the grossest barbarity. The return of
the emperor to Constantinople was signalised by a singular sedition of
the troops in Asia Minor. They marched towards the capital, and having
encamped on the Asiatic shores of the Bosporus, demanded that Constantine
should admit his two brothers, on whom he had conferred the rank of
augustus, to an equal share in the public administration, in order that
the Holy Trinity in heaven, which governs the spiritual world, might be
represented by a human trinity, to govern the political empire of the
Christians. The very proposal is a proof of the complete supremacy of the
civil over the ecclesiastical authority, in the eyes of the people, and
the strongest evidence, that in the public opinion of the age the emperor
was regarded as the head of the church. Such reasoning as the rebels used
could be rebutted by no arguments, and Constantine had energy enough to
hang the leaders of the sedition, and sufficient moderation not to molest
his brothers. But several years later, either from increased suspicions
or from some intrigues on their part, he deprived them of the rank of
augustus, and condemned them to have their noses cut off (681 A.D.).
Theophanes[d] says that the brothers of Constantine IV lost their noses
in 669, but were not deprived of the imperial title until 681.
SARACEN WARS AND SIEGE OF CONSTANTINOPLE (672 A.D.)
[Sidenote: [672-678 A.D.]]
The great object of the imperial policy at this period was to oppose
the progress of the Mohammedans. Constans had succeeded in arresting
their conquests, but Constantine soon found that they would give the
empire no rest unless he could secure it by his victories. He had
hardly quitted Sicily to return to Constantinople, before an Arab
expedition from Alexandria invaded the island and stormed the city of
Syracuse, and, after plundering the treasures accumulated by Constans,
immediately abandoned the place. In Africa the war was continued with
various success, but the Christians were not long left without any
succours from Constantine, while Moawyah supplied the Saracens with
strong reinforcements. In spite of the courage and enthusiasm of the
Mohammedans, the native Christian population maintained their ground with
firmness, and carried on the war with such vigour that in the year 676
a native African leader, who commanded the united forces of the Romans
and Berbers, captured the newly founded city of Kairowan, which at a
subsequent period became renowned as the capital of the Fatimite caliphs.
[Illustration: SARACENIC METAL WORK BRAZIER]
The ambition of the caliph Moawyah induced him to aspire at the conquest
of the Roman Empire; and the military organisation of the Arabian power,
which enabled the caliph to direct the whole resources of his dominions
to any single object of conquest, seemed to promise success to the
enterprise. A powerful expedition was sent to besiege Constantinople.
The time required for the preparation of such an armament did not enable
the Saracens to arrive at the Bosporus without passing a winter on the
coast of Asia Minor; and on their arrival in the spring of the year 672,
they found that the emperor had made every preparation for defence. Their
forces, however, were so numerous that they were sufficient to invest
Constantinople by sea and land. The troops occupied the whole of the land
side of the triangle on which the city is constructed, while the fleet
effectually blockaded the port.
The Saracens failed in all their assaults, both by sea and land; but
the Romans, instead of celebrating their own valour and discipline,
attributed their success principally to the use of the Greek fire, which
was invented shortly before this siege, and was first used on this
occasion. The military art had declined during the preceding century,
as rapidly as every other branch of national culture; and the resources
of the mighty empire of the Arabs were so limited by the ignorance and
bad administration of its rulers, that the caliph was unable to maintain
his forces before Constantinople during the winter. The Saracen army
was nevertheless enabled to collect sufficient supplies at Cyzicus to
make that place a winter station, while their powerful fleet commanded
the Hellespont and secured their communications with Syria. When spring
returned, the fleet again transported the army to encamp under the walls
of Constantinople. This strange mode of besieging cities, unattempted
since the times the Dorians had invaded Peloponnesus, was continued for
seven years; but in this warfare the Saracens suffered far more severely
than the Romans, and were at last compelled to abandon their enterprise.
The land forces tried to effect their retreat through Asia Minor, but
were entirely cut off in the attempt; and a tempest destroyed the greater
part of their fleet off the coast of Pamphylia. During the time that this
great body of his forces was employed against Constantinople, Moawyah
sent a division of his troops to invade Crete, which had been visited by
a Saracen army in 651. The island was now compelled to pay tribute, but
the inhabitants were treated with great mildness, as it was the policy of
the caliph at this time to conciliate the good opinion of the Christians
by his liberal government, in order to pave the way for future conquests.
Moawyah carried his religious tolerance so far as to rebuild the church
of Edessa at the intercession of his Christian subjects.
The destruction of the Saracen expedition against Constantinople, and
the advantage which the mountaineers of Lebanon had contrived to take
of the absence of the Arab troops, by carrying their incursions into
the plains of Syria, convinced Moawyah of the necessity of peace. The
hardy mountaineers of Lebanon, called Mardaites, had been increased
in numbers, and supplied with wealth, in consequence of the retreat
into their country of a mass of native Syrians who had fled before the
Arabs. They consisted chiefly of melchites and monothelites, and on
that account they had adhered to the cause of the Roman Empire when the
monophysites joined the Saracens. Their Syrian origin renders it probable
that they were ancestors of the Maronites, though the desire of some
Maronite historians to show that their countrymen were always perfectly
orthodox has perplexed a question which of itself was by no means of
easy solution. The political state of the empire required peace; and the
orthodox Constantine did not feel personally inclined to run any risk in
order to protect the monothelite mardaites. Peace was concluded between
the emperor and the caliph in the year 678, Moawyah consenting to pay
the Romans annually three thousand pounds of gold, fifty slaves, and
fifty Arabian horses. It appears strange that a prince, possessing the
power and resources at the command of Moawyah, should submit to these
conditions; but the fact proves that policy, not pride, was the rule
of the caliph’s conduct, and that the advancement of his real power,
and of the spiritual interests of the Mohammedan religion, were of more
consequence in his eyes than any notions of earthly dignity.
[Sidenote: [678-711 A.D.]]
In the same year in which Moawyah had been induced to purchase peace by
consenting to pay tribute to the Roman emperor, the foundations of the
Bulgarian monarchy were laid, and the emperor Constantine himself was
compelled to become tributary to a small horde of Bulgarians. One of the
usual emigrations which take place amongst barbarous nations had induced
Asparuch, a Bulgarian chief, to seize the low country about the mouth of
the Danube; his power and activity obliged the emperor Constantine to
take the field against these Bulgarians in person. The expedition was so
ill conducted that it ended in the complete defeat of the Roman army,
and the Bulgarians subdued all the country between the Danube and Mount
Hæmus, compelling a district inhabited by a body of Slavonians, called
the seven tribes, to become their tributaries. These Slavonians had once
been formidable to the empire, but their power had been broken by the
emperor Constans. Asparuch established himself in the town of Varna, near
the ancient Odessus, and laid the foundation of the Bulgarian monarchy, a
kingdom long engaged in hostilities with the emperors of Constantinople,
and whose power tended greatly to accelerate the decline of the Greeks
and reduce the numbers of their race in Europe.
The event, however, which exercised the most favourable influence on
the internal condition of the empire during the reign of Constantine
Pogonatus, was the assembly of the sixth general council of the church
at Constantinople. This council was held under circumstances peculiarly
favourable to candid discussion. The ecclesiastical power was not yet
too strong to set both reason and the civil authorities at defiance. Its
decisions were adverse to the monothelites; and the orthodox doctrine of
two natures and two wills in Christ was received by the common consent of
the Greek and Latin parties as the true rule of faith of the Christian
church. Religious discussion had now taken a strong hold on public
opinion, and as the majority of the Greek population had never adopted
the opinions of the monothelites, the decisions of the sixth general
council contributed powerfully to promote the union of the Greeks with
the imperial administration.
JUSTINIAN II (685 A.D.)
Justinian II succeeded his father Constantine at the age of sixteen, and
though so very young, he immediately assumed the personal direction of
the government. He was by no means destitute of talents, but his cruel
and presumptuous character rendered him incapable of learning to perform
the duties of his situation with justice. He turned his arms against
the Saracens though the caliph Abdul-Malik offered to make additional
concessions in order to induce the emperor to renew the treaty of peace
which had been concluded with his father. Justinian sent a powerful
army into Armenia under Leontius. All the provinces which had shown any
disposition to favour the Saracens were laid waste, and the army carried
off an immense booty, and drove away a great part of the inhabitants
as slaves. The caliph being engaged in a struggle for the Caliphate
with powerful rivals, and disturbed by rebels even in his own Syrian
dominions, arrested the progress of the Roman arms by purchasing peace on
terms far more favourable to the empire than those of the treaty between
Constantine and Moawyah.
Justinian, at the commencement of his reign, made a successful expedition
into the country occupied by the Slavonians in Macedonia, who were now
closely allied with the Bulgarian principality beyond Mount Hæmus. This
people, emboldened by their increased force, had pushed their plundering
excursions as far as the Propontis. The imperial army was completely
successful, and both the Slavonians and their Bulgarian allies were
defeated. In order to repeople the fertile shores of the Hellespont about
Abydos, Justinian transplanted a number of the Slavonian families into
the province of Opsicum. This colony was so numerous and powerful that it
furnished a considerable contingent to the imperial armies.
[Sidenote: [689-692 A.D.]]
The peace with the Saracens was not of long duration. Justinian refused
to receive the first gold pieces coined by Abdul-Malik, which bore
the legend, “God is the Lord.” The tribute had previously been paid
in money from the municipal mints of Syria; and Justinian imagined
that the new Arabian coinage was an attack on the Holy Trinity. He led
his army in person against the Saracens, and a battle took place near
Sebastopolis, on the coast of Cilicia, in which he was entirely defeated,
in consequence of the treason of the leader of his Slavonian troops.
Justinian fled from the field of battle, and on his way to the capital
he revenged himself on the Slavonians who had remained faithful to his
standard for the desertion of their countrymen. The Slavonians in his
service were put to death, and he even ordered the wives and children
of those who had joined the Saracens to be murdered. The deserters were
established by the Saracens on the coast of Syria, and in the island of
Cyprus; and under the government of the caliph they were more prosperous
than under that of the Roman emperor.
[Illustration: PART OF A SARACEN STANDARD]
It was during this war that the Saracens inflicted the first great badge
of civil degradation on the Christian population of their dominions.
Abdul-Malik established the haratch, or Christian capitation tax, in
order to raise money to carry on the war with Justinian. This unfortunate
mode of taxing the Christian subjects of the caliph, in a different
manner from the Mohammedans, completely separated the two classes, and
reduced the Christians to the rank of serfs of the state, whose most
prominent political relation with the Mussulman community was that
of furnishing money to the government. The decline of the Christian
population throughout the dominions of the caliphs was the consequence
of this ill-judged measure, which has probably tended more to the
depopulation of the East than all the tyranny and military violence of
the Mohammedan armies.
[Sidenote: [692-695 A.D.]]
The restless spirit of Justinian naturally plunged into the
ecclesiastical controversies which divided the church. He assembled a
general council called usually _in Trullo_, from the hall of its meeting
having been covered with a dome. The proceedings of this council, as
might have been expected from those of an assembly controlled by such
a spirit as that of the emperor, tended only to increase the growing
differences between the Greek and Latin parties in the church. Of 102
canons sanctioned by this council, the pope finally rejected six, as
adverse to the usages of the Latins. And thus an additional cause of
separation was permanently created between the Greeks and Latins, and
the measures of the church, as well as the political arrangements of the
times, and the social feelings of the people, all tended to render union
impossible.
A taste for building is a common fancy of sovereigns who possess the
absolute disposal of large funds without any feeling of their duty as
trustees for the benefit of the people whom they govern. Even in the
midst of the greatest public distress, the treasury of nations, on the
very verge of ruin and bankruptcy, must contain large sums of money drawn
from the annual taxation. This treasure, when placed at the irresponsible
disposal of princes who affect magnificence, is frequently employed in
useless and ornamental building; and this fashion has been so general
with despots, that the princes who have been most distinguished for
their love of building, have not unfrequently been the worst and most
oppressive sovereigns. It is always a delicate and difficult task for
a sovereign to estimate the amount which a nation can wisely afford to
expend on ornamental architecture; and from his position he is seldom
qualified to judge correctly on what buildings ornament ought to be
employed in order to make art accord with the taste and feelings of the
people. Public opinion affords the only criterion for the formation of
a sound judgment on this department of public administration; for, when
princes possessing a taste for building are not compelled to consult
the wants and wishes of their subjects in the construction of national
edifices they are apt, by their wild projects and lavish expenditure, to
create evils far greater than any which could result from an exhibition
of bad taste alone.
In an evil hour the love of building took possession of Justinian’s
mind. His lavish expenditure soon obliged him to make his financial
administration more rigorous, and general discontent quickly pervaded
the capital. The religious and superstitious feelings of the population
were severely wounded by the emperor’s eagerness to destroy a church
of the Virgin, in order to embellish the vicinity of his palace with a
splendid fountain. Justinian’s own scruples required to be soothed by a
religious ceremony, but the patriarch for some time refused to officiate,
alleging that the church had no prayers to desecrate holy buildings.
The emperor, however, was the head of the church and the master of the
bishops, whom he could remove from office, so that the patriarch did not
long dare to refuse obedience to his orders. It is said, however, that
the patriarch showed very clearly his dissatisfaction by repairing to the
spot and authorising the destruction of the church by an ecclesiastical
ceremony, to which he added these words, “to God, who suffers all things,
be rendered glory, now and forever. Amen.” The ceremony was sufficient
to satisfy the conscience of the emperor, who perhaps neither heard nor
heeded the words of the patriarch. The public discontent was loudly
expressed, and Justinian soon perceived that the fury of the populace
threatened a rebellion in Constantinople. To avert the danger, he
took every measure which unscrupulous cruelty could suggest; but, as
generally happens in periods of general discontent and excitement, the
storm burst in an unexpected quarter, and the hatred of Justinian left
him suddenly without support. Leontius, one of the ablest generals of
the empire, whose exploits have been already mentioned, had been thrown
into prison, but was at this time ordered to assume the government of the
province of Hellas. He considered the nomination as a mere pretext to
remove him from the capital, in order to put him to death at a distance
without any trial.
On the eve of his departure, Leontius placed himself at the head of a
sedition; Justinian was seized, and his ministers were murdered by the
populace with the most savage cruelty. Leontius was proclaimed emperor,
but he spared the life of his dethroned predecessor for the sake of the
benefits which he had received from Constantine Pogonatus. He ordered
Justinian’s nose to be cut off, and exiled him to Cherson. From this
mutilation the dethroned emperor received the insulting nickname of
Rhinotmetus, or “docknose,” by which he is distinguished in Byzantine
history.
THE GOVERNMENT OF LEONTIUS (695-698 A.D.)
[Sidenote: [695-698 A.D.]]
The government of Leontius was characterised by the unsteadiness which
not unfrequently marks the administration of the ablest sovereigns
who obtain their thrones by accidental circumstances rather than by
systematic combinations. The most important event of his reign was the
final loss of Africa, which led to his dethronement. The indefatigable
caliph Abdul-Malik despatched a powerful expedition into Africa under
Hassan; the province was soon conquered, and Carthage was captured after
a feeble resistance. An expedition sent by Leontius to relieve the
province arrived too late to save Carthage, but the commander-in-chief
forced the entrance into the port, recovered possession of the city,
and drove the Arabs from most of the fortified towns on the coast. The
Arabs constantly received new reinforcements, which the Roman general
demanded from Leontius in vain. At last the Arabs assembled a fleet,
and the Romans, being defeated in a naval engagement, were compelled
to abandon Carthage, which the Arabs utterly destroyed,--having too
often experienced the superiority of the Romans, both in naval affairs
and in the art of war, to venture on retaining populous and fortified
cities on the sea coast. This curious fact affords strong proof of the
great superiority of the Roman commerce and naval resources, and equally
powerful evidence of the shameful disorder in the civil and military
administration of the empire, which rendered these advantages useless,
and allowed the imperial fleets to be defeated by the naval forces
collected by the Arabs from among their Egyptian and Syrian subjects. At
the same time it is evident that the naval victories of the Arabs could
never have been gained unless a powerful party of the Christians had been
induced, by their feelings of hostility to the Roman Empire, to afford
them a willing support; for there were as yet neither shipbuilders nor
sailors among the Mussulmans.
The Roman expedition, on its retreat from Carthage, stopped in the Island
of Crete, where a sedition broke out among the troops, in which their
general was killed. Apsimar, the commander of the Cibyraiot troops, was
declared emperor by the name of Tiberius. The fleet proceeded directly to
Constantinople, which offered no resistance. Leontius was taken prisoner,
his nose cut off, and his person confined in a monastery. Tiberius
Apsimar governed the empire with prudence, and his brother Heraclius
commanded the Roman armies with success. The imperial troops penetrated
into Syria; a victory was gained over the Arabs at Samosata, but the
ravages committed by the Romans in this invasion surpassed the greatest
cruelties ever inflicted by the Arabs; for two hundred thousand Saracens
are said to have perished during the campaign. Armenia was alternately
invaded and laid waste by the Romans and the Saracens, as the various
turns of war favoured the hostile parties, and as the changing interests
of the Armenian population induced them to aid the emperor or the caliph.
But while Tiberius was occupied in the duties of government, and living
without any fear of a domestic enemy, he was suddenly surprised in his
capital by Justinian, who appeared before Constantinople at the head of a
Bulgarian army (705).
JUSTINIAN RECOVERS THE THRONE
[Sidenote: [698-711 A.D.]]
Ten years of exile had been spent by the banished emperor in vain
attempts to obtain power. His violent proceedings made him everywhere
detested, but he possessed the daring enterprise and the ferocious
cruelty necessary for a chief of banditti, joined to a singular
confidence in the value of his hereditary claim to the imperial throne;
so that no undertaking appeared to him hopeless. After quarrelling with
the inhabitants of Cherson, and with his brother-in-law, the king of the
Khazars, he succeeded, by a desperate exertion of courage, in reaching
the country of the Bulgarians. Terbelis, their sovereign, agreed to
assist him in recovering his throne, and they marched immediately with
a Bulgarian army to the walls of Constantinople. Three days after their
arrival, they succeeded in entering the capital during the night. Ten
years of adversity had increased the natural ferocity of Justinian’s
disposition; and a desire of vengeance seems henceforward to have been
the chief motive of his actions.
The population of Constantinople had now sunk to the same degree of
barbarism as the nations surrounding them, and in cruelty they were
worthy subjects of their emperor. Justinian gratified them by celebrating
his restoration with splendid chariot races in the circus. He sat on an
elevated throne, with his feet resting on the necks of the dethroned
emperors, Leontius and Tiberius, who were stretched on the platform
below, while the Greek populace around shouted the words of the psalmist,
“Thou shalt tread down the asp and the basilisk, thou shalt trample on
the lion and the dragon.” The dethroned emperors and Heraclius, who had
so well sustained the glory of the Roman arms against the Saracens, were
afterwards hung from the battlements of Constantinople. Justinian’s
whole soul was occupied with plans of vengeance. Though the conquest of
Tyana laid open Asia Minor to the incursions of the Saracens, instead of
opposing them, he directed his disposable forces to punish the cities
of Ravenna and Cherson, because they had incurred his personal hatred.
Both the proscribed cities had rejoiced at his dethronement; they were
both taken and treated with savage cruelty. The Greek city of Cherson,
though the seat of a flourishing commerce, and inhabited by a numerous
population, was condemned to utter destruction. Justinian ordered all
the buildings to be razed with the ground, and every soul within its
walls to be put to death; but the troops sent to execute these barbarous
orders revolted, and proclaimed an Armenian, called Bardanes, emperor,
under the name of Philippicus. Seizing the fleet, they sailed directly to
Constantinople.
Justinian was encamped with an army in Asia Minor when Philippicus
arrived, and took possession of the capital without encountering any
resistance. He was immediately deserted by his whole army, for the troops
were as little pleased with his conduct since his restoration, as was
every other class of his subjects; but his ferocity and courage never
failed him, and his rage was unbounded when he found himself abandoned
by every one. He was seized and executed, without having it in his
power to offer the slightest resistance. His son Tiberius, though only
six years of age, was torn from the altar of a church, to which he had
been conducted for safety, and cruelly massacred; and thus the race of
Heraclius was extinguished, after the family had governed the Roman
Empire for exactly a century (610 to 711 A.D.).
ANARCHY
[Sidenote: [711-717 A.D.]]
During the interval of six years which elapsed from the death of
Justinian II to the accession of Leo the Isaurian, the imperial throne
was occupied by three sovereigns. Their history is only remarkable as
proving the inherent strength of the Roman body politic, which could
survive such continual revolutions, even in the state of weakness to
which it was reduced. Philippicus was a luxurious and extravagant prince,
who thought only of enjoying the situation which he had accidentally
obtained. He was soon dethroned by a band of conspirators, who carried
him off from the palace while in a fit of drunkenness, and after putting
out his eyes, left him helpless in the middle of the hippodrome.
The reign of Philippicus would hardly deserve notice, had he not
increased the confusion into which the empire had fallen, and exposed
the total want of character and conscience among the Greek clergy, by
re-establishing the monothelite doctrines in a general council of the
Eastern bishops.
As the conspirators who had dethroned Philippicus had not formed any
plan for choosing his successor, the first secretary of state was
elected emperor by a public assembly held in the great church of St.
Sophia, under the name of Anastasius II. He immediately re-established
the orthodox faith, and his character is consequently the subject of
eulogy with the historians of his reign. The Saracens, whose power was
continually increasing, were at this time preparing a great expedition
at Alexandria, in order to attack Constantinople. Anastasius sent a
fleet with the troops of the theme Opsicium, to destroy the magazines of
timber collected on the coast of Phœnicia for the purpose of assisting
the preparations at Alexandria. The Roman armament was commanded by a
deacon of St. Sophia, who also held the office of grand treasurer of the
empire. The nomination of a member of the clergy to command the army gave
great dissatisfaction to the troops, who were not yet so deeply tinctured
with ecclesiastical ideas and manners, as the aristocracy of the empire.
A sedition took place while the army lay at Rhodes; Joannes the Deacon
was slain, and the expedition quitted the port in order to return to the
capital. The soldiers on their way landed at Adramyttium, and finding
there a collector of the revenues of a popular character, they declared
him emperor, under the name of Theodosius III.
The new emperor was compelled unwillingly to follow the army. For six
months, Constantinople was closely besieged, and the emperor Anastasius,
who had retired to Nicæa, was defeated in a general engagement. The
capital was at last taken by the rebels, who were so deeply sensible
of their real interests, that they maintained strict discipline, and
Anastasius, whose weakness gave little confidence to his followers,
consented to resign the empire to Theodosius, and to retire into a
monastery, that he might secure an amnesty to all his friends. Theodosius
was distinguished by many good qualities, but on the throne he proved
a perfect cipher, and his reign is only remarkable as affording a
pretext for the assumption of the imperial dignity by Leo III, called
the Isaurian. This able and enterprising officer, perceiving that the
critical times rendered the empire the prize of any man who had talents
to seize, and power to defend it, placed himself at the head of the
troops in Asia Minor, assumed the title of emperor, and soon compelled
Theodosius to quit the throne and become a priest.
During the period which elapsed between the death of Heraclius and the
accession of Leo, the few remains of Roman principles of administration
which had lingered in the imperial court, were gradually extinguished.
The long-cherished hope of restoring the ancient power and glory of the
Roman Empire expired, and even the aristocracy, which always clings the
last to antiquated forms and ideas, no longer dwelt with confidence on
the memory of former days. The conviction that the empire had undergone
a great moral and political change, which severed the future irrevocably
from the past, though it was probably not fully understood, was at least
felt and acted on both by the people and the government. The sad fact
that the splendid light of civilisation which had illuminated the ancient
world had now become as obscure at Constantinople as at Rome, Antioch,
Alexandria, and Carthage was too evident to be longer doubted; the very
twilight of antiquity had faded into darkness. It is rather, however, the
province of the antiquary than of the historian to collect all the traces
of this truth scattered over the records of the seventh century.
The disorganisation of the Roman government at this period, and the
want of any influence over the court by the Greek nation, are visible
in the choice of the persons who occupied the imperial throne after the
extinction of the family of Heraclius. They were selected by accident,
and several were of foreign origin, who did not even look upon themselves
as either Greeks or Romans. Philippicus was an Armenian, and Leo III,
whose reign opens a new era in Eastern history, was an Isaurian. On
the throne he proved that he was destitute of any attachment to Roman
political institutions, and any respect for the Greek ecclesiastical
establishment. It was by the force of his talents, and by his able
direction of the state and of the army, that he succeeded in securing
his family on the Byzantine throne; for he unquestionably placed himself
in direct hostility to the feelings and opinions of his Greek and
Roman subjects, and transmitted to his successors a contest between
the imperial power and the Greek nation concerning picture worship,
in which the very existence of Greek nationality, civilisation, and
religion, became at last compromised. From the commencement of the
iconoclastic contest, the history of the Greeks assumes a new aspect.
Their civilisation, and their connection with the Byzantine Empire,
become linked with the policy and fortunes of the Eastern church, and
ecclesiastical affairs obtain a supremacy over all social and political
considerations in their minds.
The geographical extent of the empire at the time of its transition from
the Roman to the Byzantine Empire affords evidence of the influence which
the territorial changes produced by the Saracen conquests exercised in
conferring political importance on the Greek race. The frontier towards
the Saracens of Syria commenced at Mopsuestia in Cilicia, the last
fortress of the Arab power. It ran along the chains of mounts Amanus and
Taurus to the mountainous district to the north of Edessa and Nisibis,
called, after the time of Justinian, the Fourth Armenia, of which
Martyropolis was the capital. It then followed nearly the ancient limits
of the empire until it reached the Black Sea, a short distance to the
east of Trebizond. On the northern shores of the Euxine, Cherson was now
the only city that acknowledged the supremacy of the empire, retaining at
the same time all its wealth and commerce, with the municipal privileges
of a free city. In Europe, Mount Hæmus formed the barrier against the
Bulgarians, while the mountainous ranges which bound Macedonia to the
northwest, and encircle the territory of Dyrrhachium, were regarded as
the limits of the free Slavonian states. It is true that large bodies
of Slavonians had penetrated to the south of this line, and lived in
Greece and Peloponnesus, but not in the same independent condition with
reference to the imperial administration as their northern brethren of
the Servian family.
Istria, Venice, and the cities on the Dalmatian coast, still acknowledged
the supremacy of the empire, though their distant position, their
commercial connections, and their religious feelings, were all tending
towards a final separation. In the centre of Italy, the exarchate of
Ravenna still held Rome in subjection, but the people of Italy were
entirely alienated from the political administration, which was now
regarded by them as purely Greek, and the Italians, with Rome before
their eyes, could hardly admit the pretensions of the Greeks to be
regarded as the legitimate representatives of the Roman Empire. The loss
of northern and central Italy was consequently an event in constant
danger of occurring; it would have required an able and energetic and
just government to have repressed the national feelings of the Italians,
and conciliated their allegiance. The condition of the population of the
south of Italy and of Sicily was very different. There the majority of
the inhabitants were Greeks in language and manners; but at this time
the cities of Gæta (Caieta), Naples (Neapolis), Amalfi, and Sorrento
(Surrentum), the district of Otranto, and the peninsula to the south
of the ancient Sybaris, now called Calabria, were the only parts which
remained under the Byzantine government. Sicily, though it had begun
to suffer from the incursions of the Saracens, was still populous and
wealthy. Sardinia, the last possession of the Greeks to the westward of
Italy, was conquered by the Saracens about this time (711 A.D.).[c]
FOOTNOTES
[39] Eutychius, 2, 339. Ockley, i. 325.
[40] [At Constans’ coronation a compact was made with the army under
whose terms Heracleonas’ brother David was crowned emperor, and assumed
the name of Tiberius. “What became of the emperor Tiberius,” says
Bury,[b] “we are not informed.”]
[41] [It is found in Theophanes.[d]]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER VII
LEO THE ISAURIAN TO JOANNES ZIMISCES
[717-969 A.D.]
With the accession of Leo the Isaurian to the throne of Constantinople
a new era opens in the history of the Eastern Empire. The progress of
society had been deliberately opposed by imperial legislation. The
legislators of the empire were persuaded that each order and profession
of its citizens should be fixed by hereditary succession, and an attempt
had been made to divide the population into castes. But the political
laws not only impoverished but depopulated the empire, and threatened
the dissolution of the very elements of society. Under their operation
the Western Empire became the prey of the smaller northern nations, and
the Eastern Empire was on the verge of being overrun by the Saracen
invaders.[a]
Leo III mounted the throne, and under his government the empire not only
ceased to decline, but even began to regain much of its early vigour.
Reformed modifications of the old Roman authority developed new energy
in the empire. Great political reforms, and still greater changes in
the condition of the people, mark the eighth century as an epoch of
transition.
When Leo III was proclaimed emperor, it seemed as if no human power
could save Constantinople from falling as Rome had fallen. The Saracens
considered the sovereignty of every land in which any remains of Roman
civilisation survived, as within their grasp. Leo, an Isaurian,[42]
and an iconoclast, consequently a foreigner and a heretic, ascended
the throne of Constantine, and arrested the victorious career of the
Mohammedans. He then reorganised the whole administration so completely
in accordance with the new exigencies of Eastern society, that the
reformed empire outlived for many centuries every government contemporary
with its establishment.
The Eastern Roman Empire, thus reformed, is called by modern historians
the Byzantine Empire; and the term is well devised to mark the changes
effected in the government, after the extinction of the last traces
of the military monarchy of ancient Rome. The social condition of the
inhabitants of the Eastern Empire had already undergone a considerable
change during the century which elapsed from the accession of Heraclius
to that of Leo.
This change created a new phase in the Roman Empire. The gradual progress
of this change has led some writers to date the commencement of the
Byzantine Empire as early as the reigns of Zeno and Anastasius, and
others to descend so late as the times of Maurice and Heraclius.[43] But
as the Byzantine Empire was only a continuation of the Roman government
under a reformed system, it seems most correct to date its commencement
from the period when the new social and political modifications produced
a visible effect on the fate of the Eastern Empire. This period is marked
by the accession of Leo the Isaurian.
The administrative system of Rome, as modified by Constantine, continued
in operation, though subjected to frequent reforms, until Constantinople
was stormed by the crusaders, and the Greek church enslaved by papal
domination. The general council of Nicæa, and the dedication of the
imperial city, with their concomitant legislative, administrative, and
judicial institutions, engendered a succession of political measures,
whose direct relations were uninterrupted until terminated by foreign
conquest. The government of Great Britain has undergone greater changes
during the last three centuries than that of the Eastern Empire during
the nine centuries which elapsed from the foundation of Constantinople in
330, to its conquest in 1204.
Yet Leo III has strong claims to be regarded as the first of a new
series of emperors. He was the founder of a dynasty, the saviour of
Constantinople, and the reformer of the church and state. He was the
first Christian sovereign who arrested the torrent of Mohammedan
conquest; he improved the condition of his subjects; he attempted to
purify their religion from the superstitious reminiscences of Hellenism,
with which it was still debased, and to stop the development of a
quasi-idolatry in the orthodox church. Nothing can prove more decidedly
the right of his empire to assume a new name than the contrast presented
by the condition of its inhabitants to that of the subjects of the
preceding dynasty. Under the successors of Heraclius, the Roman Empire
presents the spectacle of a declining society, and its thinly peopled
provinces were exposed to the intrusion of foreign colonists and hostile
invaders. But, under Leo, society offers an aspect of improvement and
prosperity; the old population revives from its lethargy, and soon
increases, both in number and strength, to such a degree as to drive back
all intruders on its territories. In the records of human civilisation,
Leo the Isaurian must always occupy a high position, as a type of what
the central power in a state can effect even in a declining empire.
Thus after the accession of Leo III, a new condition of society is
apparent; and though many old political evils continued to exist, it
becomes evident that a greater degree of personal liberty, as well
as greater security for property, was henceforth guaranteed to the
mass of the inhabitants of the empire. Indeed, no other government of
which history has preserved the records, unless it be that of China,
has secured equal advantages to its subjects for so long a period.
The empires of the caliphs and of Charlemagne, though historians have
celebrated their praises loudly, cannot, in their best days, compete with
the administration organised by Leo on this point; and both sank into
ruin while the Byzantine Empire continued to flourish in full vigour. It
must be confessed that eminent historians present a totally different
picture of Byzantine history to their readers. Voltaire speaks of it as a
worthless repertory of declamation and miracles, disgraceful to the human
mind. Even the sagacious Gibbon,[g] after enumerating with just pride the
extent of his labours, adds: “From these considerations, I should have
abandoned without regret the Greek slaves and their servile historians,
had I not reflected that the fate of the Byzantine monarchy is passively
connected with the most splendid and important revolutions which have
changed the state of the world.”
The history of the Byzantine Empire divides itself into three periods,
strongly marked by distinct characteristics.
The first period commences with the reign of Leo III in 716, and
terminates with that of Michael III in 867. It comprises the whole
history of the predominance of the iconoclasts in the established church,
and of the reaction which reinstated the orthodox in power. It opens with
the efforts by which Leo and the people of the empire saved the Roman
law and the Christian religion from the conquering Saracens. It embraces
a long and violent struggle between the government and the people, the
emperors seeking to increase the central power by annihilating every
local franchise, and even the right of private opinion, among their
subjects. The contest concerning image worship, from the prevalence of
ecclesiastical ideas, became the expression of this struggle. Its object
was as much to consolidate the supremacy of the imperial authority, as
to purify the practice of the church. The emperors wished to constitute
themselves the fountains of ecclesiastical as completely as of civil
legislation.
The long and bloody wars of this period, and the vehement character of
the sovereigns who filled the throne, attract the attention of those
who love to dwell on the romantic facts of history. Unfortunately, the
biographical sketches and individual characters of the heroes of these
ages lie concealed in the dullest chronicles. But the true historical
feature of this memorable period is the aspect of a declining empire,
saved by the moral vigour developed in society, and of the central
authority struggling to restore national prosperity. Never was such a
succession of able sovereigns seen following one another on any other
throne. The stern iconoclast, Leo the Isaurian, opens the line as the
second founder of the Eastern Empire. His son, the fiery Constantine,
who was said to prefer the odour of the stable to the perfumes of his
palaces, replanted the Christian standards on the banks of the Euphrates.
Irene, the beautiful Athenian, presents a strange combination of
talent, heartlessness, and orthodoxy. The finance minister, Nicephorus,
perishes on the field of battle like an old Roman. The Armenian Leo
falls at the altar of his private chapel, murdered as he is singing
psalms with his deep voice, before day-dawn. Michael the Amorian, who
stammered Greek with his native Phrygian accent, became the founder of
an imperial dynasty, destined to be extinguished by a Slavonian groom.
The accomplished Theophilus lived in an age of romance, both in action
and literature. His son, Michael, the last of the Amorian family, was the
only contemptible prince of this period, and he was certainly the most
despicable buffoon that ever occupied a throne.
[Illustration: A BYZANTINE PEASANT]
The second period commences with the reign of Basil I in 867, and
terminates with the deposition of Michael VI in 1057. During two
centuries the imperial sceptre was retained by members of the Basilian
family, or held by those who shared their throne as guardians or
husbands. At this time the Byzantine Empire attained its highest pitch of
external power and internal prosperity. The Saracens were pursued into
the plains of Syria. Antioch and Edessa were reunited to the empire.
The Bulgarian monarchy was conquered, and the Danube became again the
northern frontier. The Slavonians in Greece were almost exterminated.
Byzantine commerce filled the whole Mediterranean, and legitimated the
claim of the emperor of Constantinople to the title of “autocrat of the
Mediterranean Sea.” But the real glory of this period consists in the
power of the law. Respect for the administration of justice pervaded
society more generally than it had ever done at any preceding period of
the history of the world--a fact which seems to have been completely
overlooked by some of our greatest historians, though it is all-important
in the history of human civilisation.
The third period extends from the accession of Isaac I (Comnenus)
in 1057, to the conquest of the Byzantine Empire by the crusaders,
in 1204. This is the true period of decline and fall of the Eastern
Empire. It commenced by a rebellion of the great nobles of Asia, who
effected an internal revolution in the Byzantine Empire by wrenching the
administration out of the hands of well-trained officials, and destroying
the responsibility created by a systematic procedure. A despotism
supported by personal influence soon ruined the scientific fabric which
had previously upheld the imperial power. The people were ground to the
earth by a fiscal rapacity, over which the splendour of the house of
Comnenus throws a thin veil. The wealth of the empire was dissipated, its
prosperity destroyed, the administration of justice corrupted, and the
central authority lost all control over the population, when a band of
20,000 adventurers, masked as crusaders, put an end to the Roman Empire
of the East.
LEO III (LEO THE ISAURIAN), 717-741 A.D.
When Leo was raised to the throne, the empire was threatened with
immediate ruin. Six emperors had been dethroned within the space of
twenty-one years. Of these, four perished by the hand of the public
executioner, one died in obscurity, after being deprived of sight, and
the other was only allowed to end his days peacefully in a monastery
because Leo felt the imperial sceptre firmly fixed in his own grasp.
Every army assembled to encounter the Saracens had broken out into
rebellion. The Bulgarians and Slavonians wasted Europe up to the walls
of Constantinople; the Saracens ravaged the whole of Asia Minor to the
shores of the Bosporus.
Amorium was the principal city of the theme Anatolicum. The caliph
Suleiman had sent his brother, Moslemah, with a numerous army, to
complete the conquest of the Roman Empire, which appeared to be an
enterprise of no extraordinary difficulty, and Amorium was besieged by
the Saracens. Leo, who commanded the Byzantine troops, required some
time to concert the operations by which he hoped to raise the siege. To
gain the necessary delay, he opened negotiations with the invaders, and,
under the pretext of hastening the conclusion of the treaty, he visited
the Saracen general engaged in the siege with an escort of only five
hundred horse. The Saracens were invited to suspend their attacks until
the decision of Moslemah, who was at the head of another division of the
Mohammedan army, could be known.
In an interview which took place with the bishop and principal
inhabitants of Amorium, relating to the proffered terms, Leo contrived
to exhort them to continue their defence, and assured them of speedy
succour. The besiegers, nevertheless, pressed forward their approaches.
Leo, after his interview with the Amorians, proposed that the Saracen
general should accompany him to the headquarters of Moslemah. The Saracen
readily agreed to an arrangement which would enable him to deliver so
important a hostage to the commander-in-chief. The wary Isaurian, who
well knew that he would be closely watched, had made his plan of escape.
On reaching a narrow defile, from which a cross-road led to the advanced
posts of his own army, Leo suddenly drew his sabre and attacked the
Saracens about his person; while his guards, who were prepared for the
signal, easily opened a way through the two thousand hostile cavalry
of the escort, and all reached the Byzantine camp in safety. Leo’s
subsequent military dispositions and diplomatic negotiations induced
the enemy to raise the siege of Amorium, and the grateful inhabitants
united with the army in saluting him emperor of the Romans. But in his
arrangements with Moslemah, he is accused by his enemies of having agreed
to conditions which facilitated the further progress of the Mohammedans,
in order to secure his own march to Constantinople. On this march he was
met by the son of Theodosius III, whom he defeated. Theodosius resigned
his crown, and retired into a monastery;[44] while Leo made his triumphal
entry into the capital by the Golden Gate, and was crowned by the
patriarch in the church of Sophia on the 25th of March, 717.
The position of Leo continued to be one of extreme difficulty. The caliph
Suleiman, who had seen one private adventurer succeed the other in quick
succession on the imperial throne, deemed the moment favourable for the
final conquest of the Christians; and, reinforcing his brother’s army,
he ordered him to lay siege to Constantinople. The Saracen Empire had
now reached its greatest extent. From the banks of the Sihun and the
Indus to the shores of the Atlantic in Mauretania and Spain, the orders
of Suleiman were implicitly obeyed. The recent conquests of Spain in
the West, and of Fergana, Kashgar, and Sind in the East, had animated
the confidence of the Mohammedans to such a degree that no enterprise
appeared difficult. The army Moslemah led against Constantinople was the
best-appointed that had ever attacked the Christians; it consisted of
eighty thousand warriors. The caliph announced his intention of taking
the field in person with additional forces, should the capital of the
Christians offer a protracted resistance to the arms of Islam. The whole
expedition is said to have employed 180,000 men; and the number does
not appear to be greatly exaggerated, if it be supposed to include the
sailors of the fleet and the reinforcements which reached the camp before
Constantinople.
THE SIEGE OF CONSTANTINOPLE (717-718 A.D.)
[Sidenote: [717-718 A.D.]]
Moslemah, after capturing Pergamus, marched to Abydos, where he was
joined by the Saracen fleet. He then transported his army across the
Hellespont, and, marching along the shore of the Propontis, invested
Leo in his capital both by land and sea.[45] The strong walls of
Constantinople, the engines of defence with which Roman and Greek art
had covered the ramparts, and the skill of the Byzantine engineers,
rendered every attempt to carry the place by assault hopeless, so that
the Saracens were compelled to trust to the effect of a strict blockade
for gaining possession of the city. They surrounded their camp with a
deep ditch, and strengthened it with a strong dike. Moslemah then sent
out large detachments to collect forage and destroy the provisions which
might otherwise find their way into the besieged city. The presence of an
active enemy and a populous city required constant vigilance on the part
of a great portion of his land forces.
The Saracen fleet consisted of eighteen hundred vessels of war and
transports. In order to form the blockade, it was divided into two
squadrons; one was stationed on the Asiatic coast, in the ports
of Eutropius and Anthimus, to prevent supplies arriving from the
Archipelago; the other occupied the base in the European shore of the
Bosporus above the point of Galata, in order to cut off all communication
with the Black Sea and the cities of Cherson and Trebizond. The first
naval engagement took place as the fleet was taking up its position
within the Bosporus. The current, rendered impetuous by a change of
wind, threw the heavy ships and transports into confusion. The besieged
directed some fire-ships against the crowded vessels, and succeeded
in burning several, and driving others on shore under the walls of
Constantinople. The Saracen admiral, Suleiman, confident in the number
of his remaining ships of war, resolved to avenge his partial defeat
by a complete victory. He placed one hundred chosen Arabs, in complete
armour, in each of his best vessels, and, advancing to the walls of
Constantinople, made a vigorous attempt to enter the place by assault,
as it was entered long after by Doge Dandolo. Leo was well prepared to
repulse the attack, and, under his experienced guidance, the Arabs were
completely defeated. A number of the Saracen ships were burned by the
Greek fire which the besieged launched from their walls. After this
defeat, Suleiman withdrew the European squadron of his fleet into the
Sosthenian bay.
The besiegers encamped before Constantinople on the 15th of August,
717. The caliph Suleiman[46] died before he was able to send any
reinforcements to his brother. The winter proved unusually severe. The
country all round Constantinople remained covered with deep snow for many
weeks. The greater part of the horses and camels in the camp of Moslemah
perished; numbers of the best soldiers, accustomed to the mild winters
of Syria, died from having neglected to take the requisite precautions
against a northern climate. The difficulty of procuring food ruined
the discipline of the troops. These misfortunes were increased by the
untimely death of the admiral, Suleiman. In the meantime, Leo and the
inhabitants of Constantinople, having made the necessary preparations
for a long siege, passed the winter in security. A fleet, fitted out at
Alexandria, brought supplies to Moslemah in the spring. Four hundred
transports, escorted by men-of-war, sailed past Constantinople, and,
entering the Bosporus, took up their station at Kalos Agros. Another
fleet, almost equally numerous, arrived soon after from Africa, and
anchored in the bays on the Bithynian coast. These positions rendered
the current a protection against the fire-ships of the garrison of
Constantinople. The crews of the new transports were in great part
composed of Christians, and the weak condition of Moslemah’s army filled
them with fear. Many conspired to desert. Seizing the boats of their
respective vessels during the night, numbers escaped to Constantinople,
where they informed the emperor of the exact disposition of the whole
Saracen force. Leo lost no time in taking advantage of the enemy’s
embarrassments. Fire-ships were sent with a favourable wind among the
transports, while ships of war, furnished with engines for throwing Greek
fire, increased the confusion. This bold attack was successful, and a
part of the naval force of the Saracens was destroyed. Some ships fell a
prey to the flames, some were driven on shore, and some were captured by
the Byzantine squadron.
The blockade was now at an end, for Moslemah’s troops were dying
from want, while the besieged were living in plenty; but the Saracen
obstinately persisted in maintaining possession of his camp in Europe.
It was not until his foraging parties were repeatedly cut off, and all
the beasts of burden were consumed as food, that he consented to allow
the standard of the prophet to retreat before the Christians. The remains
of his army were embarked in the relics of the fleet, and on the 15th
of August, 718, Moslemah raised the siege, after ruining one of the
finest armies the Saracens ever assembled, by obstinately persisting in a
hopeless undertaking. The troops were landed at Proconnesus, and marched
back to Damascus, through Asia Minor; but the fleet encountered a violent
storm in passing through the Archipelago. The dispersed ships were
pursued by the Greeks of the islands, and so many were lost or captured
that only five of the Syrian squadron returned home.
[Sidenote: [718-739 A.D.]]
Few military details concerning Leo’s defence of Constantinople have
been preserved, but there can be no doubt that it was one of the most
brilliant exploits of a warlike age.
The vanity of Gallic writers has magnified the success of Charles Martel
over a plundering expedition of the Spanish Arabs into a marvellous
victory, and attributed the deliverance of Europe from the Saracen yoke
to the valour of the Franks. A veil has been thrown over the talents and
courage of Leo, a soldier of fortune, just seated on the imperial throne,
who defeated the long-planned schemes of conquest of the caliphs Welid
and Suleiman. It is unfortunate that we have no Isaurian literature.[n]
The world-historical importance of this event cannot be too highly
esteemed. The Arabian onslaught had reached its climax. Byzantium, and
its emperor who had thrown it off, had rescued Christianity and Western
civilisation. Still to-day in the Acathistus-hymn the orthodox church
thanks the three great heroes Heraclius, Constantine IV, and Leo III for
the rescues from the Avara, the Persian, and the Arab dangers.[d]
[Illustration: AN EIGHTH CENTURY GALLEY]
The catastrophe of Moslemah’s army, and the state of the caliphate
during the reigns of Omar II and Yazid II, relieved the empire from
all immediate danger, and Leo was enabled to pursue his schemes for
reorganising the army and defending his dominions against future
invasions. The war was languidly carried on for some years, and the
Saracens were gradually expelled from most of their conquests beyond
Mount Taurus. In the year 726, Leo was embarrassed by seditions and
rebellions, caused by his decrees against image-worship. Hisham seized
the opportunity, and sent two powerful armies to invade the empire.
Cæsarea was taken by Moslemah; while another army, under Moawyah, pushing
forward, laid siege to Nicæa. Leo was well pleased to see the Saracens
consume their resources in attacking a distant fortress; but though
they were repulsed before Nicæa, they retreated without serious loss,
carrying off immense plunder. The plundering excursions of the Arabs
were frequently renewed by land and sea. In one of these expeditions,
the celebrated Sid-al-Battal carried off an individual who was set up by
the Saracens as a pretender to the Byzantine throne, under the pretext
that he was Tiberius, the son of Justinian II. Two sons of the caliph
appeared more than once at the head of the invading armies. In the year
739 the Saracen forces poured into Asia Minor in immense numbers, with
all their early energy. Leo, who had taken the command of the Byzantine
army, accompanied by his son Constantine, marched to meet Sid-al-Battal,
whose great fame rendered him the most dangerous enemy. A battle took
place at Acroinon, in the Anatolic theme, in which the Saracens were
totally defeated. The valiant Sid, the most renowned champion of
Islamism, perished on the field; but the fame of his exploits has filled
many volumes of Moslem romance, and furnished some of the tales that have
adorned the memory of the Cid of Spain, three hundred years after the
victory of Leo. The Western Christians have robbed the Byzantine Empire
of its glory in every way. After this defeat the Saracen power ceased
to be formidable to the empire, until the energy of the caliphate was
revived by the vigorous administration of the Abbassides, who succeeded
the Omayyads in 750.
Leo’s victories over the Mohammedans were an indispensable step to
the establishment of his personal authority. But the measures of
administrative wisdom which rendered his reign a new era in Roman
history, are its most important feature in the annals of the human race.
REVOLT AGAINST LEO
[Sidenote: [726-729 A.D.]]
The whole policy of Leo’s reign has been estimated by his ecclesiastical
reforms. These have been severely judged by all historians, and they
appear to have encountered a violent opposition from a large portion
of his subjects. The general dissatisfaction has preserved sufficient
authentic information to allow of a candid examination of the merits and
errors of his policy.
Leo commenced his ecclesiastical reforms in the year 726, by an edict
ordering all pictures in churches to be placed so high as to prevent the
people from kissing them,[47] and prohibiting prostration before these
symbols, or any act of public worship being addressed to them. Against
this moderate edict of the emperor, the patriarch Germanus and the pope
Gregory II made strong representations. The despotic principles of Leo’s
administration, and the severe measures of centralisation which he
enforced as the means of reorganising the public service, created many
additional enemies to his government, as is hereafter more fully shown.
The rebellion of the inhabitants of Greece, which occurred in the year
727, seems to have originated in a dissatisfaction with the fiscal and
administrative reforms of Leo, to which local circumstances, unnoticed
by historians, gave peculiar violence, and which the edict against
image-worship fanned into a flame. The unanimity of all classes, and
the violence of the popular zeal in favour of their local privileges
and superstitions, suggested the hope of dethroning Leo, and placing
a Greek on the throne of Constantinople. A naval expedition, composed
of the imperial fleet in the Cyclades, and attended by an army from
the continent, was fitted out to attack the capital. Agallianus, who
commanded the imperial forces stationed to watch the Slavonians settled
in Greece, was placed at the head of the army destined to assail the
conqueror of the Saracens. The name of the new emperor was Cosmas. In the
month of April the Greek fleet appeared before Constantinople. It soon
appeared that the Greeks, confiding in the goodness of their cause, had
greatly overrated their own valour and strength, or strangely overlooked
the resources of the iconoclasts. Leo met the fleet as it approached his
capital, and completely defeated it. Agallianus, with the spirit of a
hero, when he saw the utter ruin of the enterprise, plunged fully armed
into the sea rather than surrender. Cosmas was taken prisoner, with
another leader, and immediately beheaded. Leo, however, treated the mass
of the prisoners with mildness.
The opposition Leo encountered only confirmed him in his persuasion that
it was indispensably necessary to increase the power of the central
government in the provinces. As he was sincerely attached to the opinions
of the iconoclasts, he was led to connect his ecclesiastical reforms with
his political measures, and to pursue both with additional zeal. In order
to secure the active support of all the officers of the administration,
and exclude all image-worshippers from power, he convoked an assembly,
called a silentium, consisting of the senators and the highest
functionaries in the church and state. In this solemn manner it was
decreed that images were to be removed from all the churches throughout
the empire.
[Sidenote: [729-751 A.D.]]
Gregory II sent Leo strong representations against his first edicts on
the subject of image-worship, and after the silentium he repeated these
representations, and entered on a more decided course of opposition to
the emperor’s ecclesiastical reforms, being then convinced that there
was no hope of Leo abandoning his heretical opinions. It seems that
Italy, like the rest of the empire, had escaped in some degree from the
oppressive burden of imperial taxation during the anarchy that preceded
Leo’s election. But the defeat of the Saracens before Constantinople had
been followed by the re-establishment of the fiscal system. To overcome
the opposition now made to the financial and ecclesiastical reforms, the
exarch Paul was ordered to march to Rome and support Marinus, the duke,
who found himself unable to contend against the papal influence.
The whole of central Italy burst into rebellion at this demonstration
against its civil and religious interests. The exarch was compelled to
shut himself up in Ravenna; for the cities of Italy, instead of obeying
the imperial officers, elected magistrates of their own, on whom they
conferred, in some cases, the title of duke. Assemblies were held, and
the project of electing an emperor of the West was adopted; but the
unfortunate result of the rebellion of Greece damped the courage of the
Italians; and though a rebel, named Tiberius Petasius, really assumed the
purple in Tuscany, he was easily defeated and slain by Eutychius, who
succeeded Paul as exarch of Ravenna. Liutprand, king of the Lombards,
taking advantage of these dissensions, invaded the imperial territory,
and gained possession of Ravenna; but Gregory, who saw the necessity of
saving the country from the Lombards and from anarchy, wrote to Ursus
the duke of Venice, one of his warm partisans, and persuaded him to join
Eutychius. The Lombards were defeated by the Byzantine troops, Ravenna
was recovered, and Eutychius entered Rome with a victorious army. Gregory
died in 731. Though he excited the Italian cities to resist the imperial
power, and approved of the measures they adopted for stopping the
remittance of their taxes to Constantinople, he does not appear to have
adopted any measures for declaring Rome independent.
From 733 A.D., the city of Rome enjoyed political independence under the
guidance and protection of the popes; but the officers of the Byzantine
emperors were allowed to reside in the city, justice was publicly
administered by Byzantine judges, and the supremacy of the Eastern Empire
was still recognised. So completely, however, had Gregory III thrown off
his allegiance, that he entered into negotiations with Charles Martel,
in order to induce that powerful prince to take an active part in the
affairs of Italy. The pope was now a much more powerful personage than
the exarch of Ravenna, for the cities of central Italy, which had assumed
the control of their local government, entrusted the conduct of their
external political relations to the care of Gregory, who thus held the
balance of power between the Eastern emperor and the Lombard king. In
the year 742, while Constantine V, the son of Leo, was engaged with a
civil war, the Lombards were on the eve of conquering Ravenna, but Pope
Zacharias threw the whole of the Latin influence into the Byzantine
scale, and enabled the exarch to maintain his position until the year
751, when Aistulf, king of the Lombards, captured Ravenna. The exarch
retired to Naples, and the authority of the Byzantine emperors in central
Italy ended.[n]
Leo III died in 741.[48] He was succeeded by his son Constantine V,
called Copronymus, whom he had crowned emperor in the year 720, and
married to Irene, the daughter of the khan of the Khazars, thirteen
years later. Before proceeding with the later reigns, we must pause to
consider that great and bloody controversy which brought Christianity
into contempt as idolatrous before the Mohammedans, and split the church,
or rather split the laity from the church. It was the laity which was
non-idolatrous; it was the church that clung to the sanctity and active
power of images and even of relics. The subject is considered at more
length under the history of the papacy, but cannot be omitted here, since
it had its rise in that enlightened and fearless Leo Isauricus, who dared
to be consistent even to the point of barbarity.[a]
THE ICONOCLASTS
[Sidenote: [717-723 A.D.]]
Since the twelfth year of the Hegira (634 A.D.) the hand of Ishmael had
lain heavily on the world, nevertheless the rod of the taskmaster had
in certain respects been useful to the Byzantine Empire, especially
in the interior. Senseless despotism, careless dissimulation, and
utter incompetence could not assert themselves for long on the
throne. This resulted in a succession of brave soldiers ascending the
throne--Byzantine autocrats since the time of Islam had on an average
really been stronger than their predecessors--and in the reigning
families rapidly detaching themselves. When one or the other dynasty
tended to the Merovingian type, it only lasted for a short time. Amongst
the families which under Islam wore the crown of Byzantium, the one
founded by Leo Isauricus (717-741) occupied a prominent position; after
Justinian it was second in the order of Byzantine dynasties.
Leo Isauricus, a man of humble birth, who rose from the rank of a
common soldier to that of a general, and his son Constantine V on whom
party feeling bestowed the opprobrious nickname of Copronymus, were
brave men, but they reduced the church and the people to servitude as
their predecessors had done, and perhaps even more ruthlessly, as is
proved by their iconoclastic proceedings. Certainly in the beginning
of the agitation now in question, they were not wanting in a motive
which appeared just, and perhaps was so for a time. In consequence of
the terrible oppression exercised by the government authorities, and
the spiritual stagnation which generally arises from this source, the
Byzantine nation had grown accustomed to superficiality in religion and,
as a consequence, to a worship of images which reached a point at which
Christianity seemed about to sink back into Hellenism.
On this important matter, which was frequently a source of great danger
in the course of the century, Pope Gregory I established an unalterable
rule. Bishop Serenus of Massilia (Marseilles), having observed that many
of his parishioners worshipped the images which had been brought into the
cathedral, cast them out and destroyed them. Gregory I commended the zeal
with which Serenus had forbidden divine honours to be paid to the work
of human hands, but at the same time censured him for having destroyed
the images. He also referred to the reason given by other Fathers before
him, and by Paulinus of Nola in particular; he writes, “the churches are
decorated with images so that those who do not know the alphabet may see
represented on the wall that which they cannot read in the Scriptures.”
This is the rule of the Catholic church--the places of worship must be
decorated and these decorations respected. Woe betide him who lays hands
on them. But the image must not be mistaken for that which it represents,
it must not be treated as a thing divine. But according to reliable
proofs still extant, the Greeks of the eighth and ninth centuries did not
confine themselves within these limits; they became iconodules, as the
majority of them remain to this day.
[Sidenote: [723-729 A.D.]]
The abuse just referred to aroused the calculating ambition of a very
powerful and hostile neighbour, according to the chronicler Theophanes.
The caliph Yazid II, son of Abdul-Malik (720-724), successor to Omar
II, issued a decree that all images should be forcibly removed from the
Christian churches of his empire. This occurred in 723, three years
before Leo Isauricus first prohibited the use of them. Up to that time
the Moslem ruler had not interfered in the worship of his Christian
subjects, who had enjoyed without molestation the same privileges as the
Jews. The conduct of Yazid, on the contrary, gave rise to the idea that
henceforth the caliphs would treat iconolatry as idolatry, and that those
who adhered to the practice would fall under his displeasure, whether
within or beyond the dominions of the caliphate. The above command
therefore contained a hidden declaration of war against the Byzantine
Empire.
[Illustration: CAPTAIN OF MERCENARY TROOPS, BYZANTINE EMPIRE]
Such was the state of affairs when Leo Isauricus determined to take the
lead and to wrest from the hereditary enemy of the Byzantine crown the
weapons which he wished to use against it. In 726 he issued his first
decree against images; it was moderate in tone, prostration before
them being alone prohibited. A few bishops, partisans of Leo, began to
remove the images from their churches. When this became known the people
rebelled, but Leo subdued them by force.
After this, under Leo and under his son Constantine Copronymus (741-775),
blow after blow was dealt. In 729 Leo summoned a conclave and invited the
patriarch Germanus, a man who had almost reached the extreme limit of
human age, to attend. A law was submitted ordering that the images should
be removed from all churches and the painted walls whitewashed. When
required to ratify it, the patriarch declared he would rather resign his
office. He was taken at his word, exiled to a neighbouring state, and the
vacant see was conferred on the priest Anastasius, a willing tool. All
bishops of the realm were obliged to submit to the new law; the few who
resisted were deposed.
Presently no sacred images were to be seen in the churches or in any
other places. Over the iron gates of the imperial palace was a beautiful
image of Christ, reputed to perform miracles, which was specially
revered. The emperor ordered its removal. Blood was shed in the execution
of this order. When a soldier at Leo’s command mounted on the castle
gate, and was about to deal the first blow at the image,[49] a crowd of
furious women flung themselves upon him, and pulled down the ladder on
which he was standing. The soldier fell to the ground and was immediately
murdered by the mob. Thereupon the rioters rushed to the archbishop’s
residence, bent on destroying it, and on stoning the patriarch
Anastasius; but the latter fled to the imperial palace. Meanwhile Leo had
taken the necessary precautions: the body-guard rushed out and attacked
the insurgents; those who resisted were killed or taken prisoners. Leo
had gained the victory, and until his death in 741, no one dared to
disturb the public peace.
ICONOCLASM AFTER LEO
[Sidenote: [741-842 A.D.]]
After Leo’s death, conspiracies broke out against Constantine, his
successor. These he defeated though with difficulty, and his discovery
that a party in the church, the Byzantine monks, were defending the
ancient custom with invincible obstinacy and thus supporting his
adversaries, changed his struggle against iconolatry into ceaseless
strife with the monasteries and all other typical forms of Christianity,
and with the church itself and its mysteries. Events such as occurred
at the time of the Reformation and in the eighteenth century now took
place. The magistrates received orders to suppress all monasteries, many
were demolished, others were converted into stables for the cavalry
and camps for the infantry; the few that remained were not allowed to
receive novices. The expelled monks had to lay aside their distinctive
garb and dress like other people; the emperor compelled some to marry,
nor did he spare them the weapon of ridicule. On one occasion he caused a
number of monks, each leading a nun by the hand, to march up and down the
hippodrome, where they were met by the jeers of the multitude.
[Illustration: CHIEF OF BARBARIAN MERCENARIES, BYZANTINE EMPIRE]
Under the influence of such proceedings a peculiar spirit developed
in the court, which was composed not only of soldiers and officials
but also of the wealthy and pleasure-loving classes, a spirit which we
can only compare to the freemasonry of a later day, or to the Bavarian
_illuminati_ of the eighteenth century.
The throne was everything, the church apparently nothing. For the second
time the popedom of the Cæsars had reached a climax, not, as in the days
of Justinian, under the form of piety, but under that of enlightenment.
The Greek bishops patiently bore their yoke, there were no more monks,
the glory of the empire dazzled the world, for Constantine was a
fortunate ruler and a soldier crowned with glory, having overcome the
Saracens and the Bulgarians, the enemies of the empire, in many battles.
During his long reign there arose a race who were acquainted with
cloisters and monks only by hearsay, and had experience of nothing but
freemasonry and _illuminati_.
Nevertheless, after having asserted its authority for half a century, the
iconoclastic party succumbed and finally disappeared without leaving a
trace.
Two causes were mainly instrumental in bringing about this remarkable
conclusion. First, the influence of the head of Christendom. In 726 and
729, when Leo proceeded to take steps against the icons, he had been
vigorously opposed by Pope Gregory II (715-731). Gregory’s successors
continued the opposition and, when the house of Isauricus obstinately
refused justice, a breach ensued with Byzantium. The discovery that
in spite of all display of violence the Byzantine court must end by
yielding, as soon as the Eastern church or even part of it sided in
earnest with the see of St. Peter, first made in the dogmatic disputes of
the fourth and fifth centuries, once more stood revealed.
Now for the second cause. Amongst the Byzantines there arose a great
man, capable of gathering all elements favourable to the cause of
ecclesiastical liberty, hitherto dispersed over the whole of the Eastern
Empire, into one centre, and thus bringing them into practical touch
with Rome. This was Theodore, abbot of the monastery of Studion, in
Constantinople. With the exception of a brief victory, embittered by
that unworthy woman, the empress Irene, under whose dominion it took
place (789-802), and in which the adherents of iconolatry, or rather
the defenders of ecclesiastical independence, were unable to exert any
political influence, the life of Theodore was spent in a perpetual
struggle, in which he displayed incomparable stoicism and the highest
ability. He died in 826.
The cause which he had espoused with all the strength of a great soul,
triumphed after his death and through the seed which he had sown. In
one respect its triumph was complete, in another, partial only. On the
19th of February, 842, the patriarch Methodius of Constantinople set
the final seal on the right of images in places of worship, by the
institution of the feast of Orthodoxy. With the icons, unfortunately, the
deplorable abuse already mentioned returned. Meanwhile it must be noted
that in the course of the contest the Frankish church had repeatedly and
energetically upheld the principles laid down by Pope Gregory I with
regard to church discipline.
Opposition to the power which the emperor exercised on the subject of
images, was only part of the plan which Theodore Studita pursued; the
church and the people were also to be protected from the tyranny of the
throne. The empress Irene, no doubt at the instigation of the party of
Theodore, without whose support she would never have maintained her
power, remitted some of the most oppressive taxes; and the emperor
Nicephorus, by whom Irene was overthrown in 802, and who, although out
of fear of Irene’s legislation he tolerated the images, evidently trod
from the first in the steps of Leo Isauricus and his son Constantine
Copronymus, forthwith restored the full weight of the old taxation.[l]
THE REIGN OF CONSTANTINE V (COPRONYMUS) (741-775 A.D.)
In a long reign of thirty-four years, the son and successor of Leo,
Constantine V, surnamed Copronymus, attacked with less temperate zeal
the images or idols of the church. Their votaries have exhausted the
bitterness of religious gall, in their portrait of this spotted panther,
this antichrist, this flying dragon of the serpent’s seed, who surpassed
the vices of Elagabalus and Nero. His reign was a long butchery of
whatever was most noble, or holy, or innocent in his empire. In person
the emperor assisted at the execution of his victims, surveyed their
agonies, listened to their groans, and indulged, without satiating,
his appetite for blood; a plate of noses was accepted as a grateful
offering, and his domestics were often scourged or mutilated by the
royal hand. His surname was derived from his pollution of his baptismal
font. The infant might be excused; but the manly pleasures of Copronymus
degraded him below the level of a brute.
In his religion, the iconoclast was a heretic, a Jew, a Mohammedan,
a pagan, and an atheist; and his belief of an invisible power could
be discovered only in his magic rites, human victims, and nocturnal
sacrifices to Venus and the demons of antiquity. His life was stained
with the most opposite vices, and the ulcers which covered his body
anticipated before his death the sentiment of hell torture. Of these
accusations, which we have so patiently copied, a part is refuted by its
own absurdity; and in the private anecdotes of the life of princes, the
lie is more easy as the detection is more difficult. Without adopting the
pernicious maxim, that where much is alleged, something must be true, we
can however discern, that Constantine V was dissolute and cruel. Calumny
is more prone to exaggerate than to invent; and her licentious tongue is
checked in some measure by the experience of the age and country to which
she appeals. Of the bishops and monks, the generals and magistrates, who
are said to have suffered under his reign, the numbers are recorded, the
names were conspicuous, the execution was public, the mutilation visible
and permanent.
GOVERNMENT OF COPRONYMUS; THE SARACEN WARS
[Sidenote: [741-775 A.D.]]
The Catholics hated the person and government of Copronymus; but
even their hatred is a proof of their oppression. They dissemble the
provocations which might excuse or justify his rigour; but even these
provocations must gradually inflame his resentment, and harden his
temper in the use or the abuse of despotism. Yet the character of the
fifth Constantine was not devoid of merit, nor did his government always
deserve the curses or the contempt of the Greeks. From the confession of
his enemies, we are informed of the restoration of an ancient aqueduct,
of the redemption of twenty-five hundred captives, of the uncommon
plenty of the times, and of the new colonies with which he repeopled
Constantinople and the Thracian cities. They reluctantly praise his
activity and courage; he was on horseback in the field at the head
of his legions; and although the fortune of his arms was various, he
triumphed by sea and land, on the Euphrates and the Danube, in civil[50]
and barbarian war. Heretical praise must be cast into the scale, to
counterbalance the weight of orthodox invective. The iconoclasts revered
the virtues of the prince; forty years after his death, they still
prayed before the tomb of the saint. A miraculous vision was propagated
by fanaticism or fraud; and the Christian hero appeared on a milk-white
steed, brandishing his lance against the pagans of Bulgaria: “An absurd
fable,” says the Catholic historian, “since Copronymus is chained with
the demons in the abyss of hell.”[g]
Constantine had no sooner found himself firmly established on the throne
than he devoted his attention to completing the organisation of the
empire traced out by his father. The constant attacks of the Saracens and
Bulgarians called him frequently to the head of his armies, for the state
of society rendered it dangerous to entrust large forces to the command
of a subject. In the Byzantine Empire few individuals had any scruple in
violating the political constitution of their country, if by so doing
they could increase their own power.
The incursions of the Saracens first required to be repressed. The empire
of the caliphs was already distracted by the civil wars which preceded
the fall of the Omayyad dynasty. Constantine took advantage of these
troubles. He reconquered Germanicia and Doliche, and occupied for a time
a considerable part of Commagene. The Saracens attempted to indemnify
themselves for these losses by the conquest of Cyprus. This island
appears to have been reconquered by Leo III, for it had been abandoned
to the Mohammedans by Justinian II. The fleet of the caliph sailed from
Alexandria, and landed an army at the port of Cerameia; but the fleet
of the Cibyraiot theme arrived in time to blockade the enemy’s ships,
and of a thousand Mohammedan vessels three only escaped (748 A.D.). The
war was continued. The Saracens invaded the empire almost every summer,
but these incursions led to no permanent conquests. The mildness and
tolerant government of the emperor of Romania (for that name began now
to be applied to the part of Asia Minor belonging to the Byzantine
Empire) was so celebrated in the East, in spite of his persecution of
the image-worshippers at Constantinople, that many Christians escaped
by sea from the dominions of the caliph Almansur to settle in those of
Constantine.
WARS WITH BULGARIA
The vicinity of the Bulgarians to Constantinople rendered them more
dangerous enemies than the Saracens, though their power was much
inferior. To resist their incursions, Constantine gradually repaired
all the fortifications of the towns on the northern frontier, and then
commenced fortifying the passes, until the Bulgarians found their
predatory incursions attended with loss instead of gain. The king
[Kormisos] invaded the empire with a powerful army. The Bulgarians
carried their ravages up to the long wall; but though they derived
assistance from the numerous Slavonian colonies settled in Thrace, they
were defeated, and driven back into their own territory with great
slaughter (757 A.D.).[51]
Constantine was always ready to carry the war into their territory.
The difficulties of his enterprise were great, and he suffered several
defeats; but his military talents and persevering energy prevented the
Bulgarians from profiting by any partial success they obtained, and he
soon regained the superiority. In the campaigns of 760, 763, and 765,
Constantine marched far into Bulgaria, and carried off immense booty.
In the year 766 he intended to complete the conquest of the country by
opening the campaign at the commencement of spring. His fleet, which
consisted of twenty-six hundred vessels, in which he had embarked a
considerable body of infantry in order to enter the Danube, was assailed
by one of those furious storms that often sweep the Euxine. The force
which the emperor expected would soon render him master of Bulgaria was
suddenly ruined. The shores of the Black Sea were covered with the wrecks
of his ships and the bodies of his soldiers. Constantine immediately
abandoned all thought of continuing the campaign, and employed his whole
army in alleviating the calamity to the survivors, and in securing
Christian burial and funeral honours to the dead. A truce was concluded
with the enemy, and the Roman army beheld the emperor as eager to employ
their services in the cause of humanity and religion, as he had ever been
to lead them to the field of glory and conquest. His conduct on this
occasion gained him as much popularity with the people of Constantinople
as with the troops.
In the year 774 he again assembled an army of eighty thousand men,
accompanied by a fleet of two thousand transports, and invaded Bulgaria.
The Bulgarian monarch [Telerig] concluded a treaty of peace--which,
however, was broken as soon as Constantine returned to his capital. But
the emperor was not unprepared, and the moment he heard that the enemy
had laid siege to Verzetia, one of the fortresses he had constructed to
defend the frontier, he quitted Constantinople in the month of October,
and, falling suddenly on the besiegers, routed their army with great
slaughter. The following year his army was again ready to take the field;
but as Constantine was on his way to join it he was attacked by a mortal
illness, which compelled him to retrace his steps. Having embarked at
Selymbria, in order to reach Constantinople with as little fatigue as
possible, he died on board the vessel at the castle of Strongyle, just as
he reached the walls of his capital, on the 23rd of September (775).
The long war with the Bulgarians had been carried on rather with the
object of securing tranquillity to the northern provinces of the empire,
than from any desire of a barren conquest. The necessity of reducing
the Slavonian colonies in Thrace and Macedonia to complete obedience to
the central administration, and of secluding them from all political
communication with one another, or with their countrymen in Bulgaria,
Servia, and Dalmatia, imposed on the emperor the necessity of maintaining
strong bodies of troops, and suggested the policy of forming a line of
Greek towns and Asiatic colonies along the northern frontier of the
empire. When this was done, Constantine began to root out the brigandage,
which had greatly extended itself during the anarchy which preceded his
father’s election, and which Leo had never been able to exterminate.
Numerous bands lived by plunder, in a state of independence, within the
bounds of the empire. They were called Skamars. Constantine rooted out
these bands. A celebrated chief of the Skamars was publicly executed
at Constantinople with the greatest barbarity, his living body being
dissected by surgeons after the amputation of his hands and feet.
The habitual barbarity of legal punishments in the Byzantine Empire can
hardly relieve the memory of Constantine from the reproach of cruelty,
which this punishment proves he was ready to employ against the enemies
of his authority, whether brigands or image-worshippers. His error,
therefore, was not only passing laws against liberty of conscience--which
was a fault in accordance with the spirit of the age--but in carrying
these laws into execution with a cruelty offensive to human feelings.
Yet on many occasions Constantine gave proofs of humanity, as well as
of a desire to protect his subjects. The Slavonians on the coast of
Thrace, having fitted out some piratical vessels, carried off many of
the inhabitants of Tenedos, Imbros, and Samothrace, to sell them as
slaves. The emperor on this occasion ransomed twenty-five hundred of
his subjects, preferring to lower his own dignity by paying tribute to
the pirates, rather than allow those who looked to him for protection
to pine away their lives in hopeless misery. No other act of his reign
shows so much real greatness of mind as this. He also concluded the
convention with the Saracens for an exchange of prisoners, which has
been already mentioned--one of the earliest examples of the exchanges
between the Mohammedans and the Christians, which afterwards became
frequent on the Byzantine frontiers. Man was exchanged for man, woman for
woman, and child for child. These conventions tended to save the lives of
innumerable prisoners, and rendered the future wars between the Saracens
and the Romans less barbarous.
Constantine was active in his internal administration, and his schemes
for improving the condition of the inhabitants of his empire were carried
out on a far more gigantic scale than modern governments have considered
practicable. One of his plans for reviving agriculture in uncultivated
districts was by re-peopling them with colonies of emigrants, to whom he
secured favourable conditions and efficient protection. As usual under
such circumstances, we find years of famine and plenty alternating in
close succession. Yet the bitterest enemy of Constantine, the abbot
Theophanes, confesses that his reign was one of general abundance. It is
true, he reproaches him with loading the husbandmen with taxes; but he
also accuses him of being a new Midas, who made gold so common that it
became cheap. The abbot’s political economy, it must be confessed, is not
so orthodox as his calumny.
The time and attention of Constantine, during his whole reign,
were principally engaged in military occupations. In the eyes of
his contemporaries he was judged by his military conduct. His
strategic abilities and indefatigable activity were the most striking
characteristics of his administration. His campaigns, his financial
measures, and the abundance they created, were known to all; but his
ecclesiastical policy affected comparatively few. Yet by that policy his
reign has been exclusively judged and condemned in modern times. The
grounds of the condemnation are unjust. He has not, like his father, the
merit of having saved an empire from ruin; but he may claim the honour
of perfecting the reforms planned by his father, and of re-establishing
the military power of the Roman Empire on a basis that perpetuated
Byzantine supremacy for several centuries. Hitherto historians have
treated the events of his reign as an accidental assemblage of facts;
but surely, if he is to be rendered responsible for the persecution of
the image-worshippers, in which he took comparatively little part, he
deserves credit for his military successes and prosperous administration,
since these were the result of his constant personal occupation. The
history of his ecclesiastical measures, however, really possesses a
deep interest, for they reflect with accuracy the feelings and ideas of
millions of his subjects, as well as of the emperor.
THE COUNCIL OF 754
[Sidenote: [754-775 A.D.]]
When his power was consolidated, he steadily pursued his father’s plans
for centralising the ecclesiastical administration of the empire. To
prepare for the final decision of the question, which probably, in his
mind, related as much to the right of the emperor to govern the church,
as to the question whether pictures were to be worshipped or not, he
ordered the metropolitans and archbishops to hold provincial synods,
in order to discipline the people for the execution of the edicts he
proposed to carry in a general council of the Eastern church.
This general council was convoked at Constantinople in the year 754.
It was attended by 338 bishops, forming the most numerous assembly
of the Christian clergy which had ever been collected together for
ecclesiastical legislation.
Neither the pope nor the patriarchs of Antioch, Alexandria, and Jerusalem
sent representatives to this council, which was solely composed of the
Byzantine clergy, so that it had no right to assume the rank of an
ecumenical council. Its decisions were all against image-worship, which
it declared to be contrary to Scripture. It proclaimed the use of images
and pictures in churches to be a pagan and anti-Christian practice,
the abolition of which was necessary to avoid leading Christians into
temptation. Even the use of the crucifix was condemned, on the ground
that the only true symbol of the incarnation was the bread and wine which
Christ had commanded to be received for the remission of sins.
In its opposition to the worship of pictures, the council was led into
the display of some animosity against painting itself; and every attempt
at embodying sacred subjects by what it styled the dead and accursed
art, foolishly invented by the pagans, was strongly condemned. The
common people were thus deprived of a source of ideas, which, though
liable to abuse, tended in general to civilise their minds, and might
awaken noble thoughts and religious aspirations. We may fully agree with
the iconoclasts in the religious importance of not worshipping images,
and not allowing the people to prostrate themselves on the pavements
of churches before pictures of saints, whether said to be painted by
human artists or miraculous agency; while at the same time we think that
the walls of the vestibules or porticoes of sacred edifices may with
propriety be adorned with pictures representing those sacred subjects
most likely to awaken feelings of Christian charity. It is by embodying
and ennobling the expression of feelings common to all mankind, that
modern artists can alone unite in their works that combination of truth
with the glow of creative imagination which gives a divine stamp to many
pagan works.
There is nothing in the circle of human affairs so democratic as art. The
council of 754, however, deemed that it was necessary to sacrifice art to
the purity of religion. “The godless art of painting” was proscribed. All
who manufactured crucifixes or sacred paintings for worship, in public
or private, whether laymen or monks, were ordered to be excommunicated
by the church and punished by the state. At the same time, in order to
guard against the indiscriminate destruction of sacred buildings and
shrines possessing valuable ornaments and rich plate and jewels, by
iconoclastic zeal, or under its pretext, the council commanded that no
alteration was to be made in existing churches, without the special
permission of the patriarch and the emperor--a regulation bearing strong
marks of the fiscal rapacity of the central treasury of the Roman Empire.
The bigotry of the age was displayed in the anathema which this council
pronounced against three of the most distinguished and virtuous advocates
of image-worship, Germanus, the patriarch of Constantinople, George of
Cyprus, and John Damascenus, the last of the fathers of the Greek church.
The acts of this council, however, are only known from the garbled
portions preserved by its enemies in the acts of the second council of
Nicæa and the hostile historians.[n]
LEO IV AND CONSTANTINE VI (775-797 A.D.)
[Sidenote: [775-797 A.D.]]
Leo IV, the son of the fifth, and the father of the sixth Constantine,
was of a feeble constitution both of mind and body, and the principal
care of his reign was the settlement of the succession. The association
of the young Constantine was urged by the officious zeal of his subjects;
and the emperor, conscious of his decay, complied, after a prudent
hesitation, with their unanimous wishes. The royal infant, at the age
of five years, was crowned with his mother Irene; and the national
consent was ratified by every circumstance of pomp and solemnity that
could dazzle the eyes, or bind the conscience, of the Greeks. An oath of
fidelity was administered in the palace, the church, and the hippodrome,
to the several orders of the state, who adjured the holy names of the son
and mother of God.
The first to swear, and the first to violate their oath, were the five
sons of Copronymus by a second marriage; and the story of these princes
is singular and tragic. The right of primogeniture excluded them from the
throne; the injustice of their elder brother defrauded them of a legacy
of about £2,000,000 [$10,000,000]; some vain titles were not deemed
a sufficient compensation for wealth and power; and they repeatedly
conspired against their nephew, before and after the death of his father
(780). The first attempt was pardoned; for the second offence they
were condemned to the ecclesiastical state; and for the third treason,
Nicephorus, the eldest and most guilty, was deprived of his eyes, and
his four brothers, Christopher, Nicetas, Anthemeus, and Eudoxas, were
punished, as a milder sentence, by the amputation of their tongues.
For himself, the emperor had chosen a barbarian wife, the daughter of
the khan of the Khazars; but in the marriage of his heir, he preferred
an Athenian virgin, an orphan, seventeen years old, whose sole fortune
must have consisted in her personal accomplishments. The nuptials of Leo
and Irene were celebrated with royal pomp; she soon acquired the love
and confidence of a feeble husband, and in his testament he declared
the empress guardian of the Roman world, and of their son Constantine
VI, who was no more than ten years of age. During his childhood Irene
most ably and assiduously discharged, in her public administration, the
duties of a faithful mother; and her zeal in the restoration of images
has deserved the name and honours of a saint, which she still occupies
in the Greek calendar. But the emperor attained the maturity of youth;
the maternal yoke became more grievous; and he listened to the favourites
of his own age, who shared his pleasures and were ambitious of sharing
his power. Their reasons convinced him of his right, their praises of
his ability to reign; and he consented to reward the services of Irene
by a perpetual banishment to the isle of Sicily. But her vigilance and
penetration easily disconcerted their rash projects; a similar, or more
severe, punishment was retaliated on themselves and their advisers; and
Irene inflicted on the ungrateful prince the chastisement of a boy. After
this contest the mother and the son were at the head of two domestic
factions; and instead of mild influence and voluntary obedience, she held
in chains a captive and an enemy. The empress was overthrown by the abuse
of victory; the oath of fidelity which she exacted to herself alone, was
pronounced with reluctant murmurs; and the bold refusal of the Armenian
guards encouraged a free and general declaration that Constantine VI
was the lawful emperor of the Romans. In this character he ascended his
hereditary throne, and dismissed Irene to a life of solitude and repose.
THE EMPRESS IRENE
A powerful conspiracy was formed for the restoration of Irene; and the
secret, though widely diffused, was faithfully kept above eight months,
till the emperor, suspicious of his danger, escaped from Constantinople,
with the design of appealing to the provinces and armies. By this hasty
flight, the empress was left on the brink of the precipice; yet before
she implored the mercy of her son, Irene addressed a private epistle
to the friends whom she had placed about his person, with a menace that
unless they accomplished, she would reveal, their treason. Their fear
rendered them intrepid; they seized the emperor on the Asiatic shore,
and he was transported to the porphyry apartment of the palace where he
had first seen the light. In the mind of Irene, ambition had stifled
every sentiment of humanity and nature; and it was decreed in her bloody
council that Constantine should be rendered incapable of the throne.
The blind son of Irene survived many years, oppressed by the court, and
forgotten by the world; the Isaurian dynasty was silently extinguished;
and the memory of Constantine was recalled only by the nuptials of his
daughter Euphrosyne with the emperor Michael II.[g]
IRENE AND ICONOCLASM
The empress was known to favour image-worship. The national vanity of
the Greeks and the religious feelings of the orthodox required the
sanction of a constitutional public authority before the laws against
image-worship could be openly repealed. The Byzantine Empire had at
this time an ecclesiastical though not a political constitution. The
will of the sovereign was alone insufficient to change an organic law,
forming part of the ecclesiastical administration of the empire. It was
necessary to convoke a general council to legalise image-worship; and to
render such a council a fit instrument for the proposed revolution, much
arrangement was necessary. No person was ever endued with greater talents
for removing opposition and conciliating personal support than the
empress. The patriarch Paul, a decided iconoclast, was induced to resign,
and declare that he repented of his hostility to image-worship, because
it had cut off the church of Constantinople from communion with the rest
of the Christian world. This declaration pointed out the necessity of
holding a general council in order to re-establish that communion.
The crisis required a new patriarch of stainless character, great
ability, and perfect acquaintance with the party connections and
individual characters of the leading bishops. No person could be selected
from among the dignitaries of the church who had been generally appointed
by iconoclast emperors. The choice of Irene fell on a civilian--Tarasius,
the chief secretary of the imperial cabinet,--a man of noble birth,
considerable popularity, and a high reputation for learning and probity.
The iconoclasts were still strong in the capital, and the opposition of
the soldiery was excited by the determination of Tarasius to re-establish
image-worship. They openly declared that they would not allow a council
of the church to be held, nor permit the ecclesiastics of their party
to be unjustly treated by the court. More than one tumult warned the
empress that no council could be held at Constantinople. It required
nearly three years to smooth the way for the meeting of the council,
which was at length held at Nicæa in September, 787. Three hundred and
sixty-seven members attended, of whom, however, not a few were abbots
and monks, who assumed the title of confessors from having been ejected
from their monasteries by the decrees of the iconoclast sovereigns. The
secretary of the two commissioners who represented the imperial authority
was Nicephorus the historian, subsequently patriarch of Constantinople.
His sketch of the history of the empire, from the years 602 to 770, is
a valuable work, and indicates that he was a man of judgment whenever
his perceptions were not obscured by theological and ecclesiastical
prejudices. Two other eminent Byzantine writers were also present.
George, called Syncellus, from the office he held under the patriarch
Tarasius. He has left us a chronological work which has preserved the
knowledge of many important facts recorded by no other ancient authority.
Theophanes, the friend and companion of the Syncellus, has continued this
work; and his chronography of Roman and Byzantine history, with all its
faults, forms the best picture of the condition of the empire that we
possess for a long period. Theophanes enjoyed the honour of becoming,
at a later day, a confessor in the cause of image-worship. He was
exiled from a monastery which he had founded, and died in the island of
Samothrace, in 817 A.D.
[Sidenote: [754-787 A.D.]]
The second council of Nicæa had no better title than the iconoclast
council of Constantinople to be regarded as a general council of the
church. The pope Adrian, indeed, sent deputies from the Latin church; but
the churches of Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch, whose patriarchs were
groaning under the government of the caliphs, did not dare to communicate
with foreign authorities.
The second council of Nicæa authorised the worship of images as an
orthodox practice. Forged passages, pretending to be extracts from the
earlier fathers, and genuine quotations from the modern, were cited in
favour of the practice. Simony was already a prevailing evil in the Greek
church. Many of the bishops had purchased their sees, and most of these
naturally preferred doing violence to their opinions rather than lose
their revenues. From this cause, unanimity was easily obtained by court
influence. The council decided, that not only was the cross an object of
reverence, but also that the images of Christ, and the pictures of the
Virgin Mary--of angels, saints, and holy men, whether painted in colours,
or worked in embroidery in sacred ornaments, or formed in mosaic in the
walls of churches--were all lawful objects of worship. At the same time,
in order to guard against the accusation of idolatry, it was declared
that the worship of an image, which is merely a sign of reverence, must
not be confounded with the adoration due only to God. The council of
Constantinople held in 754 was declared heretical, and all who maintained
its doctrines, and condemned the use of images, were anathematised. The
patriarchs Anastasius, Constantinus, and Nicetas were especially doomed
to eternal condemnation.
The pope adopted the decrees of this council, but he refused to confirm
them officially, because the empress delayed restoring the estates of St.
Peter’s patrimony. In the countries of western Europe which had formed
parts of the Western Empire, the superstitions of the image-worshippers
were viewed with as much dissatisfaction as the fanaticism of the
iconoclasts; and the council of Nicæa was as much condemned as that of
Constantinople by a large body of enlightened ecclesiastics. The public
mind in the West was almost as much divided as in the East; and if a
general council of the Latin church had been assembled, its unbiassed
decisions would probably have been at variance with those supported by
the pope and the council of Nicæa.
Charlemagne published a refutation of the doctrines of this council on
the subject of image-worship. His work, called the _Caroline Books_,
consists of four parts, and was certainly composed under his immediate
personal superintendence, though he was doubtless incapable of writing it
himself.
The dark night of mediæval ignorance and local prejudices had not yet
settled on the West; nor had feudal anarchy confined the ideas and wants
of society to the narrow sphere of provincial interests. The aspect of
public opinion alarmed Pope Adrian, whose interests required that the
relations of the West and East should not become friendly. His position,
however, rendered him more suspicious of Constantine and Irene, in
spite of their orthodoxy, than of Charlemagne, with all his heterodox
ideas. The Frank monarch, though he differed in ecclesiastical opinions,
was sure to be a political protector. The pope consequently laboured
to foment the jealousy that reigned between the Frank and Byzantine
governments concerning Italy, where the commercial relations of the
Greeks still counterbalanced the military influence of the Franks. His
calumnies must have sunk deep into the public mind, and tended to impress
on western nations that aversion to the Greeks, which was subsequently
increased by mercantile jealousy and religious strife.
END OF BYZANTINE AUTHORITY AT ROME
[Sidenote: [797-802 A.D.]]
The extinction of the last traces of the supremacy of the Eastern Empire
at Rome was the most gratifying result of their machinations to the
popes. On Christmas Day, 800 A.D., Charlemagne revived the existence of
the Western Empire, and received the imperial crown from Pope Leo III
in the church of St. Peter. Hitherto the Frank monarch had acknowledged
a titular supremacy in the Eastern Empire, and had borne the title of
patrician of the Roman Empire, as a mark of dignity conferred on him by
the emperors of Constantinople; but he now raised himself to an equality
with the emperors of the East, by assuming the title of emperor of the
West.[n]
[Illustration: ROBES OF AN ARCHBISHOP, EIGHTH CENTURY]
On earth, the crimes of Irene were left five years unpunished; her reign
was crowned with external splendour;[52] and if she could silence the
voice of conscience, she neither heard nor regarded the reproaches of
mankind. The Roman world bowed to the government of a female; and as she
moved through the streets of Constantinople, the reins of four milk-white
steeds were held by as many patricians, who marched on foot before the
golden chariot of their queen. But these patricians were for the most
part eunuchs; raised, enriched, entrusted with the first dignities
of the empire, they basely conspired against their benefactress; the
great treasurer Nicephorus was secretly invested with the purple; her
successor was introduced into the palace, and crowned at St. Sophia
by the venal patriarch. In their first interview, she recapitulated
with dignity the revolutions of her life, gently accused the perfidy
of Nicephorus, insinuated that he owed his life to her unsuspicious
clemency, and, for the throne and treasures which she resigned, solicited
a decent and honourable retreat. His avarice refused this modest
compensation; and in her exile on the isle of Lesbos, the empress earned
a scanty subsistence by the labours of her distaff.
NICEPHORUS (802-811 A.D.) AND MICHAEL I (812-813 A.D.)
[Sidenote: [802-813 A.D.]]
Many tyrants have reigned undoubtedly more criminal than Nicephorus,
but none perhaps have more deeply incurred the universal abhorrence
of their people. His character was stained with the three odious
vices of hypocrisy, ingratitude, and avarice; his want of virtue was
not redeemed by any superior talents, nor his want of talents by any
pleasing qualifications. Unskilful and unfortunate in war, Nicephorus
was vanquished by the Saracens, and slain by the Bulgarians; and
the advantage of his death overbalanced, in the public opinion, the
destruction of a Roman army. His son and heir Stauracius escaped from
the field with a mortal wound: yet six months of an expiring life were
sufficient to refute his indecent, though popular, declaration, that he
would in all things avoid the example of his father.
On the near prospect of his decease, Michael, the great master of the
palace, and the husband of his sister Procopia, was named by every person
of the palace and city, except by his envious brother. Tenacious of a
sceptre now falling from his hand, he conspired against the life of his
successor, and cherished the idea of changing to a democracy the Roman
Empire. But these rash projects served only to inflame the zeal of the
people, and to remove the scruples of the candidate: Michael I accepted
the purple, and before he sank into the grave, the son of Nicephorus
implored the clemency of his new sovereign. Had Michael in an age of
peace ascended an hereditary throne, he might have reigned and died the
father of his people: but his mild virtues were adapted to the shade
of private life, nor was he capable of controlling the ambition of his
equals, or of resisting the arms of the victorious Bulgarians. While his
want of ability and success exposed him to the contempt of the soldiers,
the masculine spirit of his wife Procopia awakened their indignation.
Even the Greeks of the ninth century were provoked by the insolence of
a female who, in the front of the standards, presumed to direct their
discipline and animate their valour; and their licentious clamours
advised the new Semiramis to reverence the majesty of a Roman camp. After
an unsuccessful campaign, the emperor left, in their winter quarters of
Thrace, a disaffected army under the command of his enemies; and their
artful eloquence persuaded the soldiers to break the dominion of the
eunuchs, to degrade the husband of Procopia, and to assert the right of
a military election. They marched towards the capital; yet the clergy,
the senate, and the people of Constantinople adhered to the cause of
Michael; and the troops and treasures of Asia might have protracted the
mischiefs of civil war. But his humanity (by the ambitious it will be
termed his weakness) protested, that not a drop of Christian blood should
be shed in his quarrel, and his messengers presented the conquerors with
the keys of the city and the palace. They were disarmed by his innocence
and submission; his life and his eyes were spared; and the imperial monk
enjoyed the comforts of solitude and religion above thirty-two years
after he had been stripped of the purple and separated from his wife.
LEO THE ARMENIAN (813-820 A.D.)
[Sidenote: [813-820 A.D.]]
A rebel in the time of Nicephorus, the famous and unfortunate Bardanes,
had once the curiosity to consult an Asiatic prophet, who after
prognosticating his fall, announced the fortunes of his three principal
officers, Leo the Armenian, Michael the Phrygian, and Thomas the
Cappadocian, the successive reigns of the two former, the fruitless and
fatal enterprise of the third. This prediction was verified, or rather
was produced, by the event. Ten years afterwards, when the Thracian camp
rejected the husband of Procopia, the crown was presented to the same
Leo, the first in military rank and the secret author of the mutiny. As
he affected to hesitate--“with this sword,” said his companion Michael,
“I will open the gates of Constantinople to your imperial sway; or
instantly plunge it into your bosom, if you obstinately resist the just
desires of your fellow-soldiers.” The compliance of the Armenian was
rewarded with the empire, and he reigned seven years and a half under the
name of Leo V.[g]
Six days after his coronation, the Bulgarian king, Crumn, assailed
Constantinople; a plot to assassinate the Bulgarian failed, but ample
revenge was taken in the widespread pillage and the carrying off to
Bulgaria of fifty thousand prisoners. Crumn died while preparing a new
invasion; Leo destroyed his army at Mesembria and ravaged Bulgaria
(814).[a]
Educated in a camp, and ignorant both of laws and letters, he
introduced into his civil government the rigour and even cruelty of
military discipline; but if his severity was sometimes dangerous to
the innocent, it was always formidable to the guilty. His religious
inconstancy was taxed by the epithet of chameleon, but the Catholics have
acknowledged, by the voice of a saint and confessors, that the life of
the iconoclast[53] was useful to the republic. The zeal of his companion
Michael was repaid with riches, honours, and military command; and his
subordinate talents were beneficially employed in the public service. Yet
the Phrygian was dissatisfied at receiving as a favour a scanty portion
of the imperial prize, which he had bestowed on his equal; and his
discontent, which sometimes evaporated in a hasty discourse, at length
assumed a more threatening and hostile aspect against a prince whom he
represented as a cruel tyrant. That tyrant, however, repeatedly detected,
warned, and dismissed the old companion of his arms, till fear and
resentment prevailed over gratitude; and Michael, after a scrutiny into
his actions and designs, was convicted of treasons, and sentenced to be
burned alive in the furnace of the private baths. The devout humanity of
the empress Theophano was fatal to her husband and family. A solemn day,
the twenty-fifth of December, had been fixed for the execution; she urged
that the anniversary of the Saviour’s birth would be profaned by this
inhuman spectacle, and Leo consented with reluctance to a decent respite.
On the great festivals, a chosen band of priests and chanters was
admitted into the palace by a private gate, to sing matins in the chapel;
and Leo, who regulated with the same strictness the discipline of the
choir and of the camp, was seldom absent from these early devotions.
In the ecclesiastical habit, but with swords under their robes, the
conspirators mingled with the procession, lurked in the angles of
the chapel, and expected, as the signal of murder, the intonation of
the first psalm by the emperor himself. The imperfect light, and the
uniformity of dress, might have favoured his escape, while their assault
was pointed against a harmless priest; but they soon discovered their
mistake, and encompassed on all sides the royal victim. Without a weapon
and without a friend, he grasped a weighty cross, and stood at bay
against the hunters of his life; but as he asked for mercy,--“This is
the hour, not of mercy, but of vengeance,” was the inexorable reply. The
stroke of a well-aimed sword separated from his body the right arm and
the cross, and Leo the Armenian was slain at the foot of the altar.
THE AMORIAN DYNASTY (820-867 A.D.)
MICHAEL II (820-829 A.D.)
[Sidenote: [820-829 A.D.]]
A memorable reverse of fortune was displayed in Michael II, who, from
a defect in his speech, was surnamed the Stammerer. He was snatched
from the fiery furnace to the sovereignty of an empire; and as in the
tumult a smith could not readily be found, the fetters remained on his
legs several hours after he was seated on the throne of the Cæsars. The
royal blood, which had been the price of his elevation, was unprofitably
spent; in the purple he retained the ignoble vices of his origin; and
Michael lost his provinces with as supine indifference as if they had
been the inheritance of his fathers.[54] His title was disputed by
Thomas, the last of the military triumvirate, who transported into Europe
fourscore thousand barbarians from the banks of the Tigris and the
shores of the Caspian. He formed the siege of Constantinople; but the
capital was defended with spiritual and carnal weapons; a Bulgarian king
assaulted the camp of the Orientals, and Thomas had the misfortune, or
the weakness, to fall alive into the power of the conqueror. The hands
and feet of the rebel were amputated; he was placed on an ass, and,
amidst the insults of the people, was led through the streets, which he
sprinkled with his blood. After the death of his first wife, the emperor,
at the request of the senate, drew from her monastery Euphrosyne, the
daughter of Constantine VI. Her august birth might justify a stipulation
in the marriage contract that her children should equally share the
empire with their elder brother. But the nuptials of Michael and
Euphrosyne were barren; and she was content with the title of mother of
Theophilus, his son and successor.
THEOPHILUS (829-842 A.D.)
[Sidenote: [829-854 A.D.]]
The character of Theophilus is a rare example in which religious zeal
has allowed, and perhaps magnified, the virtues of a heretic and a
persecutor. His valour was often felt by the enemies, and his justice
by the subjects, of the monarchy; but the valour of Theophilus was rash
and fruitless, and his justice arbitrary and cruel. He displayed the
banner of the cross against the Saracens; but his five expeditions were
concluded by a signal overthrow (838); Amorium, the native city of his
ancestors, was levelled with the ground, and from his military toils, he
derived only the surname of the Unfortunate. The wisdom of a sovereign
is comprised in the institution of laws and the choice of magistrates,
and while he seems without action, his civil government revolves round
his centre with the silence and order of the planetary system. But the
justice of Theophilus was fashioned on the model of the oriental despots,
who, in personal and irregular acts of authority, consult the reason or
passion of the moment, without measuring the sentence by the law, or the
penalty by the offence. For some venial offences, some defect of equity
or vigilance, the principal ministers, a prefect, a quæstor, a captain of
the guards, were banished, or mutilated, or scalded with boiling pitch,
or burned alive in the hippodrome; and as these dreadful examples might
be the effects of error or caprice, they must have alienated from his
service the best and wisest of the citizens.
Theophilus might inflict a tardy vengeance on the assassins of Leo and
the saviours of his father; but he enjoyed the fruits of their crime;
and his jealous tyranny sacrificed a brother and a prince to the future
safety of his life. A Persian of the race of the Sassanidæ died in
poverty and exile at Constantinople, leaving an only son, the issue of
a plebeian marriage. At the age of twelve years, the royal birth of
Theophobus was revealed, and his merit was not unworthy of his birth. He
was educated in the Byzantine palace, a Christian and a soldier; advanced
with rapid steps in the career of fortune and glory; received the hand of
the emperor’s sister; and was promoted to the command of thirty thousand
Persians, who, like his father, had fled from the Mohammedan conquerors.
THEODORA AND MICHAEL THE DRUNKARD (842-867 A.D.)
These troops, doubly infected with mercenary and fanatic vices, were
desirous of revolting against their benefactor, and erecting the
standard of their native king: but the loyal Theophobus rejected their
offers, disconcerted their schemes, and escaped from their hands to the
camp or palace of his royal brother. A generous confidence might have
secured a faithful and able guardian for his wife and his infant son,
to whom Theophilus, in the flower of his age, was compelled to leave
the inheritance of the empire. But his jealousy was exasperated by envy
and disease: he feared the dangerous virtues which might either support
or oppress their infancy and weakness; and the dying emperor demanded
the head of the Persian prince. With savage delight he recognised the
familiar features of his brother: “Thou art no longer Theophobus,” he
said; and sinking on his couch, he added with a faltering voice, “Soon,
too soon, I shall be no more Theophilus!”
Yet his last choice entrusted his wife Theodora with the guardianship of
the empire and her son Michael, who was left an orphan in the fifth year
of his age. The restoration of images, and the final extirpation of the
Iconoclasts,[55] has endeared her name to the devotion of the Greeks;
but in the fervour of religious zeal, Theodora entertained a grateful
regard for the memory and salvation of her husband. After thirteen years
of a prudent and frugal administration, she perceived the decline of
her influence; but the second Irene imitated only the virtues of her
predecessor. Instead of conspiring against the life or government of her
son, she retired, without a struggle, though not without a murmur, to the
solitude of private life, deploring the ingratitude, the vices, and the
inevitable ruin of the worthless youth.
[Sidenote: [854-867 A.D.]]
Among the successors of Nero and Elagabalus, we have not hitherto found
the imitation of their vices, the character of a Roman prince who
considered pleasure as the object of life, and virtue as the enemy of
pleasure. Whatever might have been the maternal care of Theodora in the
education of Michael III, her unfortunate son was a king before he was a
man. If the ambitious mother laboured to check the progress of reason,
she could not cool the ebullition of passion; and her selfish policy was
justly repaid by the contempt and ingratitude of the headstrong youth.
At the age of eighteen he rejected her authority, without feeling his
own incapacity to govern the empire and himself. With Theodora, all
gravity and wisdom retired from the court: their place was supplied by
the alternate dominion of vice and folly; and it was impossible, without
forfeiting the public esteem, to acquire or preserve the favour of the
emperor. The millions of gold and silver which had been accumulated
for the service of the state, were lavished on the vilest of men, who
flattered his passions and shared his pleasures; and in a reign of
thirteen years, the richest of sovereigns was compelled to strip the
palace and the churches of their precious furniture. Like Nero, he
delighted in the amusements of the theatre, and sighed to be surpassed
in the accomplishments in which he should have blushed to excel. Yet the
studies of Nero in music and poetry betrayed some symptoms of a liberal
taste; the more ignoble arts of the son of Theophilus were confined to
the chariot race of the hippodrome.
But the most extraordinary feature in the character of Michael is the
profane mockery of the religion of his country. The superstition of the
Greeks might indeed excite the smile of a philosopher; but his smile
would have been rational and temperate, and he must have condemned the
ignorant folly of a youth who insulted the objects of public veneration.
A buffoon of the court was invested in the robes of the patriarch; his
twelve metropolitans, among whom the emperor was ranked, assumed their
ecclesiastical garments; they used or abused the sacred vessels of
the altar; and, in their bacchanalian feasts, the holy communion was
administered in a nauseous compound of vinegar and mustard. Nor were
these impious spectacles concealed from the eyes of the city. On the day
of a solemn festival, the emperor, and his bishops or buffoons, rode on
asses through the streets, encountered the true patriarch at the head
of his clergy, and, by their licentious shouts and obscene gestures,
disordered the gravity of the Christian procession.[56] The devotion of
Michael appeared only in some offence to reason or piety; he received his
theatrical crowns from the statue of the Virgin; and an imperial tomb was
violated for the sake of burning the bones of Constantine the Iconoclast.
By this extravagant conduct the son of Theophilus became as contemptible
as he was odious; every citizen was impatient for the deliverance of his
country; and even the favourites of the moment were apprehensive that a
caprice might snatch away what a caprice had bestowed. In the thirtieth
year of his age, and in the hour of intoxication and sleep, Michael III
was murdered in his chamber by the founder of a new dynasty, whom the
emperor had raised to an equality of rank and power.[g]
It was in his reign that Photius was illegally made Patriarch and such a
dissension created that the Roman pope was appealed to, as is described
in the next volume under the Papacy. In 865 also the Russians made a
raid on Constantinople. This was their first appearance to the civilized
world, and though they were driven off, they made a deep impression by
their savagery.[a]
THE BASILIAN OR MACEDONIAN DYNASTY (867-1057 A.D.)
BASIL (867-886 A.D.)
The Arsacides, the rivals of Rome, possessed the sceptre of the East near
four hundred years, a younger branch of these Parthian kings continued to
reign in Armenia; and their royal descendants survived the partition and
servitude of that ancient monarchy. Two of these, Artabanus and Chlienes,
escaped or retired to the court of Leo I, his bounty seated them in a
safe and hospitable exile, in the provinces of Macedonia; Hadrianopolis
was their final settlement.
[Illustration: A SCHOLAR OF THE NINTH CENTURY]
[Sidenote: [835-886 A.D.]]
During several generations they maintained the dignity of their birth;
and their Roman patriotism rejected the tempting offers of the Persian
and Arabian powers, who recalled them to their native country. But
their splendour was insensibly clouded by time and poverty; and the
father of Basil was reduced to a small farm, which he cultivated with
his own hands; yet he scorned to disgrace the blood of the Arsacides by
a plebeian alliance; his wife, a widow of Hadrianopolis, was pleased
to count among her ancestors the great Constantine; and their royal
infant was connected by some dark affinity of lineage or country with
the Macedonian Alexander. No sooner was he born than the cradle of
Basil, his family, and his city, were swept away by an inundation of the
Bulgarians; he was educated a slave in a foreign land; and in this severe
discipline he acquired the hardiness of body and flexibility of mind
which promoted his future elevation. In the age of youth or manhood he
shared the deliverance of the Roman captives, who generously broke their
fetters, marched through Bulgaria to the shores of the Euxine, defeated
two armies of barbarians, embarked in the ships which had been stationed
for their reception, and returned to Constantinople, from whence they
were distributed to their respective homes. But the freedom of Basil was
naked and destitute; his farm was ruined by the calamities of war. After
his father’s death, his manual labour or service could no longer support
a family of orphans; and he resolved to seek a more conspicuous theatre,
in which every virtue and every vice may lead to the paths of greatness.
The first night of his arrival at Constantinople, without friends or
money, the weary pilgrim slept on the steps of the church of St. Diomede;
he was fed by the casual hospitality of a monk, and was introduced to the
service of a cousin and namesake of the emperor Theophilus, who, though
himself of a diminutive person, was always followed by a train of tall
and handsome domestics. Basil attended his patron to the government of
Peloponnesus; eclipsed, by his personal merit, the birth and dignity of
Theophilus, and formed a useful connection with a wealthy and charitable
matron of Patras. Her spiritual or carnal love embraced the young
adventurer, whom she adopted as her son. Danielis presented him with
thirty slaves; and the produce of her bounty was expended in the support
of his brothers, and the purchase of some large estates in Macedonia. His
gratitude or ambition still attached him to the service of Theophilus;
and a lucky accident recommended him to the notice of the court.
A famous wrestler, in the train of the Bulgarian ambassadors, had
defied, at the royal banquet, the boldest and most robust of the Greeks.
The strength of Basil was praised; he accepted the challenge, and the
barbarian champion was overthrown at the first onset. A beautiful but
vicious horse was condemned to be hamstrung; it was subdued by the
dexterity and courage of the servant of Theophilus; and his conqueror
was promoted to an honourable rank in the imperial stables. But it was
impossible to obtain the confidence of Michael without complying with his
vices; and his new favourite, the great chamberlain of the palace, was
raised and supported by a disgraceful marriage with a royal concubine,
and the dishonour of his sister who succeeded to her place.
The public administration had been abandoned to the cæsar Bardas, the
brother and enemy of Theodora; but the arts of female influence persuaded
Michael to hate and to fear his uncle; he was drawn from Constantinople,
under the pretext of a Cretan expedition, and stabbed in the tent of
audience, by the sword of the chamberlain and in the presence of the
emperor. About a month after this execution, Basil was invested with the
title of Augustus and the government of the empire. He supported this
unequal association till his influence was fortified by popular esteem.
His life was endangered by the caprice of the emperor; and his dignity
was profaned by a second colleague, who had rowed in the galleys. Yet the
murder of his benefactor must be condemned as an act of ingratitude and
treason; and the churches which he dedicated to the name of St. Michael
were a poor and puerile expiation of his guilt.
But the most solid praise of Basil is drawn from the comparison of
a ruined and a flourishing monarchy, that which he wrested from the
dissolute Michael, and that which he bequeathed to the Macedonian
dynasty.[57] The evils which had been sanctified by time and example were
corrected by his master-hand; and he revived, if not the national spirit,
at least the order and majesty of the Roman Empire. His application was
indefatigable, his temper cool, his understanding vigorous and decisive;
and in his practice he observed that rare and salutary moderation, which
pursues each virtue at an equal distance between the opposite vices. His
military service had been confined to the palace; nor was the emperor
endowed with the spirit or the talents of a warrior. Yet under his reign
the Roman arms were again formidable to the barbarians.[58] As soon
as he had formed a new army by discipline and exercise, he appeared in
person on the banks of the Euphrates, curbed the pride of the Saracens,
and suppressed the dangerous though just revolt of the Manichæans.[59]
[Sidenote: [867-886 A.D.]]
But his principal merit was in the civil administration of the finances
and of the laws. To replenish an exhausted treasury, it was proposed
to resume the lavish and ill-placed gifts of his predecessor; his
prudence abated one moiety of the restitution, and a sum of £1,200,000
[$6,000,000] was instantly procured to answer the most pressing demands,
and to allow some space for the mature operations of economy. Among
the various schemes for the improvement of the revenue, a new mode was
suggested of capitation, or tribute, which would have too much depended
on the arbitrary discretion of the assessors. A sufficient list of
honest and able agents was instantly produced by the minister; but, on
the more careful scrutiny of Basil himself, only two could be found who
might be safely entrusted with such dangerous powers; and they justified
his esteem by declining his confidence. But the serious and successful
diligence of the emperor established by degrees an equitable balance of
property and payment, of receipt and expenditure; a peculiar fund was
appropriated to each service; and a public method secured the interest of
the prince and the property of the people. After reforming the luxury,
he assigned two patrimonial estates to supply the decent plenty of the
imperial table; the contributions of the subject were reserved for his
defence; and the residue was employed in the embellishment of the capital
and provinces.
In the character of a judge he was assiduous and impartial, desirous
to save, but not afraid to strike; the oppressors of the people were
severely chastised, but his personal foes, whom it might be unsafe to
pardon, were condemned, after the loss of their eyes, to a life of
solitude and repentance. The change of language and manners demanded
a revision of the obsolete jurisprudence of Justinian. The voluminous
body of his _Institutes_, _Pandects_, _Code_, and _Novels_ was digested
under forty titles, in the Greek idiom; and the _Basilica_,[60] which
were improved and completed by his son and grandson, must be referred to
the genius of the original founder of their race. This glorious reign
was terminated by an accident in the chase. A furious stag entangled his
horns in the belt of Basil, and raised him from his horse; he was rescued
by an attendant, who cut the belt and slew the animal; but the fall or
the fever exhausted the strength of the aged monarch, and he expired in
the palace amidst the tears of his family and people. If he struck off
the head of the faithful servant for presuming to draw his sword against
his sovereign, the pride of despotism, which had lain dormant in his
life, revived in the last moments of despair, when he no longer wanted or
valued the opinion of mankind.
Of the four sons of the emperor, Constantine died before his father,
whose grief and credulity were amused by a flattering impostor and a vain
apparition.[61] Stephen, the youngest, was content with the honours of a
patriarch and a saint; both Leo and Alexander alike were invested with
the purple, but the powers of government were solely exercised by the
elder brother.[g]
LEO VI THE PHILOSOPHER (886-911 A.D.)
[Sidenote: [886-911 A.D.]]
The Saracen War continued during his reign; the chief evils suffered
being the loss of the second city of the empire, Thessalonica, which was
taken after a bitter siege, 904, and sacked with great ruthlessness.
Over twenty thousand of the inhabitants, escaping death, were sold into
slavery. The Romans also suffered naval defeat in 912. The Bulgarians in
893 had forced a shameful peace on Leo.[a]
The name of Leo VI has been dignified with the title of philosopher,
and the union of the prince and the sage, of the active and speculative
virtues, would indeed constitute the perfection of human nature. But the
claims of Leo are far short of this ideal excellence.
If we still inquire the reason of his sage appellation, it can only be
replied that the son of Basil was less ignorant than the greater part
of his contemporaries in church and state; that his education had been
directed by the learned Photius; and that several books of profane and
ecclesiastical science were composed by the pen, or in the name, of the
imperial philosopher. But the reputation of his philosophy and religion
was overthrown by a domestic vice, the repetition of his nuptials.
In the beginning of his reign Leo himself had abolished the state of
concubines, and condemned, without annulling, third marriages; but his
patriotism and love soon compelled him to violate his own laws and to
incur the penance which in a similar case he had imposed on his subjects.
In his first three alliances, his nuptial bed was unfruitful; the emperor
required a female companion and the empire a legitimate heir. The
beautiful Zoe was introduced into the palace as a concubine; and after a
trial of her fecundity and the birth of Constantine, her lover declared
his intention of legitimating the mother and the child by the celebration
of his fourth nuptials. But the patriarch Nicholas refused his blessing;
the imperial baptism of the young prince was obtained by a promise of
separation, and the contumacious husband of Zoe was excluded from the
communion of the faithful. Neither the fear of exile, nor the desertion
of his brethren, nor the authority of the Latin church, nor the danger
of failure or doubt in the succession to the empire, could bend the
spirit of the inflexible monk. After the death of Leo, he was recalled
from exile to the civil and ecclesiastical administration; and the edict
of union which was promulgated in the name of Constantine condemned the
future scandal of fourth marriages, and left a tacit imputation on his
own birth.
CONSTANTINE VII PORPHYROGENITUS (911-919 A.D.) (944-959 A.D.)
In the Greek language purple and porphyry are the same word; and as the
colours of nature are invariable, we may learn that a dark deep red was
the Tyrian dye which stained the purple of the ancients. An apartment of
the Byzantine palace was lined with porphyry; it was reserved for the
use of the pregnant empresses; and the royal birth of their children was
expressed by the appellation of porphyrogenite, or born in the purple.
Several of the Roman princes had been blessed with an heir; but this
peculiar surname was first applied to Constantine VII. His life and
titular reign were of equal duration; but of fifty-four years, six
had elapsed before his father’s death; and the son of Leo was ever the
voluntary or reluctant subject of those who oppressed his weakness or
abused his confidence. His uncle Alexander, who had long been invested
with the title of Augustus, was the first colleague and governor of the
young prince; but in a rapid career of vice and folly, the brother of Leo
already emulated the reputation of Michael; and when he was extinguished
by a timely death, he entertained a project of castrating his nephew, and
leaving the empire to a worthless favourite.
ROMANUS LECAPENUS (919-944 A.D.)
[Sidenote: [919-944 A.D.]]
The succeeding years of the minority of Constantine were occupied by
his mother Zoe, and a succession or council of seven regents,[62]
who pursued their interest, gratified their passions, abandoned the
republic, supplanted each other, and finally vanished in the presence
of a soldier. From an obscure origin, Romanus Lecapenus had raised
himself to the command of the naval armies; and in the anarchy of the
times, had deserved, or at least had obtained, the national esteem.
With a victorious and affectionate fleet,[63] he sailed from the mouth
of the Danube into the harbour of Constantinople, and was hailed as the
deliverer of the people, and the guardian of the prince. His supreme
office was at first defined by the new appellation of father of the
emperor; but Romanus soon disdained the subordinate powers of a minister,
and assumed with the titles of Cæsar and Augustus the full independence
of royalty, which he held near five-and-twenty years. His three sons,
Christopher, Stephanus, and Constantine VIII, were adorned with the same
honours, and the lawful emperor was degraded from the first to the fifth
rank in this college of princes. Yet, in the preservation of his life and
crown, he might still applaud his own fortune and the clemency of the
usurper.
The examples of ancient and modern history would have excused the
ambition of Romanus; the powers and the laws of the empire were in
his hand; the spurious birth of Constantine would have justified his
exclusion; and the grave or the monastery was open to receive the son of
the concubine. But Lecapenus does not appear to have possessed either
the virtues or the vices of a tyrant. The studious temper and retirement
of Constantine disarmed the jealousy of power: his books and music, his
pen and his pencil, were a constant source of amusement; and, if he
could improve a scanty allowance by the sale of his pictures, if their
price was not enhanced by the name of the artist, he was endowed with a
personal talent, which few princes could employ in the hour of adversity.
The fall of Romanus was occasioned by his own vices and those of his
children. After the decease of Christopher, his eldest son, the two
surviving brothers quarrelled with each other, and conspired against
their father. At the hour of noon, when all strangers were regularly
excluded from the palace, they entered his apartment with an armed force,
and conveyed him, in the habit of a monk, to a small island in the
Propontis, which was peopled by a religious community. The rumour of this
domestic revolution excited a tumult in the city; but Porphyrogenitus
alone, the true and lawful emperor, was the object of the public care;
and the sons of Lecapenus were taught, by tardy experience, that they
had achieved a guilty and perilous enterprise for the benefit of their
rival. Their sister Helena, the wife of Constantine, revealed, or
supposed, their treacherous design of assassinating her husband at the
royal banquet. His loyal adherents were alarmed; and the two usurpers
were prevented, seized, degraded from the purple, and embarked for the
same island and monastery where their father had been so lately confined.
Old Romanus met them on the beach with a sarcastic smile, and, after a
just reproach of their folly and ingratitude, presented his imperial
colleagues with an equal share of his water and vegetable diet.
[Sidenote: [944-963 A.D.]]
In the fortieth year of his reign, Constantine VII obtained the
possession of the Eastern world, which he ruled, or seemed to rule, near
fifteen years. But he was devoid of that energy of character which could
emerge into a life of action and glory; and the studies which had amused
and dignified his leisure were incompatible with the serious duties of a
sovereign. The emperor neglected the practice to instruct his son Romanus
in the theory of government; while he indulged the habits of intemperance
and sloth, he dropped the reins of the administration into the hands of
Helena his wife; and, in the shifting scene of her favour and caprice,
each minister was regretted in the promotion of a more worthless
successor. Yet the birth and misfortunes of Constantine had endeared him
to the Greeks; they excused his failings; they respected his learning,
his innocence and charity, his love of justice; and the ceremony of his
funeral was mourned with the unfeigned tears of his subjects (959). The
body, according to ancient custom, lay in state in the vestibule of the
palace; and the civil and military officers, the patricians, the senate,
and the clergy, approached in due order to adore and kiss the inanimate
corpse of their sovereign. Before the procession moved towards the
imperial sepulchre, a herald proclaimed this awful admonition: “Arise, O
king of the world, and obey the summons of the King of kings!”
ROMANUS II (959-963 A.D.)
The death of Constantine was imputed to poison; and his son Romanus, who
derived that name from his maternal grandfather, ascended the throne of
Constantinople. A prince, who, at the age of twenty, could be suspected
of anticipating his inheritance, must have been already lost in the
public esteem; yet Romanus was rather weak than wicked; and the largest
share of the guilt was transferred to his wife, Theophano, a woman of
base origin, masculine spirit, and flagitious manners. The sense of
personal glory and public happiness, the true pleasures of royalty, were
unknown to the son of Constantine; and while the two brothers, Nicephorus
and Leo, triumphed over the Saracens, the hours which the emperor owed to
his people were consumed in strenuous idleness.
In strength and beauty he was conspicuous above his equals; tall and
straight as a young cypress, his complexion was fair and florid, his eyes
sparkling, his shoulders broad, his nose long and aquiline. Yet even
these perfections were insufficient to fix the love of Theophano; and,
after a reign of four years, Theophano mingled for her husband the same
deadly draught which she was thought to have composed for his father.
By his marriage with this impious woman, Romanus the Younger left two
sons, Basil II and Constantine IX, and two daughters, Theophano and
Anne. The elder sister was given to Otto II emperor of the West; the
younger became the wife of Vladimir, grand duke and apostle of Russia,
and, by the marriage of her granddaughter with Henry I, king of France,
the blood of the Macedonians, and perhaps of the Arsacides, still flows
in the veins of the Bourbon line.
After the death of her husband the empress aspired to reign in the name
of her sons, the elder of whom was five, and the younger only two years
of age; but she soon felt the instability of a throne which was supported
by a female who could not be esteemed, and two infants who could not
be feared. Theophano looked around for a protector, and threw herself
into the arms of the bravest soldier; her heart was capacious; but the
deformity of the new favourite rendered it more than probable that
interest was the motive and excuse of her love.
NICEPHORUS PHOCAS (963-969 A.D.)
[Sidenote: [963-969 A.D.]]
Nicephorus Phocas united, in the popular opinion, the double merit of a
hero and saint. In the former character, his qualifications were genuine
and splendid: the descendant of a race illustrious by their military
exploits, he had displayed in every station and in every province the
courage of a soldier and the conduct of a chief; and Nicephorus was
crowned with recent laurels, from the important conquest of the isle of
Crete. His religion was of a more ambiguous cast; and his hair-cloth, his
fasts, his pious idiom, and his wish to retire from the business of the
world, were a convenient mask for his dark and dangerous ambition. Yet
he imposed on a holy patriarch, by whose influence, and by a decree of
the senate, he was entrusted, during the minority of the young princes,
with the absolute and independent command of the oriental armies. As
soon as he had secured the leaders and the troops, he boldly marched
to Constantinople, trampled on his enemies, avowed his correspondence
with the empress, and, without degrading her sons, assumed, with the
title of Augustus, the pre-eminence of rank and the plenitude of power.
But his marriage with Theophano was refused by the same patriarch who
had placed the crown on his head; by his second nuptials he incurred a
year of canonical penance; a bar of spiritual affinity was opposed to
their celebration; and some evasion and perjury were required to silence
the scruples of the clergy and people. The popularity of the emperor
was lost in the purple; in a reign of six years he provoked the hatred
of strangers and subjects, and the hypocrisy and avarice of the first
Nicephorus were revived in his successor. In the use of his patrimony,
the generous temper of Nicephorus had been proved, and the revenue was
strictly applied to the service of the state; each spring the emperor
marched in person against the Saracens, and every Roman might compute the
employment of his taxes in triumphs, conquests, and the security of the
Eastern barrier.[g]
THE WARS OF NICEPHORUS
The darling object of Nicephorus was to break the power of the Saracens,
and extend the frontiers of the empire in Syria and Mesopotamia. In
the spring of 964, he assembled an army against Tarsus, which was the
fortress that covered the Syrian frontier. Next year (965), Nicephorus
again formed the siege of Tarsus with an army of forty thousand men.
The place was inadequately supplied with provisions; and though the
inhabitants were a warlike race, who had long carried on incursions into
the Byzantine territory, they were compelled to abandon their native
city, and retire into Syria, carrying with them only their personal
clothing. A rich cross, which the Saracens had taken when they destroyed
the Byzantine army under Stypiotes in the year 877, was recovered and
placed in the church of St. Sophia at Constantinople. The bronze gates of
Tarsus and Mopsuestia, which were of rich workmanship, were also removed
and placed by Nicephorus in the new citadel he had constructed to defend
the palace. In the same year Cyprus was reconquered by an expedition
under the command of the patrician Nicetas.
[Sidenote: [965-968 A.D.]]
For two years the emperor was occupied at Constantinople by the civil
administration of the empire, by a threatened invasion of the Hungarians,
and by disputes with the king of Bulgaria; but in 968 he again resumed
the command of the army in the East. Early in spring he marched past
Antioch at the head of eighty thousand men, and without stopping to
besiege that city, he rendered himself master of the fortified places in
its neighbourhood, in order to cut it off from all relief from the caliph
of Baghdad. He then pushed forward his conquests; Laodicea, Hierapolis,
Aleppo, Arca, and Emesa were taken, and Tripolis and Damascus paid
tribute to save their territory from being laid waste. In this campaign
many relics were surrendered by the Mohammedans. In consequence of the
approach of winter, the emperor led his army into winter quarters, and
deferred forming the siege of Antioch until the ensuing spring. He left
the patrician Burtzes in a fort on the Black Mountain, with orders to
watch the city and prevent the inhabitants from collecting provisions and
military stores. The remainder of the army, under the command of Peter,
was stationed in Cilicia. As he was anxious to reserve to himself the
glory of restoring Antioch to the empire, he ordered his lieutenants not
to attack the city during his absence. But one of the spies employed by
Burtzes brought him the measure of the height of a tower which it was
easy to approach, and the temptation to take the place by surprise was
not to be resisted. Accordingly, on a dark winter night while there was a
heavy fall of snow, Burtzes placed himself at the head of three hundred
chosen men, and gained possession of two of the towers of Antioch. He
immediately sent off a courier to Peter, requesting him to advance and
take possession of the city; but Peter, from fear of the emperor’s
jealousy, delayed moving to the assistance of Burtzes for three days.
During this interval, however, Burtzes defended himself against the
repeated attacks of the whole population, though with great difficulty.
The Byzantine army at length arrived, and Antioch was annexed to the
empire after having remained 328 years in the power of the Saracens.
The emperor Nicephorus, instead of rewarding Burtzes for his energy,
dismissed both him and Peter from their commands.
The Fatimite caliph Moëz reigned at Kairowan, and was already
contemplating the conquest of Egypt. Nicephorus not only refused to pay
him the tribute of eleven thousand gold byzants, stipulated by Romanus
I, but even sent an expedition to wrest Sicily from the Saracens. The
chief command was entrusted to Nicetas, who had conquered Cyprus; and the
army, consisting chiefly of cavalry, was more particularly placed under
the orders of Manuel Phocas, the emperor’s cousin, a daring officer. The
troops were landed on the eastern coast, and Manuel rashly advanced,
until he was surrounded by the enemy and slain. Nicetas also had made so
little preparation to defend his position that his camp was stormed and
he himself taken prisoner and sent to Africa.
[Sidenote: [965-969 A.D.]]
The affairs of Italy were, as usual, embroiled by local causes. Otto,
the emperor of the West, appeared at the head of an army in Apulia, and
having secured the assistance of Pandulf, prince of Beneventum, called
Ironhead, carried on the war with frequent vicissitudes of fortune.
Ironhead was taken prisoner by the Byzantine general, and sent captive
to Constantinople. But the tyrannical conduct of the Byzantine officials
lost all that was gained by the superior discipline of the troops, and
favoured the progress of the German arms. Society had fallen into such a
state of isolation that men were more eager to obtain immunity from all
taxation than protection for industry and property, and the advantages of
the Byzantine administration ceased to be appreciated.
The European provinces of the empire were threatened with invasion both
by the Hungarians and Bulgarians. In 966 Nicephorus was apprised of the
intention of the Hungarians, and he solicited the assistance of Peter,
king of Bulgaria, to prevent their passing the Danube. Peter refused, for
he had been compelled to conclude a treaty of peace with the Hungarians,
who had invaded Bulgaria a short time before. It is even said that Peter
took advantage of the difficulty in which Nicephorus appeared to be
placed, by the numerous wars that occupied his troops, to demand payment
of the tribute Romanus I had promised to Simeon. Nicephorus, in order
to punish the insolence of one whom he regarded as his inferior, sent
Calocyres, the son of the governor of Cherson, as ambassador to Russia,
to invite Sviatoslaff, the Varangian prince of Kieff, to invade Bulgaria,
and entrusted him with a sum of fifteen hundred pounds’ weight of gold,
to pay the expenses of the expedition. Calocyres proved a traitor: he
formed an alliance with Sviatoslaff, proclaimed himself emperor, and
involved the empire in a bloody war with the Russians.
With all his defects, Nicephorus was one of the most virtuous men and
conscientious sovereigns that ever occupied the throne of Constantinople.
Though born of one of the noblest and wealthiest families of the
Eastern Empire, and sure of obtaining the highest offices at a proud
and luxurious court, he chose a life of hardship in pursuit of military
glory; and a contemporary historian, Leo Diaconus,[o] who wrote after his
family had been ruined by proscription and his name had become odious,
observes, that no one had ever seen him indulge in revelry or debauchery
even in his youth.[n]
Among the warriors who promoted his elevation, and served under his
standard, a noble and valiant Armenian had deserved and obtained the
most eminent rewards. The stature of Joannes Zimisces was below the
ordinary standard; but this diminutive body was endowed with strength,
beauty, and the soul of a hero. By the jealousy of the emperor’s brother,
he was degraded from the office of general of the East, to that of
director of the posts, and his murmurs were chastised with disgrace and
exile. But Zimisces was ranked among the numerous lovers of the empress.
On her intercession he was permitted to reside at Chalcedon, in the
neighbourhood of the capital; her bounty was repaid in his clandestine
and amorous visits to the palace; and Theophano consented with alacrity
to the death of an ugly and penurious husband. Some bold and trusty
conspirators were concealed in her most private chambers; in the darkness
of a winter night Zimisces, with his principal companions, embarked in
a small boat, traversed the Bosporus, landed at the palace stairs, and
silently ascended a ladder of ropes, which was cast down by the female
attendants. Neither his own suspicions, nor the warnings of his friends,
nor the tardy aid of his brother Leo, nor the fortress which he had
erected in the palace, could protect Nicephorus from a domestic foe,
at whose voice every door was opened to the assassins. As he slept on
a bearskin on the ground, he was roused by their noisy intrusion, and
thirty daggers glittered before his eyes.
It is doubtful whether Zimisces imbrued his hands in the blood of
his sovereign; but he enjoyed the inhuman spectacle of revenge. The
murder was protracted by insult and cruelty; and as soon as the head of
Nicephorus was shown from the window, the tumult was hushed, and the
Armenian was emperor of the East. On the day of his coronation, he was
stopped on the threshold of St. Sophia by the intrepid patriarch; who
charged his conscience with the deed of treason and blood; and required,
as a sign of repentance, that he should separate himself from his more
criminal associate. This sally of apostolical zeal was not offensive
to the prince, since he could neither love nor trust a woman who had
repeatedly violated the most sacred obligations; and Theophano, instead
of sharing his imperial fortune, was dismissed with ignominy from his bed
and palace.
In their last interview, she displayed a frantic and impotent rage;
accused the ingratitude of her lover; assaulted with words and blows
her son Basil, as he stood silent and submissive in the presence of a
superior colleague; and avowed her own prostitution in proclaiming the
illegitimacy of his birth. The public indignation was appeased by her
exile and the punishment of the meaner accomplices; the death of an
unpopular prince was forgiven; and the guilt of Zimisces was forgotten
in the splendour of his virtues. Perhaps his profusion was less useful
to the state than the avarice of Nicephorus; but his gentle and generous
behaviour delighted all who approached his person; and it was only in
the paths of victory that he trod in the footsteps of his predecessor.
The greatest part of his reign was employed in the camp and the field.
His personal valour and activity were signalised on the Danube and the
Tigris, the ancient boundaries of the Roman world; and by his double
triumph over the Russians and the Saracens, he deserved the titles of
saviour of the empire and conqueror of the East.[g]
FOOTNOTES
[42] [Isauria is an obsolete name referring to a district in Asia Minor
bounded by Cilicia, Lycaonia, Phrygia, and Pisidia. The region was cold
and rugged and the Isaurians accordingly independent and fond of raids.
In 75 B.C., the Roman proconsul, P. Servilius, brought them to terms and
received the epithet Isauricus, but the Romans were eventually glad to
grant them freedom in return for peace. Justinian claimed to have subdued
them. Two emperors came from Isauria, Zeno (474-495) and the epoch-making
Leo.
Hertzberg[b] says that Leo was called Isaurian “probably from the
nativity of his parents,” and thinks he was “born about 675 at
Germanicia, on the borders of Cappadocia, Armenia, and Syria,” whence
he was taken to Mesembria in Thrace by his parents after the Arab
invasion. K. Schenk,[c] however, says, “I employ the epithet consecrated
by the error of centuries, although Leo was sprung from Germanicia, and
therefore is a Syrian.” Gelzer[d] accordingly calls Leo “the Syrian
(Isaurian) emperor.” He calls the accession of Leo “a moment of true
world-historical meaning.”]
[43] [Clinton[e] says, “The empire of Rome, properly so called, ends
at 476 A.D.,” which is the third year of Zeno. Numismatists, like
Saulcy,[f] place the commencement of the Byzantine Empire in the reign
of Anastasius I. Gibbon[g] tells us, “Tiberius by the Arabs, and Maurice
by the Italians, are distinguished as the first of the Greek Cæsars,
as the founders of a new dynasty and empire. The silent revolution was
accomplished before the death of Heraclius.” Bury,[h] on the other hand,
vehemently denies the justice of using the word “Byzantine” at all,
saying “no Byzantine Empire ever began to exist; the Roman Empire did
not come to an end until 1453.” He accordingly clings to the expression
“Later Roman Empire.” None the less, since Finlay[i] finds the word
Byzantine a convenient term and places its proper beginning here, and
since so many other historians old and new have given the word authority,
it may well be allowed to stand.]
[44] Theodosius ended his life at Ephesus, where he was buried in the
church of St. Philip. He ordered that his tombstone should bear no
inscription but the word ΥΓΕΙΑ (Health).
[45] [This was in August, 717, according to western authorities, though
the Arabs set it in 716.]
[46] [On the 8th of October, according to Theophanes.[j]]
[47] [According to Hefele[m] this commonly accepted statement is not
true, since Leo’s first order was the total abolition of images.]
[48] [June, 741, is the date usually assigned to Leo’s death, but Bury[h]
thinks that Theophanes[j] made a miscalculation, and he reckons from a
solar eclipse and an Easter date, that Leo’s death actually occurred in
740.]
[49] [According to other accounts, he actually smote the statue in the
face three times.]
[50] [His brother-in-law Artavasdos rebelled shortly after his accession
and held Constantinople for two years before he could be expelled and
imprisoned in a monastery.]
[51] [So Nicephorus[k] says, but Theophanes[j] says they returned
unmolested.]
[52] [During the reigns of Leo IV, Constantine VI, and Irene there were
frequent conflicts with the Saracens, the Bulgarians, and with the troops
of Charlemagne, who at one time purposed to reunite the old Roman Empire
by marrying Irene, on which Bury[h] comments that such a marriage of
ill-assorted nations would have been followed by a speedy divorce.]
[53] [He called a General Council which anathematised Tarasius and
Nicephorus, and, repealing the acts of the Council of Nicæa, reasserted
those of 754.]
[54] [“‘Crete and Sicily’ were conquered by the Saracens without
offering the resistance that might have been expected from the wealth
and number of their inhabitants. Indeed, we are compelled to infer that
the change from the orthodox sway of the emperors of Constantinople to
the domination of the Mohammedans was not considered by the majority
of the Greeks of Crete and Sicily so severe a calamity as we generally
believe.”--FINLAY.[n]]
[55] [“It is the boast of orthodox historians that ten thousand
Paulicians perished in this manner. Far greater numbers, however, escaped
into the province of Melitene, where the Saracen emir granted them
protection, and assisted them to plan schemes of revenge.”--FINLAY.[n]]
[56] [Finlay[n] thinks that some of these stories may be the inventions
of flatterers of Michael’s assassin and successor, Basil.]
[57] [“Basil founded,” says Finlay[n], “the largest dynasty that ruled in
the Byzantine empire.”]
[58] [The Saracens were driven out of various Italian strongholds which
gave allegiance to Constantinople. But Sicily was lost in 878, and though
Cyprus was regained, it was also lost again.]
[59] [That is, the colony of Paulician fugitives formed at Tephrike after
the persecutions of Theodora.]
[60] [“The Basilica remained the law of the Byzantine empire,” says
Finlay,[n] “till its conquest by the Franks, and it continued in use as
the national law of the Greeks at Nicæa, Constantinople, and Trebizond
and in the Morea, until they were conquered by the Ottomans.”]
[61] [Constantine was proclaimed Augustus in 868 and died in 879. He was
the eighth of the name according to Eckhel and the ninth according to
Humphreys.]
[62] [During the regency the Byzantines won a battle in Caria, and
invaded Saracen territory with success.]
[63] [According to Finlay,[n] Romanus had sailed away without a battle,
after the land-forces had been crushingly defeated by the Bulgarian king,
Simeon, at Achelous, 917. In 921, and again in 923, Simeon penetrated to
the walls of Constantinople. In 934 and in 943 the Hungarians had like
success, being bought off on both occasions. In 963, however, they were
defeated. The Italian provinces underwent similar vicissitudes.]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER VIII
GLORY AND DECLINE OF THE EMPIRE
[969-1204 A.D.]
The Russian war was the great event of the reign of Joannes Zimisces. The
military fame of the Byzantine emperor, who was unquestionably the ablest
general of his time, the greatness of the Russian nation, whose power
now overshadows Europe, the scene of the contest, destined in our day to
be again the battle-field of Russian armies, and the political interest
which attaches to the first attempt of a Russian prince to march by land
to Constantinople, all combine to give a practical as well as a romantic
interest to this war.
The first Russian naval expedition against Constantinople in 865 would
probably have been followed by a series of plundering excursions, like
those carried on by the Danes and Normans on the coasts of England
and France, had not the Turkish tribe called the Patzinaks rendered
themselves masters of the lower course of the Dnieper, and become
instruments in the hands of the emperors to arrest the activity of the
bold Varangians. The northern rulers of Kieff were the same rude warriors
that infested England and France, but the Russian people was then in a
more advanced state of society than the mass of the population in Britain
and Gaul. The majority of the Russians were freemen; the majority of the
inhabitants of Britain and Gaul were serfs.
After the defeat in 865, the Russians induced their rulers to send envoys
to Constantinople to renew commercial intercourse, and invite Christian
missionaries to visit their country; and no inconsiderable portion of the
people embraced Christianity, though the Christian religion continued
long after better known to the Russian merchants than to the Varangian
warriors. The commercial relations of the Russians with Cherson and
Constantinople were now carried on directly, and numbers of Russian
traders took up their residence in these cities. The first commercial
treaty between the Russians of Kieff and the Byzantine Empire was
concluded in the reign of Basil I. The intercourse increased from that
time. In the year 902, seven hundred Russians are mentioned as serving on
board the Byzantine fleet with high pay; in 935, seven Russian vessels,
with 415 men, formed part of a Byzantine expedition to Italy; and in
949, six Russian vessels, with 629 men, were engaged in the unsuccessful
expedition of Gongyles against Crete. In 966, a corps of Russians
accompanied the unfortunate expedition of Nicetas to Sicily. There can
be no doubt that these were all Varangians, familiar, like the Danes
and Normans in the West, with the dangers of the sea, and not native
Russians, whose services on board the fleet could have been of little
value to the masters of Greece.
[Sidenote: [907-944 A.D.]]
But to return to the history of the Byzantine wars with the Russians.
In the year 907, Oleg, who was regent of Kieff during the minority of
Igor the son of Ruric, assembled an army of Varangians, Slavonians,
and Croatians, and, collecting two thousand vessels or boats of the
kind then used on the northern shore of the Euxine, advanced to
attack Constantinople. The exploits of this army, which pretended to
aspire at the conquest of Tzaragrad, or the City of the Cæsars, were
confined to plundering the country round Constantinople; and it is not
improbable that the expedition was undertaken to obtain indemnity for
some commercial losses sustained by imperial negligence, monopoly, or
oppression. The subjects of the emperor were murdered, and the Russians
amused themselves with torturing their captives in the most barbarous
manner. At length Leo purchased their retreat by the payment of a large
sum of money. Such is the account transmitted to us by the Russian
monk Nestor, for no Byzantine writer notices the expedition, which was
doubtless nothing more than a plundering incursion, in which the city
of Constantinople was not exposed to any danger. These hostilities were
terminated by a commercial treaty in 912, and its conditions are recorded
in detail by Nestor.
In the year 941, Igor made an attack on Constantinople, impelled either
by the spirit of adventure, which was the charm of existence among all
the tribes of Northmen, or else roused to revenge by some violation of
the treaty of 912. The Russian flotilla, consisting of innumerable small
vessels, made its appearance in the Bosporus while the Byzantine fleet
was absent in the Archipelago. Igor landed at different places on the
coast of Thrace and Bithynia, ravaging and plundering the country; the
inhabitants were treated with incredible cruelty; some were crucified,
others were burned alive, the Greek priests were killed by driving nails
into their heads, and the churches were destroyed. Only fifteen ships
remained at Constantinople, but these were soon fitted up with additional
tubes for shooting Greek fire. This force, trifling as it was in number,
gave the Byzantines an immediate superiority at sea, and the patrician
Theophanes sailed out of the port to attack the Russians. Igor, seeing
the small number of the enemy’s ships, surrounded them on all sides,
and endeavoured to carry them by boarding; but the Greek fire became
only so much more available against boats and men crowded together, and
the attack was repulsed with fearful loss. In the meantime, some of
the Russians who landed in Bithynia were defeated by Bardas Phocas and
Joannes Curcuas, and those who escaped from the naval defeat were pursued
and slaughtered on the coast of Thrace without mercy. The emperor Romanus
ordered all the prisoners brought to Constantinople to be beheaded.
Theophanes overtook the fugitive ships in the month of September, and the
relics of the expedition were destroyed, Igor effecting his escape with
only a few boats. The Russian chronicle of Nestor says that, in the year
944, Igor, assisted by other Varangians, and by the Patzinaks, prepared
a second expedition, but that the inhabitants of Cherson so alarmed
the emperor Romanus by their reports of its magnitude, that he sent
ambassadors, who met Igor at the mouth of the Danube, and sued for peace
on terms to which Igor and his boyards consented. This is probably merely
a salve applied to the vanity of the people of Kieff by their chronicler;
but it is certain that a treaty of peace was concluded between the
emperors of Constantinople and the princes of Kieff in the year 945.
[Sidenote: [944-970 A.D.]]
The cruelty of the Varangian prince Igor, after his return to Russia,
caused him to be murdered by his rebellious subjects.[64] Olga, his
widow, became regent for their son Sviatoslaff. She embraced the
Christian religion, and visited Constantinople in 957, where she was
baptized. The emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus has left us an account
of the ceremony of her reception at the Byzantine court. A Russian monk
has preserved the commercial treaties of the empire; a Byzantine emperor
records the pageantry that amused a Russian princess. The high position
occupied by the court of Kieff in the tenth century is also attested by
the style with which it was addressed by the court of Constantinople. The
golden bulls of the Roman emperor of the East, addressed to the prince
of Russia, were ornamented with a pendent seal equal in size to a double
solidus, like those addressed to the kings of France.
THE RUSSIAN WAR (970-971 A.D.)
[Sidenote: [970-971 A.D.]]
We have seen that the emperor Nicephorus II sent the patrician Calocyres
to excite Sviatoslaff to invade Bulgaria, and that the Byzantine
ambassador proved a traitor, and assumed the purple. Sviatoslaff soon
invaded Bulgaria at the head of a powerful army, which the gold brought
by Calocyres assisted him to equip, and defeated the Bulgarian army in
a great battle, 968 A.D. Peter, king of Bulgaria, died shortly after,
and the country was involved in civil broils; taking advantage of which,
Sviatoslaff took Presthlava the capital, and rendered himself master of
the whole kingdom.
Nicephorus now formed an alliance with the Bulgarians, and was preparing
to defend them against the Russians, when Sviatoslaff was compelled
to return home, in order to defend his capital against the Patzinaks.
Nicephorus assisted Boris and Romanus, the sons of Peter, to recover
Bulgaria, and concluded an offensive and defensive alliance with
Boris, who occupied the throne. After the assassination of Nicephorus,
Sviatoslaff returned to invade Bulgaria with an army of sixty thousand
men, and his enterprise assumed the character of one of those great
invasions which had torn whole provinces from the Western Empire. His
army was increased by a treaty with the Patzinaks and an alliance
with the Hungarians, so that they began to dream of the conquest of
Constantinople, and hoped to transfer the empire of the East from the
Romans of Byzantium to the Russians. It was fortunate for the Byzantine
Empire that it was ruled by a soldier who knew how to profit by its
superiority in tactics and discipline. The Russian was not ignorant
of strategy, and having secured his flank by his alliance with the
Hungarians, he entered Thrace by the western passes of Mount Hæmus, then
the most frequented road between Germany and Constantinople, and that
by which the Hungarians were in the habit of making their plundering
incursions into the empire.
Joannes Zimisces was occupied in the East when Sviatoslaff completed the
second conquest of Bulgaria and passed Mount Hæmus, expecting to subdue
Thrace during the emperor’s absence with equal ease, 970 A.D. The empire
was still suffering from famine. Sviatoslaff took Philippopolis, and
murdered twenty thousand of the inhabitants. An embassy sent by Zimisces
was dismissed with a demand of tribute, and the Russian army advanced to
Arcadiopolis, where one division was defeated by Bardas Sclerus, and the
remainder retired again behind Mount Hæmus.
In the following spring, 971, the emperor Joannes took the field at
the head of an army of fifteen thousand infantry and thirteen thousand
cavalry, besides a body-guard of chosen troops called the Immortals,
and a powerful battery of field and siege engines.[65] A fleet of three
hundred galleys, attended by many smaller vessels, was despatched to
enter the Danube and cut off the communications of the Russians with
their own country.[66]
The emperor Joannes marched from Hadrianopolis just before Easter, when
it was not expected that a Byzantine emperor would take the field. He
knew that the passes on the great eastern road had been left unguarded
by the Russians, and he led his army through all the defiles of Mount
Hæmus without encountering any difficulty. The Russian troops stationed
at Presthlava, who ought to have guarded the passes, marched out to meet
the emperor when they heard he had entered Bulgaria. Their whole army
consisted of infantry, but the soldiers were covered with chain armour,
and accustomed to resist the light cavalry of the Patzinaks and other
Turkish tribes.[67] They proved, however, no match for the heavy-armed
lancers of the imperial army; and, after a vigorous resistance, were
completely routed by Joannes Zimisces, leaving eighty-five hundred men
on the field of battle. On the following day Presthlava was taken by
escalade, and a body of seven thousand Russians and Bulgarians, who
attempted to defend the royal palace, which was fortified as a citadel,
were put to the sword after a gallant defence. Sphengelos, who commanded
this division of the Russian force, and the traitor Calocyres, succeeded
in escaping to Dorystolon, where Sviatoslaff had concentrated the rest
of the army; but Boris, king of Bulgaria, with all his family, was taken
prisoner in his capital.
[Illustration: TYPES OF EARLY CHAIN ARMOUR.]
The emperor, after celebrating Easter in Presthlava, advanced by Pliscova
and Dinea to Dorystolon, where Sviatoslaff still hoped for victory,
though his position was becoming daily more dangerous. The Byzantine
fleet entered the Danube and took up its station opposite the city,
cutting off all the communications of the Russians by water, at the
same time that the emperor encamped before the walls and blockaded
them by land. Zimisces, knowing he had to deal with a desperate enemy,
fortified his camp with a ditch and rampart according to the old Roman
model, which was traditionally preserved by the Byzantine engineers.
The Russians enclosed within the walls of Dorystolon were more numerous
than their besiegers, and Sviatoslaff hoped to be able to open his
communications with the surrounding country, by bringing on a general
engagement in the plain before all the defences of the enemy’s camp were
completed. He expected to defeat the attacks of the Byzantine cavalry by
forming his men in squares, and, as the Russian soldiers were covered
by long shields that reached to their feet, he expected to be able, by
advancing his squares like moving towers, to clear the plain of the
enemy. But while the Byzantine legions met the Russians in front, the
heavy-armed cavalry assailed them with their long spears in flank, and
the archers and slingers under cover watched coolly to transfix every
man where an opening allowed their missiles to penetrate. The battle
nevertheless lasted all day, but in the evening the Russians were
compelled, in spite of their desperate valour, to retire into Dorystolon
without having effected anything.
The infantry of the north now began to feel its inferiority to the
veteran cavalry of Asia sheathed in plate armour, and disciplined by
long campaigns against the Saracens. Sviatoslaff, however, continued to
defend himself by a series of battles rather than sorties, in which he
made desperate efforts to break through the ranks of the besiegers in
vain, until at length it became evident that he must either conclude
peace, die on the field of battle, or be starved to death in Dorystolon.
Before resigning himself to his fate, he made a last effort to cut his
way through the Byzantine army; and on this occasion the Russians fought
with such desperation that contemporaries ascribed the victory of the
Byzantine troops, not to the superior tactics of the emperor, nor to
the discipline of a veteran army, but to the personal assistance of St.
Theodore, who found it necessary to lead the charge of the Roman lancers,
and shiver a spear with the Russians himself, before their phalanx could
be broken. The victory was complete, and Sviatoslaff sent ambassadors to
the emperor to offer terms of peace.
The siege of Dorystolon had now lasted more than two months, and the
Russian army, though reduced by repeated losses, still amounted to
twenty-two thousand men. The valour and contempt of death which the
Varangians had displayed in the contest, convinced the emperor that it
would cause the loss of many brave veterans to insist on their laying
down their arms; he was therefore willing to come to terms, and peace was
concluded on condition that Sviatoslaff should yield up Dorystolon, with
all the plunder, slaves, and prisoners in possession of the Russians,
and engage to swear perpetual amity with the empire, and never to invade
either the territory of Cherson or the kingdom of Bulgaria; while, on the
other hand, the emperor Joannes engaged to allow the Russians to descend
the Danube in their boats, to supply them with two medimni of wheat for
each surviving soldier to enable them to return home without dispersing
to plunder for their subsistence, and to renew the old commercial
treaties between Kieff and Constantinople, July, 971.
After the treaty was concluded, Sviatoslaff desired to have a personal
interview with his conqueror. Joannes rode down to the bank of the Danube
clad in splendid armour, and accompanied by a brilliant suite of guards
on horseback. The short figure of the emperor was no disadvantage where
he was distinguished by the beauty of his charger and the splendour of
his arms, while his fair countenance, light hair, and piercing blue
eyes fixed the attention of all on his bold and good-humoured face,
which contrasted well with the dark, sombre visages of his attendants.
Sviatoslaff arrived by water in a boat, which he steered himself by an
oar. His dress was white, differing in no way from that of those under
him, except in being cleaner. Sitting in the stern of his boat, he
conversed for a short time with the emperor, who remained on horseback
close to the beach. The appearance of the bold Varangian excited much
curiosity, and is thus described by a historian who was intimate with
many of those who were present at the interview: The Russian was of the
middle stature, well formed, with strong neck and broad chest. His eyes
were blue, his eyebrows thick, his nose flat, and his beard shaved, but
his upper lip was shaded with long and thick mustaches. The hair of his
head was cropped close, except two long locks which hung down on each
side of his face, and were thus worn as a mark of his Scandinavian race.
In his ears he wore golden earrings.
Sviatoslaff immediately quitted Dorystolon, but he was obliged to winter
on the shores of the Euxine, and famine thinned his ranks. In spring he
attempted to force his way through the territory of the Patzinaks with
his diminished army. He was defeated, and perished near the cataracts
of the Dnieper. Kour, prince of the Patzinaks, became the possessor of
his skull, which he shaped into a drinking-cup, and adorned with the
moral maxim, doubtless not less suitable to his own skull, had it fallen
into the hands of others, “He who covets the property of others, oft
loses his own.” We have already had occasion to record that the skull of
the Byzantine emperor, Nicephorus I, had ornamented the festivals of a
Bulgarian king; that of a Russian sovereign now figured in the tents of a
Turkish tribe.
[Sidenote: [971-988 A.D.]]
The results of the campaign were as advantageous to the Byzantine Empire
as they were glorious to the emperor Joannes. Bulgaria was conquered,
a strong garrison established in Dorystolon, and the Danube once more
became the frontier of the Roman Empire. The peace with the Russians was
uninterrupted until about the year 988, when, from some unknown cause of
quarrel, Vladimir the son of Sviatoslaff attacked and gained possession
of Cherson by cutting off the water.
The Greek city of Cherson, situated on the extreme verge of ancient
civilisation, escaped for ages from the impoverishment and demoralisation
into which the Hellenic race was precipitated by the Roman system of
concentrating all power in the capital of the empire. Cherson was
governed for centuries by its own elective magistrates, and it was not
until towards the middle of the ninth century that the emperor Theophilus
destroyed its independence. When Vladimir the sovereign of Russia
attacked it in 988, it was betrayed into his hands by a priest, who
informed him how to cut off the water. The great object of ambition of
all the princes of the East, from the time of Heraclius to that of the
last Comnenus of Trebizond, was to form matrimonial alliances with the
imperial family. Vladimir obtained the hand of Anne, the sister of the
emperors Basil II and Constantine IX, and was baptized and married in the
church of the Panaghia at Cherson. To soothe the vanity of the empire, he
pretended to retain possession of his conquest as the dowry of his wife.
Many of the priests who converted the Russians to Christianity, and many
of the artists who adorned the earliest Russian churches with paintings
and mosaics, were natives of Cherson. The church raised Vladimir to the
rank of a saint; the Russians conferred on him the title of “the great.”
Joannes Zimisces, having terminated the Russian War, compelled Boris to
resign the crown of Bulgaria, and accept the title of “magister,” as a
pensioner of the Byzantine court. The frontier of the Eastern Empire was
once more extended to the Danube.
WAR WITH THE SARACENS (972-976 A.D.)
[Sidenote: [972-975 A.D.]]
The Saracen War had been carried on vigorously on the frontiers of Syria,
while the emperor Joannes was occupied with the Russian campaign. The
continued successes of the Byzantine arms had so alarmed the Mohammedan
princes, that an extensive confederacy was formed to recover Antioch,
and the command of the army of the caliph was entrusted to Zoher, the
lieutenant of the Fatimites in Egypt. The imperial army was led by the
patrician Nicolaus, a man of great military skill, who had been a eunuch
in the household of Joannes Zimisces; and he defeated the Saracens in
a pitched battle, and saved Antioch for a time. But in the following
year (973) the conquest of Nisibis filled the city of Baghdad with such
consternation, that a levy of all Mussulmans was ordered to march against
the Christians. The Byzantine troops in Mesopotamia were commanded by an
Armenian named Temelek Melchi, who was completely routed near Amida. He
was himself taken prisoner, and died after a year’s confinement.
With all his talents as a general, Joannes does not appear to have
possessed the same control over the general administration as Nicephorus;
and many of the cities conquered by his predecessor, in which the
majority of the inhabitants were Mohammedans, succeeded in throwing off
the Byzantine yoke. Even Antioch declared itself independent. A great
effort became necessary to regain the ground that had been lost; and,
to make this, Joannes Zimisces took the command of the Byzantine army
in person in the year 974. He marched in one campaign from Mount Taurus
to the banks of the Tigris, and from the banks of the Tigris back into
Syria, as far as Mount Lebanon, carrying his victorious arms, according
to the vaunting inaccuracy of the Byzantine geographical nomenclature,
into Palestine. His last campaign, in the following year, was the most
brilliant of his exploits. In Mesopotamia he regained possession of Amida
and Martyropolis; but these cities contained so few Christian inhabitants
that he was obliged to leave the administration in the hands of Saracen
emirs, who were charged with the collection of the tribute and taxes.
Nisibis he found deserted, and from it he marched by Edessa to Hierapolis
or Membig, where he captured many valuable relics, among which the shoes
of Jesus, and the hair of John the Baptist, are especially enumerated.
From Hierapolis Joannes marched to Apamea, Emesa, and Baalbec, without
meeting any serious opposition. The emir of Damascus sent valuable
presents, and agreed to pay an annual tribute to escape a visit.
The emperor then crossed Mount Lebanon, storming the fortress of Borzo,
which commanded the pass, and, descending to the sea-coast, laid siege
to Berytus, which soon surrendered, and in which he found an image of
the crucifixion that he deemed worthy of being sent to Constantinople.
From Berytus he marched northward to Tripolis, which he besieged in
vain for forty days. The valour of the garrison and the strength of the
fortifications compelled him to raise the siege; but his retreat was
ascribed to fear of a comet, which illuminated the sky with a strange
brilliancy. As it was now September, he wished to place his worn-out
troops in winter quarters in Antioch; but the inhabitants shut the
gates against him. To punish them for their revolt, he had the folly
to ravage their territory, and cut down their fruit trees; forgetting,
in his barbarous and impolitic revenge, that he was ruining his own
empire. Burtzes was left to reconquer Antioch for the second time; which,
however, he did not effect until after the death of the emperor Joannes.
[Sidenote: [975-976 A.D.]]
The army was then placed in winter quarters on the frontiers of Cilicia,
and the emperor hastened to return to Constantinople. On the journey,
as he passed the fertile plains of Longias and Dryze, in the vicinity
of Anazarba and Podandus, he saw them covered with flocks and herds,
with well-fortified farmyards, but no smiling villages. He inquired with
wonder to whom the country belonged, in which pasturage was conducted on
so grand a scale; and he learned that the greater part of the province
had been acquired by the president Basilios in donations from himself
and his predecessor, Nicephorus. Amazed at the enormous accumulation
of property in the hands of one individual, he exclaimed, “Alas! the
wealth of the empire is wasted, the strength of the armies is exhausted,
and the Roman emperors toil like mercenaries, to add to the riches of
an insatiable eunuch!” This speech was reported to the president. He
considered that he had raised both Nicephorus and Joannes to the throne;
his interest now required that it should return to its rightful master,
and that the young Basil should enjoy his heritage. The emperor Joannes
stopped on his way to Constantinople at the palace of Romanus, a grandson
of Romanus I; and it is said he there drank of a poisoned cup presented
to him by a servant gained by the president. Certain it is that Joannes
Zimisces reached the capital in a dying state, and expired on the 10th of
January, 976, at the age of fifty-one.[e]
THE APEX OF GLORY
“The period of greatest Byzantine power,” says Gelzer,[f] “is reached in
the reigns of Nicephorus II (963-969), Joannes Zimisces (969-976), and
Basil Bulgaroctonus (976-1025).” Finlay[e] also calls it the “Period of
Conquest and Military Glory.” That the glory was understood at the time
is evident from the enthusiastic outbursts of the anonymous continuator
of Georgius Monachus.[g] Of Nicephorus Phocas he says, “Then Phocas
flashed like lightning and stormed against the enemies of the Romans.
He ravaged, burned, and led into captivity the cities and lands of the
barbarians. Myriads of foreign lands he smote, and broadened the realm
and the might of the Romans. The Arabs trembled, the Armenians and
Syrians shook, the Saracens were scared and the Turks took flight; and
the Romans seized their strongholds and provinces, and Phocas’ name was
fearful to all.” Of Zimisces the same chronicler is equally enthusiastic:
“And the nations were in great fright before Zimisces’ fury. And he
spread the realm of the Romans abroad; the Saracens and Armenians fled;
the Persians shook and from all sides brought him gifts; they begged him
for mercy and peace. He led even to Edessa and to the river Euphrates;
and the earth was full of the tents of the Romans. Syrians and Phœnicians
were trampled by the Roman steeds. He fetched home mighty victories, and
the sword of Christ mowed like a scythe.”
And yet in Zimisces, Gelzer sees a retrogression of empire and an
expansion of feudalism; more and more he sees that the old Roman military
and civil state takes on a military and aristocratic physiognomy. After
his death the movement continued with usury.[a]
The premature death of Zimisces was a loss, rather than a benefit, to
the sons of Romanus II. Their want of experience detained them twelve
years longer the obscure and voluntary pupils of a minister, who extended
his reign by persuading them to indulge the pleasures of youth, and to
disdain the labours of government. In this silken web, the weakness of
Constantine was forever entangled; but his elder brother felt the impulse
of genius and the desire of action; he frowned, and the minister was no
more. Basil was the acknowledged sovereign of Constantinople and the
provinces of Europe; but Asia was oppressed by two veteran generals,
Phocas and Sclerus, who, alternately friends and enemies, subjects and
rebels, maintained their independence, and laboured to emulate the
example of successful usurpation.
[Illustration: WAR GALLEY, EIGHTH AND NINTH CENTURIES]
Against these domestic enemies, the son of Romanus first drew his sword,
and they trembled in the presence of a lawful and high-spirited prince.
The first, in the front of battle, was thrown from his horse by the
stroke of poison, or an arrow; the second, who had been twice loaded with
chains, and twice invested with the purple, was desirous of ending in
peace the small remainder of his days. As the aged suppliant approached
the throne, with dim eyes and faltering steps, leaning on his two
attendants, the emperor exclaimed, in the insolence of youth and power:
“And is this the man who has so long been the object of our terror?”
After he had confirmed his own authority and the peace of the empire,
the trophies of Nicephorus and Zimisces would not suffer their royal
pupil to sleep in the palace. His long and frequent expeditions against
the Saracens were rather glorious than useful to the empire; but the
final destruction of the kingdom of Bulgaria appears, since the time of
Belisarius, the most important triumph of the Roman arms.[h]
BASIL II AND HIS SUCCESSORS (976-1054 A.D.)
[Sidenote: [976-981 A.D.]]
The reign of Basil II is the culminating point of Byzantine greatness.
The eagles of Constantinople flew during his life, in a long career of
victory, from the banks of the Danube to those of the Euphrates, and from
the mountains of Armenia to the shores of Italy. Basil’s indomitable
courage, terrific cruelty, indifference to art and literature, and
religious superstition, all combine to render him a true type of his
empire and age. The great object of his policy was to consolidate the
unity of the administration in Europe by the complete subjection of the
Bulgarians and Slavonians, whom similarity of language had almost blended
into one nation, and had completely united in hostility to the imperial
government.
Four sons of a Bulgarian noble of the highest rank had commenced a
revolutionary movement in Bulgaria against the royal family, after
the death of Peter and the first victories of the Russians. In order
to put an end to these troubles, Nicephorus II had, on the retreat of
Sviatoslaff, replaced Boris, the son of Peter, on the throne of Bulgaria;
and when the Russians returned, Boris submitted to their domination.
Shortly after the death of Joannes I (Zimisces), the Bulgarian leaders
again roused the people to a struggle for independence. Boris, who
escaped from Constantinople to attempt recovering his paternal throne,
was accidentally slain, and the four brothers again became the chiefs
of the nation. In a short time three perished, and Samuel, who alone
remained, assumed the title of king. The forces of the empire were
occupied with the rebellion of Sclerus, so that the vigour and military
talents of Samuel succeeded both in expelling the Byzantine authorities
from Bulgaria, and in rousing the Slavonians of Macedonia to throw off
the Byzantine yoke. Samuel then invaded Thessaly, and extended his
plundering excursions over those parts of Greece and the Peloponnesus
still inhabited by the Hellenic race. He carried away the inhabitants of
Larissa in order to people the town of Prespa, which he then proposed
to make his capital, with intelligent artisans and manufacturers;
and, in order to attach them to their new residence by ties of old
superstition, he removed to Prespa the body of their protecting martyr,
St. Achilles, who some pretended had been a Roman soldier, and others a
Greek archbishop. Samuel showed himself, both in ability and courage, a
rival worthy of Basil; and the empire of the East seemed for some time in
danger of being transferred from the Byzantine Romans to the Slavonian
Bulgarians.
[Sidenote: [981-1001 A.D.]]
In the year 981, the emperor Basil made his first campaign against
the new Bulgarian monarchy in person. His plan of operations was to
secure the great western passes through Mount Hæmus, on the road from
Philippopolis to Sardica, and by the conquest of the latter city he
hoped to cut off the communication between the Bulgarians north of Mount
Hæmus and the Slavonians in Macedonia. But his military inexperience,
and the relaxed discipline of the army, caused this well-conceived plan
to fail. Sardica was besieged in vain for twenty days. The negligence
of the officers and the disobedience of the soldiers caused several
foraging parties to be cut off; the besieged burned the engines of the
besiegers in a victorious sortie, and the emperor felt the necessity of
commencing his retreat. As his army was passing the defiles of Hæmus, it
was assailed by the troops Samuel had collected to watch his operations,
and completely routed. The baggage and military chest, the emperor’s
plate and tents, all fell into the hands of the Bulgarian king, and Basil
himself escaped with some difficulty to Philippopolis, where he collected
the relics of the fugitives. Leo Diaconus,[b] the Byzantine historian,
who accompanied the expedition as one of the clergy of the imperial
chapel, and was fortunate enough to escape the pursuit, has left a short
but authentic notice of this first disastrous campaign of Basil, the
slayer of the Bulgarians, in his _Historia_.[68]
The reorganisation of his army, the regulation of the internal
administration of the empire, the rebellion of Phocas, and the wars in
Italy and on the Asiatic frontier, prevented Basil from attacking Samuel
in person for many years. Still a part of the imperial forces carried
on this war, and Samuel soon perceived that he was unable to resist the
Byzantine generals in the plains of Bulgaria, where the heavy cavalry,
military engines, and superior discipline of the imperial armies could
all be employed to advantage. He resolved, therefore, to transfer the
seat of the Bulgarian government to a more inaccessible position,
at Achrida. Here, therefore, Samuel established the capital of the
Bulgaro-Slavonian kingdom he founded.
The dominions of Samuel soon became as extensive as the European portion
of the dominions of Basil. The possessions of the two monarchs ran into
one another in a very irregular form, and both were inhabited by a
variety of races, in different states of civilisation, bound together
by few sympathies, and no common attachment to national institutions.
Samuel was master of almost the whole of ancient Bulgaria, the emperor
retaining possession of little more than the fortress of Dorystolon, the
forts at the mouth of the Danube, and the passes of Mount Hæmus. But the
strength of the Bulgarian king lay in his possessions in the upper part
of Macedonia, in Epirus, and the southern part of Illyricum, in the chain
of Pindus, and in mountains that overlook the northern and western slopes
of the great plains of Thessalonica and Thessaly. He was indefatigable in
forming a large military force, and employing it constantly in ravaging
the plain of Thessaly, and attacking the Greek cities.
In 996 he marched rapidly through Thessaly, Bœotia, and Attica, into the
Peloponnesus; but the towns everywhere shut their gates, and prepared
for a long defence, so that he could effect nothing beyond plundering
and laying waste the open country. In the meantime, the emperor sent
Nicephorus Uranus, with all the force he should be able to collect, in
pursuit of Samuel. Uranus entered Thessaly, and pushed rapidly southward
to the banks of the Sperchius, where he found Samuel encamped on the
other side, hastening home with the plunder of Greece. In the night the
people showed Uranus a ford, by which he passed the river and surprised
the Bulgarians in their camp. Samuel and his son Gabriel escaped with the
greatest difficulty. The Bulgarian army was completely annihilated, and
all the plunder and slaves made during the expedition fell into the hands
of Uranus, in the year 996 A.D. This great defeat paralysed the military
operations of Samuel for some time.
Basil at length arranged the external relations of the empire in such a
way that he was able to assemble a large army for the military operations
against the kingdom of Achrida, which he determined to conduct in person.
The Slavonians now formed the most numerous part of the population of
the country between the Danube, the Ægean, and the Adriatic, and they
were in possession of the line of mountains that runs from Dyrrhachium,
in a variety of chains, to the vicinity of Constantinople. Basil saw
many signs that the whole Slavonic race in these countries was united
in opposition to the Byzantine government, so that the existence of his
empire demanded the conquest of the Bulgaro-Slavonian kingdom which
Samuel had founded. To this arduous task he devoted himself with his
usual energy.
In the year 1000, his generals were ordered to enter Bulgaria by the
eastern passes of Mount Hæmus; and in this campaign they took the cities
of greater and lesser Presthlava and Pliscova, the ancient capitals
of Bulgaria. In the following year, the emperor took upon himself the
direction of the army destined to act against Samuel. Fixing his
headquarters at Thessalonica, he recovered possession of the fortresses
of Vodena, Berœa, and Servia.
[Sidenote: [1001-1014 A.D.]]
In the following campaign (1002), the emperor changed the field of
operations, and, marching from Philippopolis through the western passes
of Mount Hæmus, occupied the whole line of road as far as the Danube, and
cut Samuel off from all communication with the plains of Bulgaria. Samuel
formed a bold enterprise, which he hoped would compel Basil to raise the
siege of Widdin, or, at all events, enable him to inflict a deep wound on
the empire. By a long march into the heart of the empire, Samuel rendered
himself master of great booty. His success prevented his returning as
rapidly as he had advanced, but he succeeded in passing the garrison of
Philippopolis and crossing the Strymon and the Wardar in safety, when
Basil suddenly overtook him at the head of the Byzantine army. Samuel was
encamped under the walls of Scupi; Basil crossed the river, stormed the
Bulgarian camp, captured the military chest and stores, and recovered the
plunder of Hadrianopolis. He had thus the satisfaction of avenging the
defeat he had suffered from Samuel, one-and-twenty years before, in the
passes of Mount Hæmus.
[Sidenote: [1014-1019 A.D.]]
In the year 1014, Basil considered everything ready for a final effort to
complete the subjection of the Slavonian population of the mountainous
districts round the upper valley of the Strymon. The emperor is said
to have taken fifteen thousand prisoners, and, that he might revenge
the sufferings of his subjects from the ravages of the Bulgarians and
Slavonians, he gratified his own cruelty by an act of vengeance, which
has most justly entailed infamy on his name. His frightful inhumanity has
forced history to turn with disgust from his conduct, and almost buried
the records of his military achievements in oblivion. On this occasion
he ordered the eyes of all his prisoners to be put out, leaving a single
eye to the leader of every hundred, and in this condition he sent the
wretched captives forth to seek their king or perish on the way. When
they approached Achrida, a rumour that the prisoners had been released
induced Samuel to go out to meet them. On learning the full extent of
the calamity, he fell senseless to the ground, overpowered with rage
and grief, and died two days after. He is said to have murdered his own
brother to secure possession of his throne, so that his heart was broken
by the first touch of humanity it ever felt.[69]
The cruelty of Basil awakened an energetic resistance on the part of
the Slavonians and Bulgarians, and Gabriel Radomir, the brave son of
Samuel, was enabled to offer unexpected obstacles to the progress of the
Byzantine armies.
Gabriel, the king of Achrida, though brave, alienated the favour of his
subjects by his imprudence, and his cousin, John Ladislas, whose life he
had saved in youth, was base enough to become his murderer, in order to
gain possession of the throne. Ladislas, in order to gain time, both for
strengthening himself on the throne and resisting the Byzantine invasion,
sent ambassadors to Basil with favourable offers of peace; but the
emperor, satisfied that the struggle between the Slavonians and Greeks
could only be terminated by the conquest of one, rejected all terms but
absolute submission, and pushed on his operations with his usual vigour.
After laying waste all the country round Ostrovos and Moliskos that was
peopled by Slavonians, and repairing the fortifications of Berœa which
had fallen to decay, he captured Setaina, where Samuel had formed great
magazines of wheat. These magazines were kept well filled by Ladislas, so
that Basil became master of so great a store that he divided it among his
troops. At last the king of Achrida approached the emperor at the head of
a considerable army, and a part of the imperial troops was drawn into an
ambuscade. The emperor happened to be himself with the advanced division
of the army. He instantly mounted his horse and led the troops about him
to the scene of action, sending orders for all the other divisions to
hasten forward to support him. His sudden appearance at the head of a
strong body of the heavy-armed lancers of the Byzantine army, the fury of
his charge, the terror his very name inspired, and the cry, “The emperor
is upon us!” soon spread confusion through the Bulgarian ranks, and
decisively changed the fortune of the day (1018).
Ladislas, whose affairs were becoming desperate, made an attempt to
restore his credit by laying siege to Dyrrhachium. Its possession would
have enabled him to open communications with the enemies of Basil in
Italy, and even with the Saracens of Sicily and Africa, but he was slain
soon after the commencement of the siege. The Bulgarian leaders gave
up all hope of resistance. The emperor continued to advance by Scupi,
Stypeia, and Prosakon, and on reaching Achrida he was received rather
as the lawful sovereign than as a foreign conqueror. He immediately
took possession of all the treasures Samuel had amassed; the gold
alone amounted to one hundred centners (this sum is not quite equal to
$480,000 or $2,400,000), and with this he paid all the arrears due to
his troops, and rewarded them with a donative for their long and gallant
service in this arduous war. Almost the whole of the royal family of
Achrida submitted, and received the most generous treatment. Three sons
of Ladislas, who escaped to Mount Tmorus, and attempted to prolong the
contest, were soon captured. The noble Bulgarians hastened to make their
submission, and many were honoured with rank at the imperial court.
Nothing, indeed, proves more decidedly the absence of all Greek
nationality in the Byzantine administration at this period, than the
facility with which all foreigners obtained favour at the court of
Constantinople; nor can anything be more conclusive of the fact that the
centralisation of power in the person of the emperor, as completed by the
Basilian dynasty, had now destroyed the administrative centralisation of
the old Roman imperial system, for we have proofs that a considerable
Greek population still occupied the cities of Thrace and Macedonia,
though Greek feelings had little influence on the government.
After passing the winter in his new conquests, Basil made a progress
through Greece. At Zetunium he visited the field of battle where the
power of Samuel had been first broken by the victory of Nicephorus
Uranus, and found the ground still strewed with the bones of the slain.
The wall that defended the pass of Thermopylæ retained its ancient name,
Scelos; and its masonry, which dated from Hellenic days, excited the
emperor’s admiration. At last Basil arrived within the walls of Athens,
and he was the only emperor who for several ages honoured that city with
a visit. Many magnificent structures in the town, and the whole of the
temples in the Acropolis, had then hardly suffered any rude touches from
the hand of time. If the original splendour of the external painting
and gilding which had once adorned the Parthenon of Pericles had faded,
the mural paintings of saints, martyrs, emperors, and empresses, that
covered the interior of the cella, gave a new interest to the church
of the Virgin, into which it had been transformed. The mind of Basil,
though insensible to Hellenic literature, was deeply sensible of
religious impressions, and the glorious combination of the variety of
beauty in art and nature that he saw in the Acropolis touched his stern
soul. He testified his feelings by splendid gifts to the city, and rich
dedications at the shrine of the Virgin in the Parthenon.
From Greece the emperor returned to Constantinople, where he indulged
himself in the pomp of a triumph, making his entry into his capital by
the Golden Gate, and listening with satisfaction to the cries of the
populace, who applauded his cruelty by saluting him with the title of
“The Slayer of the Bulgarians” [Bulgaroctonus].[e]
[Sidenote: [1019-1028 A.D.]]
Yet his subjects detested the rapacious and rigid avarice of Basil;
and in the imperfect narrative of his exploits, we can only discern
the courage, patience, and ferociousness of a soldier. After the first
license of his youth, Basil II devoted his life, in the palace and the
camp, to the penance of a hermit, wore the monastic habit under his robes
and armour, observed a vow of continence, and imposed on his appetites
a perpetual abstinence from wine and flesh. In the sixty-eighth year of
his age, his martial spirit urged him to embark in person for a holy war
against the Saracens of Sicily; he was prevented by death, and Basil,
surnamed “the slayer of the Bulgarians,” was dismissed from the world
with the blessings of the clergy and the curses of the people. After his
decease, in 1025, his brother Constantine IX enjoyed, about three years,
the power, or rather the pleasures, of royalty; and his only care was the
settlement of the succession. He had enjoyed sixty-six years the title
of Augustus; and the reign of the two brothers is the longest, and most
obscure, of the Byzantine history.
[Sidenote: [1028-1042 A.D.]]
A lineal succession of five emperors, in a period of 160 years, had
attached the loyalty of the Greeks to the Macedonian dynasty, which had
been thrice respected by the usurpers of their power. After the death
of Constantine IX, the last male of the royal race, a new and broken
scene presents itself, and the accumulated years of twelve emperors do
not equal the space of his single reign. Constantine had only three
daughters. When their marriage was discussed in the council of their
dying father, the cold or pious Theodora refused to give an heir to
the empire, but her sister Zoe presented herself a willing victim at
the altar. Romanus Argyrus, a patrician of a graceful person and fair
reputation, was chosen for her husband, and, on his declining that
honour, was informed that blindness or death was the second alternative.
The motive of his reluctance was conjugal affection; but his faithful
wife sacrificed her own happiness to his safety and greatness; and her
entrance into a monastery removed the only bar to the imperial nuptials.
After the decease of Constantine, the sceptre devolved to Romanus III;
but his labours at home and abroad[70] were equally feeble and fruitless;
and the mature age, the forty-eight years of Zoe, was less favourable to
the hopes of pregnancy than to the indulgence of pleasure. Her favourite
chamberlain was a handsome Paphlagonian of the name of Michael, whose
first trade had been that of a money-changer; and Romanus, either from
gratitude or equity, connived at their criminal intercourse, or accepted
a slight assurance of their innocence. But Zoe soon justified the Roman
maxim, that every adulteress is capable of poisoning her husband; and the
death of Romanus was instantly followed by the scandalous marriage and
elevation of Michael IV.
The expectations of Zoe were, however, disappointed; instead of a
vigorous and grateful lover, she had placed in her bed a miserable
wretch whose health and reason were impaired by epileptic fits, and
whose conscience was tormented by despair and remorse. The most skilful
physicians of the mind and body were summoned to his aid; and his hopes
were aroused by frequent pilgrimages to the baths, and to the tombs of
the most popular saints; the monks applauded his penance, and, except
restitution (but to whom should he have restored?) Michael sought every
method of expiating his guilt. While he groaned and prayed in sackcloth
and ashes, his brother, the eunuch Joannes, smiled at his remorse, and
enjoyed the harvest of a crime of which himself was the secret and most
guilty author. His administration[71] was only the art of satiating his
avarice, and Zoe became a captive in the palace of her fathers and in the
hands of her slaves. When he perceived the irretrievable decline of his
brother’s health, he introduced his nephew, another Michael, who derived
the surname of Calaphates from his father’s occupation in the careening
of vessels; at the command of the eunuch, Zoe adopted for her son the son
of a mechanic; and this fictitious heir was invested with the title and
purple of the Cæsars, in the presence of the senate and clergy.
So feeble was the character of Zoe, that she was oppressed by the liberty
and power which she recovered by the death of the Paphlagonian; and at
the end of four days, she placed the crown on the head of Michael V who
had protested, with tears and oaths, that he should ever reign the first
and most obedient of her subjects. The only act of his short reign was
his base ingratitude to his benefactors, the eunuch and the empress. The
disgrace of the former was pleasing to the public; but the murmurs, and
at length the clamours, of Constantinople deplored the exile of Zoe, the
daughter of so many emperors; her vices were forgotten, and Michael was
taught that there is a period in which the patience of the tamest slaves
rises into fury and revenge. The citizens of every degree assembled in
a formidable tumult which lasted three days; they besieged the palace,
forced the gates, recalled their mothers--Zoe from her prison, Theodora
from her monastery, and condemned the son of Calaphates to the loss of
his eyes or of his life.
For the first time the Greeks beheld with surprise the two royal sisters
seated on the same throne, presiding in the senate, and giving audience
to the ambassadors of the nations. But this singular union subsisted
no more than two months; the two sovereigns, their tempers, interests,
and adherents, were secretly hostile to each other; and as Theodora was
still adverse to marriage, the indefatigable Zoe, at the age of sixty,
consented, for the public good, to sustain the embraces of a third
husband, and the censures of the Greek church. His name and number were
Constantine X and the epithet of Monomachus,[72] the single combatant,
must have been expressive of his valour and victory in some public or
private quarrel.[73] But his health was broken by the tortures of the
gout, and his dissolute reign was spent in the alternative of sickness
and pleasure. A fair and noble widow had accompanied Constantine in his
exile to the isle of Lesbos, and Sclerena gloried in the appellation of
his mistress. After his marriage and elevation, she was invested with
the title and pomp of Augusta, and occupied a contiguous apartment in
the palace. The lawful consort (such was the delicacy or corruption of
Zoe) consented to this strange and scandalous partition; and the emperor
appeared in public between his wife and his concubine.[h]
SEPARATION OF GREEK AND LATIN CHURCHES
[Sidenote: [1042-1053 A.D.]]
In looking back from modern times at the history of the Byzantine Empire,
the separation of the Greek and Latin churches appears the most important
event in the reign of Constantine X; but its prominence is owing, on the
one hand, to the circumstance that a closer connection began shortly
after to exist between the Eastern and Western nations; and on the
other, to the decline in the power of the Byzantine Empire, which gave
ecclesiastical affairs greater importance than they would otherwise have
merited. Had the successors of Constantine X continued to possess the
power and resources of the successors of Leo III or Basil I, the schism
would never have acquired the political importance it actually attained;
for as it related to points of opinion on secondary questions, and
details of ecclesiastical practice, the people would have abandoned the
subject to the clergy and the church, as one not affecting the welfare of
Christians, nor the interest of Christianity. The emperor Basil II, who
was bigoted as well as pious, had still good sense to view the question
as a political rather than a religious one.
He knew that it would be impossible to reunite the two churches; he
saw the disposition of the Greek clergy to commence a quarrel, to
avoid which he endeavoured to negotiate the amicable separation of the
Byzantine ecclesiastical establishment from the papal supremacy. He
proposed that the pope should be honoured as the first Christian bishop
in rank, but that he should receive a pecuniary indemnity, and admit
the right of the Eastern church to govern its own affairs according to
its own constitution and local usages, and acknowledge the patriarch of
Constantinople as its head. This plan, reasonable as it might appear to
statesmen, had little chance of success.
The claim of the bishop of Rome to be the agent of the theocracy which
ruled the Christian church, was too generally admitted to allow any
limits to be put to his authority. The propositions of Basil II were
rejected, but the open rupture with Rome did not take place until 1053,
when it was caused by the violent and unjust conduct of the Greek
patriarch, Michael Cerularius. He ordered all the Latin churches in the
Byzantine Empire, in which mass was celebrated according to the rites of
the Western church, to be closed; and, in conjunction with Leo, bishop of
Achrida, the patriarch of Bulgaria, addressed a controversial letter to
the bishop of Trani, which revived all the old disputes with the papal
church, adding the question about the use of unleavened bread in the holy
communion.
[Illustration: THE TRIUMPH OF CLOVIS
(AT THE PANTHEON, PARIS)]
The people on both sides, who understood little of the points contested
by the clergy, adopted the simple rule, that it was their duty to hate
the members of the other church; and the Greeks, having their nationality
condensed in their ecclesiastical establishment, far exceeded the Western
nations in ecclesiastical bigotry, for the people in the western nations
of Europe were often not very friendly to papal pretensions. The extreme
bigotry of the Greeks soon tended to make the people of the Byzantine
Empire averse to all intercourse with the Latins, as equals, and they
assumed a superiority over nations rapidly advancing in activity, wealth,
power, and intelligence, merely because they deemed them heretics. The
separation of the two churches proved, consequently, more injurious to
the Greeks, in their stationary condition of society, than to the Western
Christians, who were eagerly pressing forward in many paths of social
improvement.
[Sidenote: [1053-1056 A.D.]]
The empress Zoe died in the year 1050, at the age of seventy. Constantine
X survived to the year 1054. When the emperor felt his end approaching,
he ordered himself, according to the superstitious fashion of the time,
to be transported to the monastery of Mangana, which he had constructed.
His ministers, and especially his prime-minister, Joannes the logothetes,
and president of the senate, urged him to name Nicephorus Bryennius, who
commanded the Macedonian troops, his successor. The forms of the imperial
constitution rendered it necessary that the sovereign should be crowned
in Constantinople, and a courier was despatched to summon Bryennius
to the capital. But as soon as Theodora heard of this attempt of her
brother-in-law to deprive her of the throne she had been compelled to
cede to him, she hastened to the imperial palace, convoked the senate,
ordered the guards to be drawn out, and, presenting herself as the
lawful empress, was proclaimed sovereign of the empire with universal
acclamations. The news of this event embittered the last moments of
the dying voluptuary, who hated Theodora for the respect her conduct
inspired.[e]
In her name, and by the influence of four eunuchs, the Eastern world was
peaceably governed about nineteen months; and as they wished to prolong
their dominion, they persuaded the aged princess to nominate for her
successor Michael VI. The surname of Stratioticus declares his military
profession; but the crazy and decrepit veteran could only see with the
eyes and execute with the hands of his ministers. Whilst he ascended
the throne, Theodora sank into the grave--the last of the Macedonian or
Basilian dynasty. We have hastily reviewed, and gladly dismiss, this
shameful and destructive period of twenty-eight years, in which the
Greeks, degraded below the common level of servitude, were transferred
like a herd of cattle by the choice or caprice of two impotent females.
THE COMNENI
From this night of slavery, a ray of freedom, or at least of spirit,
begins to emerge; the Greeks either preserved or revived the use of
surnames, which perpetuate the fame of hereditary virtue; and we now
discern the rise, succession, and alliance, of the last dynasties of
Constantinople and Trebizond. The Comneni, who upheld for a while the
fate of the sinking empire, assumed the honour of a Roman origin; but
the family had long since been transported from Italy to Asia. Their
patrimonial estate was situate in the district of Castamona, in the
neighbourhood of the Euxine; and one of their chiefs, who had already
entered the paths of ambition, revisited with affection, perhaps with
regret, the modest though honourable dwelling of his fathers.
[Sidenote: [1057-1059 A.D.]]
The first of their line was the illustrious Manuel, who, in the reign of
the second Basil, contributed by war and treaty to appease the troubles
of the East: he left, in a tender age, two sons, Isaac and Joannes,
whom, with the consciousness of desert, he bequeathed to the gratitude
and favour of his sovereign. The noble youths were carefully trained in
the learning of the monastery, the arts of the palace, and the exercises
of the camp; and from the domestic service of the guards, they were
rapidly promoted to the command of provinces and armies. Their fraternal
union doubled the force and reputation of the Comneni, and their ancient
nobility was illustrated by the marriage of the two brothers with a
captive princess of Bulgaria, and the daughter of a patrician, who had
obtained the name of Charon from the number of enemies whom he had sent
to the infernal shades. The soldiers had served with reluctant loyalty a
series of effeminate masters; the elevation of Michael VI was a personal
insult to the more deserving generals; and their discontent was inflamed
by the parsimony of the emperor and the insolence of the eunuchs. They
secretly assembled in the sanctuary of St. Sophia, and the votes of the
military synod would have been unanimous in favour of the old and valiant
Catacalon, if the patriotism or modesty of the veteran had not suggested
the importance of birth as well as merit in the choice of a sovereign.
Isaac Comnenus was approved by general consent, and the associates
separated without delay to meet in the plains of Phrygia at the head of
their respective squadrons and detachments.
The cause of Michael was defended in a single battle by the mercenaries
of the imperial guard, who were aliens to the public interest, and
animated only by a principle of honour and gratitude. After their defeat,
the fears of the emperor solicited a treaty, which was almost accepted
by the moderation of the Comnenian. But the former was betrayed by his
ambassadors, and the latter was prevented by his friends. The solitary
Michael submitted to the voice of the people; the patriarch annulled
their oath of allegiance; and as he shaved the head of the royal monk,
congratulated his beneficial exchange of temporal royalty for the kingdom
of heaven; an exchange, however, which the priest, on his own account,
would probably have declined.
[Sidenote: [1059-1067 A.D.]]
By the hands of the same patriarch, Isaac Comnenus was solemnly crowned;
the sword, which he inscribed on his coins, might be an offensive symbol,
if it implied his title by conquest; but this sword would have been drawn
against the foreign and domestic enemies of the state.[74] The decline
of his health and vigour suspended the operation of active virtue;[75]
and the prospect of approaching death determined him to interpose some
moments between life and eternity. But instead of leaving the empire
as the marriage portion of his daughter, his reason and inclination
concurred in the preference of his brother Joannes, a soldier, a patriot,
and the father of five sons, the future pillars of an hereditary
succession. His first modest reluctance might be the natural dictates of
discretion and tenderness, but his obstinate and successful perseverance,
however it may dazzle with the show of virtue, must be censured as a
criminal desertion of his duty, and a rare offence against his family
and country. The purple which he had refused was accepted by Constantine
Ducas, a friend of the Comnenian house, and whose noble birth was adorned
with the experience and reputation of civil policy. In the monastic
habit, Isaac recovered his health, and survived two years his voluntary
abdication. At the command of his abbot, he observed the rule of St.
Basil, and executed the most servile offices of the convent; but his
latent vanity was gratified by the frequent and respectful visits of the
reigning monarch, who revered in his person a benefactor and a saint.
If Constantine XI were indeed the subject most worthy of empire, we must
pity the debasement of the age and nation in which he was chosen. In the
labour of puerile declamations he sought, without obtaining, the crown
of eloquence, more precious, in his opinion, than that of Rome; and, in
the subordinate functions of a judge, he forgot the duties of a sovereign
and a warrior. Ducas was anxious only to secure, even at the expense
of the republic, the power and prosperity of his children. His three
sons, Michael VII, Andronicus I, and Constantine XII, were invested,
at a tender age, with the equal title of Augustus; and the succession
was speedily opened by their father’s death. His widow, Eudocia, was
entrusted with the administration.
Before the end of seven months, the wants of Eudocia, or those of the
state, called aloud for the male virtues of a soldier; and her heart
had already chosen Romanus Diogenes, whom she raised from the scaffold
to the throne. The discovery of a treasonable attempt had exposed him
to the severity of the laws; his beauty and valour absolved him in the
eyes of the empress, and Romanus, from a mild exile, was recalled on the
second day to the command of the oriental armies. Her royal choice was
yet unknown to the public, and the promise which would have betrayed her
falsehood and levity was stolen by a dexterous emissary from the ambition
of the patriarch. Xiphilin at first alleged the sanctity of oaths and
the sacred nature of a trust; but a whisper that his brother was the
future emperor relaxed his scruples, and forced him to confess that the
public safety was the supreme law. He resigned the important paper; and
when his hopes were confounded by the nomination of Romanus, he could
no longer regain his security, retract his declarations, nor oppose the
second nuptials of the empress. Yet a murmur was heard in the palace; and
the barbarian guards had raised their battle-axes in the cause of the
house of Ducas, till the young princes were soothed by the tears of their
mother and the assurances of the fidelity of their guardian, who filled
the throne with dignity and honour.
ROMANUS IN THE FIELD (1067-1071)
[Sidenote: [1067-1070 A.D.]]
The false or genuine magnanimity of Mahmud the Ghaznavide was not
imitated by Alp Arslan; and he attacked without scruple the Greek empress
Eudocia and her children.[76] His alarming progress compelled her to
give herself and her sceptre to the hand of a soldier; and Romanus
Diogenes had been invested with the imperial purple. His patriotism,
and perhaps his pride, urged him from Constantinople within two months
after his accession; and the next campaign he most scandalously took
the field during the holy festival of Easter. In the palace, Diogenes
was no more than the husband of Eudocia; in the camp he was the emperor
of the Romans, and he sustained that character with feeble resources and
invincible courage. By his spirit and success, the soldiers were taught
to act, the subjects to hope, and the enemies to fear. The Turks had
penetrated into the heart of Phrygia; but the sultan himself had resigned
to his emirs the prosecution of the war; and their numerous detachments
were scattered over Asia in the security of conquest. Laden with spoil
and careless of discipline, they were separately surprised and defeated
by the Greeks; the activity of the emperor seemed to multiply his
presence; and while they heard of his expedition to Antioch, the enemy
felt his sword on the hills of Trebizond.
In three laborious campaigns[77] the Turks were driven beyond the
Euphrates; in the fourth and last, Romanus undertook the deliverance
of Armenia. The desolation of the land obliged him to transport a
supply of two months’ provisions; and he marched forwards to the siege
of Manzicert, an important fortress in the midway between the modern
cities of Erzerum and Van. His army amounted, at the least, to one
hundred thousand men. The troops of Constantinople were reinforced
by the disorderly multitudes of Phrygia and Cappadocia; but the real
strength was composed of the subjects and allies of Europe, the legions
of Macedonia, and the squadrons of Bulgaria; the Uzi, a Moldavian horde,
who were themselves of the Turkish race, and above all, the mercenary and
adventurous bands of French and Normans. Their lances were commanded by
the valiant Ursel of Baliol, the kinsman or father of the Scottish kings,
and were allowed to excel in the exercise of arms, or, according to the
Greek style, in the practice of the Pyrrhic dance.
[Illustration: BYZANTINE EMPEROR IN THE COSTUME OF A GENERAL]
[Sidenote: [1071 A.D.]]
On the report of this bold invasion, which threatened his hereditary
dominions, Alp Arslan flew to the scene of action at the head of forty
thousand horse. His rapid and skilful evolutions distressed and dismayed
the superior numbers of the Greeks; and in the defeat of Basilacius,
one of their principal generals, he displayed the first example of his
valour and clemency. The imprudence of the emperor had separated his
forces after the reduction of Manzicert. It was in vain that he attempted
to recall the mercenary Franks; they refused to obey his summons; he
disdained to await their return; the desertion of the Uzi filled his
mind with anxiety and suspicion; and against the most salutary advice he
rushed forwards to speedy and decisive action.
Had he listened to the fair proposals of the sultan, Romanus might have
secured a retreat, perhaps a peace; but in these overtures he supposed
the fear or weakness of the enemy, and his answer was conceived in the
tone of insult and defiance. “If the barbarian wishes for peace, let him
evacuate the ground which he occupies for the encampment of the Romans,
and surrender his city and palace of Rei as a pledge of his sincerity.”
Alp Arslan smiled at the vanity of the demand, but he wept the death of
so many faithful Moslems; and, after a devout prayer, proclaimed a free
permission to all who were desirous of retiring from the field. With his
own hands he tied up his horse’s tail, exchanged his bow and arrows for a
mace and scimitar, clothed himself in a white garment, perfumed his body
with musk, and declared that if he were vanquished, that spot should be
the place of his burial.
The sultan himself had affected to cast away his missile weapons; but his
hopes of victory were placed in the arrows of the Turkish cavalry, whose
squadrons were loosely distributed in the form of a crescent. Instead
of the successive lines and reserves of the Grecian tactics, Romanus
led his army in a single and solid phalanx, and pressed with vigour and
impatience the artful and yielding resistance of the barbarians. In this
desultory and fruitless combat he wasted the greater part of a summer’s
day, till prudence and fatigue compelled him to return to his camp.
But a retreat is always perilous in the face of an active foe; and no
sooner had the standard been turned to the rear, than the phalanx was
broken by the base cowardice, or the baser jealousy, of Andronicus, a
rival prince, who disgraced his birth and the purple of the cæsars. The
Turkish squadrons poured a cloud of arrows on this moment of confusion
and lassitude; and the horns of their formidable crescent was closed in
the rear of the Greeks. In the destruction of the army and pillage of the
camp, it would be needless to mention the number of slain or captives.
The Byzantine writers deplore the loss of an inestimable pearl; they
forget to mention that in this fatal day the Asiatic provinces of Rome
were irretrievably sacrificed.
As long as a hope survived, Romanus attempted to rally and save the
relics of his army. When the centre, the imperial station, was left
naked on all sides and encompassed by the victorious Turks, he still,
with desperate courage, maintained the fight till the close of day, at
the head of the brave and faithful subjects who adhered to his standard.
They fell around him; his horse was slain; the emperor was wounded; yet
he stood alone and intrepid, till he was oppressed and bound by the
strength of multitudes. The glory of this illustrious prize was disputed
by a slave and a soldier; a slave who had seen him on the throne of
Constantinople, and a soldier whose extreme deformity had been excused on
the promise of some signal service. Despoiled of his arms, his jewels,
and his purple, Romanus spent a dreary and perilous night on the field of
battle, amidst a disorderly crowd of the meaner barbarians.
CAPTIVITY OF THE EMPEROR
In the morning the royal captive was presented to Alp Arslan, who
doubted of his fortune, till the identity of the person was ascertained
by the report of his ambassadors, and by the more pathetic evidence of
Basilacius, who embraced with tears the feet of his unhappy sovereign.
The successor of Constantine, in a plebeian habit, was led into the
Turkish divan, and commanded to kiss the ground before the lord of Asia.
He reluctantly obeyed; and Alp Arslan, starting from his throne, is said
to have planted his foot on the neck of the Roman emperor. But the fact
is doubtful; and if, in this moment of insolence, the sultan complied
with a national custom, the rest of his conduct has extorted the praise
of his bigoted foes, and may afford a lesson to the most civilised
ages. He instantly raised the royal captive from the ground; and thrice
clasping his hand with tender sympathy, assured him that his life and
dignity should be inviolate in the hands of a prince who had learned
to respect the majesty of his equals and the vicissitudes of fortune.
From the divan, Romanus was conducted to an adjacent tent, where he was
served with pomp and reverence by the officers of the sultan, who, twice
each day, seated him in the place of honour at his own table. In a free
and familiar conversation of eight days, not a word, not a look, of
insult escaped from the conqueror; but he severely censured the unworthy
subjects who had deserted their valiant prince in the hour of danger, and
gently admonished his antagonist of some errors which he had committed
in the management of the war. In the preliminaries of negotiation, Alp
Arslan asked him what treatment he expected to receive, and the calm
indifference of the emperor displays the freedom of his mind. “If you are
cruel,” he said, “you will take my life; if you listen to pride, you will
drag me at your chariot wheels; if you consult your interest you will
accept a ransom, and restore me to my country.” “And what,” continued the
sultan, “would have been your own behaviour, had fortune smiled on your
arms?” The reply of the Greek betrays a sentiment which prudence, and
even gratitude, should have taught him to suppress. “Had I vanquished,”
he fiercely said, “I would have inflicted on thy body many a stripe.”
The Turkish conqueror smiled at the insolence of his captive; observed
that the Christian law inculcated the love of enemies and forgiveness
of injuries; and nobly declared that he would not imitate an example
which he condemned. After mature deliberation, Alp Arslan dictated the
terms of liberty and peace--a ransom of a million, an annual tribute
of 360,000 pieces of gold, the marriage of the royal children, and the
deliverance of all the Moslems who were in the power of the Greeks.
Romanus, with a sigh, subscribed this treaty, so disgraceful to the
majesty of the empire; he was immediately invested with a Turkish robe
of honour; his nobles and patricians were restored to their sovereign;
and the sultan, after a courteous embrace, dismissed him with rich
presents and a military guard. No sooner did he reach the confines of the
empire, than he was informed that the palace and provinces had disclaimed
their allegiance to a captive; a sum of two hundred thousand pieces was
painfully collected; and the fallen monarch transmitted this part of his
ransom, with a sad confession of his impotence and disgrace.
In the treaty of peace, it does not appear that Alp Arslan extorted any
province or city from the captive emperor; and his revenge was satisfied
with the trophies of his victory and the spoils of Anatolia, from Antioch
to the Black Sea. The fairest part of Asia was subject to his laws;
twelve hundred princes, or the sons of princes, stood before his throne;
and two hundred thousand soldiers marched under his banners. The sultan
disdained to pursue the fugitive Greeks; but he meditated the more
glorious conquest of Turkestan, the original seat of the house of Seljuk.
[While the Turks were getting control of Asia Minor the Byzantine
Empire lost its last hold on Italy. Robert Guiscard had taken, one
after another, the cities of the empire, and in 1068 laid siege to
Bari. Romanus sent a fleet under Gosselin, but Guiscard’s brother Roger
defeated him. Bari capitulated in April, 1071, and the direct authority
of the Roman Empire in Italy was gone forever.]
THE SONS OF CONSTANTINE XI AND NICEPHORUS III (1071-1081 A.D.)
[Sidenote: [1071-1081 A.D.]]
The defeat and captivity of Romanus IV inflicted a deadly wound on the
Byzantine monarchy of the East; and after he was released from the chains
of the sultan, he vainly sought his wife and subjects. His wife had been
thrust into a monastery, and the subjects of Romanus had embraced the
rigid maxim of the civil law, that a prisoner in the hands of the enemy
is deprived, as by the stroke of death, of all public and private rights
of a citizen. In the general consternation, the cæsar Joannes asserted
the indefeasible right of his three nephews. Constantinople listened
to his voice, and the Turkish captive was proclaimed in the capital,
and received on the frontier, as an enemy of the republic. Romanus was
not more fortunate in domestic than in foreign war: the loss of two
battles compelled him to yield, on the assurance of fair and honourable
treatment; but his enemies were devoid of faith or humanity, and, after
the cruel extinction of his sight, his wounds were left to bleed and
corrupt, till in a few days he was relieved from a state of misery.
Under the triple reign of the house of Ducas, the two younger brothers
were reduced to the vain honours of the purple; but the eldest, the
pusillanimous Michael, was incapable of sustaining the Roman sceptre; and
his surname of Parapinaces denotes the reproach which he shared with an
avaricious favourite, who enhanced the price, and diminished the measure,
of wheat. In the school of Psellus, and after the example of his mother,
the son of Eudocia made some proficiency in philosophy and rhetoric; but
his character was degraded, rather than ennobled, by the virtues of a
monk and the learning of a sophist.
Strong in the contempt of their sovereign and their own esteem, two
generals, at the head of the European and Asiatic legions, assumed the
purple at Hadrianopolis and Nicæa. Their revolt was in the same month;
they bore the same name of Nicephorus; but the two candidates were
distinguished by the surnames of Bryennius and Botaniates: the former
in the maturity of wisdom and courage, the latter conspicuous only by
the memory of his past exploits. While Botaniates advanced with cautious
and dilatory steps, his active competitor stood in arms before the gates
of Constantinople. The name of Bryennius was illustrious; his cause was
popular; but his licentious troops could not be restrained from burning
and pillaging a suburb; and the people, who would have hailed the rebel,
rejected and repulsed the incendiary of his country. This change of the
public opinion was favourable to Botaniates, who at length, with an army
of Turks, approached the shores of Chalcedon.
A formal invitation, in the name of the patriarch, the synod, and the
senate, was circulated through the streets of Constantinople; and the
general assembly, in the dome of St. Sophia, debated with order and
calmness on the choice of their sovereign. The guards of Michael would
have dispersed this unarmed multitude; but the feeble emperor, applauding
his own moderation and clemency, resigned the ensigns of royalty, and was
rewarded with the monastic habit and the title of archbishop of Ephesus.
He left a son, a Constantine, born and educated in the purple; and a
daughter of the house of Ducas illustrated the blood, and confirmed the
succession, of the Comnenian dynasty.
Joannes Comnenus, the brother of the emperor Isaac, survived in peace and
dignity his generous refusal of the sceptre. By his wife Anne, a woman of
masculine spirit and policy, he left eight children; the three daughters
multiplied the Comnenian alliances with the noblest Greeks; of the five
sons, Manuel was stopped by a premature death; Isaac and Alexius restored
the imperial greatness of their house, which was enjoyed without toil
or danger by the two younger brethren, Adrian and Nicephorus. Alexius,
the third and most illustrious of the brothers, was endowed by nature
with the choicest gifts both of mind and body; they were cultivated
by a liberal education, and exercised in the school of obedience and
adversity. The youth was dismissed from the perils of the Turkish
War,[78] by the paternal care of the emperor Romanus; but the mother
of the Comneni, with her aspiring race, was accused of treason, and
banished, by the sons of Ducas, to an island in the Propontis. The two
brothers soon emerged into favour and action, fought by each other’s side
against the rebels and barbarians, and adhered to the emperor Michael,
till he was deserted by the world and by himself.
In his first interview with Botaniates, “Prince,” said Alexius, with a
noble frankness, “my duty rendered me your enemy; the decrees of God
and of the people have made me your subject. Judge of my future loyalty
by my past opposition.” The successor of Michael entertained him with
esteem and confidence; his valour was employed against three rebels, who
disturbed the peace of the empire, or at least of the emperors. Ursel,
Bryennius, and Basilacius were formidable by their numerous forces and
military fame: they were successively vanquished in the field, and led
in chains to the foot of the throne; and whatever treatment they might
receive from a timid and cruel court, they applauded the clemency, as
well as the courage, of their conqueror. But the loyalty of the Comneni
was soon tainted by fear and suspicion; nor is it easy to settle between
a subject and a despot the debt of gratitude, which the former is tempted
to claim by a revolt, and the latter to discharge by an executioner.
The refusal of Alexius to march against a fourth rebel, the husband of
his sister, destroyed the merit or memory of his past services; the
favourites of Botaniates provoked the ambition which they apprehended and
accused; and the retreat of the two brothers might be justified by the
defence of their life or liberty.
The women of the family were deposited in a sanctuary, respected by
tyrants; the men, mounted on horseback, sallied from the city, and
erected the standard of civil war. The soldiers, who had been gradually
assembled in the capital and the neighbourhood, were devoted to the cause
of a victorious and injured leader; the ties of common interest and
domestic alliance secured the attachment of the house of Ducas; and the
generous dispute of the Comneni was terminated by the decisive resolution
of Isaac, who was the first to invest his younger brother with the name
and ensigns of royalty. They returned to Constantinople, to threaten
rather than besiege that impregnable fortress; but the fidelity of the
guards was corrupted; a gate was surprised, and the fleet was occupied by
the active courage of George Palæologus, who fought against his father,
without foreseeing that he laboured for his posterity. Alexius ascended
the throne; and his aged competitor disappeared in a monastery. An army
of various nations was gratified with the pillage of the city; but the
public disorders were expiated by the tears and fasts of the Comneni, who
submitted to every penance.
ANNA COMNENA’S HISTORY
The life of the emperor Alexius has been delineated by a favourite
daughter, who was inspired by a tender regard for his person, and a
laudable zeal to perpetuate his virtues. Conscious of the just suspicion
of her readers, the princess Anna Comnena[i] repeatedly protests, that,
besides her personal knowledge, she had searched the discourse and
writings of the most respectable veterans; that, after an interval of
thirty years, forgotten by, and forgetful of, the world, her mournful
solitude was inaccessible to hope and fear; and that truth, the naked,
perfect truth, was more dear and sacred than the memory of her parent.
Yet, instead of the simplicity of style and narrative which wins our
belief, an elaborate affectation of rhetoric and science betrays in every
page the vanity of a female author. The genuine character of Alexius is
lost in a vague constellation of virtues; and the perpetual strain of
panegyric and apology awakens our jealousy, to question the veracity of
the historian and the merit of the hero. We cannot, however, refuse her
judicious and important remark, that the disorders of the times were the
misfortune and the glory of Alexius; and that every calamity which can
afflict a declining empire was accumulated on his reign by the justice of
heaven and the vices of his predecessors.
TROUBLES OF ALEXIUS
[Sidenote: [1081-1084 A.D.]]
[Illustration: A BYZANTINE SOLDIER]
In the East, the victorious Turks had spread from Persia to the
Hellespont the reign of the _Koran_ and the crescent; the West was
invaded by the adventurous valour of the Normans; and, in the moments of
peace, the Danube poured forth new swarms, who had gained in the science
of war what they had lost in the ferociousness of manners. The sea was
not less hostile than the land; and while the frontiers were assaulted
by an open enemy, the palace was distracted with secret treason and
conspiracy.[h]
One of the earliest acts of the reign of Alexius was to conclude a treaty
of peace with the Seljuk emir Suleiman, who acted in Asia Minor as if he
were completely independent of the grand sultan Malekshah. The treachery
of Nicephorus Melissenos had placed Suleiman in possession of Nicæa,
and his troops occupied several posts on the shores of the Bosporus and
the Sea of Marmora; while Alexius, who required the whole forces of
the empire to resist the invasion of Robert Guiscard, was compelled to
purchase peace at any price. Under such circumstances, it was only to
be expected that the immediate neighbourhood of Constantinople could be
kept free from the Turks, and accordingly the boundaries of the Roman
Empire in Asia Minor were by this treaty reduced to very narrow limits.
The country immediately opposite the capital, as far as the mouth of the
river Sangarius and the head of the Gulf of Nicomedia, was evacuated by
the Turks, as well as the coasts of the Sea of Marmora, from the little
stream called Draco, which falls into the Gulf of Nicomedia, westward to
the city of Prusias. Already the mountains of the Turkish territory were
visible from the palace of Alexius and the dome of St. Sophia; but the
Crusades were destined to repel the Mohammedan invasion from the shores
of Europe for several centuries.
THE NORMAN INVASION
The spirit of enterprise and conquest which, when placed under the
guidance of religious enthusiasm, carried the bravest warriors of western
Europe as crusaders to the East, had, in the preceding generation, under
the direction of civil wisdom, produced the conquest of England and
southern Italy by the Normans. These conquests had raised their military
reputation and self-confidence to the highest pitch; and Robert Guiscard,
who was lord of dominions in Italy far superior in wealth to the duchy
of Normandy, hoped to eclipse the exploits of Duke William in England
by conquering the Byzantine Empire. But as he knew that he must expect
a more prolonged resistance than England had offered to its conqueror,
he sought a pretext for commencing the war which would conceal his own
object, and have a tendency to induce a party in the country to take up
arms against the government he was anxious to overthrow. His daughter
Helena had been betrothed to Constantine Ducas, the son of Michael VII,
and was still so young that she was residing in the imperial palace at
Constantinople, to receive her education, when Michael was dethroned.
Nicephorus III sent the child to a convent, and Robert her father stood
forward as the champion of Michael’s right to recover the throne from
which he had been expelled. Under the cover of this pretext, the Norman
expected to render himself master of Constantinople, or at all events
to gain possession of the rich provinces on the eastern shore of the
Adriatic.
The preparations of Robert Guiscard were far advanced when Alexius
ascended the throne. To inflame the zeal of his troops, he persuaded Pope
Gregory VII that a Greek monk, who had assumed the character of Michael
VII, was really the dethroned emperor, and thus induced the pope to
approve of his expedition, and to grant absolution to all the invaders
of the Byzantine Empire, as if they had been about to commence a holy
war. The soldiers were impressed with a deep conviction of the justice of
their cause and were inflamed with hopes of plunder and glory.
In the month of June, 1081, Robert Guiscard sailed from Brindisi with a
well-appointed fleet of a hundred and fifty ships, carrying an army of
thirty thousand chosen troops. His first operation was to render himself
master of the rich island of Corcyra (Corfu), which then yielded an
annual revenue of fifteen hundred pounds’ weight of gold to the Byzantine
government. He then seized the ports of Butrinto, Avlona, and Kanino,
on the mainland, and laid siege to the important city of Dyrrhachium,
the strongest fortress on the eastern coast of the Adriatic, and the
capital of Byzantine Illyria. It was fortunate for the empire that George
Palæologus, one of its bravest officers, had entered the place before
Robert commenced the siege.
The interests of Venice bound them to the cause of the Byzantine
government at this time. They were alarmed lest their lucrative trade
with Greece and the Levant should be placed at the mercy of the
rapacious Normans, in case Robert Guiscard should succeed in gaining
possession of the entrance to the Adriatic. They plunged, therefore, into
the war without hesitation or reserve.
The doge Dominic Sylvio sailed from Venice with a powerful fleet to
attack the Normans before the emperor Alexius could collect his army
and march to the relief of Dyrrhachium. The Norman fleet, which was
commanded by Bohemund, the illustrious son of Robert Guiscard, suffered a
complete defeat, and the communications of the invading army with Italy
were cut off. This difficulty only excited Robert to press the siege
with additional vigour. He employed every device then known for the
attack of towns. The military proceedings of Alexius, when he reached the
neighbourhood of Dyrrhachium, were very injudicious. The battle which
took place was as disgraceful to the Byzantine arms as to the emperor’s
judgment.
In the month of February, 1082, a Venetian, who guarded one of the
towers, betrayed the city to Robert, who had previously put his army into
winter quarters at Glabinitza and Joanina, in order to escape the severe
cold of the winter farther north. Alexius collected the remains of the
Byzantine army at Deavolis, and repaired himself to Thessalonica, where
he passed the winter collecting a second army, which he was enabled to
do, as he had replenished his military chest from the church plate of
the richest cathedrals and monasteries in his dominions. The affairs of
Italy, before the opening of the second campaign, fortunately compelled
Robert Guiscard to quit Illyria, and leave his son Bohemund in command of
the Norman army.
In the spring of 1083, Alexius had collected an army so powerful that
he again marched forward to attack the Normans. In order to break the
terrible charge of their cavalry, which no Byzantine horse could resist,
the emperor placed a number of chariots before his own troops, armed
with barbed poles extending in front like a line of lances, and in these
chariots he stationed a strong body of heavy-armed infantry. Bohemund,
however, on reconnoitring this strange unwieldy measure of defence,
broke up his line of cavalry into two columns, and leaving the centre of
the Byzantine army with the chariots unassailed, fell with fury on the
extremity of the two wings. The resistance was short, and the emperor
Alexius again fled.
Alexius, having procured a subsidiary force of seven thousand light
cavalry from Suleiman and the sultan of Nicæa, again took the field in
the spring of 1084. He formed his army into two divisions, and advanced
to engage the Normans before Larissa. His preparation for a battle was on
this occasion made with considerable skill. Bohemund, seeing that he was
in danger of being cut off from his resources, retreated to Kastoria. As
soon as the Norman army was cut off from plunder, and without any hope
of making further conquests, it began to display a mutinous spirit; and
Bohemund was compelled to return to Italy, to obtain supplies of money
and fresh troops. Brienne, the constable of Apulia, who commanded in his
absence, found himself compelled to surrender Kastoria to the emperor
Alexius, and to engage not to bear arms again against the Byzantine
Empire.
While Bohemund was carrying on the war against the emperor of the East,
Robert Guiscard had driven the emperor of the West out of Rome; and
after vanquishing Henry IV, he had plundered the Eternal City like
another Genseric. He was now ready to resume his schemes of ambition in
the East. Collecting a powerful fleet to carry over his victorious army
into Epirus, he raised the siege of Corfu (Corcyra), which was invested
by the combined naval forces of the Byzantine Empire and the Venetian
Republic. The united fleets were completely defeated in a great naval
battle, in which, according to Anna Comnena,[i] they lost thirteen
thousand men. But in the month of July, 1085, Robert died in the island
of Cephallenia, and with him perished all the Norman projects of conquest
in the Byzantine Empire. Dyrrhachium was recovered by Alexius with the
assistance of the Venetian and Amalphitan merchants established in the
place, and the services of the Venetians in this war were rewarded by
many commercial privileges which were conferred on them by a golden
bull.[e]
[Sidenote: [1084-1118 A.D.]]
The Norman War was scarcely finished when the Patzinaks invaded the
empire (1086). This war lasted five years, until, in fact, Alexius
concluded a treaty with the Komans, allies of the Patzinaks, and then
dealt the latter a crushing blow at Levounion in 1091. Minor wars with
Servia and Dalmatia do not deserve mention, but the progress of the
Seljuk Turks continued to hasten the decline of the empire. They dared
everything, and in 1092 Tzachas, emir of Smyrna, assumed the title of
emperor. He was put down, but retained sufficient strength to besiege
Abydos in 1093. But Alexius accomplished his murder the same year. The
relations of Alexius and the First Crusade will be fully treated in the
account of the Holy Wars. The ancient enmity of Alexius and Bohemund was
rekindled when the latter entered into his principality of Antioch. The
war lasted from 1103 to 1108, or until Bohemund’s death. The last years
of Alexius’ reign were occupied with hostilities with the crusaders and
again with the Seljuk Turks. The latter sustained a succession of heavy
losses, and in 1116 were glad to make peace. This was the end of Alexius’
military career.[a]
In the tempest of the Crusades Alexius steered the imperial vessel
with dexterity and courage. At the head of his armies, he was bold in
action, skilful in stratagem, patient of fatigue, ready to improve his
advantages, and rising from his defeats with inexhaustible vigour.
In his intercourse with the Latins, Alexius was patient and artful;
his discerning eye pervaded the new system of an unknown world; and we
shall hereafter describe the superior policy with which he balanced the
interests and passions of the champions of the First Crusade. In a long
reign of thirty-seven years, he subdued and pardoned the envy of his
equals; the laws of public and private order were restored; the arts
of wealth and science were cultivated; the limits of the empire were
enlarged in Europe and Asia; and the Comnenian sceptre was transmitted to
his children of the third and fourth generation.
Anna is a faithful witness that his happiness was destroyed, and his
health was broken, by the cares of a public life; the patience of
Constantinople was fatigued by the length and severity of his reign;
and before Alexius expired, he had lost the love and reverence of his
subjects. The clergy could not forgive his application of the sacred
riches to the defence of the state; but they applauded his theological
learning and ardent zeal for the orthodox faith, which he defended with
his tongue, his pen, and his sword. His character was degraded by the
superstition of the Greeks; and the same inconsistent principle of human
nature enjoined the emperor to found a hospital for the poor and infirm,
and to direct the execution of a heretic, who was burned alive in the
square of St. Sophia.
In his last hours, when he was pressed by his wife Irene to alter the
succession, he raised his head, and breathed a pious ejaculation on the
vanity of this world. The indignant reply of the empress may be inscribed
as an epitaph on his tomb--“You die, as you have lived--a hypocrite!”
(1118).
JOANNES (II) COMNENUS (CALO-JOANNES) (1118-1143 A.D.)
[Sidenote: [1118-1143 A.D.]]
It was the wish of Irene to supplant the eldest of her surviving sons,
in favour of her daughter, the princess Anna, whose philosophy would not
have refused the weight of a diadem. But the order of male succession was
asserted by the friends of their country; the lawful heir drew the royal
signet from the finger of his insensible or unconscious father, and the
empire obeyed the master of the palace. Anna Comnena was stimulated by
ambition and revenge to conspire against the life of her brother; and
when the design was prevented by the fears or scruples of her husband,
she passionately exclaimed, that nature had mistaken the two sexes, and
had endowed Bryennius with the soul of a woman.
The two sons of Alexius, Joannes and Isaac, maintained the fraternal
concord, the hereditary virtue of their race; and the younger brother was
content with the title of Sebastocrator, which approached the dignity,
without sharing the power, of the emperor. In the same person, the
claims of primogeniture and merit were fortunately united; his swarthy
complexion, harsh features, and diminutive stature, had suggested the
ironical surname of Calo-Joannes, or John the Handsome, which his
grateful subjects more seriously applied to the beauties of his mind.
After the discovery of her treason, the life and fortune of Anna were
justly forfeited to the laws. Her life was spared by the clemency of
the emperor; but he visited the pomp and treasures of her palace, and
bestowed the rich confiscation on the most deserving of his friends. That
respectable friend, Axuch, a slave of Turkish extraction, presumed to
decline the gift, and to intercede for the criminal; his generous master
applauded and imitated the virtue of his favourite, and the reproach or
complaint of an injured brother was the only chastisement of the guilty
princess. After this example of clemency, the remainder of his reign was
never disturbed by conspiracy or rebellion; feared by his nobles, beloved
by his people, Joannes was never reduced to the painful necessity of
punishing, or even of pardoning, his personal enemies.
During his government of twenty-five years, the penalty of death was
abolished in the Roman Empire, a law of mercy most delightful to the
humane theorist, but of which the practice, in a large and vicious
community, is seldom consistent with the public safety. Severe to
himself, indulgent to others, chaste, frugal, abstemious, the philosophic
Marcus would not have disdained the artless virtues of his successor,
derived from his heart, and not borrowed from the schools. He despised
and moderated the stately magnificence of the Byzantine court, so
oppressive to the people, so contemptible to the eye of reason. Under
such a prince, innocence had nothing to fear, and merit had everything to
hope; and without assuming the tyrannic office of a censor, he introduced
a gradual though visible reformation in the public and private manners
of Constantinople. The only defect of this accomplished character was
the frailty of noble minds--the love of arms and military glory. Yet the
frequent expeditions of John the Handsome may be justified, at least
in their principle, by the necessity of repelling the Turks from the
Hellespont and the Bosporus. The sultan of the Iconium was confined
to his capital, the barbarians were driven to the mountains, and the
maritime provinces of Asia enjoyed the transient blessings of their
deliverance. From Constantinople to Antioch and Aleppo, he repeatedly
marched at the head of a victorious army, and in the sieges and battles
of this holy war his Latin allies were astonished by the superior spirit
and prowess of a Greek. As he began to indulge the ambitious hope of
restoring the ancient limits of the empire, as he revolved in his mind,
the Euphrates and the Tigris, the dominion of Syria, and the conquest
of Jerusalem, the thread of his life and of the public felicity was
broken by a singular accident. He hunted the wild boar in the valley of
Anazarbus, and had fixed his javelin in the body of the furious animal;
but, in the struggle, a poisoned arrow dropped from his quiver, and a
slight wound in his hand, which produced a mortification, was fatal to
the best and greatest of the Comnenian princes.
MANUEL I (1143-1180 A.D.)
[Sidenote: [1143-1180 A.D.]]
A premature death had swept away the two eldest sons of John the
Handsome; of the two survivors, Isaac and Manuel, his judgment or
affection preferred the younger; and the choice of their dying prince was
ratified by the soldiers, who had applauded the valour of his favourite
in the Turkish War. The faithful Axuch hastened to the capital, secured
the person of Isaac in honourable confinement, and purchased with a gift
of two hundred pounds of silver the leading ecclesiastics of St. Sophia,
who possessed a decisive voice in the consecration of an emperor. With
his veteran and affectionate troops, Manuel soon visited Constantinople;
his brother acquiesced in the title of Sebastocrator; his subjects
admired the lofty stature and martial graces of their new sovereign, and
listened with credulity to the flattering promise, that he blended the
wisdom of age with the activity and vigour of youth. By the experience
of his government, they were taught, that he emulated the spirit, and
shared the talents, of his father, whose social virtues were buried in
the grave. A reign of thirty-seven years is filled by a perpetual though
various warfare against the Turks, the Christians, and the hordes of the
wilderness beyond the Danube. The arms of Manuel were exercised on Mount
Taurus, in the plains of Hungary, on the coast of Italy and Egypt, and on
the seas of Sicily and Greece; the influence of his negotiations extended
from Jerusalem to Rome and Russia; and the Byzantine monarchy, for a
while, became an object of respect or terror to the powers of Asia and
Europe.
Educated in the silk and purple of the East, Manuel possessed the iron
temper of a soldier, which cannot easily be paralleled, except in the
lives of Richard I of England, and of Charles XII of Sweden. Such was
his strength and exercise in arms, that Raymond, surnamed the Hercules
of Antioch, was incapable of wielding the lance and buckler of the Greek
emperor. In a famous tournament, he entered the lists on a fiery courser,
and overturned in his first career two of the stoutest of the Italian
knights. The first in the charge, the last in the retreat, his friends
and his enemies alike trembled, the former for his safety and the latter
for their own. After posting an ambuscade in a wood, he rode forwards
in search of some perilous adventure, accompanied only by his brother
and the faithful Axuch, who refused to desert their sovereign. Eighteen
horsemen, after a short combat, fled before them; but the numbers of the
enemy increased; the march of the reinforcement was tardy and fearful,
and Manuel, without receiving a wound, cut his way through a squadron
of five hundred Turks. In a battle against the Hungarians, impatient
of the slowness of his troops, he snatched a standard from the head of
the column, and was the first, almost alone, who passed a bridge that
separated him from the enemy. In the same country, after transporting
his army beyond the Save, he sent back the boats with an order, under
pain of death, to their commander, that he should leave him to conquer
or die on that hostile land. In the siege of Corfu, towing after him a
captive galley, the emperor stood aloft on the poop, opposing against the
volleys of darts and stones a large buckler and a flowing sail; nor could
he have escaped inevitable death, had not the Sicilian admiral enjoined
his archers to respect the person of a hero. In one day, he is said to
have slain above forty of the barbarians with his own hand; he returned
to the camp, dragging along four Turkish prisoners, whom he had tied
to the rings of his saddle; he was ever the foremost to provoke or to
accept a single combat; and the gigantic champions, who encountered his
arm, were transpierced by the lance, or cut asunder by the sword, of the
invincible Manuel. The story of his exploits, which appear as a model or
copy of the romances of chivalry, may induce a reasonable suspicion of
the veracity of the Greeks; yet we may observe, that, in the long series
of their annals, Manuel is the only prince who has been the subject of
similar exaggeration. With the valour of a soldier, he did not unite the
skill or prudence of a general; his victories were not productive of any
permanent or useful conquest; and his Turkish laurels were blasted in his
last unfortunate campaign, in which he lost his army in the mountains of
Pisidia, and owed his deliverance to the generosity of the sultan.
But the most singular feature in the character of Manuel, is the contrast
and vicissitude of labour and sloth, of hardiness and effeminacy. In
war he seemed ignorant of peace; in peace he appeared incapable of
war. In the field he slept in the sun or in the snow, tired in the
longest marches the strength of his men and horses, and shared with a
smile the abstinence or diet of the camp. No sooner did he return to
Constantinople, than he resigned himself to the arts and pleasures of
a life of luxury; the expense of his dress, his table, and his palace,
surpassed the measure of his predecessors, and whole summer days were
idly wasted in the delicious isles of the Propontis, in the incestuous
love of his niece Theodora. The double cost of a warlike and dissolute
prince exhausted the revenue, and multiplied the taxes; and Manuel, in
the distress of his last Turkish campaign, endured a bitter reproach
from the mouth of a desperate soldier. As he quenched his thirst, he
complained that the water of a fountain was mingled with Christian blood.
“It is not the first time,” exclaimed a voice from the crowd, “that you
have drunk, O emperor! the blood of your Christian subjects.”
Manuel Comnenus was twice married; to the virtuous Bertha or Irene of
Germany, and to the beauteous Maria, a French or Latin princess of
Antioch. The only daughter of his first wife was destined for Bela, a
Hungarian prince, who was educated at Constantinople, under the name of
Alexius; and the consummation of their nuptials might have transferred
the Roman sceptre to a race of free and warlike barbarians. But as
soon as Maria of Antioch had given a son and heir to the empire, the
presumptive rights of Bela were abolished, and he was deprived of his
promised bride; but the Hungarian prince resumed his name and the kingdom
of his fathers, and displayed such virtues as might excite the regret and
envy of the Greeks. The son of Maria was named Alexius; and at the age of
ten years, he ascended the Byzantine throne, after his father’s decease
had closed the glories of the Comnenian line.
The fraternal concord of the two sons of the great Alexius had been
sometimes clouded by an opposition of interest and passion. By ambition,
Isaac the Sebastocrator was excited to flight and rebellion, from whence
he was reclaimed by the firmness and clemency of John the Handsome. The
errors of Isaac, the father of the emperors of Trebizond, were short
and venial; but Joannes, the elder of his sons, renounced forever his
religion. Provoked by a real or imaginary insult of his uncle, he escaped
from the Roman to the Turkish camp; his apostacy was rewarded with the
Sultan’s daughter, the title of Chelebi, or noble, and the inheritance of
a princely estate; and in the fifteenth century Muhammed II boasted of
his imperial descent from the Comnenian family.
_The Adventures of Andronicus_
Andronicus, the younger brother of Joannes, son of Isaac, and grandson
of Alexius Comnenus, is one of the most conspicuous characters of the
age; and his genuine adventures might form the subject of a very singular
romance. To justify the choice of three ladies of royal birth, it must be
observed, that their fortunate lover was cast in the best proportions of
strength and beauty; and that the want of the softer graces was supplied
by a manly countenance, a lofty stature, athletic muscles, and the air
and deportment of a soldier. The preservation, in his old age, of health
and vigour, was the reward of temperance and exercise. A piece of bread
and a draught of water was often his sole and evening repast; and if
he tasted of a wild boar, or a stag, which he had roasted with his own
hands, it was the well-earned fruit of a laborious chase. Dexterous
in arms, he was ignorant of fear; his persuasive eloquence could bend
to every situation and character of life; his style, though not his
practice, was fashioned by the example of St. Paul: and, in every deed of
mischief, he had a heart to resolve, a head to contrive, and a hand to
execute.
In his youth, after the death of the emperor Joannes, he followed
the retreat of the Roman army; but in the march through Asia Minor,
design or accident tempted him to wander in the mountains; the hunter
was encompassed by the Turkish huntsmen, and he remained some time a
reluctant or willing captive in the power of the Sultan. His virtues
and vices recommended him to the favour of his cousin; he shared the
perils and the pleasures of Manuel; and while the emperor lived in public
incest with his niece Theodora, the affections of her sister Eudocia
were seduced and enjoyed by Andronicus. Above the decencies of her sex
and rank, she gloried in the name of his concubine; and both the palace
and the camp could witness that she slept or watched in the arms of her
lover. She accompanied him to his military command of Cilicia, the first
scene of his valour and imprudence. He pressed, with active ardour, the
siege of Mopsuestia; the day was employed in the boldest attacks, but the
night was wasted in song and dance, and a band of Greek comedians formed
the choicest part of his retinue.
Andronicus was surprised by the sally of a vigilant foe; but while
his troops fled in disorder, his invincible lance transpierced the
thickest ranks of the Armenians. On his return to the imperial camp in
Macedonia, he was received by Manuel with public smiles and a private
reproof; but the duchies of Naissus, Braniseba, and Kastoria were
the reward or consolation of the unsuccessful general. Eudocia still
attended his motions; at midnight, their tent was suddenly attacked by
her angry brothers, impatient to expiate her infamy in his blood; his
daring spirit refused her advice, and the disguise of a female habit;
and, boldly starting from his couch, he drew his sword, and cut his way
through the numerous assassins. It was here that he first betrayed his
ingratitude and treachery; he engaged in a treasonable correspondence
with the king of Hungary and the German emperor, approached the royal
tent at a suspicious hour with a drawn sword, and under the mask of a
Latin soldier, avowed an intention of revenge against a mortal foe; and
imprudently praised the fleetness of his horse as an instrument of flight
and safety. The monarch dissembled his suspicions; but, after the close
of the campaign, Andronicus was arrested, and strictly confined in a
tower of the palace of Constantinople.
In this prison he was left above twelve years, a most painful restraint,
from which the thirst of action and pleasure perpetually urged him to
escape. Alone and pensive, he perceived some broken bricks in a corner
of the chamber, and gradually widened the passage, till he had explored
a dark and forgotten recess. Into this hole he conveyed himself and
the remains of his provisions, replacing the bricks in their former
positions, and erasing with care the footsteps of his retreat. At the
hour of the customary visit, his guards were amazed with the silence
and solitude of the prison, and reported, with shame and fear, his
incomprehensible flight.
The gates of the palace and city were instantly shut: the strictest
orders were despatched into the provinces for the recovery of the
fugitive; and his wife, on the suspicion of a pious act, was basely
imprisoned in the same tower. At the dead of night she beheld a spectre:
she recognised her husband; they shared their provisions; and a son was
the fruit of the stolen interviews; which alleviated the tediousness
of their confinement. In the custody of a woman, the vigilance of the
keepers was insensibly relaxed; and the captive had accomplished his
real escape, when he was discovered, brought back to Constantinople, and
loaded with a double chain.
[Illustration: A BYZANTINE SOLDIER]
At length he found the moment and the means of his deliverance. A boy,
his domestic servant, intoxicated the guards, and obtained in wax the
impression of the keys. By the diligence of his friends, a similar key,
with a bundle of ropes, was introduced into the prison, in the bottom
of a hogshead. Andronicus employed, with industry and courage, the
instruments of his safety, unlocked the doors, descended from the tower,
concealed himself all day among the bushes, and without difficulty scaled
in the night the garden-wall of the palace.
A boat was stationed for his reception; he visited his own house,
embraced his children, cast away his chain, mounted a fleet horse, and
directed his rapid course towards the banks of the Danube. At Anchialus
in Thrace an intrepid friend supplied him with horses and money; he
passed the river, traversed with speed the desert of Moldavia and the
Carpathian hills, and had almost reached the town of Haliez, in Polish
Russia, when he was intercepted by a party of Wallachians, who resolved
to convey their important captive to Constantinople.
His presence of mind again extricated him from this danger. Under the
pretence of sickness, he dismounted in the night, and was allowed to
step aside from the troop; he planted in the ground his long staff;
clothed it with his cap and upper garment; and, stealing into the wood,
left a phantom to amuse, for some time, the eyes of the Wallachians.
From Halicz he was honourably conducted to Kieff, the residence of the
great duke; the subtle Greek soon obtained the esteem and confidence
of Yaroslaff; his character could assume the manners of every climate;
and the barbarians applauded his strength and courage in the chase of
the elks and bears of the forest. In this northern region he deserved
the forgiveness of Manuel, who solicited the Russian prince to join his
arms in the invasion of Hungary. The influence of Andronicus achieved
this important service; his private treaty was signed with a promise of
fidelity on one side, and of oblivion on the other; and he marched, at
the head of the Russian cavalry, from the Borysthenes to the Danube.
In his resentment, Manuel had ever sympathised with the martial and
dissolute character of his cousin; and his free pardon was sealed in the
assault of Zemlin, in which he was second, and second only, to the valour
of the emperor.
He was removed from the royal presence by an honourable banishment, a
second command of the Cilician frontier, with the absolute disposal of
the revenues of Cyprus. In this station, the Armenians again exercised
his courage, and exposed his negligence; and the same rebel, who baffled
all his operations, was unhorsed and almost slain by the vigour of his
lance. But Andronicus soon discovered a more easy and pleasing conquest,
the beautiful Philippa, sister of the empress Maria, and daughter
of Raymond of Poitou, the Latin prince of Antioch. For her sake he
deserted his station, and wasted the summer in balls and tournaments;
to his love she sacrificed her innocence, her reputation, and the offer
of an advantageous marriage. But the resentment of Manuel for this
domestic affront interrupted his pleasures. The emperor still thirsted
for revenge; and his subjects and allies of the Syrian frontier were
repeatedly pressed to seize the person, and put out the eyes, of the
fugitive. In Palestine he was no longer safe; but the tender Theodora
revealed his danger and accompanied his flight. After a long circuit
round the Caspian Sea and the mountains of Georgia, he finally settled
among the Turks of Asia Minor, the hereditary enemies of his country.
The sultan of Colonia afforded a hospitable retreat to Andronicus,
his mistress, and his band of outlaws; the debt of gratitude was paid
by frequent inroads in the Roman province of Trebizond, and he seldom
returned without an ample harvest of spoil and of Christian captives.
His vigilance had eluded or repelled the open and secret persecution of
the emperor; but he was at length ensnared by the captivity of his female
companion. The governor of Trebizond succeeded in his attempt to surprise
the person of Theodora; the queen of Jerusalem and her two children were
sent to Constantinople, and their loss embittered the tedious solitude
of banishment. The fugitive implored and obtained a final pardon, with
leave to throw himself at the feet of his sovereign, who was satisfied
with the submission of this haughty spirit. Prostrate on the ground, he
deplored with tears and groans the guilt of his past rebellion; nor would
he presume to arise unless some faithful subject would drag him to the
foot of the throne.
This extraordinary penance excited the wonder and pity of the assembly;
his sins were forgiven by the church and state; but the just suspicion of
Manuel fixed his residence at a distance from the court, at Œnoe, a town
of Pontus, surrounded with rich vineyards, and situate on the coast of
the Euxine. The death of Manuel, and the disorders of the minority, soon
opened the fairest field to his ambition.
ALEXIUS II (1180-1183 A.D.)
[Sidenote: [1180-1183 A.D.]]
The emperor was a boy of twelve or fourteen years of age, without vigour,
or wisdom, or experience; his mother, the empress Mary, abandoned her
person and government to a favourite of the Comnenian name; and his
sister, another Mary, whose husband, an Italian, was decorated with the
title of Cæsar, excited a conspiracy, and at length an insurrection,
against her odious stepmother. The provinces were forgotten, the
capital was in flames, and a century of peace and order was overthrown
in the vice and weakness of a few months. A civil war was kindled in
Constantinople; the two factions fought a bloody battle in the square of
the palace, and the rebels sustained a regular siege in the cathedral
of St. Sophia. The patriarch laboured with honest zeal to heal the
wounds of the republic, the most respectable patriots called aloud for
a guardian and avenger, and every tongue repeated the praise of the
talents and even the virtues of Andronicus. In his march from Œnoe to
Constantinople, his slender train insensibly swelled to a crowd and an
army; his professions of religion and loyalty were mistaken for the
language of his heart; and the simplicity of a foreign dress, which
showed to advantage his majestic stature, displayed a lively image of his
poverty and exile. All opposition sank before him; he reached the straits
of the Thracian Bosporus; the Byzantine navy sailed from the harbour to
receive and transport the saviour of the empire; the torrent was loud and
irresistible, and the insects who had basked in the sunshine of royal
favour disappeared at the blast of the storm. It was the first care of
Andronicus to occupy the palace, to salute the emperor, to confine his
mother, to punish her minister, and to restore the public order and
tranquillity. He then visited the sepulchre of Manuel; the spectators
were ordered to stand aloof, but, as he bowed in the attitude of prayer,
they heard a murmur of triumph and revenge.
“I no longer fear thee, my old enemy, who hast driven me a vagabond to
every climate of the earth. Thou art safely deposited under a sevenfold
dome, from whence thou canst never arise till the signal of the last
trumpet. It is now my turn, and speedily will I trample on thy ashes and
thy posterity.” From his subsequent tyranny we may impute such feelings
to the man and the moment. But it is not extremely probable that he gave
an articulate sound to his secret thoughts. In the first months of his
administration, his designs were veiled by a fair semblance of hypocrisy,
which could delude only the eyes of the multitude: the coronation of
Alexius was performed with due solemnity, and his perfidious guardian,
holding in his hands the body and blood of Christ, most fervently
declared, that he lived, and was ready to die, for the service of his
beloved pupil. After blackening her reputation, and inflaming against
her the passions of the multitude, the tyrant accused and tried the
empress for a treasonable correspondence with the king of Hungary. His
own son, a youth of honour and humanity, avowed his abhorrence of this
flagitious act, and three of the judges had the merit of preferring
their conscience to their safety; but the obsequious tribunal, without
requiring any proof, or hearing any defence, condemned the widow of
Manuel, and her unfortunate son subscribed the sentence of her death.
Maria was strangled, her corpse was buried in the sea, and her memory was
wounded by the insult most offensive to female vanity, a false and ugly
representation of her beauteous form. The fate of her son was not long
deferred: he was strangled with a bowstring, and the tyrant, insensible
to pity or remorse, after surveying the body of the innocent youth,
struck it rudely with his foot.
ANDRONICUS I, EMPEROR (1183-1185 A.D.)
[Sidenote: [1183-1185 A.D.]]
The Roman sceptre, the reward of his crimes, was held by Andronicus
about three years and a half, as guardian, then sovereign of the empire.
His government exhibited a singular contrast of vice and virtue. When
he listened to his passions he was the scourge, when he consulted his
reason, the father, of his people. In the exercise of private justice,
he was equitable and rigorous; a shameful and pernicious venality
was abolished, and the offices were filled with the most deserving
candidates by a prince who had sense to choose, and severity to punish.
He prohibited the inhuman practice of pillaging the goods and persons of
shipwrecked mariners; the provinces, so long the objects of oppression
or neglect, revived in prosperity and plenty; and millions applauded the
distant blessings of his reign, while he was cursed by the witnesses of
his daily cruelties. The ancient proverb, that blood-thirsty is the man
who returns from banishment to power, had been applied with too much
truth to Marius and Tiberius; and was now verified for the third time in
the life of Andronicus. His memory was stored with a black list of the
enemies and rivals who had traduced his merit, opposed his greatness,
or insulted his misfortunes; and the only comfort of his exile was the
sacred hope and promise of revenge. The necessary extinction of the young
emperor and his mother imposed the fatal obligation of extirpating the
friends, who hated, and might punish, the assassin; and the repetition of
murder rendered him less willing, and less able, to forgive.
The noblest of the Greeks, more especially those who, by descent or
alliance, might dispute the Comnenian inheritance, escaped from the
monster’s den; Nicæa or Prusa, Sicily or Cyprus, were their places
of refuge; and as their flight was already criminal, they aggravated
their offence by an open revolt, and the imperial title. Yet Andronicus
resisted the daggers and swords of his most formidable enemies; Nicæa and
Prusa were reduced and chastised; the Sicilians were content with the
sack of Thessalonica; and the distance of Cyprus was not more propitious
to the rebel than to the tyrant. His throne was subverted by a rival
without merit, and a people without arms. Isaac Angelus, a descendant in
the female line from the great Alexius, was marked as a victim, by the
prudence or superstition of the emperor. In a moment of despair, Angelus
defended his life and liberty, slew the executioner, and fled to the
church of St. Sophia. The sanctuary was insensibly filled with a curious
and mournful crowd, who, in his fate, prognosticated their own. But their
lamentations were soon turned to curses, and their curses to threats:
they dared to ask, “Why do we fear? why do we obey? we are many, and he
is one; our patience is the only bond of our slavery.” With the dawn of
day the city burst into a general sedition, the prisons were thrown open,
the coldest and most servile were roused to the defence of their country,
and Isaac, the second of the name, was raised from the sanctuary to the
throne.
Unconscious of his danger, the tyrant was absent, withdrawn from the
toils of state, in the delicious islands of the Propontis. When fear
had ceased, obedience was no more; the imperial galley was pursued and
taken by an armed brigantine, and the tyrant was dragged to the presence
of Isaac Angelus, loaded with fetters, and a long chain round his neck.
His eloquence, and the tears of his female companions, pleaded in vain
for his life; but, instead of the decencies of a legal execution, the
new monarch abandoned the criminal to the numerous sufferers whom he
had deprived of a father, a husband, or a friend. His teeth and hair, an
eye and hand, were torn from him, as a poor compensation for their loss;
and a short respite was allowed, that he might feel the bitterness of
death. Astride on a camel, without any danger of a rescue, he was carried
through the city, and the basest of the populace rejoiced to trample on
the fallen majesty of their prince. After a thousand blows and outrages,
Andronicus was hung by the feet between two pillars that supported the
statues of a wolf and a sow; and every hand that could reach the public
enemy inflicted on his body some mark of ingenious or brutal cruelty,
till two friendly Italians, plunging their swords into his body, released
him from all human punishment. In this long and painful agony, “Lord,
have mercy upon me!” and “Why will you bruise a broken reed?” were the
only words that escaped from his mouth. Our hatred for the tyrant is lost
in pity for the man; nor can we blame his pusillanimous resignation,
since a Greek Christian was no longer master of his life.
[Illustration: A SARACEN BRASS VESSEL]
[Sidenote: [1185-1204 A.D.]]
The branches that sprang from the Comnenian trunk had insensibly
withered; and the male line was continued only in the posterity of
Andronicus himself, who, in the public confusion, usurped the sovereignty
of Trebizond, so obscure in history, and so famous in romance. A private
citizen of Philadelphia, Constantine Angelus, had emerged to wealth and
honours by his marriage with a daughter of the emperor Alexius. His son
Andronicus is conspicuous only by his cowardice. His grandson Isaac
punished and succeeded the tyrant; but he was dethroned by his own vices
and the ambition of his brother, and their discord introduced the Latins
to the conquest of Constantinople, the first great period in the fall of
the Eastern Empire.
GIBBON’S REVIEW OF THE EMPERORS
[Sidenote: [641-1204 A.D.]]
If we compute the number and duration of the reigns, it will be found
that a period of six hundred years is filled by sixty emperors, including
in the Augustan list some female sovereigns; and deducting some usurpers
who were never acknowledged in the capital, and some princes who did not
live to possess their inheritance. The average proportion will allow ten
years for each emperor, far below the chronological rule of Sir Isaac
Newton, who, from the experience of more recent and regular monarchies,
defined about eighteen or twenty years as the term of an ordinary reign.
The Byzantine Empire was most tranquil and prosperous when it could
acquiesce in hereditary succession; five dynasties, the Heraclian,
Isaurian, Amorian, Basilian, and Comnenian families, enjoyed and
transmitted the royal patrimony during their respective series of five,
four, three, six, and four generations; several princes number the years
of their reign with those of their infancy; and Constantine VII and his
two grandsons occupy the space of an entire century. But in the intervals
of the Byzantine dynasties, the succession is rapid and broken, and the
name of a successful candidate is speedily erased by a more fortunate
competitor.
Many were the paths that led to the summit of royalty; the fabric of
rebellion was overthrown by the stroke of conspiracy, or undermined by
the silent arts of intrigue; the favourites of the soldiers or people, of
the senate or clergy, of the women and eunuchs, were alternately clothed
with the purple; the means of their elevation were base, and their end
was often contemptible or tragic. A being of the nature of man, endowed
with the same faculties, but with a longer measure of existence, would
cast down a smile of pity and contempt on the crimes and follies of
human ambition, so eager, in a narrow span, to grasp at a precarious and
short-lived enjoyment.
It is thus that the experience of history exalts and enlarges the horizon
of our intellectual view. In a composition of some days, in a perusal
of some hours, six hundred years have rolled away, and the duration of
a life or reign is contracted to a fleeting moment; the grave is ever
beside the throne; the success of a criminal is almost instantly followed
by the loss of his prize; and our immortal reason survives and disdains
the sixty phantoms of kings who have passed before our eyes, and faintly
dwell in our remembrance.
The observation that in every age and climate, ambition has prevailed
with the same commanding energy, may abate the surprise of a philosopher;
but while he condemns the vanity, he may search the motive, of this
universal desire to obtain and hold the sceptre of dominion. To the
greater part of the Byzantine series, we cannot reasonably ascribe the
love of fame and of mankind. The virtue of Joannes Comnenus alone was
beneficent and pure; the most illustrious of the princes, who precede or
follow that respectable name, have trod with some dexterity and vigour
the crooked and bloody paths of a selfish policy; in scrutinising the
imperfect characters of Leo the Isaurian, Basil I, and Alexius Comnenus,
of Theophilus, the second Basil, and Manuel Comnenus, our esteem and
censure are almost equally balanced; and the remainder of the imperial
crowd could only desire and expect to be forgotten by posterity.
Was personal happiness the aim and object of their ambition? I shall not
descant on the vulgar topics of the misery of kings; but I may surely
observe, that their condition, of all others, is the most pregnant with
fear, and the least susceptible of hope. For the opposite passions, a
larger scope was allowed in the revolutions of antiquity, than in the
smooth and solid temper of the modern world, which cannot easily repeat
either the triumph of Alexander or the fall of Darius. But the peculiar
infelicity of the Byzantine princes exposed them to domestic perils,
without affording any lively promise of foreign conquest. From the
pinnacle of greatness, Andronicus was precipitated by a death more cruel
and shameful than that of the vilest malefactor; but the most glorious of
his predecessors had much more to dread from their subjects than to hope
from their enemies. The army was licentious without spirit, the nation
turbulent without freedom; the barbarians of the East and West pressed on
the monarchy, and the loss of the provinces was terminated by the final
servitude of the capital.
The entire series of Roman emperors, from the first of the Cæsars to the
last of the Constantines, extends above fifteen hundred years: and the
term of dominion, unbroken by foreign conquest, surpasses the measure of
the ancient monarchies; the Assyrians, or Medes, the successors of Cyrus,
or those of Alexander.
ISAAC (II) ANGELUS (1185-1195 A.D.)
[Sidenote: [1185-1202 A.D.]]
Isaac slept on the throne, and was awakened only by the sound of
pleasure; his vacant hours were amused by comedians and buffoons, and
even to these buffoons the emperor was an object of contempt; his
feasts and buildings exceeded the examples of royal luxury; the number
of his eunuchs and domestics amounted to twenty thousand; and a daily
sum of four thousand pounds of silver would swell to four millions
sterling the annual expense of his household and table. His poverty was
relieved by oppression; and the public discontent was inflamed by equal
abuses in the collection and the application of the revenue. While the
Greeks numbered the days of their servitude, a flattering prophet whom
he rewarded with the dignity of patriarch, assured him of a long and
victorious reign of thirty-two years, during which he should extend his
sway to Mount Lebanon, and his conquests beyond the Euphrates. But his
only step towards the accomplishment of the prediction was a splendid
and scandalous embassy to Saladin, to demand the restitution of the
Holy Sepulchre, and to propose an offensive and defensive league with
the enemy of the Christian name. In these unworthy hands, of Isaac and
his brother, the remains of the Greek Empire crumbled into dust. The
island of Cyprus, whose name excites the ideas of elegance and pleasure,
was usurped by his namesake, a Comnenian prince; and by a strange
concatenation of events, the sword of the English Richard bestowed that
kingdom on the house of Lusignan, a rich compensation for the loss of
Jerusalem.
The honour of the monarchy, and the safety of the capital, were deeply
wounded by the revolt of the Bulgarians and Wallachians. Several
candidates for the purple successively rose and fell under the empire
of Isaac; a general who had repelled the fleets of Sicily was driven
to revolt and ruin by the ingratitude of the prince; and his luxurious
repose was disturbed by secret conspiracies and popular insurrections.
The emperor was saved by accident, or the merit of his servants; he
was at length oppressed by an ambitious brother, who, for the hope of
a precarious diadem, forgot the obligations of nature, of loyalty, and
of friendship. While Isaac in the Thracian valleys pursued the idle
and solitary pleasures of the chase, his brother, Alexius Angelus, was
invested with the purple, by the unanimous suffrage of the camp; the
capital and the clergy subscribed to their choice; and the vanity of the
new sovereign rejected the name of his fathers for the lofty and royal
appellation of the Comnenian race. On the despicable character of Isaac
we have exhausted the language of contempt; and can only add, that in a
reign of eight years, the baser Alexius was supported by the masculine
vices of his wife Euphrosyne.
INTERVENTION OF THE CRUSADERS
[Sidenote: [1202-1203 A.D.]]
The first intelligence of his fall was conveyed to the late emperor by
the hostile aspect and pursuit of the guards, no longer his own; he fled
before them above fifty miles, as far as Stagira in Macedonia; but the
fugitive, without an object or a follower, was arrested, brought back
to Constantinople, deprived of his eyes, and confined in a lonesome
tower, on a scanty allowance of bread and water. At the moment of the
revolution, his son Alexius, whom he educated in the hope of empire, was
twelve years of age. He was spared by the usurper, and reduced to attend
his triumph both in peace and war; but as the army was encamped on the
sea shore, an Italian vessel facilitated the escape of the royal youth;
and, in the disguise of a common sailor, he eluded the search of his
enemies, passed the Hellespont, and found a secure refuge in the isle of
Sicily. After saluting the threshold of the Apostles, and imploring the
protection of Pope Innocent III, Alexius accepted the kind invitation
of his sister Irene, the wife of Philip of Swabia, king of the Romans.
But in his passage through Italy, he heard that the flower of western
chivalry was assembled at Venice for the deliverance of the Holy Land;
and a ray of hope was kindled in his bosom, that their invincible swords
might be employed in his father’s restoration.
[Illustration: A FRANK SOLDIER]
He promised, in his own and his father’s name, that as soon as they
should be seated on the throne of Constantinople, they would terminate
the long schism of the Greeks, and submit themselves and their people
to the lawful supremacy of the Roman church. He engaged to recompense
the labours and merits of the crusaders, by the immediate payment of two
hundred thousand marks of silver; to accompany them in person to Egypt;
or, if it should be judged more advantageous, to maintain, during a year,
ten thousand men, and, during his life, five hundred knights, for the
service of the Holy Land. These tempting conditions were accepted by the
republic of Venice; and the eloquence of the doge and marquis persuaded
the counts of Flanders, Blois, and St. Pol, with eight barons of France,
to join in the glorious enterprise.
The departure of the fleet and army was vigorously pressed by the
Venetians, whose zeal for the service of the royal youth concealed a
just resentment to his nation and family. They were mortified by the
recent preference which had been given to Pisa, the rival of their
trade; they had a long arrear of debt and injury to liquidate with the
Byzantine court; and Dandolo might not discourage the popular tale, that
he had been deprived of his eyes by the emperor Manuel, who perfidiously
violated the sanctity of an ambassador. A similar armament, for ages, had
not ridden the Adriatic; it was composed of 120 flat-bottomed vessels or
palanders for the horses; 240 transports filled with men and arms; 70
store-ships laden with provisions; and 50 stout galleys, well prepared
for the encounter of an enemy.
At Durazzo, the confederates first landed on the territories of the Greek
Empire; the isle of Corfu afforded a station and repose; they doubled
without accident the perilous cape of Malea, the southern point of
Peloponnesus or the Morea; made a descent in the islands of Negropont and
Andros; and cast anchor at Abydos on the Asiatic side of the Hellespont.
These preludes of conquest were easy and bloodless; the Greeks of the
provinces, without patriotism or courage, were crushed by an irresistible
force; the presence of the lawful heir might justify their obedience; and
it was rewarded by the modesty and discipline of the Latins.
The tower of Galata, in the suburb of Pera, was attacked and stormed
by the French, while the Venetians assumed the more difficult task
of forcing the boom, or chain, that was stretched from that tower to
the Byzantine shore. After some fruitless attempts, their intrepid
perseverance prevailed; twenty ships of war, the relics of the Grecian
navy, were either sunk or taken; the enormous and massy links of iron
were cut asunder by the shears, or broken by the weight, of the galleys;
and the Venetian fleet, safe and triumphant, rode at anchor in the port
of Constantinople. By these daring achievements, a remnant of twenty
thousand Latins solicited the license of besieging a capital which
contained above four hundred thousand inhabitants, able, though not
willing, to bear arms in the defence of their country. Such an account
would indeed suppose a population of near two millions; but whatever
abatement may be required in the numbers of the Greeks, the belief of
those numbers will equally exalt the fearless spirit of their assailants.
THE CAPTURE OF CONSTANTINOPLE (1203 A.D.)
The trembling usurper was supported by Theodore Lascaris, his son-in-law,
a valiant youth, who aspired to save and to rule his country; the
Greeks, regardless of that country, were awakened to the defence of
their religion; but their firmest hope was in the strength and spirit
of the Varangian guards, of the Danes and English, as they are named in
the writers of the times. After ten days’ incessant labour, the ground
was levelled, the ditch filled, the approaches of the besiegers were
regularly made, and 250 engines of assault exercised their various powers
to clear the rampart, to batter the walls, and to sap the foundations.
On the first appearance of a breach, the scaling-ladders were applied,
the numbers that defended the vantage ground repulsed and oppressed the
adventurous Latins; but they admired the resolution of fifteen knights
and sergeants, who had gained the ascent, and maintained their perilous
station till they were precipitated or made prisoners by the imperial
guards.
On the side of the harbour, the naval attack was more successfully
conducted by the Venetians; and that industrious people employed every
resource that was known and practised before the invention of gunpowder.
A double line, three bow-shots in front, was formed by the galleys and
ships; and the swift motion of the former was supported by the weight
and loftiness of the latter, whose decks, and poops, and turret were
the platforms of military engines, that discharged their shot over the
heads of the first line. The soldiers, who leaped from the galleys on
shore, immediately planted and ascended their scaling-ladders, while the
large ships, advancing more slowly into the intervals, and lowering a
drawbridge, opened a way through the air from their masts to the rampart.
In the midst of the conflict, the doge, a venerable and conspicuous form,
stood aloft in complete armour on the prow of his galley. The great
standard of St. Mark was displayed before him; his threats, promises, and
exhortations urged the diligence of the rowers; his vessel was the first
that struck; and Dandolo was the first warrior on the shore.
The nations admired the magnanimity of the blind old man, without
reflecting that his age and infirmities diminished the price of life, and
enhanced the value of immortal glory. On a sudden, by an invisible hand
(for the standard-bearer was probably slain), the banner of the republic
was fixed on the rampart; twenty-five towers were rapidly occupied; and,
by the cruel expedient of fire, the Greeks were driven from the adjacent
quarter. The doge had despatched the intelligence of his success, when
he was checked by the danger of his confederates. Nobly declaring that
he would rather die with the pilgrims than gain a victory by their
destruction, Dandolo relinquished his advantage, recalled his troops,
and hastened to the scene of action. He found the six weary diminutive
battles of the French encompassed by sixty squadrons of the Greek
cavalry, the least of which was more numerous than the largest of their
divisions.
Shame and despair had provoked Alexius to the last effort of a general
sally; but he was awed by the firm order and manly aspect of the Latins;
and, after skirmishing at a distance, withdrew his troops in the close of
the evening. The silence or tumult of the night exasperated his fears;
and the timid usurper, collecting a treasure of ten thousand pounds
of gold, basely deserted his wife, his people, and his fortune, threw
himself into a bark, stole through the Bosporus, and landed in shameful
safety in an obscure harbour of Thrace. As soon as they were apprised
of his flight, the Greek nobles sought pardon and peace in the dungeon
where the blind Isaac expected each hour the visit of the executioner.
Again saved and exalted by the vicissitudes of fortune, the captive,
in his imperial robes, was replaced on the throne, and surrounded with
prostrate slaves, whose real terror and affected joy he was incapable
of discerning. At the dawn of day, hostilities were suspended; and the
Latin chiefs were surprised by a message from the lawful and reigning
emperor, who was impatient to embrace his son, and to reward his generous
deliverers.
[Sidenote: [1203-1204 A.D.]]
But these generous deliverers were unwilling to release their hostage
till they had obtained from his father the payment, or at least the
promise, of their recompense. The father of young Alexius inquired with
some anxiety into the nature of his stipulations. The submission of the
Eastern Empire to the Pope, the succour of the Holy Land, and a present
contribution of two hundred thousand marks of silver--“These conditions
are weighty,” was his prudent reply; “they are hard to accept, and
difficult to perform. But no conditions can exceed the measure of your
services and deserts.”
After this satisfactory assurance, the barons mounted on horseback, and
introduced the heir of Constantinople to the city and palace. His youth
and marvellous adventures engaged every heart in his favour, and Alexius
was solemnly crowned with his father in the dome of St. Sophia. At the
price of sixteen hundred pounds of gold, he prevailed on the marquis
of Montferrat to lead him with an army round the provinces of Europe;
to establish his authority, and pursue his uncle, while Constantinople
was awed by the presence of Baldwin, and his confederates of France
and Flanders. The expedition was successful. The blind old emperor
exulted in the success of his arms, and listened to the predictions of
his flatterers, that the same Providence which had raised him from the
dungeon to the throne, would heal his gout, restore his sight, and watch
over the long prosperity of his reign.
By the recent invasion, the Greeks were awakened from a dream of nine
centuries; from the vain presumption that the capital of the Roman Empire
was impregnable to foreign arms. The strangers of the West had violated
the city, and bestowed the sceptre of Constantine; their imperial clients
soon became as unpopular as themselves; the well-known vices of Isaac
were rendered still more contemptible by his infirmities, and the young
Alexius was hated as an apostate, who had renounced the manners and
religion of his country. His secret covenant with the Latins was divulged
or suspected; the people, and especially the clergy, were devoutly
attached to their faith and superstition; and every convent, and every
shop, resounded with the danger of the church and the tyranny of the
pope. An empty treasury could ill supply the demands of regal luxury and
foreign extortion; the Greeks refused to avert, by a general tax, the
impending evils of servitude and pillage; the oppression of the rich
excited a more dangerous and personal resentment; and if the emperor
melted the plate, and despoiled the images, of the sanctuary, he seemed
to justify the complaints of heresy and sacrilege.
Alexius hesitated between gratitude and patriotism, between the fear of
his subjects and of his allies. By his feeble and fluctuating conduct he
lost the esteem and confidence of both; and while he invited the marquis
of Montferrat to occupy the palace, he suffered the nobles to conspire,
and the people to arm, for the deliverance of their country. Regardless
of his painful situation, the Latin chiefs repeated their demands,
resented his delays, suspected his intentions, and exacted a decisive
answer of peace or war.
In the eyes of both nations Alexius was false and contemptible; the base
and spurious race of the Angeli was rejected with clamorous disdain;
and the people of Constantinople encompassed the senate, to demand at
their hands a more worthy emperor. To every senator, conspicuous by
his birth or dignity, they successively presented the purple; by each
senator the deadly garment was repulsed; the contest lasted three days;
and we may learn from the historian Nicetas, one of the members of the
assembly, that fear and weakness were the guardians of their loyalty. A
phantom, who vanished in oblivion, was forcibly proclaimed by the crowd;
but the author of the tumult, and the leader of the war, was a prince
of the house of Ducas; and his common appellation of Alexius must be
discriminated by the epithet of Murtzuphlus, which in the vulgar idiom
expressed the close junction of his black and shaggy eyebrows.
At once a patriot and a courtier, the perfidious Murtzuphlus, who
was not destitute of cunning and courage, opposed the Latins both in
speech and action, inflamed the passions and prejudices of the Greeks,
and insinuated himself into the favour and confidence of Alexius, who
trusted him with the office of great chamberlain, and tinged his buskins
with the colours of royalty. At the dead of night he rushed into the
bedchamber with an affrighted aspect, exclaiming, that the palace was
attacked by the people and betrayed by the guards. Starting from his
couch, the unsuspecting prince threw himself into the arms of his enemy,
who had contrived his escape by a private staircase. But that staircase
terminated in a prison; Alexius was seized, stripped, and loaded with
chains; and, after tasting some days the bitterness of death, he was
poisoned, or strangled, or beaten with clubs, at the command and in the
presence of the tyrant. The emperor, Isaac Angelus, soon followed his son
to the grave, and Murtzuphlus, perhaps, might spare the superfluous crime
of hastening the extinction of impotence and blindness.
SECOND CAPTURE, AND SACK OF THE CITY (1204 A.D.)
[Sidenote: [1204 A.D.]]
The death of the emperors, and the usurpation of Murtzuphlus, had changed
the nature of the quarrel. It was no longer the disagreement of allies
who over-valued their services, or neglected their obligations; the
French and Venetians forgot their complaints against Alexius, dropped a
tear on the untimely fate of their companion, and swore revenge against
the perfidious nation who had crowned his assassin. Near three months,
without excepting the holy season of Lent, were consumed in skirmishes
and preparations before the Latins were ready or resolved for a general
assault.
In more than a hundred places the assault was urged, and the defence was
sustained, till the superiority of ground and numbers finally prevailed,
and the Latin trumpets sounded a retreat. On the ensuing days, the attack
was renewed with equal vigour, and a similar event. In the third assault,
two ships were linked together to double their strength; a strong north
wind drove them on the shore; the bishops of Troyes[79] and Soissons[80]
led the van; and the auspicious names of the _Pilgrim_ and the _Paradise_
resounded along the line. The episcopal banners were displayed on
the walls; a hundred marks of silver had been promised to the first
adventurers; and if their reward was intercepted by death, their names
have been immortalised by fame. Four towers were scaled, three gates were
burst open, and the French knights, who might tremble on the waves, felt
themselves invincible on horseback on the solid ground. Shall we relate
that the thousands who guarded the emperor’s person fled on the approach,
and before the lance, of a single warrior? Their ignominious flight is
attested by their countryman Nicetas[j]--an army of phantoms marched
with the French hero, and he was magnified to a giant in the eyes of the
Greeks. The Latins entered the city under the banners of their leaders;
the streets and gates opened for their passage; and either design or
accident kindled a third conflagration, which consumed in a few hours the
measure of three of the largest cities of France.
Constantinople had been taken by storm; and no restraints, except those
of religion and humanity, were imposed on the conquerors by the laws of
war. Boniface, marquis of Montferrat, still acted as their general; and
the Greeks, who revered his name as that of their future sovereign, were
heard to exclaim in a lamentable tone, “Holy marquis-king, have mercy
upon us!” His prudence or compassion opened the gates of the city to the
fugitives; and he exhorted the soldiers of the cross to spare the lives
of their fellow-Christians. The streams of blood that flow down the
pages of Nicetas may be reduced to the slaughter of two thousand of his
unresisting countrymen; and the greater part was massacred, not by the
strangers, but by the Latins, who had been driven from the city, and who
exercised the revenge of a triumphant faction. Yet of these exiles some
were less mindful of injuries than of benefits; and Nicetas himself was
indebted for his safety to the generosity of a Venetian merchant.
Pope Innocent III accuses the pilgrims of respecting, in their lust,
neither age, nor sex, nor religious profession; and bitterly laments
that the deeds of darkness, fornication, adultery, and incest were
perpetrated in open day; and that noble matrons and holy nuns were
polluted by the grooms and peasants of the Catholic camp. It is indeed
probable that the license of victory prompted and covered a multitude
of sins; but it is certain, that the capital of the East contained a
stock of venal or willing beauty sufficient to satiate the desires of
twenty thousand pilgrims; and female prisoners were no longer subject
to the right or abuse of domestic slavery. The marquis of Montferrat
was the patron of discipline and decency; the count of Flanders was the
mirror of chastity; they had forbidden, under pain of death, the rape of
married women, or virgins, or nuns; and the proclamation was sometimes
invoked by the vanquished and respected by the victors. Their cruelty and
lust were moderated by the authority of the chiefs and feelings of the
soldiers; for we are no longer describing an irruption of the northern
savages; and, however ferocious they might still appear, time, policy,
and religion had civilised the manners of the French, and still more of
the Italians. But a free scope was allowed to their avarice, which was
glutted, even in the holy week, by the pillage of Constantinople.
[Illustration: RUINS OF A SARACEN TOWER]
The right of victory, unshackled by any promise or treaty, had
confiscated the public and private wealth of the Greeks; and every hand,
according to its size and strength, might lawfully execute the sentence
and seize the forfeiture. A portable and universal standard of exchange
was found in the coined and uncoined metals of gold and silver, which
each captor at home or abroad might convert into the possessions most
suitable to his temper and situation. Of the treasures which trade and
luxury had accumulated, the silks, velvets, furs, the gems, spices, and
rich movables, were the most precious, as they could not be procured
for money, in the ruder countries of Europe. An order of rapine was
instituted; nor was the share of each individual abandoned to industry
or chance. Under the tremendous penalties of perjury, excommunication,
and death, the Latins were bound to deliver their plunder into the common
stock; three churches were selected for the deposit and distribution
of the spoil; a single share was allotted to a foot-soldier; two for a
sergeant on horseback; four to a knight; and larger proportions according
to the rank and merit of the barons and princes. For violating this
sacred engagement, a knight belonging to the count of St. Pol was hanged
with his shield and coat of arms round his neck; his example might render
similar offenders more artful and discreet; but avarice was more powerful
than fear; and it is generally believed that the secret far exceeded
the acknowledged plunder. Yet the magnitude of the prize surpassed the
largest scale of experience or expectation. After the whole had been
equally divided between the French and Venetians, fifty thousand marks
were deducted to satisfy the debts of the former and the demands of the
latter. The residue of the French amounted to four hundred thousand marks
of silver [about £800,000 or $4,000,000].
In this great revolution we enjoy the singular felicity of comparing
the narratives of Villehardouin and Nicetas, the opposite feelings of
the marshal of Champagne and the Byzantine senator. At the first view
it should seem that the wealth of Constantinople was only transferred
from one nation to another; and that the loss and sorrow of the Greeks
are exactly balanced by the joy and advantage of the Latins. But in the
miserable account of war, the gain is never equivalent to the loss,
the pleasure to the pain; the smiles of the Latins were transient and
fallacious; the Greeks forever wept over the ruins of their country; and
their real calamities were aggravated by sacrilege and mockery. What
benefits accrued to the conquerors from the three fires which annihilated
so vast a portion of the buildings and riches of the city? What a stock
of such things, as could neither be used nor transported, was maliciously
or wantonly destroyed! How much treasure was idly wasted in gaming,
debauchery, and riot! And what precious objects were bartered for a vile
price by the impatience or ignorance of the soldiers, whose reward was
stolen by the base industry of the last of the Greeks!
These alone, who had nothing to lose, might derive some profit from the
revolution; but the misery of the upper ranks of society is strongly
painted in the personal adventures of Nicetas himself. His stately palace
had been reduced to ashes in the second conflagration; and the senator,
with his family and friends, found an obscure shelter in another house
which he possessed near the church of St. Sophia. It was the door of this
mean habitation that his friend the Venetian guarded in the disguise of
a soldier, till Nicetas could save, by a precipitate flight, the relics
of his fortune and the chastity of his daughter. In a cold wintry season,
these fugitives, nursed in the lap of prosperity, departed on foot; his
wife was with child; the desertion of their slaves compelled them to
carry their baggage on their own shoulders; and their women, whom they
placed in the centre, were exhorted to conceal their beauty with dirt,
instead of adorning it with paint and jewels.
Every step was exposed to insult and danger; the threats of the strangers
were less painful than the taunts of the plebeians, with whom they were
now levelled; nor did the exiles breathe in safety till their mournful
pilgrimage was concluded at Selymbria, above forty miles from the
capital. On their way they overtook the patriarch, without attendance,
and almost without apparel, riding on an ass, and reduced to a state of
apostolic poverty, which, had it been voluntary, might perhaps have been
meritorious. In the meanwhile, his desolate churches were profaned by the
licentiousness and party zeal of the Latins. After stripping the gems and
pearls, they converted the chalices into drinking cups; their tables, on
which they gamed and feasted, were covered with the pictures of Christ
and the saints; and they trampled under foot the most venerable objects
of the Christian worship. In the cathedral of St. Sophia, the ample veil
of the sanctuary was rent asunder for the sake of the golden fringe; and
the altar, a monument of art and riches, was broken in pieces and shared
among the captors.
Their mules and horses were laden with the wrought silver and gilt
carvings which they tore down from the doors and pulpit; and if the
beasts stumbled under the burden, they were stabbed by their impatient
drivers, and the holy pavement streamed with their impure blood. A
prostitute was seated on the throne of the patriarch; and that daughter
of Belial, as she is styled, sang and danced in the church, to ridicule
the hymns and processions of the Orientals. Nor were the repositories
of the royal dead secure from violation; in the church of the Apostles,
the tombs of the emperors were rifled; and it is said, that after six
centuries the corpse of Justinian was found without any sign of decay or
putrefaction. In the streets the French and Flemings clothed themselves
and their horses in painted robes and flowing head-dresses of linen; and
the coarse intemperance of their feasts insulted the splendid sobriety of
the East. To expose the arms of a people of scribes and scholars, they
affected to display a pen, an inkhorn, and a sheet of paper, without
discerning that the instruments of science and valour were useless in the
hands of the modern Greeks.
Their reputation and their language encouraged them, however, to despise
the ignorance, and to overlook the progress of the Latins. In the love
of the arts, the national difference was still more obvious and real;
the Greeks preserved with reverence the works of their ancestors, which
they could not imitate; and, in the destruction of the statues of
Constantinople, we are provoked to join in the complaints and invectives
of the Byzantine historian. The brass statues were broken and melted by
the unfeeling avarice of the crusaders; the cost and labour were consumed
in a moment; the soul of genius evaporated in smoke; and the remnant of
base metal was coined into money for the payment of the troops. Bronze
is not the most durable of monuments; from the marble forms of Phidias
and Praxiteles, the Latins might turn aside with stupid contempt; but
unless they were crushed by some accidental injury, those useless stones
stood secure on their pedestals. The most enlightened of the strangers,
above the gross and sensual pursuits of their countrymen, more piously
exercised the right of conquest in the search and seizure of the relics
of the saints.[h]
FOOTNOTES
[64] Leo Diaconus[b] calls his murderers Germans, meaning doubtless
Northmen.
[65] These numbers are given by Leo Diaconus.[b] Cedrenus[c] gives five
thousand infantry and four thousand cavalry; Zonaras,[d] the same number.
The proportion affords some insight into the constitution of Byzantine
armies at this period of military glory. The cavalry served as the model
for European chivalry, but the sword of the legionary could still gain a
battle.
[66] Leo Diaconus[b] calls the larger vessels triremes, though they
certainly had not more than two tiers of oars.
[67] The Russians then wore armour similar to that worn by the Normans in
western Europe at a later period, according to Leo Diaconus.[b]
[68] Leo Diaconus,[b] 171.
[69] Cruelty similar to that of Basil was perpetrated on a smaller scale
by Richard Cœur-de-Lion, though of course it is not necessary to place
strict reliance on the numbers reported by the Byzantine historians.
Richard, to revenge the loss of a body of men, ordered three hundred
French knights to be thrown into the Seine, and put out the eyes of
fifteen, who were sent home blind, led by one whose right eye had been
spared. Philip Augustus, nothing loath, revenged himself by treating
fifteen English knights in the same way.--Putting out men’s eyes was, for
several centuries, a common practice all over Europe, and not regarded
with much horror. As late as the reign of Henry IV. 1403 A.D., an Act of
Parliament was passed, making it felony for Englishmen to cut out one
another’s tongues, or put out their neighbours’ eyes.
[70] [He was utterly defeated by the Saracens at Agaz in 1030; the
fleets, however, won two victories.]
[71] [The Saracens attacked the empire on all sides, and Sicily was all
but won by the general Maniaces. It was lost through the incapacity of
Michael’s brother-in-law Stephen. In 1040 Servia regained her freedom,
and the Slavonians and Bulgarians were driven to rebellion by the fiscal
exactions of the eunuch Joannes called Orphanotrophus.]
[72] [It was merely an hereditary surname, according to Finlay.[e]]
[73] [Maniaces revolted, and proclaimed himself emperor. He was killed
in the moment of victory by an arrow. Leo Tornicus, a relative of the
emperor, besieged Constantinople but was repulsed. The imperial troops
suffered defeats from the Servians, but repulsed the Russians and the
Patzinaks. Armenia was conquered, 1045, and two invasions of Seljuk Turks
beaten off.]
[74] “To contemporaries, this revolution presented nothing to distinguish
it from the changes of sovereign, which had been an ordinary event in
the Byzantine Empire, and which were ascribed by the wisest statesmen of
the time to the decree of heaven, and not to the working of political
and moral causes, which the will of God allows the intelligence of man
to employ for effecting the improvement or decline of human affairs.
Perhaps no man then living perceived that this event was destined to
change the whole system of government, destroy the fabric of the central
administration, deliver up the provinces of Asia an easy conquest to the
Seljuk Turks, and the capital a prey to a band of crusaders.”[e]
[75] [In 1059 Isaac marched against the Hungarians and Patzinaks, who
were ravaging the northern frontier, and the invaders were soon compelled
to sue for peace. This is the only opportunity Isaac had of showing his
military ability.]
[76] [Togrul Beg and Alp Arslan began their invasion from Mesopotamia in
1060; Avii was captured in 1064.]
[77] [The campaign of 1070 was conducted by Manuel Comnenus, but after
Alp Arslan captured Manzicert Romanus returned to the command.]
[78] [The Turkish war was renewed in 1072 when Alp Arslan was unable to
obtain payment of Romanus’ ransom. He finally conquered the Byzantine
portion of Asia Minor and gave it to Suleiman to rule over. In 1076
Jerusalem fell before the Seljuks, and this event was the direct cause of
the Crusades. Nor were these the only foreign troubles of the empire at
this period. In 1073 the Bulgarians made a desperate attempt to regain
their liberty.]
[79] [The Roman Augustobona, afterwards Tricassæ.]
[80] [The Roman Augusta Suessonum.]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER IX. THE LATIN EMPIRE
[1204-1261 A.D.]
After the festival of Easter, the crusaders shared the captured riches;
the fourth part of the spoil was set aside for him who should be chosen
emperor, and the rest was divided among the French and the Venetians. The
French crusaders, who had conquered Zara, to the sole advantage of the
Venetians, were not the less called upon to pay the fifty thousand silver
marks they owed to the republic; the amount was deducted beforehand from
the portion of the booty that belonged to them. In the division that was
made among the warriors of Lombardy, Germany, and France, each knight had
a part equal to that of two horsemen, and every horseman one equal to
that of two foot-soldiers. All the plunder of the Greeks yielded[81] only
400,000 silver marks; but although this sum far exceeded the revenues of
all the kingdoms of the West, it did not by any means represent the value
of the riches accumulated in Byzantium. If the princes and barons, upon
making themselves masters of the city, had been satisfied with imposing a
tribute upon the inhabitants, they might have received a much larger sum.
When they had shared the plunder, the crusaders gave way to the most
extravagant joy, without perceiving that they had committed a great fault
in exhausting a country which was about to become their own; they did not
reflect that the ruin of the conquered might one day bring on that of the
conquerors, and that they might become as poor as the Greeks they had
just despoiled. Without regrets, as without foresight, hoping everything
from their own good swords, they set about electing a leader who should
reign over a people in mourning and a desolated city. The imperial purple
had still the same splendour in their eyes, and the throne, though shaken
by their arms, was still the object of their ambition.
THE ELECTION OF AN EMPEROR
[Sidenote: [1204 A.D.]]
Six electors were chosen from among the Venetian nobles, and six others
from among the French ecclesiastics, to give a master to Constantinople;
the twelve electors assembled in the palace of Bukoleon, and swore, upon
the Gospel, to crown only merit and virtue.
Three of the principal leaders of the Crusade had equal claims to
the suffrages of the electors. If the purple was to be the reward of
experience, of ability in council, and of services rendered to the cause
of the Latins, Henry Dandolo, who had been the moving spirit, the very
soul of the enterprise, certainly had the first claim to it. The marquis
of Montferrat, likewise, had titles worthy of great consideration;
the Latins had chosen him for their leader, and the Greeks already
acknowledged him as their master. His bravery, proved in a thousand
fights, promised a firm and generous support to a throne that must rise
from amidst ruins. His prudence and moderation might give the Latins and
the people of Greece reason to hope that, when once raised to empire,
he would repair the evils of war. The claims of Baldwin to the imperial
crown were not less cogent than those of his concurrents. The count of
Flanders was related to the most powerful monarchs of the West, and was
descended, in the female line, from Charlemagne. He was much beloved
by his soldiers, whose dangers he was always ready to share; he had
deservedly obtained the esteem of the Greeks, who, even amidst the
disorders of conquest, celebrated him as the champion of chastity and
honour. Baldwin was the protector of the weak, the friend of the poor; he
loved justice, and had no dread of truth.
The electors at first turned their attention towards the venerable
Dandolo; but the republicans of Venice trembled at the idea of seeing an
emperor among their fellow-citizens: “What shall we not have to dread,”
said they, “from a Venetian, become master of Greece, and of part of the
East? Shall we be subject to his laws, or will he remain subject to the
laws of our country? Under his reign, and under that of his successors,
who will assure us that Venice, the Queen of the Seas, will not become
one of the cities of this empire?” The Venetians, whilst speaking thus,
bestowed just eulogiums upon the virtue and character of Dandolo; they
added, that their doge, who was approaching the end of a life filled
with great actions, had nothing left him but to finish his days with
glory, and that he himself would find it more glorious to be the head of
a victorious republic, than the sovereign of a conquered nation. “What
Roman,” cried they, “would have been willing to lay down the title of
citizen of Rome, to become king of Carthage?”
On terminating their speeches, the Venetians conjured the assembly to
elect an emperor from among the other leaders of the army. After this,
the choice of the electors could only be directed towards the count of
Flanders and the marquis of Montferrat. To prevent the effects of a
fatal discord, it was judged best to decree, at once, that the prince
that should gain the suffrages for the imperial throne, should yield to
the other, under the condition of fealty and homage, the property of the
island of Candia, and all the lands of the empire situated on the other
side of the Bosporus. After this decision the assembly turned their
whole attention to the election of an emperor. Their choice was for a
long time uncertain. The marquis of Montferrat at first appeared to have
the majority of the suffrages; but the Venetians were fearful of seeing
upon the throne of Constantinople a prince who had any possessions in
the neighbourhood of their territories. The interests and jealousies of
policy, and, without doubt, also wisdom and equity, at length united all
voices in favour of the count of Flanders.
The crusaders, assembled before the palace of Bukoleon, awaited with
impatience the decision of the electors. At the hour of midnight, the
bishop of Soissons came forward under the vestibule, and pronounced, in
a loud voice, these words: “This hour of the night, which witnessed the
birth of a Saviour of the world, gives birth to a new empire, under the
protection of the Omnipotent. You have for emperor, Baldwin, count of
Flanders and Hainault.” Loud cries of joy arose from among the Venetians
and the French. The people of Constantinople, who had so often changed
masters, received, without repugnance, the new one just given to them,
and mingled their acclamations with those of the Latins. Baldwin was
elevated upon a buckler, and borne in triumph to the church of St.
Sophia. The marquis of Montferrat followed in the train of his rival; the
generous submission, of which he presented an example, was much admired
by his companions in arms, and his presence drew scarcely less attention
than the warlike pomp that surrounded the new emperor.
BALDWIN CROWNED
The ceremony of the coronation was postponed till the fourth Sunday
after Easter. In the meantime the marriage of the marquis of Montferrat
with Margaret of Hungary, the widow of Isaac, was celebrated with much
splendour. Constantinople beheld within its walls the festivities and
spectacles of the West, and, for the first time, the Greeks heard in
their churches the prayers and hymns of the Latins. On the day appointed
for the coronation of the emperor, Baldwin repaired to St. Sophia,
accompanied by the barons and the clergy. Whilst divine service was
being performed, the emperor ascended a throne of gold, and received the
purple from the hands of the pope’s legate, who performed the functions
of patriarch. Two knights carried before him the _laticlavici tunica_
of the Roman consuls, and the imperial sword, once again in the hands
of warriors and heroes. The head of the clergy, standing before the
altar, pronounced, in the Greek language, these words: “He is worthy of
reigning;” and all persons present repeated in chorus, “He is worthy! he
is worthy!” The crusaders shouting their boisterous acclamations, the
knights clad in armour, the crowd of miserable Greeks, the sanctuary
despoiled of its ancient ornaments, and decked with foreign pomp,
presented altogether a spectacle solemn and melancholy--all the evils of
war amidst the trophies of victory. Surrounded by the ruins of an empire,
reflective spectators could not fail to remark among the ceremonies of
this day, that in which, according to the custom of the Greeks, were
presented to Baldwin a little vase filled with dust and bones, and a lock
of lighted flax, as symbols of the shortness of life and the nothingness
of human grandeur.
Before the ceremony of his coronation, the new emperor distributed
the principal dignities of the empire among his companions in arms.
Villehardouin, marshal of Champagne, obtained the title of marshal of
Romania; the count de St. Pol, the dignity of constable; the charges of
master of the wardrobe, great cupbearer and butler, were given to Canon
de Bethune, Macaire de St. Ménéhoult, and Miles de Brabant. The doge of
Venice created despot or prince of Romania, had the right of wearing
purple buskins, a privilege, among the Greeks, reserved for members of
the imperial family. Henry Dandolo represented the republic of Venice at
Constantinople; half the city was under his dominion and recognised his
laws; he raised himself, by the dignity of his character as well as by
his exploits, above all the princes and all the nobles of the court of
Baldwin; he alone was exempt from paying fealty and homage to the emperor
for the lands he was to possess.
DIVISION OF THE TERRITORY
The barons began to be impatient to share the cities and provinces
of the empire. In a council composed of twelve of the patricians of
Venice and twelve French knights, all the conquered lands were divided
between the two nations. Bithynia, Romania or Thrace, Thessalonica, all
Greece from Thermopylæ to Cape Sunium, with the larger isles of the
Archipelago, fell to the share and under the dominion of the French. The
Venetians obtained the Cyclades and the Sporades in the Archipelago; the
isles and the oriental coast of the Adriatic Gulf; the coasts of the
Propontis and the Euxine Sea; the banks of the Hebrus and the Vardas;
the cities of Cypsedes, Didymatica, and Hadrianopolis; the maritime
countries of Thessalonica, etc. Such was at first the distribution of the
territories of the empire. But circumstances that could not be foreseen,
the diversity of interests, the rivalries of ambition, all the chances
of fortune and of war, soon produced great changes in this division of
dominions. History would in vain endeavour to follow the conquerors into
the provinces allotted to them; it would be more easy to mark the banks
of an overflowing torrent, or to trace the path of the storm, than to fix
the state of the uncertain and transitory possessions of the conquerors
of Byzantium.
[Illustration: METHODS OF ATTACKING A WALL, ELEVENTH CENTURY
(From an old print)]
The lands situated beyond the Bosporus were erected into a kingdom, and,
with the island of Candia, given to the marquis of Montferrat. Boniface
exchanged them for the province of Thessalonica, and sold the island of
Candia to the republic of Venice for thirty pounds weight of gold. The
provinces of Asia were abandoned to the count of Blois, who assumed the
title of duke of Nicæa and Bithynia. In the distribution of the cities
and lands of the empire, every one of the lords and barons had obtained
domains proportionate with the rank and services of the new possessor.
When they heard speak of so many countries of which they scarcely knew
the names, the warriors of the West were astonished at their conquests,
and believed that the greater part of the universe was promised to their
ambition. In the intoxication of their joy, they declared themselves
masters of all the provinces that had formed the empire of Constantine.
They cast lots for the countries of the Medes and Parthians, and the
kingdoms that were under the domination of the Turks and Saracens. With
the money which arose from the plunder of the capital, the conquerors
purchased the provinces of the empire; they sold, they played at dice,
for whole cities and their inhabitants. Constantinople was during several
days a market, in which seas and their islands, nations and their wealth,
were trafficked for; in which the Roman world was put up to sale, and
found purchasers among the obscure crowd of the crusaders.
Whilst the barons were thus distributing cities and kingdoms, the
ambition of the Latin clergy was by no means idle, but was busy in
invading the property of the Greek church. The leaders of the Crusade
had agreed among themselves that if the emperor of Constantinople should
be chosen from the French, the patriarch should be a Venetian. According
to this convention, which had preceded the conquest, Thomas Morosini was
elevated to the chair of St. Sophia; priests and Latin bishops were, at
the same time, sent into the other conquered cities, and took possession
of the wealth and the privileges of the Greek clergy. Thus the Romish
worship associated itself with the victories of the crusaders, and made
its empire acknowledged wherever the banners of the conquerors floated.
THE POPE ACKNOWLEDGED
After his coronation, Baldwin wrote to the pope, to announce to him the
extraordinary victories by which it had pleased God to crown the zeal
of the soldiers of the cross. The new emperor, who assumed the title of
knight of the holy see, recalled to the mind of the sovereign pontiff
the perfidies and the long revolt of the Greeks. “We have brought under
your laws,” said he, “that city, which, in hatred for the holy see, would
scarcely hear the name of the prince of the apostles, and did not afford
a single church to him who received from the Lord the supremacy over all
churches.” Baldwin, in his letter, invited the vicar of Jesus Christ to
imitate the example of his predecessors, John, Agapetus, and Leo, who
visited in person the church of Byzantium.
The marquis of Montferrat at the same time addressed a letter to the
sovereign pontiff, in which he protested his humble obedience to all
the decisions of the holy see. The doge of Venice, who till that time
had braved with so much haughtiness the threats and thunders of the
church, acknowledged the sovereign authority of the pope, and joined his
protestations with those of Baldwin and Boniface. To disarm the anger of
Innocent, they represented to him that the conquest of Constantinople had
prepared the deliverance of Jerusalem, and boasted of the wealth of a
country which the crusaders had at length brought under the laws of the
holy see. In all their letters to the pope or the faithful of the West,
the conquerors of Byzantium spoke of the Greek empire as of a new land of
promise, which awaited the servants of God and the soldiers of Christ.
Innocent had been for a long time irritated by the disobedience of the
crusaders; in his reply, he reproached with bitterness the victorious
army of the Latins for having preferred the riches of the earth to
those of heaven; he reprimanded the leaders for having exposed to the
outrages of the soldiers and followers of the army, the honour of matrons
and maidens, and virgins consecrated to the Lord; for having ruined
Constantinople, plundered both great and small, violated the sanctuary,
and put forth a sacrilegious hand upon the treasures of the churches.
Notwithstanding this outward show of anger, the pope approved the
election of Baldwin, who took the title of knight of the holy see, and
consented to recognise an empire to which he was to give laws.
The greater part of the defenders of the Holy Land, who had experienced
nothing but the evils of war, became desirous of partaking of the glory
and the good fortune of the French and Venetians, and the king of
Jerusalem was left almost alone at Ptolemais, without means of making the
truce he had entered into with the infidels respected. Baldwin warmly
welcomed the defenders of the Holy Land; but the joy he experienced
at their arrival was much troubled by the intelligence of the death
of his wife, Marguerite of Flanders. This princess had embarked in
the fleet of John de Nesle, in the belief that she should meet her
husband in Palestine; sinking under the fatigue of a long voyage, and
perhaps the pains of disappointment, she fell sick at Ptolemais, and
died at the moment she learned that Baldwin had been crowned emperor of
Constantinople. The vessel destined to convey the new empress to the
shores of the Bosporus only brought back her mortal remains. Baldwin,
amidst his knights, wept for the loss of a princess he had loved tenderly.
The emperor and his barons, with all the succours they had received from
the East, had scarcely twenty thousand men to defend their conquests
and restrain the people of the capital and the provinces. The sultan
of Iconium and the king of the Bulgarians had long threatened to
invade the lands contiguous to their states, and they thought that
the dissensions and subsequent fall of the Greek empire presented a
favourable opportunity for the outbreak of their jealousy and ambition.
The nations of Greece were conquered without being subdued. As in the
disorder which accompanied the conquest of Byzantium, no other right had
been acknowledged but that of force and the sword; all the Greeks, who
had still arms in their hands, were desirous of forming a principality or
a kingdom. On all sides new states and empires sprang up from the bosom
of the ruins, and already threatened that which the crusaders had so
recently established.
FATE OF THE ROYAL FUGITIVES
A grandson of Andronicus founded in a Greek province of Asia Minor the
principality of Trebizond; Leo Sgurre, master of the little city of
Napoli, had extended his dominions by injustice and violence; and, to
employ a comparison offered by Nicetas, he had grown greater, like the
torrent that swells in the storm and is enlarged by the waters of the
tempest. A barbarous conqueror, a fierce and cruel tyrant, he reigned,
or rather he spread terror, over Argos and the Isthmus of Corinth.
Michael-Angelus Comnenus, employing the arms of treachery, gained the
kingdom of Epirus, and subdued to his laws a wild and warlike people.
Theodore Lascaris, who, like Æneas, had fled from his burning country,
collected some troops in Bithynia, and caused himself to be proclaimed
emperor at Nicæa, whence his family was destined at a future day to
return in triumph to Constantinople.
If despair had imparted any degree of courage to the two fugitive
emperors, they might have obtained a share of their own spoils, and
preserved a remnant of power; but they had not profited by the lessons
of misfortune. Murtzuphlus, who had completed all the crimes begun
by Alexius, did not hesitate to place himself in the power of his
unfortunate rival, whose daughter he had married; the wicked sometimes
take upon themselves the duty of punishing one another. Alexius, after
having loaded Murtzuphlus with caresses, inveigled him into his house,
and caused his eyes to be put out. In this condition, Murtzuphlus,
abandoned by his followers, for whom he was now nothing but an object of
disgust, went to conceal his existence and his misery in Asia; but on his
road he fell into the hands of the Latins. Being led to Constantinople,
and condemned to expiate his crimes by an ignominious death, he was
precipitated from the top of a column raised by the emperor Theodosius in
the Place of Taurus. The multitude of Greeks that had offered the purple
to Murtzuphlus were present at his tragical end, and appeared terrified
at a punishment that was much more new to them than the crimes for which
it was inflicted.
The perfidy and cruelty of Alexius did not remain long unpunished; the
usurper was obliged to wander from city to city, and not unfrequently
to conceal the imperial purple under the garb of a mendicant. For a
considerable time he only owed his safety to the contempt in which he
was held by the conquerors. After having long strayed about in a state
of destitution, he was given up to the marquis of Montferrat, who sent
him a prisoner into Italy; escaping thence, he again passed into Asia,
and found an asylum with the sultan of Iconium. Alexius could not be
satisfied to live in peace in his retreat, but joined the Turks in an
attack upon his son-in-law Lascaris, whom he could not pardon for having
saved a wreck of the empire, and reigning over Bithynia. As the Turks
were beaten, the fugitive prince fell at length into the hands of the
emperor of Nicæa, who compelled him to retire to a monastery, where he
died, forgotten by both Greeks and Latins.
Thus four emperors were immolated to ambition and vengeance--a deplorable
spectacle, and most worthy of pity! Amidst the convulsions and fall of an
empire, we behold princes of the same family quarrelling for a phantom
of authority, snatch from each other by turns both the sceptre and life,
surpass the populace in fury, and leave them no crime, no parricide, to
commit.
BALDWIN QUARRELS WITH BONIFACE
Whilst the Greek princes were thus making war against each other, and
quarrelling for the wrecks of the empire, the French counts and barons
quitted the capital to go and take possession of the cities and provinces
that had fallen to their share. Many of them were obliged to conquer,
sword in hand, the lands that had been assigned to them. The marquis of
Montferrat set out on his march to visit the kingdom of Thessalonica, and
receive the homage of his new subjects. The emperor Baldwin, followed
by his brother Henry of Hainault, and a great number of knights, made
a progress through Thrace and Romania, and everywhere on his passage,
was saluted by the noisy acclamations of a people always more skilful
in flattering their conquerors than in combating their enemies. When
he arrived at Hadrianopolis, where he was received in triumph, the
new emperor announced his intention of pursuing his march as far as
Thessalonica. This unexpected resolution surprised the marquis of
Montferrat, who entertained the desire of going alone to his own kingdom.
Boniface promised to be faithful to the emperor, to be always ready to
employ his forces against the enemies of the empire; but he feared the
presence of Baldwin’s army in his cities, already exhausted by war.
[Illustration: WAR GALLEY OF THE ELEVENTH CENTURY
(From an old print)]
A serious quarrel broke out between the two princes. The marquis of
Montferrat accused the emperor of wishing to get possession of his
states; Baldwin fancied he could perceive in the resistance of Boniface
the secret design of denying the sovereignty of the head of the empire.
Both loved justice, and were not wanting in moderation; but now one had
become king of Thessalonica and the other emperor of Constantinople, they
had courtiers who endeavoured to exasperate their quarrel and inflame
their animosity. In spite of all the representations of the marquis
of Montferrat, Baldwin led his army into the kingdom of Thessalonica.
Boniface considered this obstinacy of the emperor as a flagrant outrage,
and swore to take vengeance with his sword. Impelled by passion, he
departed suddenly with several knights who had declared in his favour,
and got possession of Didymatica, a city belonging to the emperor.
The marquis of Montferrat took with him his wife, Mary of Hungary, the
widow of Isaac; and the presence of this princess, with the hopes of
keeping up the division among the Latins, drew many Greeks to the banner
of Boniface. He declared to them that he fought for their cause, and
clothed in the imperial purple a young prince, the son of Isaac and Mary
of Hungary. Dragging in his train this phantom of an emperor, around whom
the principal inhabitants from all parts of Romania rallied, he resumed
the road to Hadrianopolis, and made preparations for besieging that city.
Boniface, daily becoming more irritated, would listen to neither the
counsels nor the prayers of his companions in arms; and discord was about
to cause the blood of the Latins to flow, if the doge of Venice, the
count of Blois, and the barons that remained at Constantinople, had not
earnestly employed their authority and credit to prevent the misfortunes
with which the new empire was threatened. The marquis of Montferrat
promised to submit his quarrel with Baldwin to the judgment of the counts
and barons.
In the meanwhile Baldwin had taken possession of Thessalonica. As
soon as he heard of the hostilities of the marquis of Montferrat, he
hastily marched back to Hadrianopolis. He was brooding over projects of
vengeance, and threatening to repel force by force, and oppose war to
war, when he met the deputies.
He promised to lay down his arms, and repair to Constantinople, to adjust
the quarrel between him and the marquis of Montferrat. The marquis of
Montferrat, who very shortly followed him, entered the capital with a
degree of mistrust; but the welcome he received from Baldwin and the
other leaders completely appeased all his resentments.
OTHER CONQUESTS
[Sidenote: [1204-1205 A.D.]]
As soon as peace was re-established, the knights and barons again
quitted the capital to pass through the provinces, and subdue such as
were refractory. The count of Blois, who had obtained Bithynia, sent his
knights across the Bosporus; the troops of the crusaders gained several
advantages over those of Lascaris. Penamenia, Lopada, Nicomedia, and
some other cities, opened their gates to the conquerors, after a feeble
resistance. The Latins brought under their dominion all the coasts of
the Propontis and the Bosporus, as far as the ancient Æolis. Henry
of Hainault was not idle in this new war: whilst the warriors of the
count of Blois were pushing their conquests towards Nicæa he led his
men-at-arms into Phrygia, unfurled his triumphant banners in the plains
where Troy once stood, fought at the same time both Greeks and Turks, in
the fields which had been trod by the armies of Xerxes and Alexander, and
took possession of all the country that extends from the Hellespont to
Mount Ida.
At the same time the marquis of Montferrat, now the peaceable master
of Thessalonica, undertook the conquest of Greece. He advanced into
Thessaly, passed the chain of mountains of Olympus and Ossa, and took
possession of Larissa. Boniface and his knights, without fear and without
danger, passed through the narrow straits of Thermopylæ, and penetrated
into Bœotia and Attica. They put to flight Leo Sgurre, who was the
scourge of a vast province; and their exploits might have reminded the
Greeks of those heroes of the early ages who travelled about the world
fighting monsters and subduing tyrants. As all the Greeks, for so long
a time oppressed, sighed for a change, the heroes of the Crusades were
everywhere received as liberators. Whilst Boniface was becoming possessed
of the beautiful countries of Greece, Geoffrey de Villehardouin, nephew
of the marshal of Champagne, established the authority of the Latins in
the Peloponnesus. After having driven the troops of Michael Comnenus
to the mountains of Epirus, he occupied, without fighting, Coronea and
Patras, and met with no resistance except in the canton of Lacedæmonia.
The conquered lands and cities were given to the barons, who rendered
fealty and homage to the king of Thessalonica and the emperor of
Constantinople. Greece then beheld lords of Argos and Corinth, grand
sieurs of Thebes, dukes of Athens, and princes of Achaia. French knights
dictated laws in the city of Agamemnon, in the city of Minerva, in the
country of Lycurgus, and in that of Epaminondas. Strange destiny of the
warriors of this Crusade, who had quitted the West to conquer the city
and lands of Jesus Christ, and whom fortune had conducted into places
filled with the remembrances of the gods of Homer and the glory of
profane antiquity!
THE BULGARIAN WAR
The crusaders were not allowed to felicitate themselves long upon their
conquests. Possessors of an empire much more difficult to be preserved
than invaded, they had not the ability to master fortune, which soon
took from them all that victory had bestowed. They exercised their
power with violence, and conciliated neither their subjects nor their
neighbours. Joannice [Johannitsa, John, Kalojan, or Calo-John], king
of the Bulgarians, had sent an ambassador to Baldwin, with offers of
friendship; Baldwin replied with much haughtiness, and threatened to
compel Joannice to descend from his usurped throne. When despoiling
the Greeks of their property, the crusaders shut out from themselves
every source of prosperity, and reduced men, to whom they left nothing
but life, to despair. To fill up the measure of their imprudence, they
received into their armies the Greeks, whom they loaded with contempt,
and who became their implacable enemies. Not content with reigning over
cities, they were desirous of subjugating hearts to their will, and
awakened fanaticism. Unjust persecutions exasperated the minds of the
Greek priests, who declaimed with vehemence against tyranny, and who,
reduced to misery, were listened to as oracles and revered as martyrs.
[Illustration: COAT OF MAIL OF THE ELEVENTH CENTURY]
In their despair, the conquered people resolved to have recourse to
arms; and, looking around them to find enemies for the crusaders, they
implored the alliance and protection of the king of the Bulgarians.
There was formed a widely-extended conspiracy, into which all entered
to whom slavery was no longer tolerable. All at once the storm burst
forth by the massacre of the Latins; a war-cry arose from Mount Hæmus
to the Hellespont; the crusaders, dispersed in the various cities and
countries, were surprised by a furious and pitiless enemy. The Venetians
and French, who guarded Hadrianopolis and Didymatica, were not able to
resist the multitude of the Greeks; some were slaughtered in the streets;
others retired in disorder, and, in their flight, beheld with grief their
banners torn down from the towers, and replaced by the standards of the
Bulgarians. The roads were covered with fugitive warriors, who found no
asylum in a country which lately trembled at the fame of their arms.
Every city besieged by the Greeks was ignorant of the fate of the
other cities confided to the defence of the Latins; communications
were interrupted; in the provinces sinister rumours prevailed, which
represented the capital in flames, all the cities given up to pillage,
and all the armies of the Franks dispersed or annihilated. When the
report of these disasters reached Constantinople, Baldwin assembled the
counts and barons. The crusaders who were engaged in warlike expeditions
on the other side of the Bosporus received orders to abandon their
conquests, and to return immediately to the standards of the main army.
Baldwin waited for them several days, but as he was impatient to begin
the war, and wished to astonish the enemy by the promptitude of his
proceedings, he set out at the head of the knights that remained in the
capital, and, five days after his departure, appeared before the walls of
Hadrianopolis.
The leaders of the crusade, accustomed to brave all obstacles, were
never checked nor restrained by the small number of their own soldiers,
nor the multitude of their enemies. The capital of Thrace, surrounded
by impregnable ramparts, was defended by a hundred thousand Greeks, in
whom thirst of vengeance supplied the want of courage. Baldwin mustered
scarcely eight thousand men around his banners. The doge of Venice soon
arrived with eight thousand Venetians. The Latin fugitives came from
all parts to join this small army. The crusaders pitched their tents,
and prepared to lay siege to the city. Their preparations proceeded but
slowly, and provisions were beginning to fail them, when the report
reached them of the march of the king of the Bulgarians. Joannice, the
leader of a barbarous people, himself more barbarous than his subjects,
was advancing with a formidable army. He concealed his ambitious projects
and his desire for vengeance under an appearance of religious zeal, and
caused a standard of St. Peter, which he had received from the pope,
to be borne before him. This new ally of the Greeks boasted of being a
leader of a holy enterprise, and threatened to exterminate the Franks,
whom he accused of having assumed the cross for the purpose of ravaging
the provinces and pillaging the cities of Christians.
The king of the Bulgarians was preceded in his march by a numerous troop
of Wallachians and Comans, whom the hopes of pillage had drawn from the
mountains and forests near the banks of the Danube and Borysthenes. The
Comans, more ferocious than the nations of Mount Hæmus, drank, it was
said, the blood of their captives, and sacrificed Christians on the
altars of their idols. Like the warriors of Scythia, accustomed to fight
whilst flying, the Wallachian horsemen received orders from Joannice
to provoke the enemy, even in their camp, and to endeavour to draw the
heavy cavalry of the Franks into an ambuscade. The barons were aware of
this danger, and forbade the crusaders to quit their tents, or go beyond
their entrenchments. But such was the character of the French warriors,
that prudence, in their eyes, deprived valour of all its lustre, and it
appeared disgraceful to shun the fight in the presence and amidst the
scoffs of an enemy.
DEFEAT OF THE LATINS
[Sidenote: [1205 A.D.]]
Scarcely had the barbarians appeared near the camp, when the sight of
them made even the leaders themselves forget the orders they had issued
only the night before. The emperor and the count of Blois flew to meet
the enemy, put them to flight, and pursued them with ardour for the
space of two leagues. But all at once the barbarians rallied, and in
their turn charged the Christians. The latter, who believed they had
gained a victory, were obliged to defend themselves in a country with
which they were unacquainted. Their squadrons, exhausted by fatigue, were
surprised and surrounded by the army of Joannice; pressed on all sides,
they made useless efforts to recover their line of battle, but had no
power either to fly, or resist the barbarians. The count of Blois fell,
covered with wounds, and his faithful squire died by his side.
The emperor Baldwin still disputed the victory; the bravest of his
knights and barons followed him into the _mêlée_, and a horrible carnage
marked their progress through the ranks of the barbarians. Peter, bishop
of Bethlehem, Stephen count of Perche, Renaud de Montmirail, Mathieu de
Valencourt, Robert de Ronçai, and a crowd of lords and valiant warriors,
lost their lives in defending their sovereign. Baldwin remained almost
alone on the field of battle, and still continued fighting bravely;
but at length, overpowered by numbers, he fell into the hands of the
Bulgarians, who loaded him with chains. The wreck of the army retired in
the greatest disorder, and only owed their safety to the prudent bravery
of the doge of Venice and the marshal of Champagne, who had been left to
guard the camp.
In the night that followed the battle, the crusaders raised the siege of
Hadrianopolis, and retook the route to the capital, amidst a thousand
dangers. The Bulgarians and the Comans, proud of their victory, pursued
without intermission the army they had conquered; this army, which had
lost half of its numbers, was in great want of provisions, and had great
difficulty in dragging along the wounded and the baggage. The crusaders
were plunged in a melancholy silence, their despair was evident in their
actions and on their countenances. At Rodosto they met Henry of Hainault,
and several other knights, who were on their way from the provinces of
Asia, to join the army of Hadrianopolis. The retreating leaders related
with tears their defeat and the captivity of Baldwin. All the Franks were
seized with grief and terror, on learning they had no longer an emperor.
The Greeks that inhabited the capital applauded in secret the triumph
of the Bulgarians, and their ill-concealed joy still further increased
the alarms of the Latins. A great number of knights, overcome by so many
reverses, saw no safety but in flight, and embarked hastily on board some
Venetian vessels.
In the meantime, Joannice continued his pursuit of the conquered army.
The Greeks, united with the Bulgarians, took possession of all the
provinces, and left the Latins no repose. Among the disasters of which
contemporary history has left us a deplorable account, we must not
forget the massacre of twenty thousand Armenians. This numerous colony
had left the banks of the Euphrates, and established themselves in the
province of Natolia. After the conquest of Constantinople, they declared
for the Latins, and when the latter experienced their reverses, finding
themselves menaced and pursued by the Greeks, they crossed the Bosporus,
and followed Henry of Hainault, who was marching towards Hadrianopolis.
The Armenians took with them their flocks and their families; they drew,
in carriages, all that they possessed that was most valuable, and had
great difficulty, on their march across the mountains of Thrace, in
keeping up with the army of the crusaders. These unfortunate people were
surprised by the barbarians, and, to a man, perished beneath the swords
of a pitiless conqueror.
The Franks wept at the defeat and destruction of the Armenians, without
being able to avenge them; they had nothing but enemies throughout the
vast provinces of the empire. Beyond the Bosporus, they only preserved
the castle of Peges; on the European side, only Rodosto and Selymbria.
Their conquests in ancient Greece were not yet threatened by the
Bulgarians; but these distant possessions only served to divide their
forces. Henry of Hainault, who took the title of regent, performed
prodigies of valour in endeavouring to retake some of the cities of
Thrace; and lost, in various combats, a great number of the warriors that
remained under his banners.
The bishop of Soissons and some other crusaders, invested with the
confidence of their unfortunate companions in arms, were sent into Italy,
France, and the county of Flanders, to solicit the assistance of the
knights and barons; but the succour they hoped for could only arrive
slowly, and the enemy continued to make rapid progress. The army of the
Bulgarians, like a violent tempest, advanced on all sides; it desolated
the shores of the Hellespont, extended its ravages into the kingdom of
Thessalonica, repassed Mount Hæmus, and returned, more numerous and more
formidable than ever, to the banks of the Hebrus. The Latin empire had
no other defenders but a few warriors divided among the various cities
and fortresses, and every day war and desertion diminished the numbers
and strength of the unfortunate conquerors of Byzantium. Five hundred
knights, picked warriors of the army of the crusaders, were attacked
before the walls of Rusium, and cut to pieces by a countless multitude of
Bulgarians and Comans.[82] This defeat was not less fatal than the battle
of Hadrianopolis; the hordes of Mount Hæmus and the Borysthenes carried
terror everywhere. On their passage, the country was in flames, and the
cities afforded neither refuge nor means of defence. The land was covered
with soldiers, who slaughtered all who came in their way; the sea was
covered with pirates, who threatened every coast with their brigandage.
Constantinople expected every day to see the standards of the victorious
Joannice beneath its walls, and only owed its safety to the excess of
evils that desolated all the provinces of the empire.
The king of the Bulgarians did not spare his allies any more than
his enemies; he burned and demolished all the cities that fell into
his hands. He ruined the inhabitants, dragged them in his train like
captives, and made them undergo, in addition to the calamities of war,
all the outrages of a jealous and barbarous tyranny. The Greeks, who had
solicited his assistance, were at last reduced to implore the aid of
the Latins against the implacable fury of their allies. The crusaders
accepted with joy the alliance with the Greeks, whom they never ought
to have repulsed, and re-entered into Hadrianopolis. Didymatica, and
most of the cities of Romania, shook off the intolerable yoke of the
Bulgarians, and submitted to the Latins. The Greeks, whom Joannice had
urged on to despair, showed some bravery, and became useful auxiliaries
to the Latins; and the new empire might have hoped for a return of days
of prosperity and glory, if so many calamities could possibly have been
repaired by a few transient successes. But all the provinces were strewed
with ruins, and the cities and countries were without inhabitants. The
hordes of Mount Hæmus, whether victorious or conquered, still continued
their predatory habits. They easily recovered from their losses; the
losses of the Franks became every day more irreparable. The leader of the
Bulgarians sought out everywhere the foes of the new empire; and, being
abandoned by the Greeks of Romania, he formed an alliance with Lascaris,
the implacable enemy of the Latins.
The pope in vain exhorted the nations of France and Italy to take up arms
for the assistance of the conquerors of Byzantium; he could not awaken
their enthusiasm for a cause that presented to its defenders nothing but
certain evils, and dangers without glory.
THE FATE OF BALDWIN
[Sidenote: [1205-1206 A.D.]]
Amidst the perils that continued to multiply, the crusaders remained
perfectly ignorant of the fate of Baldwin; sometimes it was said that
he had broken his bonds, and had been seen wandering in the forests of
Servia; sometimes that he had died of grief in prison; sometimes that
he had been massacred in the midst of a banquet by the king of the
Bulgarians; that his mutilated members had been cast out upon the rocks,
and that his skull, encased in gold, served as a cup for his barbarous
conqueror. Among the romantic accounts that were circulated concerning
Baldwin, we must not omit the following: The emperor was kept close
prisoner at Terenova, where the wife of Joannice became desperately in
love with him, and proposed to him to escape with her. Baldwin rejected
this proposal, and the wife of Joannice, irritated by his disdain and
refusal, accused him to her husband of having entertained an adulterous
passion. The barbarous Joannice caused his unfortunate captive to be
massacred at a banquet, and his body was cast on to the rocks, a prey
to vultures and wild beasts. But people could not be convinced that
he was dead. A hermit had retired to the forest of Glançon, on the
Hainault side, and the people of the neighbourhood became persuaded
that this hermit was Count Baldwin. The solitary at first answered with
frankness, and refused the homage they wished to render. They persisted,
and at length he was induced to play a part, and gave himself out for
Baldwin. At first he had a great many partisans; but the king of France,
Louis VIII, having invited him to his court, he was confounded by the
questions that were put to him: he took to flight, and was arrested in
Burgundy by Erard de Chastenai, a Burgundian gentleman, whose family
still exists. Jane, countess of Flanders, caused the impostor to be hung
in the great square of Lisle.[e] Several messengers, sent by Henry of
Hainault, travelled through the cities of Bulgaria to learn the fate of
Baldwin; but returned to Constantinople, without having been able to
ascertain anything. A year after the battle of Hadrianopolis, the pope,
at the solicitation of the crusaders, conjured Joannice to restore to
the Latins of Byzantium the head of their new empire. The king of the
Bulgarians contented himself with replying, that Baldwin had paid the
tribute of nature, and that his deliverance was no longer in the power
of mortals.[83] This answer destroyed all hopes of again seeing the
imprisoned monarch, and the Latins no longer entertained a doubt of the
death of their emperor.
Henry of Hainault received the deplorable heritage of his brother with
tears and deep regret, and succeeded to the empire amidst general
mourning and sorrow. To complete their misfortunes, the Latins had
to weep for the loss of Dandolo, who finished his glorious career at
Constantinople, and whose last look must have perceived the rapid decline
of an empire he had founded. The greater part of the crusaders had either
perished in battle or returned to the west.[d]
HENRY OF HAINAULT
[Sidenote: [1206-1207 A.D.]]
In all civilised hostility a treaty is established for the exchange of
ransom of prisoners; and if their captivity be prolonged, their condition
is known, and they are treated according to their rank with humanity
or honour. But the savage Bulgarian was a stranger to the laws of war;
his prisons were involved in darkness and silence; and above a year
elapsed before the Latins could be assured of the death of Baldwin,
before his brother, the regent Henry, would consent to assume the title
of emperor. His moderation was applauded by the Greeks as an act of rare
and inimitable virtue. Their light and perfidious ambition was eager to
seize or anticipate the moment of a vacancy, while a law of succession,
the guardian both of the prince and people, was gradually defined and
confirmed in the hereditary monarchies of Europe.
In the support of the Eastern Empire, Henry was gradually left without
an associate, as the heroes of the Crusades retired from the world or
from the war. The doge of Venice, the venerable Dandolo, in the fullness
of years and glory, sank into the grave. The marquis of Montferrat was
slowly recalled from the Peloponnesian War to the revenge of Baldwin
and the defence of Thessalonica. Some nice disputes of feudal homage
and service were reconciled in a personal interview between the emperor
and the king: they were firmly united by mutual esteem, and the common
danger; and their alliance was sealed by the nuptials of Henry with the
daughter of the Italian prince. He soon deplored the loss of his friend
and father.
At the persuasion of some faithful Greeks, Boniface made a bold and
successful inroad among the hills of Rhodope; the Bulgarians fled on
his approach, they assembled to harass his retreat. On the intelligence
that his rear was attacked, without waiting for any defensive armour, he
leaped on horseback, couched his lance, and drove the enemies before him;
but in the rash pursuit he was pierced with a mortal wound; and the head
of the king of Thessalonica was presented to Joannice, who enjoyed the
honours, without the merit, of victory. It is here, at this melancholy
event, that the pen or the voice of Geoffrey de Villehardouin seems to
drop or to expire; and if he still exercised his military office of
marshal of Romania, his subsequent exploits are buried in oblivion.[84]
The character of Henry was not unequal to his arduous situation: in the
siege of Constantinople, and beyond the Hellespont, he had deserved the
fame of a valiant knight and skilful commander; and his courage was
tempered with a degree of prudence and mildness unknown to his impetuous
brother. In the double war against the Greeks of Asia and the Bulgarians
of Europe, he was ever the foremost on shipboard or on horseback; and
though he cautiously provided for the success of his arms, the drooping
Latins were often roused by his example to save and to second their
fearless emperor. But such efforts, and some supplies of men and money
from France, were of less avail than the errors, the cruelty, and death
of their most formidable adversary. When the despair of the Greek
subjects invited Joannice as their deliverer, they hoped that he would
protect their liberty and adopt their laws; they were soon taught to
compare the degrees of national ferocity, and to execrate the savage
conqueror who no longer dissembled his intention of dispeopling Thrace,
of demolishing the cities, and of transplanting the inhabitants beyond
the Danube. Many towns and villages of Thrace were already evacuated; a
heap of ruins marked the place of Philippopolis, and a similar calamity
was expected at Demotica and Hadrianopolis, by the first authors of the
revolt. They raised a cry of grief and repentance to the throne of Henry;
the emperor alone had the magnanimity to forgive and trust them. No
more than four hundred knights, with their sergeants and archers, could
be assembled under his banner; and with this slender force he fought
and repulsed the Bulgarian, who, besides his infantry, was at the head
of forty thousand horse. In this expedition, Henry felt the difference
between a hostile and a friendly country; the remaining cities were
preserved by his arms, and the savage, with shame and loss, was compelled
to relinquish his prey.
The siege of Thessalonica was the last of the evils which Joannice
inflicted or suffered; he was stabbed during the night in his tent; and
the general, perhaps the assassin, who found him weltering in his blood,
ascribed the blow with general applause to the lance of St. Demetrius.
[Sidenote: [1207-1216 A.D.]]
After several victories, the prudence of Henry concluded an honourable
peace with the successor of the tyrant, and with the Greek princes of
Nicæa and Epirus. If he ceded some doubtful limits, an ample kingdom was
reserved for himself and his feudatories; and his reign, which lasted
only ten years, afforded a short interval of prosperity and peace. Far
above the narrow policy of Baldwin and Boniface, he freely entrusted to
the Greeks the most important offices of the state and army; and this
liberality of sentiment and practice was the more seasonable, as the
princes of Nicæa and Epirus had already learned to seduce and employ
the mercenary valour of the Latins. It was the aim of Henry to unite
and reward his deserving subjects of every nation and language; but he
appeared less solicitous to accomplish the impracticable union of the two
churches.
[Illustration: HELMET OF THE TENTH AND ELEVENTH CENTURIES]
Pelagius, the pope’s legate, who acted as the sovereign of
Constantinople, had interdicted the worship of the Greeks, and sternly
imposed the payment of tithes, the double procession of the Holy Ghost,
and a blind obedience to the Roman pontiff. As the weaker party, they
pleaded the duties of conscience, and implored the rights of toleration:
“Our bodies,” they said, “are Cæsar’s, but our souls belong only to God.”
The persecution was checked by the firmness of the emperor; and if we can
believe that the same prince was poisoned by the Greeks themselves, we
must entertain a contemptible idea of the sense of gratitude in mankind.
His valour was a vulgar attribute, which he shared with ten thousand
knights; but Henry possessed the superior courage to oppose, in a
superstitious age, the pride and avarice of the clergy. In the cathedral
of St. Sophia he presumed to place his throne on the right hand of the
patriarch; and this presumption excited the sharpest censure of Pope
Innocent III. By a salutary edict, one of the first examples of the laws
of mortmain, he prohibited the alienation of fiefs; many of the Latins,
desirous of returning to Europe, resigned their estates to the church
for a spiritual or temporal reward; these holy lands were immediately
discharged from military service, and a colony of soldiers would have
been gradually transformed into a college of priests.
The virtuous Henry died at Thessalonica (1216), in the defence of that
kingdom, and of an infant, the son of his friend Boniface. In the first
two emperors of Constantinople the male line of the counts of Flanders
was extinct.[f]
PIERRE DE COURTENAI AND ROBERT OF NAMUR
[Sidenote: [1216-1228 A.D.]]
Baldwin and Henry had a sister named Yolande, married to Pierre de
Courtenai, count of Auxerre. This latter was elected emperor. He was
then in France, and hastened to raise an army. He visited Honorius III
at Rome, embarked for Durazzo, and from there followed the Egnatian
road. Attacked by the Epirots in the gorges of Elbassan, his army
was destroyed; the papal legate perished; the emperor was taken, and
doubtless died in captivity.
He had left in the West ten children, of whom the eldest was Philippe of
Namur. The empress, his wife, had come by sea to Constantinople, where a
little son was born, afterwards to be Baldwin II. She took the regency
for Philippe of Namur, renewed the treaties with the emperor of Nicæa,
made him marry her stepdaughter, and died in 1219. Philippe of Namur
having refused to leave his Meuse comté, his younger brother, Robert, was
thereupon elected.
His reign marked the rapid decline of the empire. All the chiefs of the
First Crusade--Baldwin, Henry of Flanders, Boniface de Montferrat, Louis
de Blois, Dandolo, and Villehardouin--were dead. The number of Latin
warriors diminished unceasingly by combats or by returning to the West,
and were not recruited by new arrivals. Robert had one of his sisters
married to King Andrew of Hungary, one to Geoffrey of Achaia, and a
third to the emperor of Nicæa. One of his nieces married John Asan II of
Bulgaria; he himself was about to marry a daughter of Lascaris. But these
family alliances gave him neither power nor security.
The despot of Epirus, Theodore, who never ceased taking land from the
Latins, took advantage of the Thessalonican king being gone to seek help
in the West to surprise his capital and finish conquering his provinces
(1222). So perished the Lombard kingdom of Thessalonica.
In Nicæa, Joannes Vatatzes, successor to Lascaris, renewed war against
the French, inflicted on them a bloody defeat at Pemanene (1224), and
conquered nearly all Thrace. The Greeks had now two emperors, without
counting the one at Trebizond, for the despot of Epirus had got himself
crowned by the archbishop of Okhrida in Thessalonica. The forces of
these two emperors, henceforth enemies, marched each on its own road
to Hadrianopolis. The town at first yielded to the Nicæan troops, then
drove them away and opened their gates to those of Epirus. Robert could
not even interfere in the struggle, and nothing remained but to see
which of the two Greek armies would be the first to enter Byzantium. In
his own court a bloody drama showed how little respected and how weak
was sovereign power. Robert was very much in love with a young Neuville
lady, already engaged to a Burgundian cavalier; and the mother consented
to get the first engagement broken off. The rejected cavalier gathered
his relatives and friends and forced a way into the palace by night. He
cut off the nose and lips of the young girl, and threw her mother into
the Bosporus. Robert could obtain no redress from his barons for this
cruel insult. He went to seek help in the West and died on the journey
(1228).[c]
JEAN DE BRIENNE
[Sidenote: [1228-1237 A.D.]]
It was only in the age of chivalry that valour could ascend from a
private station to the thrones of Jerusalem and Constantinople. The
titular kingdom of Jerusalem had devolved to Mary, the daughter of
Isabella and Conrad of Montferrat, and the granddaughter of Almeric or
Amaury. She was given to Jean de Brienne, of a noble family in Champagne,
by the public voice and the judgment of Philippe Auguste, who named him
as the most worthy champion of the Holy Land. In the Fifth Crusade, he
led a hundred thousand Latins to the conquest of Egypt; by him the siege
of Damietta was achieved, and the subsequent failure was justly ascribed
to the pride and avarice of the legate. After the marriage of his
daughter with Frederick II, he was provoked by the emperor’s ingratitude
to accept the command of the army of the church; and though advanced in
life, and despoiled of royalty, the sword and spirit of Jean de Brienne
were still ready for the service of Christendom.
In the seven years of his brother’s reign, Baldwin de Courtenai had not
emerged from a state of childhood, and the barons of Romania felt the
strong necessity of placing the sceptre in the hands of a man and a
hero. The veteran king of Jerusalem might have disdained the name and
office of regent; they agreed to invest him for life with the title
and prerogatives of emperor, on the sole condition that Baldwin should
marry his second daughter, and succeed at a mature age to the throne
of Constantinople. The expectation, both of the Greeks and Latins, was
kindled by the renown, the choice, and the presence of John de Brienne;
and they admired his martial aspect, his green and vigorous age of more
than fourscore years, and his size and stature, which surpassed the
common measure of mankind.
But avarice and the love of ease appear to have chilled the love of
enterprise; his troops were disbanded, and two years rolled away without
action or honour, till he was awakened by the dangerous alliance of
Vatatzes, emperor of Nicæa, and of Asan, king of Bulgaria. They besieged
Constantinople by sea and land, with an army of one hundred thousand
men, and a fleet of three hundred ships of war; while the entire force
of the Latin emperor was reduced to 160 knights, and a small addition
of sergeants and archers. Instead of defending the city, the hero made
a sally at the head of his cavalry; and of forty-eight squadrons of the
enemy, no more than three escaped from the edge of his invincible sword.
Fired by his example, the infantry and the citizens boarded the vessels
that anchored close to the walls; and twenty-five were dragged in triumph
into the harbour of Constantinople. At the summons of the emperor, the
vassals and allies armed in her defence, broke through every obstacle
that opposed their passage; and, in the succeeding year, obtained a
second victory over the same enemies. By the rude poets of the age,
Jean de Brienne is compared to Hector, Roland, and Judas Maccabæus; but
their credit and his glory receive some abatement from the silence of
the Greeks. The empire was soon deprived of the last of her champions;
and the dying monarch was ambitious to enter paradise in the habit of a
Franciscan friar (1237).
BALDWIN II
[Sidenote: [1237-1261 A.D.]]
In the double victory of Jean de Brienne we cannot discover the name
or exploits of his pupil Baldwin, who had attained the age of military
service, and who succeeded to the imperial dignity on the decease of
his adoptive father. The royal youth was employed on a commission more
suitable to his temper; he was sent to visit the western courts of the
pope more especially, and of the king of France; to excite their pity by
the view of his innocence and distress; and to obtain some supplies of
men or money for the relief of the sinking empire. He thrice repeated
these mendicant visits, in which he seemed to prolong his stay, and
postpone his return; of the five-and-twenty years of his reign, a greater
number were spent abroad than at home, and in no place did the emperor
deem himself less free and secure than in his native country and his
capital.
By such shameful or ruinous expedients he returned to Romania with an
army of thirty thousand soldiers, whose numbers were doubled in the
apprehension of the Greeks. But the troops and treasures of France
melted away in his unskilful hands; and the throne of the Latin emperor
was protected by a dishonourable alliance with the Turks and Komans. To
secure the former, he consented to bestow his niece on the unbelieving
sultan of Cogni. To please the latter, he complied with their pagan
rites; a dog was sacrificed between the two armies and the contracting
parties tasted each other’s blood, as a pledge of their fidelity. In the
palace, or prison, of Constantinople the successor of Augustus demolished
the vacant houses for winter fuel, and stripped the lead from the
churches for the daily expense of his family. Some usurious loans were
dealt with a scanty hand by the merchants of Italy; and Philippe, his son
and heir, was pawned at Venice as the security of a debt. Thirst, hunger,
and nakedness are positive evils; but wealth is relative, and a prince
who would be rich in a private station may be exposed by the increase of
his wants to all the anxiety and bitterness of poverty.
THE CROWN OF THORNS
But in this abject distress, the emperor and empire were still
possessed of an ideal treasure, which drew its fantastic value from
the superstition of the Christian world. The merit of the true cross
was somewhat impaired by its frequent division; and a long captivity
among the infidels might shed some suspicion on the fragments that were
produced in the East and West. But another relic of the Passion was
preserved in the imperial chapel of Constantinople; and the crown of
thorns which had been placed on the head of Christ was equally precious
and authentic. It had formerly been the practice of the Egyptian debtors
to deposit, as a security, the mummies of their parents; and both their
honour and their religion were bound for the redemption of the pledge. In
the same manner, and in the absence of the emperor, the barons of Romania
borrowed the sum of 13,134 pieces of gold [£7000 or $35,000] on the
credit of the holy crown.
The success of this transaction tempted the Latin emperor to offer, with
the same generosity, the remaining furniture of his chapel--a large and
authentic portion of the true cross; the baby linen of the Son of God;
the lance, the sponge, and the chain of his Passion; the rod of Moses;
and part of the skull of St. John the Baptist. For the reception of these
spiritual treasures, twenty thousand marks were expended by St. Louis on
a stately foundation, the holy chapel of Paris, on which the muse of
Boileau has bestowed a comic immortality. The truth of such remote and
ancient relics, which cannot be proved by any human testimony, must be
admitted by those who believe in the miracles which they have performed.
PROGRESS OF THE GREEKS (1237-1261 A.D.)
[Sidenote: [1237-1261 A.D.]]
[Illustration: A THIRTEENTH CENTURY CRUSADER]
The Latins of Constantinople were on all sides encompassed and pressed:
their sole hope, the last delay of their ruin, was in the division of
their Greek and Bulgarian enemies; and of this hope they were deprived
by the superior arms and policy of Vatatzes, emperor of Nicæa. From
the Propontis to the rocky coast of Pamphylia, Asia was peaceful and
prosperous under his reign; and the events of every campaign extended
his influence in Europe. The strong cities of the hills of Macedonia
and Thrace were rescued from the Bulgarians; and their kingdom was
circumscribed by its present and proper limits, along the southern banks
of the Danube. The sole emperor of the Romans could no longer brook
that a lord of Epirus, a Comnenian prince of the West, should presume
to dispute or share the honours of the purple; and the humble Demetrius
changed the colour of his buskins, and accepted with gratitude the
appellation of despot. His own subjects were exasperated by his baseness
and incapacity; they implored the protection of their supreme lord.
After some resistance, the kingdom of Thessalonica was united to the
empire of Nicæa; and Vatatzes reigned without a competitor from the
Turkish borders to the Adriatic Gulf. The princes of Europe honoured his
merits and power; and had he subscribed an orthodox creed, it should seem
that the pope would have abandoned, without reluctance, the Latin throne
of Constantinople. But the death of Vatatzes, the short and busy reign
of Theodore, his son, and the helpless infancy of his grandson John,
suspended the restoration of the Greeks.
The young prince was oppressed by the ambition of his guardian and
colleague, Michael Palæologus, who displayed the virtues and vices that
belong to the founder of a new dynasty. The emperor Baldwin had flattered
himself that he might recover some provinces or cities by an impotent
negotiation. His ambassadors were dismissed from Nicæa with mockery and
contempt. The captivity of Villehardouin, prince of Achaia, deprived the
Latins of the most active and powerful vassal of their expiring monarchy.
The republics of Venice and Genoa disputed, in the first of their
naval wars, the command of the sea and the commerce of the East. Pride
and interest attached the Venetians to the defence of Constantinople;
their rivals were tempted to promote the designs of her enemies, and
the alliance of the Genoese with the schismatic conqueror provoked the
indignation of the Latin church.
CONSTANTINOPLE RECOVERED BY THE GREEKS (1261 A.D.)
[Sidenote: [1261 A.D.]]
Intent in this great object, the emperor Michael visited in person and
strengthened the troops and fortifications of Thrace. The remains of the
Latins were driven from their last possessions; he assaulted without
success the suburb of Galata; and corresponded with a perfidious baron,
who proved unwilling or unable to open the gates of the metropolis. The
next spring his favourite general, Alexius Strategopulus, whom he had
decorated with the title of Cæsar, passed the Hellespont with eight
hundred horse and some infantry, on a secret expedition. The weakness of
Constantinople, and the distress and terror of the Latins, were familiar
to the observation of the volunteers; and they represented the present
moment as the most propitious to surprise and conquest. A rash youth, the
new governor of the Venetian colony, had sailed away with thirty galleys,
and the best of the French knights, on a wild expedition to Daphnusia,
a town on the Black Sea, at the distance of forty leagues; and the
remaining Latins were without strength or suspicion. They were informed
that Alexius had passed the Hellespont; but their apprehensions were
lulled by the smallness of his original numbers, and their imprudence
had not watched the subsequent increase of his army. If he left his main
body to second and support his operations, he might advance unperceived
in the night with the chosen detachment. No sooner had Alexius passed the
threshold of the Golden Gate, than he trembled at his own rashness; he
paused, he deliberated, till the desperate volunteers urged him forward,
by the assurance that in retreat lay the greatest and most inevitable
danger. Whilst the cæsar kept his regulars in firm array, the commons
dispersed themselves on all sides; an alarm was sounded, and the threats
of fire and pillage compelled the citizens to a decisive resolution. The
Greeks of Constantinople remembered their native sovereigns; the Genoese
merchants their recent alliance and Venetian foes; every quarter was in
arms; and the air resounded with a general acclamation of “Long life and
victory to Michael and Joannes, the august emperors of the Romans!”
Their rival, Baldwin, was awakened by the sound; but the most pressing
danger could not prompt him to draw his sword in the defence of a
city which he deserted, perhaps, with more pleasure than regret.
Constantinople was irrecoverably lost; but the Latin emperor and the
principal families embarked on board the Venetian galleys and steered for
the isle of Eubœa, and afterwards for Italy, where the royal fugitive was
entertained by the pope and the Sicilian king with a mixture of contempt
and pity.
From the loss of Constantinople to his death, he consumed thirteen years,
soliciting the Catholic powers to join in his restoration; the lesson
had been familiar to his youth, nor was his last exile more indigent or
shameful than his three former pilgrimages to the courts of Europe. His
son Philippe was the heir of an ideal empire; and the pretensions of his
daughter Catharine were transported by her marriage to Charles of Valois,
the brother of Philippe le Bel, king of France. The house of Courtenai
was represented in the female line by successive alliances, till the
title of emperor of Constantinople, too bulky and sonorous for a private
name, modestly expired in silence and oblivion.[f]
TRACES LEFT BY THE FRANK DOMINATION IN THE GREEK EMPIRE
The crusaders had been able to destroy the Byzantine monarchy but were
not able to reconstruct it with profit to themselves. They had to combat
not only with the Greeks, but all the various people they had helped to
emancipate. In fact, their domination only served to awake and fortify
Greek patriotism. “They did great good in Byzantium, both to Hellenism
and religion; social distinctions were abolished” (Sathas)--if not
abolished, at any rate modified.
In the countries that the Latins held longest, as in the Morea, a certain
fusion took place between conquerors and conquered. Nicetas, Acropolitas,
Pachymeres gave the name of _gasmuli_ to the creole issue of the two
races. The French dynasties of Athens and the Morea tended to Hellenism;
the princes learned the language of their subjects. Greek stratiota and
French cavaliers were treated as on equal footing; they respected the
_pronoiai_ of the Hellenic cities as privileged and exempt from the Latin
communities. There was a great _logothete_ and a proto officer of Achaia
as there had been a grand steward (_seneschal_) of Romania. In the French
schools the Greeks learned afresh the meaning of civic liberty and the
dignity of a warrior-landowner.[c]
It will be necessary now to cast a glance back at the rise of that Greek
power which had recovered itself thus effectually after the retirement in
1204 of Theodore Lascaris and his founding of a kingdom in Nicæa.[a]
FOOTNOTES
[81] One edition of Villehardouin[b] makes the plunder of Constantinople
amount to 500,000 silver marks, equivalent to 24,000,000 francs; if we
add to this sum the 50,000 marks due to the Venetians, and deducted
before the division, and the part which they had in the division
itself, we shall find the total amount of booty 50,400,000 francs
[about £2,100,000, or $10,500,000]. As much, says the modern historian
who supplies us with this note, perhaps, was appropriated secretly by
individuals. The three fires which had consumed more than half the city
had destroyed at least as much of its riches, and in the profusion that
followed the pillage, the most precious effects had lost so much of their
value, that the advantage of the Latins probably was not equivalent to
a quarter of what they had cost the Greeks. Thus we may suppose that
Constantinople, before the attack, contained 600,000,000 francs of wealth
[£25,000,000 or $125,000,000].
[82] [Gibbon[f] puts the loss at 120.]
[83] [Lavisse and Rambaud[c] quote his words, “He absolved the debt of
the flesh while he was held in prison” (_debitum carnis exsolverat dum
carcere teneretur_). His two daughters inherited Flanders and Hainault.]
[84] [According to Finlay[g] he “appears to have died about the year
1218.”]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER X
THE RESTORATION OF THE GREEK EMPIRE
[1204-1391 A.D.]
THEODORE (I) LASCARIS AND JOANNES VATATZES (1204-1254 A.D.)
[Sidenote: [1222-1259 A.D.]]
The loss of Constantinople in 1204 had restored a momentary vigour to
the Greeks. From their palaces, the princes and nobles were driven into
the field; and the fragments of the falling monarchy were grasped by the
hands of the most vigorous or the most skilful candidates. In the long
and barren pages of the Byzantine annals, it would not be an easy task to
equal the two characters of Theodore Lascaris and Joannes Ducas Vatatzes,
who had replanted and upheld the Roman standard in Nicæa in Bithynia.
The difference of their virtues was happily suited to the diversity of
their situation. In his first efforts, the fugitive Lascaris commanded
only three cities and two thousand soldiers; his reign was the season of
generous and active despair; in every military operation he staked his
life and crown; and his enemies, of the Hellespont and the Mæander, were
surprised by his celerity and subdued by his boldness.
A victorious reign of eighteen years expanded the principality of Nicæa
to the magnitude of an empire. The throne of his successor and son-in-law
Vatatzes was founded on a more solid basis, a larger scope, and more
plentiful resources; and it was the temper, as well as the interest,
of Vatatzes to calculate the risk, to expect the moment, and to insure
the success of his ambitious designs. In the decline of the Latins we
have briefly exposed the progress of the Greeks, the prudent and gradual
advances of a conqueror who, in a reign of thirty-three years, rescued
the provinces from national and foreign usurpers, till he pressed on all
sides the imperial city--a leafless and sapless trunk, which must fall at
the first stroke of the axe.
But his interior and peaceful administration is still more deserving of
notice and praise. The calamities of the times had wasted the numbers and
the substance of the Greeks; the motives and the means of agriculture
were extirpated; and the most fertile lands were left without cultivation
or inhabitants. A portion of this vacant property was occupied and
improved by the command and for the benefit of the emperor; a powerful
hand and a vigilant eye supplied and surpassed, by a skilful management,
the minute diligence of a private farmer. The royal domain became the
garden and granary of Asia; and, without impoverishing the people,
the sovereign acquired a fund of innocent and productive wealth. His
first wife was Irene, the daughter of Theodore Lascaris, a woman more
illustrious by her personal merit, the milder virtues of her sex,
than by the blood of the Angeli and Comneni that flowed in her veins
and transmitted the inheritance of the empire. After her death he was
contracted to Anne, or Constance, a natural daughter of the emperor
Frederick II; but as the bride had not attained the years of puberty,
Vatatzes placed in his solitary bed an Italian damsel of her train, and
his amorous weakness bestowed on the concubine the honours, though not
the title, of lawful empress. The slaves of the Latins, without law or
peace, applauded the happiness of their brethren who had resumed their
national freedom; and Vatatzes employed the laudable policy of convincing
the Greeks of every dominion that it was their interest to be enrolled in
the number of his subjects.
THEODORE (II) LASCARIS AND JOANNES (IV) LASCARIS (1254-1259 A.D.)
A strong shade of degeneracy is visible between Joannes Vatatzes and his
son Theodore. Yet the character of Theodore was not devoid of energy; he
had been educated in the school of his father, in the exercise of war
and hunting. Constantinople was yet spared; but in the three years of
a short reign he thrice led his armies into the heart of Bulgaria. His
virtues were sullied by a choleric and suspicious temper. The cruelty of
the emperor was exasperated by the pangs of sickness, the approach of
a premature end, and the suspicion of poison and magic. The lives and
fortunes, the eyes and limbs, of his kinsmen and nobles were sacrificed
to each sally of passion. In his last hours the emperor testified a wish
to forgive and be forgiven, a just anxiety for the fate of Joannes, his
son and successor, who, at the age of eight years, was condemned to the
dangers of a long minority. His last choice entrusted the office of
guardian to the sanctity of the patriarch Arsenius, and to the courage
of George Muzalon, the great domestic, who was equally distinguished by
the royal favour and the public hatred. The holy rites were interrupted
by a sedition of the guards. Muzalon, his brothers, and his adherents
were massacred at the foot of the altar; and the absent patriarch was
associated with a new colleague, with Michael Palæologus, the most
illustrious in birth and merit of the Greek nobles.
MICHAEL (VIII) PALÆOLOGUS (1259-1282 A.D.)
As early as the middle of the eleventh century, the noble race of the
Palæologi stands high and conspicuous in the Byzantine history. It was
the valiant George Palæologus who placed the father of the Comneni on
the throne; and his kinsmen, or descendants, continue in each generation
to lead the armies and councils of the state. In his early youth Michael
was promoted to the office of constable, or commander of the French
mercenaries; the private expense of a day never exceeded three pieces
of gold; but his ambition was rapacious and profuse, and his gifts were
doubled by the graces of his conversation and manners. The love of the
soldiers and people excited the jealousy of the court; and Michael thrice
escaped from the dangers in which he was involved by his own imprudence
or that of his friends.
[Sidenote: [1251-1258 A.D.]]
Under the reign of Justice and Vatatzes, a dispute arose between two
officers, one of whom accused the other of maintaining the hereditary
right of the Palæologi. The cause was decided, according to the new
jurisprudence of the Latins, by single combat: the defendant was
overthrown; but he persisted in declaring that himself alone was guilty,
and that he had uttered these rash or treasonable speeches without the
approbation or knowledge of his patron.
Yet a cloud of suspicion hung over the innocence of the constable; he was
still pursued by the whispers of malevolence; and a subtle courtier, the
archbishop of Philadelphia, urged him to accept the judgment of God in
the fiery proof of the ordeal. Three days before the trial, the patient’s
arm was enclosed in a bag and secured by the royal signet; and it was
incumbent on him to bear a red-hot ball of iron three times from the
altar to the rails of the sanctuary, without artifice and without injury.
Palæologus eluded the dangerous experiment with sense and pleasantry.
“I am a soldier,” said he, “and will boldly enter the lists with my
accusers; but a layman, a sinner like myself, is not endowed with
the gift of miracles. Your piety, most holy prelate, may deserve the
interposition of heaven, and from your hands I will receive the fiery
globe, the pledge of my innocence.” The archbishop started; the emperor
smiled; and the absolution or pardon of Michael was approved by new
rewards and new services.
In the succeeding reign, as he held the government of Nicæa, he was
secretly informed that the mind of the absent prince was poisoned with
jealousy, and that death or blindness would be his final reward. Instead
of awaiting the return and sentence of Theodore, the constable with
some followers escaped from the city and the empire; and though he was
plundered by the Turkomans of the desert, he found a hospitable refuge
in the court of the sultan. In the ambiguous state of an exile, Michael
reconciled the duties of gratitude and loyalty; drawing his sword against
the Tatars, admonishing the garrisons of the Roman limit, and promoting
by his influence the restoration of peace, in which his pardon and recall
were honourably included.
While he guarded the West against the despot of Epirus, Michael was
again suspected and condemned to the palace; and such were his loyalty
and weakness that he submitted to be led in chains above six hundred
miles from Durazzo to Nicæa. The civility of the messenger alleviated
his disgrace; the emperor’s sickness dispelled his danger; and the last
breath of Theodore which recommended his infant son, at once acknowledged
the innocence and the power of Palæologus.
[Sidenote: [1258-1261 A.D.]]
But his innocence had been too unworthily treated, and his power was too
strongly felt, to curb an aspiring subject in the fair field that was
opened to his ambition. In the council after the death of Theodore, he
was the first to pronounce and the last to violate the oath of allegiance
to Muzalon; and so dexterous was his conduct that he reaped the benefit
without incurring the guilt, or at least the reproach, of the subsequent
massacre. In the choice of a regent, he balanced the interests and
passions of the candidates, turning their envy and hatred from himself
against each other; and forced every competitor to own that, after his
own claims, those of Palæologus were best entitled to the preference.
Under the title of grand duke, he accepted or assumed during a long
minority the active powers of government; the patriarch was a venerable
name; and the factious nobles were seduced or oppressed by the ascendant
of his genius. The fruits of the economy of Vatatzes were deposited in a
strong castle on the banks of the Hermus, in the custody of the faithful
Varangians; the constable retained his command or influence over the
foreign troops. He employed the guards to possess the treasure, and the
treasure to corrupt the guards; and whatsoever might be the abuse of
the public money, his character was above suspicion of private avarice.
By himself, or by his emissaries, he strove to persuade every rank of
subjects that their own prosperity would rise in just proportion to the
establishment of his authority. The weight of taxes was suspended, the
perpetual theme of popular complaint; and he prohibited the trials by the
ordeal and judicial combat. For the interest of the prince and people,
without any selfish views for himself or his family, the great duke
consented to guard and instruct the son of Theodore. It was afterwards
agreed that Joannes and Michael should be proclaimed as joint emperors,
and raised on the buckler; but that the pre-eminence should be reserved
for the birthright of the former.
MICHAEL PALÆOLOGUS CROWNED EMPEROR (1259 A.D.)
[Illustration: TWELFTH CENTURY CANDLESTICK]
Palæologus was content; but on the day of the coronation, and in the
cathedral of Nicæa, his zealous adherents most vehemently urged the just
priority of his age and merit. The unseasonable dispute was eluded by
postponing to a more convenient opportunity the coronation of Joannes
Lascaris; and he walked with a slight diadem in the train of his
guardian, who alone received the imperial crown from the hands of the
patriarch. A full harvest of honours and employments was distributed
among his friends by the grateful Palæologus. In his own family he
created a despot and two sebastocrators; Alexius Strategopulus was
decorated with the title of cæsar, and that veteran commander soon repaid
the obligation by restoring Constantinople, as we have seen, to the Greek
emperor.
[Sidenote: [1261-1282 A.D.]]
It was in the second year of his reign, while he resided in the palace
and gardens of Nymphæum, near Smyrna, that the first messenger arrived
at the dead of night; and the stupendous intelligence was imparted to
Michael, after he had been gently waked by the tender precaution of his
sister Eulogia. The man was unknown or obscure: he produced no letters
from the victorious cæsar; nor could it easily be credited, after the
defeat of Vatatzes and the recent failure of Palæologus himself, that the
capital had been surprised by a detachment of eight hundred soldiers.
As an hostage, the doubtful author was confined with the assurance of
death or an ample recompense; and the court was left some hours in the
anxiety of hope and fear, till the messengers of Alexius arrived with the
authentic intelligence, and displayed the trophies of the conquest--the
sword and sceptre, the buskins and bonnet, of the usurper Baldwin, which
he had dropped in his precipitate flight.[85]
RETURN AND RULE OF THE GREEK EMPEROR
So eager was the impatience of the prince and people, that Michael made
his triumphal entry into Constantinople only twenty days after the
expulsion of the Latins. The Golden Gate was thrown open at his approach;
the devout conqueror dismounted from his horse, and a miraculous image
of Mary the Conductress was borne before him, that the divine Virgin
in person might appear to conduct him to the temple of her Son, the
cathedral of St. Sophia. But after the first transport of devotion
and pride, he sighed at the dreary prospect of solitude and ruin. The
palace was defiled with smoke and dirt and the gross intemperance of the
Franks; whole streets had been consumed by fire, or were decayed by the
injuries of time; the sacred and profane edifices were stripped of their
ornaments; and, as if they were conscious of their approaching exile,
the industry of the Latins had been confined to the work of pillage
and destruction. Trade had expired under the pressure of anarchy and
distress, and the numbers of inhabitants had decreased with the opulence
of the city.[b]
Michael VIII was eager to efface the mark of foreign domination from the
capital of the empire, and to repair the injuries of time; but his plans
were injudicious, and his success extremely limited. He aspired to be the
second founder of the city of Constantinople, as well as of the Eastern
Roman Empire. The nobility of his dominions were invited to inhabit the
capital by the gift of places and pensions; traders were attracted by
monopolies and privileges. The wealth that ought to have been expended in
restoring communications between the dispersed and dissevered portions of
the Greek nation, in repairing roads and bridges, was wasted in building
palaces and adorning churches in the capital, where they were no longer
required for a diminished and impoverished population. Crowds of imperial
princes and princesses, despots and cæsars, officers of state and
courtiers, consumed the revenues which ought to have covered the frontier
with impregnable fortresses, and maintained a disciplined standing army
and a well-exercised fleet. Yet, while lavishing the public revenues
to gratify his pride and acquire popularity, he sacrificed the general
interests of the middle classes to a selfish and rapacious fiscal policy.
All the property within the walls of Constantinople, whether it belonged
to Greeks or Latins, was adjudged to the imperial government by the right
of conquest; but their ancient possessions were restored to the great
families whose power he feared, and to those individuals whose services
he wished to secure. Sites for building were then leased to the citizens
for a fixed rent; yet the Greek government was so despotic, and Michael
was so arbitrary in his administration, that twelve years later he
pretended that the concessions he had granted to private individuals were
merely acts of personal favour, and he demanded the payment of the rent
for the past twelve years, the collection of which he enforced with much
severity. Michael used other frauds to bring the property of his subjects
into the public treasury, or to deprive them of a portion of the money
justly due to them by the state. Under the pretext of changing the type
of the gold coinage, and commemorating the recovery of Constantinople by
impressing an image of its walls on the bezants, he debased the standard
of the mint, and issued coins containing only fifteen parts of gold and
nine of alloy.
While on one hand he rendered property insecure and impoverished his
subjects, he was striving by other arrangements to increase the Greek
population of the capital, in order to counterbalance the wealth and
influence of foreign traders. Numbers were drawn from the islands of the
Archipelago, and a colony of Tzaconians or Laconians from Monemvasia and
the neighbouring districts were settled in the capital, which supplied
the imperial fleet with its best sailors. But war, not commerce, was
the object of Michael’s care; and while he was endeavouring to increase
the means of recruiting his army and navy, he allowed the Genoese to
profit by his political errors, and render themselves masters of the
commerce of the Black Sea, and of great part of the carrying trade of
the Greek Empire. In the meantime, the fortifications of Constantinople
were repaired; and when Charles of Anjou threatened to invade the East, a
second line of wall was added to the fortifications on the land side, and
the defences already existing towards the sea were strengthened.
Michael VIII fulfilled all the stipulations of the treaty he had
concluded with the Genoese. The public property of the republic of Venice
was confiscated, and the Genoese were put in possession of the palace
previously occupied by the bailly of the Venetians. The turbulent conduct
of his allies had already created dissatisfaction in the mind of Michael,
when their defeat by the Venetians before Monemvasia, and the fall of
Baccanegra, who had concluded the treaty of Nymphæum in 1261 by placing
a party adverse to the Greek alliance in power, induced him to doubt
the fidelity of their services, and he dismissed sixty Genoese galleys
which he had taken into his pay. Charles of Anjou soon after effected the
conquest of the kingdom of Naples, and the Genoese government became more
anxious to cultivate his friendship than that of the Greek emperor.
The character and conduct of Michael VIII typifies the spirit of Greek
society from the recovery of Constantinople to the fall of the empire.
It displays a strange ignorance of the value of frankness and honesty in
public business, a constant suspicion of every friend, restless intrigues
to deceive every ally, and a wavering policy to conciliate every powerful
enemy. The consequence of this suspicion, plotting, and weakness, was
that very soon no one trusted either the emperor or the Greeks. The
invasion of Italy by Charles of Anjou, and the pretensions of the pope
to dispose of crowns, alarmed both Venice and Michael, and induced
them to forget all former grounds of hostility, and conclude a closer
alliance than the Greek emperor had concluded with Genoa, with which
he now declared war. This treaty is dated in June, 1265, about a month
before Charles of Anjou received the crown of the Two Sicilies from the
pope in the Lateran. The stipulations are remarkable both in a political
and commercial light. The emperor engaged to expel the Genoese from
Constantinople, and not to conclude peace with them except in concert
with the republic. The Venetians engaged to hire their galleys to the
emperor to serve even against the pope, the king of France, and Charles
of Anjou, as well as against the republics of Genoa, Pisa, and Ancona,
and any prince or community that might attack the Greek Empire.
At length, in the year 1275, the emperor Michael formed a new alliance
with the Genoese; but, in order to prevent their making the streets of
Constantinople again the scene of their disorders, he obliged them to
establish their factory at Heraclea, on the Propontis. Some years later
they were allowed to transfer their settlement to Galata, forming a
colony which soon deprived the Greeks of part of their trade in the Black
Sea.
The morbid ambition of Michael Palæologus was not satisfied until he was
sole emperor. In defiance, therefore, of the repeated oaths by which
he had sworn to respect the rights of his ward, his colleague, and his
sovereign he availed himself of the first favourable moment to dethrone
the unfortunate boy who had been left neglected at Nicæa. On Christmas
Day, 1261, the agents of Michael deprived Joannes IV of his sight, though
he had not attained the age of ten, and he was declared to have forfeited
the throne. The cruel and perjured emperor then ordered him to be
immured in the fort of Dacybiza, where he remained neglected, and almost
forgotten, for eight-and-twenty years, when his solitude was broken in
upon by Andronicus, the bigoted son of the hypocritical Michael. The
conscience of the bigot was uneasy on account of his father’s crimes,
of which he was enjoying the fruit; so by a few kind words he easily
induced his imprisoned victim to make what was falsely termed a voluntary
cession of all his rights to the imperial crown. The evil consequences of
this crime were deeply felt in the empire; for the clergy, the nobility,
and the people, had all participated in the system of corruption and
peculation by which Michael VIII had smoothed the way for his usurpation.
The violation of every sentiment of honour, patriotism, and virtue was
so iniquitous that the public character of the Greek nation was degraded
by its obsequiousness on this occasion; and the feelings of the people
in the provinces of the east, as well as in western Europe, avenged the
misfortunes of Joannes. Michael Palæologus had hitherto been regarded
as a bold, frank, and generous prince; he henceforward showed himself a
timid, hypocritical, and cruel tyrant.
The patriarch Arsenius, who was one of the guardians of the dethroned
emperor, considered himself bound to protest against the injustice and
perjury of Michael. He convoked an assembly of the prelates resident
in Constantinople, and proposed that the reigning emperor should be
excommunicated by the synod; but too many of the clergy had been
participators in the intrigues of Michael, and were enjoying the rewards
of their subserviency, for such a measure to meet with any support.
Arsenius, therefore, on his own authority as patriarch, interdicted
Michael from all religious rites; but he did not venture to pronounce
the usual form of words, which deprived him of the prayers of the
orthodox. The Greek church, under the Palæologi, was tainted with the
same spirit of half measures and base tergiversation which marks the
imperial administration. The emperor accepted the modified censure of
the church as just, and hypocritically requested that his penance might
be assigned. By obtaining his dispensation in this manner, he expected
that public opinion would render the church an accessary after the fact,
while he secured to himself an additional guarantee for the enjoyment of
the fruits of his crime. Confident in his power, he punished with cruelty
all who ventured to express publicly their compassion for their dethroned
emperor.
Though the family of Vatatzes had been unpopular among the nobility, it
was beloved by the Asiatic Greeks, and especially by the mountaineers
of Bithynia. The people in the vicinity of Nicæa took up arms to avenge
Joannes IV, and their insurrection was suppressed with great difficulty.
A blind boy, who was found wandering in the neighbourhood, was supposed
to be their legitimate sovereign, the victim of Michael’s treachery.
The warlike peasantry flew to arms, and rendered themselves masters
of the forts and mountain passes. The advance of the imperial troops
sent to suppress the revolt was impeded by those famous archers who had
previously formed one of the most effective bodies in the emperor’s army.
Every ravine was contested, and every advantage dearly purchased. The
imperial troops at last subdued the country by adopting the policy by
which the Turks extended their conquests. The habitations were destroyed,
and the forests were burned down, so that the native population had
no means of obtaining subsistence, while the soldiers of Michael
became masters of the country, under the cover of their widespread
conflagrations. The resources of this flourishing province were ruined,
and its population was so diminished that, when the Ottoman Turks
attacked the empire, the renowned archers of Bithynia and the mountain
militia had ceased to exist.
THE PROVINCES OF THE EMPIRE
The change which is visible in the condition of the Asiatic provinces
of the empire towards the end of the reign of Michael VIII must be
attentively observed. When he mounted the throne, the power of the
Seljuk empire was so broken by the conquests of the Moguls, and the
energy of the Greek population was so great, in consequence of the wise
government of Joannes III and Theodore II, that the Greeks under the
Turkish dominion seemed on the eve of regaining their independence.
Azeddin Kaikus II, sultan of Iconium, was an exile; his brother
Rokneddin ruled only a small part of the Seljuk empire of Rum; for
Hulaku, the brother of the great khans Mangku and Kublai, possessed the
greater part of Asia Minor, and many Turkish tribes lived in a state of
independence. The cruelty and rapacity of Michael’s government, and the
venality and extortion which he tolerated among the imperial officers
and administrators, arrested the progress of the Greek nation, and
prepared the way for its rapid decline. The jealousy which Michael showed
of all marks of national independence, and the fear he entertained of
opposition, are strong characteristics of his policy. So rapacious was
the imperial treasury that the historian Pachymeres, though a courtier,
believed that the emperor Michael systematically weakened the power of
the Greek population from his fear of rebellion. The consequence was that
the whole country beyond the Sangarius, and the mountains which give rise
to the Rhyndacus and Macestus, were occupied by the Turks, who were often
invited by the inhabitants to take possession of the small towns.
[Illustration: A TWELFTH CENTURY CROSS-BOW]
As the reign of Michael VIII advanced, the encroachments of the nomad
Turks became more daring. Joannes Palæologus, who had for some time
restrained their incursions, was by his brother’s jealousy deprived of
all military command; and Andronicus, the emperor’s eldest son, was sent
to the frontier as commander-in-chief. In the year 1280 the incapacity
of the young prince threw all the imperial provinces open to invasion.
Nestongus, who commanded in the city of Nyssa, was defeated and taken
prisoner. Nyssa was taken, and the Turks then laid siege to Tralles,
which had been recently rebuilt and repeopled. The Turks at last formed a
breach in the walls by sapping, and then carried the city by storm. The
inhabitants who escaped the massacre were reduced to slavery.
About the same time Michael VIII usurped his place on the throne of the
Greek Empire, a small Turkish tribe made its first appearance in the
Seljuk empire. Othman, who gave his name to this new band of immigrants,
is said to have been born in the year 1258, and his father, Ertogrul,
entered the Seljuk empire as the chief of only four hundred families;
yet Orkhan, the son of Othman, laid the foundations of the institutions
and power of the Ottoman empire. No nation ever increased so rapidly
from such small beginnings, and no government ever constituted itself
with greater sagacity than the Ottoman; but no force or prudence could
have enabled this small tribe of nomads to rise with such rapidity to
power, had it not been that the emperor Michael and the Greek nation
were paralysed by political and moral corruption, and both left behind
them descendants equally weak and worthless. When history records that
Michael Palæologus recovered possession of Constantinople by accident, it
ought also to proclaim that, by his deliberate policy, he prepared the
way for the ruin of the Greek race and the conquest of Constantinople
by the Ottoman Turks. There is no other instance in history of a nation
so numerous, so wealthy, and so civilised, as the Greeks were in the
fourteenth century, having been permanently subdued by an enemy so
inferior in political and military resources. The circumstance becomes
the more disgraceful, as its explanation must be sought in social and
moral causes.
[Sidenote: [1261-1271 A.D.]]
The rebellion of his subjects in Asia made Michael anxious to secure
peace in Europe. In order to counterbalance the successes of the despot
of Epirus, and dispose him to conclude a treaty, Michael resolved to
release the Prince of Achaia, who had been taken prisoner at the battle
of Pelagonia in 1259. William Villehardouin, prince of Achaia, was freed,
by the destruction of the Latin Empire of Romania, from those feudal
ties which connected him with the throne of Baldwin II. To obtain his
liberty, he consented to become a vassal of the Greek Empire, and he
re-established the imperial power in the Peloponnesus, by delivering up
to Michael the fortresses of Monemvasia, Misithra, and Maina. On swearing
fidelity to Michael VIII he was released from captivity, after having
remained a prisoner for three years. The pope, however, was so much
alarmed at this example of a Catholic prince becoming a vassal of the
Greek emperor, that as soon as the Prince of Achaia was firmly settled
in his principality, his holiness absolved him from all his oaths and
obligations to the Greek emperor. Pope Urban IV even went so far as to
proclaim a crusade against Michael, and to invite St. Louis to take the
command; but the king of France, who was much more deeply imbued with the
Christian spirit than the pope, declined the office. The crusade ended in
a partisan warfare between the prince of Achaia and the governors Michael
had placed in the fortresses of which he had gained possession in the
Peloponnesus.
The conquest of Naples by Charles of Anjou threatened the Greek Empire
with a new invasion. Under the auspices of Clement IV a treaty was
concluded between the dethroned emperor Baldwin, Charles of Anjou,
and William, prince of Achaia, by which Baldwin ceded to Charles the
suzerainty of Achaia, and the prince agreed to transfer his allegiance
from the titular emperor to the king of Naples, who had already obtained
the absolute sovereignty of Corfu, and of the cities of Epirus, given
by the despot Michael II as dowry to his daughter, who married Manfred,
king of Sicily. In return, Charles of Anjou engaged to furnish Baldwin
with a force of two thousand knights and their followers, to enable him
to invade the Greek Empire. This treaty was concluded at Viterbo on the
27th of May, 1267. Its stipulations alarmed Michael Palæologus, who had
already involved himself in ecclesiastical quarrels with his subjects;
and in order to delay an attack on Constantinople, he sent an embassy
to Pope Clement IV, proposing measures for effecting a union of the
Greek and Latin churches. On this occasion Michael was relieved from
fear by Conradin’s invasion of the kingdom of Naples, which enabled him
to conclude a truce with the prince of Achaia. He then neglected his
overtures to the pope, and turned all his attention to fitting out a
fleet, which he manned with _gasmuli_, Tzaconians, and Greeks of the
Archipelago. The insincere negotiations of Michael for a union with the
Roman church were often renewed under the pressure of fear of invasion
from abroad, and dread of insurrection at home. The weakness caused
by the opposition of the Greek clergy and people to his authority,
encouraged the enterprises of his foreign enemies, while the entangled
web of his diplomacy, taking a new form at every change of his personal
interests, at last involved him so inextricably in its meshes that he had
no means of concealing his bad faith, cruelty, and hypocrisy.
[Sidenote: [1271-1282 A.D.]]
In the year 1271 the treachery of Andronicus Tarchaniotes, the emperor’s
nephew, reanimated the war in Thessaly. Having invited the Tatars to
invade the empire from the north, he abandoned Mount Hæmus, of which he
was governor, to their ravages, and fled to Joannes Ducas, prince of
the Vlakhs, his father-in-law, whom he persuaded to invade Thessaly.
The emperor sent his brother, Joannes Palæologus, with an army of forty
thousand men and a fleet of sixty-three galleys, to re-establish the
imperial supremacy. Joannes Ducas was besieged in his capital, Neopatras,
and the place was reduced to the last extremity, when the prince passed
through the hostile camp in the disguise of a groom, to seek assistance
from his Latin allies. Leading a horse by the bridle he walked along,
crying out that his master had lost another horse, and would reward the
finder. When he reached the plain of the Sperchius he mounted his horse,
and gained the territory of the Frankish marquis of Boudonitza. The duke
of Athens furnished him with a band of three hundred knights, and he
returned to Neopatras with such celerity that he surprised the imperial
camp, and completely dispersed the army. Joannes Palæologus escaped to
Demetriades (Volo), where his fleet was stationed. A squadron composed
of Venetian ships, and galleys of the duke of Naxos and of the barons
of Negropont, was watching the imperial fleet. On hearing of the total
defeat of the army they attacked the admiral Alexius Philanthropenus in
the port, and were on the point of carrying the whole Greek fleet by
boarding, when Joannes Palæologus reached the scene of action with a part
of the fugitive troops. He immediately conveyed a large body of soldiers
to the ships, and reanimated the sailors. The Latins were compelled to
retire with the loss of some of their own ships, but they succeeded in
carrying off several of the Greek galleys.
In the following year the imperial fleet, under the command of Zacharia,
the Genoese seigneur of Thasos, defeated the Franks near Oreus in Eubœa
and took Jean de la Roche, duke of Athens, prisoner. But, on the other
hand, Joannes Ducas again routed the army in Thessaly, and by his
activity and military skill rendered himself the most redoubted enemy
of Michael; so that, when the majority of the Greek population declared
openly against the emperor’s project for a union with the Latin church,
the prince of Wallachian Thessaly became the champion of the orthodox
church, and assembled a synod which excommunicated Michael VIII (1277).
In the year 1278 Charles of Anjou would in all probability have besieged
Constantinople, had he not been prevented by the express commands of his
suzerain, Pope Nicholas III, who was gained over by Michael’s submission
to expect the immediate union of the Greek with the papal church. But the
elevation of Martin IV to the see of Rome changed its policy. The emperor
Michael was excommunicated, and, to render the excommunication more
insulting, he was reproached with persecuting the Greeks who consistently
abstained from his own delusive compliances. Michael revenged himself by
ceasing to pray for the pope in the Eastern churches.
A league was now formed between the pope, the king of Naples, and the
republic of Venice, for the conquest of the Greek Empire, and a treaty
was signed at Orvieto on the 3rd of July, 1281. The danger was serious.
Charles of Anjou promised to furnish eight thousand cavalry, and the
Venetians engaged to arm forty galleys, in order to commence operations
in the spring of 1283. In the meantime a body of troops, under the
command of Solimon Rossi, was despatched to occupy Dyrrhachium and assist
the Albanians, who had recently revolted against Michael. This expedition
proved unsuccessful; Rossi was taken prisoner while besieging Belgrade
(Berat), and the Neapolitans and Albanians were completely defeated.
But the Greek emperor could only intrigue to avert the great storm with
which he was threatened by the treaty of Orvieto, and in the end he was
saved by the deeds of others. The Sicilian Vespers delivered the Greeks
from all further fear of Charles of Anjou and of a French invasion, and
Michael was able to smile at the impotent rage of Martin IV, and despise
his excommunications.
The vicinity of the Bulgarians, joined to their national power and
influence over the numbers of their countrymen settled in the Greek
Empire, gave Michael some uneasiness at the commencement of his reign.
Constantine, king of Bulgaria, had married a sister of the dethroned
emperor Joannes IV, and he was induced, by the feelings of his wife, by
the intrigues of the fugitive sultan of Iconium, and by the hopes of
assistance from the Mogul emperor, Hulaku, to attack the Greek Empire.
Michael took the field against the Bulgarians, and in the year 1265
drove them beyond Mount Hæmus. A treaty which the emperor concluded
with a powerful Tatar chief named Nogay, and civil dissension among the
Bulgarians, relieved Michael from all serious danger on his northern
frontier during the remainder of his reign. The affairs of Servia, also,
gave the emperor very little trouble.
The period of Greek history embraced in the present chapter of this work,
extending through the century and a half during which the empire of
Constantinople was ruled with despotic sway by the dynasty of Palæologus,
is the most degrading portion of the national annals. Literary taste,
political honesty, patriotic feeling, military honour, civil liberty,
and judicial purity, seem all to have abandoned the Greek race, and
public opinion would in all probability have had no existence--it
would certainly have found no mode of expression--had not the Greek
church placed itself in opposition to the imperial government, and
awakened in the breasts of the Greek people a spirit of partisanship on
ecclesiastical questions which prepared the way for the open expression
of the popular will, if not for the actual formation of public opinion.
The church was converted into an arena where political and social
discontent of every kind arrayed their forces under the banners of
orthodoxy, heresy, or schism, as accident or passion might determine.
The anxiety of the emperor Michael VIII to be relieved from the
ecclesiastical censures pronounced by the patriarch Arsenius against
him, for his treachery to his pupil and sovereign Joannes IV, was
the commencement of his disputes with the Greek church, and of his
negotiations with the popes. Michael solicited the patriarch to impose
some penance on him which might expiate his crime, but Arsenius could
suggest nothing but reparation. The emperor considered this tantamount
to a sentence of dethronement, and he determined to depose Arsenius.
Arsenius was deposed, and exiled to Proconnesus. Germanus, the bishop of
Hadrianopolis, a mild and learned prelate, was named his successor.
Even in his banishment Arsenius was considered to be the lawful patriarch
by the majority of the orthodox, and he was visited by thousands who were
anxious to hear his words and receive his blessing. The emperor was eager
to punish him, but his popularity rendered it dangerous to attempt doing
so in an arbitrary way. A conspiracy was discovered against the emperor’s
life, and some of the accused, when put to the torture, declared that
Arsenius was implicated in the plot. The examination of the affair was
remitted to a synod, which gratified the emperor by excommunicating
Arsenius without waiting for his conviction. Germanus interceded for his
predecessor. Arsenius was absolved from the accusation, and a pension of
three hundred bezants was allowed him for his subsistence, granted from
the privy purse of the empress; for it was believed that Arsenius would
accept nothing from the excommunicated emperor.
[Illustration: TWELFTH CENTURY KNIGHT, IN COAT OF MAIL]
The courtiers of Michael were as active in their intrigues as the
emperor. A party in the church declared that the election of Germanus
was invalid, for he had been removed from the see of Hadrianopolis in
violation of the canon which prohibits the translation of a bishop from
one see to another. The emperor’s confessor, Joseph, pronounced that
the new patriarch could not grant a legal absolution to the emperor
in consequence of this defect in his title to the patriarchal throne.
Germanus soon perceived that both Michael and Joseph were encouraging
opposition to his authority. He immediately resigned, and Joseph was
named his successor. The emperor received his absolution as a matter of
course. The ceremony was performed at the gates of St. Sophia’s. Michael,
nearly at the patriarch’s feet, made his confession, and implored pardon.
The patriarch read the form of absolution. This form was repeated by
every bishop in succession, and the emperor knelt before each in turn and
received his pardon. He was then admitted into the church, and partook of
the Holy Communion. By this idle and pompous ceremony the Greeks believed
that their church could pardon perjury and legitimatise usurpation.
About this time the treaty of Viterbo drew the attention of Michael from
the schism of the Arsenites to foreign policy, and his grand object
being to detach the pope from the alliance with Charles of Anjou, he
began to form intrigues, by means of which he hoped to delude the pope
into the persuasion that he was anxious and able to establish papal
supremacy in the Greek church; while, on the other hand, he expected
to cheat the Eastern clergy into making those concessions which he
considered necessary for the success of his plans, on the ground that
their compliance was a mere matter of diplomacy. Gregory X knew that it
would be easier to effect the union of the Greek and Latin churches by
the instrumentality of a Greek emperor than of a foreign conqueror. He
therefore prohibited Charles of Anjou, who held the crown of Naples as
his vassal, from invading the empire; but he forced Michael, by fear of
invasion, to assemble a synod at Constantinople, in which, by cruelty
and violence, the emperor succeeded in obtaining an acknowledgment of
the papal supremacy. The severest persecution was necessary to compel
the Greeks to sign the articles of union, and many families emigrated
to Wallachian Thessaly and to the empire of Trebizond. The union of the
Greek and Latin churches was completed in the year 1274 at the Council of
Lyons.[86]
[Sidenote: [1274-1280 A.D.]]
When the news of this submission reached Constantinople there was a
general expression of indignation. The patriarch Joseph, who opposed
the union, was deposed, and Veccus, an ecclesiastic of eminence, who
had recently become a convert to the Latin creed, was named in his
place. The schisms in the Greek church were now multiplied, for Joseph
became the head of a new party. Veccus, however, assembled a synod,
and excommunicated those members of the Greek clergy who refused to
recognise the pope as the head of the church of Christ. Nicephorus,
despot of Epirus, and his brother, Joannes Ducas, prince of Wallachia,
protected the orthodox. Both were excommunicated; and the emperor sent
an army against Joannes Ducas, whose position in Thessaly threatened the
tranquillity of Macedonia; but the imperial officers and troops showed no
activity in a cause which they considered treason to their religion, and
many of the emperor’s own relations deserted.
By a series of intrigues, tergiversation, meanness, and cruelty, Michael
succeeded in gaining his immediate object. Nicholas III, who ascended
the papal throne in 1277, formally refused Charles of Anjou permission
to invade the Greek Empire, and sent four nuncios to Constantinople to
complete the union of the churches. The papal instructions are curious as
an exposition of the political views of the court of Rome, and display
astute diplomacy, acting at the suggestions of grasping ambition, but
blinded by ecclesiastical bigotry. The first object was to induce all the
dignitaries of the Greek church to sign the Roman formulary of doctrine,
and to persuade them to accept absolution for having lived separate from
the Roman communion; the second, to prevail on the emperor to receive a
cardinal legate at Constantinople.
Before the arrival of the pope’s ambassadors, the arbitrary conduct of
Michael had involved him in a quarrel with his new patriarch, Veccus,
whom he was on the point of deposing. All Michael’s talents for intrigue
were called into requisition, to prevent the Greek clergy from breaking
out into open rebellion during the stay of the pope’s ambassadors,
and conceal the state of his relations with Veccus, who stood high at
the court of Rome. Bribes, cajolery, and meanness on his part, and
selfishness and subserviency on the part of the Eastern clergy, enabled
him to succeed. But the death of Nicholas III in 1280 rendered his
intrigues unavailable. Martin IV, a Frenchman, devoted to the interests
of Charles of Anjou, became pope. He openly displayed his hatred of the
Greeks, and excommunicated Michael as a hypocrite, who concealed his
heresy. While Martin IV openly negotiated the treaty of Orvieto, Michael
secretly aided the conspiracy of Procida.
[Sidenote: [1281-1282 A.D.]]
The condition of the Greek emperor was almost desperate. He was
universally detested for his exactions and persecutions, and a numerous
and bigoted party was ready to make any foreign attack the signal for a
domestic revolution. The storm was about to burst on Michael’s head, when
the fearful tragedy of the Sicilian Vespers broke the power of Charles of
Anjou.
Michael then quitted his capital to punish Joannes Ducas, whom he
considered almost as a rival; but death arrested his progress at
Pachomion, near Lysimachia in Thrace, on the 11th of December,
1282, after a reign of twenty-four years. He was a type of the
Constantinopolitan Greek nobles and officials in the empire he
re-established and transmitted to his descendants. He was selfish,
hypocritical, able, and accomplished; an inborn liar, vain, meddling,
ambitious, cruel, and rapacious. He is renowned in history as the
restorer of the Eastern Empire; he ought to be execrated as the corrupter
of the Greek race, for his reign affords a signal example of the extent
to which a nation may be degraded by the misconduct of its sovereign,
when it entrusts him with despotic power.
ANDRONICUS II (1282-1325 A.D.)
[Sidenote: [1282-1301 A.D.]]
Andronicus II ascended the throne at the age of twenty-four, having been
born about the time his father received the imperial crown at Nicæa. He
had most of the defects of his father’s character, without his personal
dignity and military talents. In youth he was destitute of vigour, in
old age of prudence. His administration was marked by the same habits of
cunning and falsehood which had distinguished his father’s conduct; and
the consequence was that, towards the end of his long reign, he was as
generally despised as his father had been hated. In his private character
he was arbitrary, peevish, and religious; in his public administration
despotic, fond of meddling, industrious, and inconsequent.
Andronicus, eager to efface the stain of his own sinful compliance
with the union of the churches, allowed the body of his father to be
deprived of the usual funeral honours and public prayers. The empress,
Michael’s widow, was compelled to abjure the union, and to approve of
the indignities to his memory, before her own name was inserted in the
public prayers for the imperial family. The patriarch Veccus was forced
to resign, and his predecessor Joseph was reinstated on the patriarchal
throne.
The bigotry of Andronicus induced him to sanction the establishment of
a tribunal consisting chiefly of monks, which was empowered to fix the
penance to be performed by those who desired to obtain absolution from
a general sentence of excommunication, launched against all who had
communicated with the Latin church. As nearly the whole population of
the empire had fallen under this sentence of excommunication, the power
of the tribunal was unlimited. The rich were mulcted according to the
sensibility of their conscience and the malice of their enemies, while
ecclesiastics obnoxious to the bigots were suspended from the exercise of
their functions.[87]
During the earlier years of the reign of Andronicus the power of the
Turks excited no alarm. The garrisons in the frontier fortresses were
reduced, the number of the legions was diminished, and many of the ships
kept ready for service by Michael VIII were laid up in the arsenal.
Andronicus required all the money he could divert from the military and
naval services for the court and the church. The officers could only gain
advancement by becoming courtiers; the soldiers could only avoid neglect
by becoming monks. The army of Andronicus consisted principally of Alans,
Gasmuls, Turks, Turkopuls, and refugee Cretans. The Alans received double
the pay of the best native troops. The armies with which the emperors of
Nicæa had defeated the Turkish Sultans, the Latin emperors, the kings of
Bulgaria, and the French knights of Achaia and Athens were now disbanded
and neglected. The state maxim of imperial Rome that no man who paid
the land tax should be allowed to bear arms, was again revived, and
mercenaries and Turks plundered the Greek Empire, as the Goths and Huns
had plundered the Roman.
[Illustration: A TWELFTH CENTURY CATAPULT]
The Greek Empire of Constantinople, at the accession of Andronicus II,
embraced the whole coast of Asia Minor, from the mouth of the Sangarius
to the Rhodian Peræa; but the nomad tribes who lived under the Seljuk
dominion were daily pushing their incursions further and further into
the Greek territories. In the year 1296, the regular army of the empire
continued to maintain a decided superiority in the field over any
force the Turks could bring into action; but the carelessness of the
emperor, who left the troops in Asia without pay, caused this neglected
army to break out into rebellion. The Turkish mercenaries in its ranks
plundered the Greek landlords; the Cretans sold their services to the
highest bidder. Alexius Philanthropenus, who had successfully resisted
the Seljuk tribes, was proclaimed emperor by his rebellious troops, but
allowed himself to be taken prisoner, and was deprived of sight. His
successor, Joannes Tarchaniotes vainly attempted to reform the abuses,
which rendered the army more oppressive to the emperor’s subjects than
dangerous to his enemies. The anarchy that prevailed in the civil,
military, and ecclesiastical administration, rendered him powerless, and
he was compelled to abandon the undertaking.
In the year 1301, Michael, the eldest son of Andronicus, who had received
the imperial title from his father in 1295, took the command of the army
in Asia; and about the same time a body of veteran warriors entered the
imperial service, who, under an able general, would have secured victory
to the Greeks. Andronicus allowed a colony of Alans to settle in his
dominion, and about eight thousand, who had served in the Tatar wars
beyond the Danube, were enrolled in the Byzantine service. After a short
term of service, they mutinied, deserted the camp and marched to the
Hellespont, plundering the Greek inhabitants of the country they passed
through. The young emperor then broke up his own camp, and, abandoning
his headquarters at Magnesia on the Hermus, retired to Pergamus, leaving
the Turkish tribes to extend their plundering expeditions as far as
Adramyttium, Lampsacus, and Cyzicus.
[Sidenote: [1301-1303 A.D.]]
About the same time the Venetians and Genoese, who were carrying on war,
were so emboldened by the weakness of the Greek Empire and the neglected
state of its marine that they pursued their hostilities in the port
of Constantinople, while private vessels plundered the islands of the
Propontis within sight of the palace of Andronicus, and compelled him to
ransom the captive inhabitants by parading them before the walls of the
capital, suspended from the rigging of their ships.
Rapid conquests were now made by the Seljuk emirs and a destructive
warfare against the Greek race was carried on by the nomad tribes,
who were more anxious to exterminate the agricultural population than
to subdue them. The Greeks were everywhere in despair. In the empire
of Trebizond, matters were not much better than in the empire of
Constantinople. But it was in the provinces between Nicomedia and Smyrna,
along the Propontis and the Ægean, that the greatest confusion reigned.
The roads to the coast were covered with fugitives from the interior,
endeavouring to save their property and families. Thousands were left
to perish from want, and thousands died from suffering. Whole provinces
were deserted by their inhabitants, and became pasture lands for hordes
of Turkomans. In the course of a single generation, the Greek race and
language disappeared from countries in which it had been spoken for two
thousand years, and Turkish colonies took possession of Æolis and Ionia.
Andronicus II witnessed these dreadful calamities with feelings benumbed
by piety; even the extermination of the orthodox failed to animate his
energy.
After twelve years of preparation, Othman ventured to attack the regular
army of the Greek Empire, in the year 1301. The action took place at
Baphæon, near Nicomedia. Pachymeres estimates the number of the imperial
troops commanded by Muzalon at only two thousand, while the forces of
Othman consisted of five thousand. The Greek infantry fled, and their
misconduct was attributed to the dissatisfaction caused by the manner in
which they had been deprived of their horses. The Alans fought bravely
and covered the retreat to Nicomedia. Othman now laid waste the whole
of Bithynia, from Nicomedia to Lopadion. The suburbs of the town on
the Asiatic shores of the Bosporus were burned by the Ottomans, whose
foraging parties were sometimes visible from the towers of the imperial
palace in Constantinople.
The disgraceful retreat of his son Michael to Peges, induced Andronicus
to change the military governors in Asia, instead of teaching him the
necessity of reforming the military system. The command of Nicomedia was
entrusted to a Tatar chief who had recently embraced Christianity; and
by the marriage of this Tatar’s daughter with Suleiman, a Turkish emir,
peace was restored to a small district and a barrier was formed against
the incursions of Othman. But the unemployed Turkish troops transferred
their services to other leaders, and carried on their incursions in
more distant provinces. This preference of a Tatar general indicates a
deep-rooted distrust of the courage and fidelity of the Greek nobles,
as well as contempt for their military skill; and, indeed, a factious
spirit, directed to personal interest, could alone have caused the
insensibility to national honour which made the nobles and the troops
submit tamely to the insults they received from their emperor. Well might
the brave old Spaniard Muntaner declare that God had stricken the Greek
race with his curse, for every one could trample them down.
A new crisis in the fate of the Byzantine Empire suddenly presented
itself by the arrival of an army of Spaniards, composed chiefly of
Catalans and men of Aragon; but this race of strangers, hitherto unknown
in the East, soon disappeared from the scene. They came and departed
as if they were under the guidance of the destroying angel. In daring
courage, steady discipline, and military skill, they were not surpassed
by any Greek or Roman army. Their warlike deeds entitled them to rank
as a host of heroes; their individual acts made them appear a band of
demons. They had proved invincible on every field of battle. They had
broken the lances of the chivalry of France in many a well-fought action;
and they were firmly convinced that no troops on earth could encounter
their shock. Guided by a sovereign like Leo III, or like Basil II, they
might have conquered the Seljuk Turks, strangled the Ottoman power in its
cradle, and carried the double-headed eagle of Byzantium victorious to
the foot of Mount Taurus, and to the banks of the Danube, but Andronicus
could neither make use of their valour, nor secure their obedience. His
own senseless intrigues roused their hostile feelings; and after they had
made every tribe in the Seljuk empire tremble for a moment, they turned
on the Greek Empire, where they carried on their inhuman ravages with a
degree of cruelty and rapacity which history cannot attempt to portray.
They laid both the empire and the Greek nation prostrate in the dust,
bleeding with wounds from which they never recovered.
The Catalan Grand Company--for that is the name by which this Spanish
army is known in the Eastern history--consisted of troops formed in the
twenty years’ war that followed the Sicilian Vespers.[c]
THE CATALAN GRAND COMPANY
[Sidenote: [1303-1307 A.D.]]
After the peace of Sicily many thousands of Genoese, Catalans, etc., who
had fought by sea and land under the standard of Anjou or Aragon, were
blended into one nation by the resemblance of their manners and interest.
They heard that the Greek provinces of Asia were invaded by the Turks;
they resolved to share the harvest of pay and plunder, and Frederick king
of Sicily most liberally contributed the means of their departure. In a
warfare of twenty years, a ship or a camp was become their country; arms
were their sole profession and property; valour was the only virtue which
they knew; their women had imbibed the fearless temper of their lovers
and husbands; it was reported that, with a stroke of their broad-swords,
the Catalans could cleave a horseman and a horse; and the report itself
was a powerful weapon.
Roger de Flor was the most popular of their chiefs; and his personal
merit overshadowed the dignity of his prouder rivals of Aragon. The
offspring of a marriage between a German gentleman of the court of
Frederick the Second and a damsel of Brindisi, Roger was successively
a templar, an apostate, a pirate, and at length the richest and most
powerful admiral of the Mediterranean. He sailed from Messina (Messana)
to Constantinople, with eighteen galleys, four great ships, and eight
thousand adventurers; and his previous treaty was faithfully accomplished
by Andronicus the elder, who accepted with joy and terror this formidable
succour. A palace was allotted for his reception, and a niece of
the emperor was given in marriage to the valiant stranger, who was
immediately created great duke or admiral of Romania. After a decent
repose, he transported his troops over the Propontis, and boldly led them
against the Turks; in two bloody battles thirty thousand of the Moslems
were slain; he raised the siege of Philadelphia, and deserved the name of
the deliverer of Asia.
But after a short season of prosperity, the cloud of slavery and ruin
again burst on that unhappy province. The inhabitants escaped (says a
Greek historian) from the smoke into the flames; and the hostility of
the Turks was less pernicious than the friendship of the Catalans. The
lives and fortunes which they had rescued, they considered as their own;
the willing or reluctant maid was saved from the race of circumcision
for the embraces of a Christian soldier; the exaction of fines and
supplies was enforced by licentious rapine and arbitrary executions; and,
on the resistance of Magnesia, the great duke besieged a city of the
Roman Empire. These disorders he excused by the wrongs and passions of a
victorious army; nor would his own authority or person have been safe had
he dared to punish his faithful followers, who were defrauded of the just
and covenanted price of their services.
The threats and complaints of Andronicus disclosed the nakedness of the
empire. His golden bull had invited no more than five hundred horse and
a thousand foot soldiers; yet the crowds of volunteers, who migrated to
the East, had been enlisted and fed by his spontaneous bounty. While his
bravest allies were content with three byzants, or pieces of gold, for
their monthly pay, an ounce or even two ounces of gold were assigned to
the Catalans, whose annual pension would thus amount to near £100 [$500];
one of their chiefs had modestly rated at three hundred thousand crowns
the value of his future merits; and above a million had been issued from
the treasury for the maintenance of these costly mercenaries. A cruel tax
had been imposed on the corn of the husbandman; one-third was retrenched
from the salaries of the public officers; and the standard of the coin
was so shamefully debased that of the four-and-twenty parts only five
were of pure gold.
At the summons of the emperor, Roger evacuated a province which no longer
supplied the materials of rapine; but he refused to disperse his troops;
and while his style was respectful, his conduct was independent and
hostile. The grand duke of Romania condescended to accept the title and
ornaments of cæsar; but he rejected the new proposal of the government of
Asia with a subsidy of corn and money, on condition that he should reduce
his troops to the harmless number of three thousand men. Assassination is
the last resource of cowards. The cæsar was tempted to visit the royal
residence of Hadrianopolis; in the apartment, and before the eyes of the
empress, he was stabbed by the Alan guards (1307).
The loss of their leader intimidated the crowd of adventurers, who
hoisted the sails of flight and were soon scattered round the coasts of
the Mediterranean. But a veteran band of fifteen hundred Catalans, or
French, stood firm in the strong fortress of Gallipoli on the Hellespont,
displayed the banners of Aragon, and offered to revenge and justify
their chief by an equal combat of ten or a hundred warriors. Instead of
accepting this bold defiance, the emperor Michael, the son and colleague
of Andronicus, resolved to oppress them with the weight of multitudes;
every nerve was strained to form an army of thirteen thousand horse and
thirty thousand foot, and the Propontis was covered with the ships of the
Greeks and Genoese. In two battles by sea and land, these mighty forces
were encountered and overthrown by the despair and discipline of the
Catalans; the young emperor fled to the palace; and an insufficient guard
of light horse was left for the protection of the open country.
Victory renewed the hopes and numbers of the adventurers; every nation
was blended under the name and standard of the Grand Company; and three
thousand Turkish proselytes deserted from the imperial service to join
this military association. In the possession of Gallipoli the Catalans
intercepted the trade of Constantinople and the Black Sea, while they
spread their devastations on either side of the Hellespont over the
confines of Europe and Asia. To prevent their approach, the greatest
part of the Byzantine territory was laid waste by the Greeks themselves;
the peasants and their cattle retired into the city: and myriads of
sheep and oxen, for which neither place nor food could be procured,
were unprofitably slaughtered on the same day. Four times the emperor
Andronicus sued for peace, and four times he was inflexibly repulsed,
till the want of provisions and the discord of the chiefs compelled the
Catalans to evacuate the banks of the Hellespont and the neighbourhood of
the capital. After their separation from the Turks, the remains of the
great company pursued their march through Macedonia and Thessaly, to seek
a new establishment in the heart of Greece.[b]
At this point we may take a glance briefly at the history of Athens,
which fell into the hands of the Catalans.[a]
THE DUCHY OF ATHENS
[Sidenote: [1204-1311 A.D.]]
In the partition of the empire in 1204 the principality of Athens
and Thebes had been assigned to Otto de la Roche, a noble warrior of
Burgundy, with the title of “great duke,” which the Latins understood in
their own sense, and the Greeks more foolishly derived from the age of
Constantine. Otto followed the standard of the marquis of Montferrat;
the ample state which he acquired by a miracle of conduct or fortune was
peaceably inherited by his son and two grandsons, till the family, though
not the nation, was changed, by the marriage of an heiress into the elder
branch of the house of Brienne.
WALTER DE BRIENNE AND CEPHISUS
[Sidenote: [1311-1456 A.D.]]
The son of that marriage, Walter de Brienne, succeeded to the duchy of
Athens; and with the aid of some Catalan mercenaries, whom he invested
with fiefs, he successively reduced above thirty castles of the vassal or
neighbouring lords.
But when informed of the approach and ambition of the great company, he
collected a force of seven hundred knights, sixty-four hundred horse,
and eight thousand foot, and boldly met them on the banks of the river
Cephisus in Bœotia, March 15, 1311. The Catalans amounted to no more than
thirty-five hundred horse, and four thousand foot; but the deficiency
of numbers was compensated by stratagem and order. They formed round
their camp an artificial inundation; the duke and his knights advanced
without fear or precaution on the verdant meadow; their horses plunged
into the bog; and he was cut in pieces, with the greatest part of the
French cavalry. His family and nation were expelled; and his son Walter
de Brienne, the titular duke of Athens, the tyrant of Florence, and the
constable of France, lost his life in the field of Poitiers.
Attica and Bœotia were the rewards of the victorious Catalans; they
married the widows and daughters of the slain; and during fourteen years
the great company was the terror of the Grecian states. Their factions
drove them to acknowledge the sovereignty of the house of Aragon; and,
during the remainder of the fourteenth century, Athens, as a government
or an appanage, was successively bestowed by the kings of Sicily. After
the French and Catalans, the third dynasty was that of the Acciajuoli, a
family plebeian at Florence, potent at Naples, and sovereign in Greece.
Athens, which they embellished with new buildings, became the capital of
a state that extended over Thebes, Argos, Corinth, Delphi, and a part
of Thessaly; and their reign was finally determined by Muhammed II, who
strangled the last duke and educated his sons in the discipline and
religion of the seraglio.[b]
To return now to the affairs of the Byzantine emperors.
ANDRONICUS II TO THE RESTORATION OF THE PALÆOLOGI (1311-1355 A.D.)
[Sidenote: [1311-1320 A.D.]]
The Turkish auxiliaries returned home after the battle of Cephisus, 1311,
in order to enjoy the wealth they had amassed in the expedition. The
emperor Andronicus allowed them to pass through the empire unmolested, on
condition that they refrain from every act of pillage, and they reached
the shore of the Hellespont, escorted by a corps of three thousand Greek
cavalry. The imperial government could never act either with honesty or
boldness. A plot was framed to disarm the Turks as they were waiting
for vessels to transport them over to Asia; but the Greeks were now so
universally distrusted that their plots had little chance of succeeding,
for everybody suspected their treachery and watched their proceedings.
The Turks learned their danger, surprised a neighbouring fort, and
commenced plundering the country. The emperor Michael attacked them with
the Greek army, but defeat was his invariable companion. Khalil, the
Turkish general, was a soldier formed in the severe discipline of the
Catalan camp; his superior generalship and the perfect tactics of his
troops gained a complete victory. The camp, baggage, and imperial crown
of Michael became the spoil of the conquerors. Khalil gleaned the remains
of the Catalan ravages.
[Illustration: THIRTEENTH CENTURY CROSS-BOW]
Philes Palæologus, a man remarkable for his virtue, afflicted by the
sufferings of his fellow-countrymen, solicited the emperor for permission
to serve against the Turks. Andronicus, though he placed more confidence
in his piety than in the military operations he proposed, conferred
on him the office of protostrator and authorised him to levy an army.
The success of Philes proves that the ruin of the empire was caused
by the folly of Andronicus and the corruption of the government.
Philes enrolled only veteran Greek soldiers, and selected officers
of experience, without reference to birth and court favour. Constant
exercise and strict discipline soon restored the spirit of the Byzantine
army, and Philes led his men to encounter a plundering expedition of the
Turks in the vicinity of Bizya, commanded by Khalil in person. A bloody
battle ensued, for the Turks were too much accustomed to vanquish the
Greeks to yield without a desperate contest. Philes, however, remained
master of the field, and followed up his success with such vigour that
he soon besieged the Turks in their fortified camp, while the Byzantine
fleet, aided by eight Genoese galleys, blockaded them by sea. After a
fierce struggle, the camp was taken; the greater part of the Turks were
slain by the Greeks: the remainder were sold as slaves by the Genoese.
The affair occurred in the year 1315. It may be considered as the last
scene of the Catalan expedition, so that for twelve years the greater
part of the Greek Empire of Constantinople had been plundered and
devastated by the Catalan Grand Company and its Turkish auxiliaries.
Other enemies had taken advantage of the weakness of the empire during
this calamitous period. The Seljuk Turks had almost completed the
conquest of Asia Minor; the Ottomans had extended their possessions on
the southern shores of the Propontis; the Genoese arrogated to themselves
the possession of several cities and islands, and various chiefs seized
different towns that were left without garrisons to defend them, and
lived in a state of piratical independence. Every bond of society
appeared to be dissolved in the countries inhabited by the Greek race,
and every stranger, whether Mussulman or Christian, thought himself
strong enough to subdue the Greeks.
The most important conquest of the time, however, was that of Rhodes,
by the Knights Hospitaller of St. John of Jerusalem, both from its
durability and from the renown of the conquerors. Andronicus sent an
army to raise the siege; but his troops were defeated, and the knights
took the city of Rhodes on the 15th of August, 1310. As sovereigns of
this beautiful island they were long the bulwark of Christian Europe
against the Turkish power; and the memory of the chivalrous youth who,
for successive ages, found an early tomb at this verge of the Christian
world, will long shed a romantic colouring on the history of Rhodes. They
sustained the declining glory of a state of society that was hastening
to become a vision of the past; they were the heroes of a class of which
the Norse sea-kings had been the demigods. The little realm they governed
as an independent state consisted of Rhodes, with the neighbouring
islands of Cos, Calymnos, Syme, Leros, Nisyros, Telos, and Chalce; on the
opposite continent they possessed the classic city of Halicarnassus, and
several strong forts, of which the picturesque ruins still overhang the
sea.
The emperor Andronicus II displayed the same want of sound judgment and
right feeling in his private that he did in his public conduct, and
his latter days were embittered by family disputes caused by his own
folly and injustice. His second wife, Irene of Montferrat, persecuted
him with demands to dismember the empire, in order to form appanages
for her children. Andronicus resisted her solicitations at the expense
of a quarrel, and Irene long lived separated from him at Thessalonica.
The emperor Michael allowed his father to control the arrangements of
his family and regulate his private actions. Michael’s eldest son was
named Andronicus. He was the third emperor of the name who occupied the
Byzantine throne, but he is known in history generally as Andronicus the
Younger. When a child, he was an especial favourite with his grandfather,
who directed his education. That education was undoubtedly a mixture of
unwise indulgence and capricious restraint. The young Andronicus grew up
a dissipated youth, and his debauched habits produced a terrible tragedy
in his family. He was informed that his favourite mistress admitted
another lover, and he employed bravos to waylay his rival. It happened
that on that very night his own brother Manuel hastened quickly to the
lady’s house, where he expected to find Andronicus. The assassins mistook
the despot for the lover, and Manuel was murdered on the spot. The
dreadful news reached their father Michael at Thessalonica, where he was
residing in a declining state of health. Anguish soon terminated his life
(1320).
[Sidenote: [1320-1321 A.D.]]
The young Andronicus was now heir-apparent to the empire, if the
expression be admissible in a state without a fixed order of hereditary
succession. But the murder of Manuel changed the affection of the old
emperor into implacable hatred, and it was generally thought that the
reigning sovereign had the power of naming his successor. The emperor
Michael VIII had introduced the custom that a new oath of allegiance
should be taken, whenever a change occurred in the order of succession.
When Michael, the son of Andronicus II, died, the new oath was
administered in the name of Andronicus II alone, and did not contain that
of Andronicus III, who was the direct heir. It also contained a clause
promising implicit obedience to whomsoever he might declare emperor.
These circumstances indicated that he intended to exclude his grandson
from the throne; nor was he long in selecting a favourite on whom it
was supposed he intended to confer the imperial title. The choice was
marked by the singular perverseness which characterised many of his
most important acts. He had compelled his second son Constantine to
marry the daughter of his favourite minister, Muzalon. The incidents
of this union were both ridiculous and disgraceful. The lady had been
destined to be the bride of Theodore, the emperor’s brother, when it was
discovered that she had already indulged in illicit intercourse with
one of her relatives, and would have presented the imperial family very
prematurely with an intruder. Theodore broke off the match; but the
emperor, moved by his attachment to the father, and by the penitence
of the fair sinner, subsequently compelled his own son Constantine to
marry her. The young prince thought himself entitled to have a bastard
as well as his wife. The youth was named Michael Catharus, and became
so great a favourite with his grandfather, the emperor Andronicus, that
he showed a disposition to adopt him as the heir to the empire, but the
representations of his ministers prevented this act of folly.
[Sidenote: [1321-1332 A.D.]]
The government of the old emperor was now generally unpopular; and as
he was suspected of being anxious to prevent his grandson Andronicus
from succeeding to the throne, the cause of the prince was made the
rallying-point of the discontented. The most distinguished partisans
of Andronicus the Younger were Cantacuzenus the historian, a man
of the highest rank, of extensive connections among the Byzantine
aristocracy, of great wealth, ability, and military as well as literary
accomplishments, but devoured by ambition, and overflowing with cunning
and self-conceit; Synadenus, a man of equal rank and talent; and Sir
Janni, a man of superior boldness and ability, but with a want of fixed
principles and steady conduct that gave him the character of a political
adventurer. With these it is necessary to mention Apocaucus, who was
the ablest administrator and financier of the party. The intrigues of
the partisans of the young prince did not escape the attention of the
emperor’s ministers, who would, doubtless, have maintained order by
arresting the most dangerous, had not Andronicus been more anxious to
punish his grandson, by depriving him of all chance of succeeding to
the empire, than to prevent a rebellion. He now resolved to bring the
prince to a public trial; and on Palm Sunday, 1321, the young Andronicus
was unexpectedly summoned to the palace of Blachernæ. His partisans
comprehended that the crisis of their own fate, as well as that of
the prince, must be decided before sunset. Cantacuzenus and Synadenus
accordingly assembled their followers, and filled the palace with a force
that so completely intimidated both the judges and the emperor that the
prince was pardoned, and a feigned reconciliation took place between the
grandfather and the grandson.
Andronicus II resolved to remove Cantacuzenus and Synadenus from his
grandson’s society, for he justly considered them as the authors of
the plots against his government. Cantacuzenus was named governor of
Thessaly, and Synadenus was sent to Prilapos. These officers collected
as many troops as they were able under the pretence of repairing to
their posts; and when their levies were completed they marched to
Hadrianopolis, where the young Andronicus joined them and raised the
standard of rebellion.
[Illustration: A FOURTEENTH CENTURY CATAPULT]
The prince was popular; he gained the people by proclaiming that the
province of Thrace was exempt from some of the most onerous taxes, and
his mercenaries enabled him to advance against Constantinople. But
his soldiers, who cared little for political questions, pillaged the
inhabitants wherever they passed; bands of robbers began to lay waste
the villages which had escaped destruction from the Catalans and the
Turks, and the collectors of the public revenue, availing themselves of
these disorders, embezzled the money in their hands. Cantacuzenus says
that the young Andronicus was averse to march against his grandfather,
fearing lest his army should storm Constantinople. In order, therefore,
to prevent his grandfather from being dethroned, he wrote secretly to
the old emperor to advise that measures might be concerted to turn aside
the first ardour of his own troops. A treaty was concluded at Rhegium,
where the prince had established his headquarters, by which the rights of
Andronicus the Younger to the succession of the empire were recognised,
and he was invested with the government of Thrace from Selymbria to
Christopolis as his appanage.
This peace was of very short duration. The exactions of the prince’s
troops, and the intrigues of Sir Janni and the emperor induced several
cities of Thrace to desert the party of the young Andronicus. Heraclea
received an imperial garrison, and the prince, finding that his cause was
losing ground, assembled his army and laid siege to the city in November,
1321. His troops had clamoured for the renewal of the war during the
summer; they were averse to keep the field in winter, so that, when the
attack on Heraclea was defeated, the prince marched up to the walls of
Constantinople. He had now few partisans in the capital, and he was soon
compelled to retire into winter quarters at Didymoteichos. A new treaty
of peace was concluded at Epibates in July, 1322, which removed some of
the causes of dissatisfaction to both parties.
On the 2nd of February, 1325, Andronicus the Younger received the
imperial crown. This may be considered a proof that the ministers of the
emperor had persuaded him to stifle all his resentment, and lay aside his
schemes for excluding his grandson from the throne. But in the following
year the two emperors allowed the city of Prusa to be taken by the
Ottoman Turks, without either making an effort to relieve it. This fact
seemed to prove that neither could allow his best officers and troops to
succour this important city, lest his colleague should take advantage of
their absence. Intrigues followed intrigues.
The civil war was renewed under circumstances extremely unfavourable
to the old emperor, whose conduct rendered it inevitable. The people
were universally disgusted with his despotism and injustice, and the
young Andronicus seems to have expected that they would have immediately
admitted him into Constantinople. Finding that this could not be
effected, he hastened into Macedonia in the midst of winter, leaving
the protostrator Synadenus to blockade the capital. Liberal promises of
reduced taxation, and the assurance that all arrears due to the imperial
treasury should be cancelled, insured his entry into most of the towns,
and rendered his march a triumph. Thessalonica, Edessa, Castoria, Berœa,
Pelagonia, Achrida, and Deabolis, opened their gates. The krall [king] of
Servia, who consulted his own interest, refused to assist the officers
of the reigning emperor, and took advantage of the confusion to gain
possession of the frontier fortress of Prosacon. Strumbitza and Melenicon
were the only strong places that remained in the possession of the
partisans of Andronicus II.
While these events happened, Synadenus gained a complete victory over
the garrison of Constantinople, on its making an attempt to raise the
blockade. When the news of this victory reached Andronicus, he hastened
to the army before the walls of the capital. Treasonable assistance was
soon secured, and on the night of Monday, May 23rd, 1328, a party of
soldiers scaled the walls; the garrison joined in proclaiming Andronicus
III; the gates were thrown open, and the young emperor marched directly
to the imperial palace to assure his grandfather that, though he had
ceased to govern, he would be treated with all the honour due to a
sovereign prince.
Two years after the taking of Constantinople, Andronicus III was attacked
by a serious illness, and his ministers feared lest his grandfather
might again recover the throne. To prevent the possibility of this
event, Synadenus compelled the old man to become a monk, and to sign a
declaration that he would never again mount the throne, nor pretend to
dispose of the empire in case of his grandson’s death. Andronicus II had
already lost the use of his eyes, and this, his last public act, was
signed with two crosses, one in red ink as emperor and another in black
as a humble monk. The patriarch Isaiah sent to congratulate him on his
change of life: the petulant old man regarded this message as an insult,
and sent back some violent and probably not unjust reproaches to the head
of the church. His name continued to be mentioned in the public prayers
as the most religious and most Christian basileus, the monk Antony. One
evening, after a literary party at which his daughter Simonida was
present, he was suddenly seized with an illness which soon terminated his
life. He expired on the 13th day of February, 1332, in the seventy-fourth
year of his age.
[Sidenote: [1332-1352 A.D.]]
Andronicus II was a man who, with few personal vices, possessed many of
the worst qualities of a sovereign. He had capacity enough to direct the
whole civil and ecclesiastical business of the empire, but was destitute
of the judgment necessary to direct it well. He rarely took a right step,
and never at the proper time; so that his petulant pride and pedantic
despotism proved more ruinous to the empire than the worst vices of many
of his predecessors. His ecclesiastical bigotry especially served as an
instrument of providence for effecting the ruin and degradation of the
orthodox Eastern church, and of the Greek race. That the Greeks allowed
themselves to be so long misled and oppressed by so worthless and weak a
sovereign, may perhaps be accepted as a proof that the nation was sunk in
selfishness and bigotry like the emperor.[c]
Andronicus III, now absolute monarch, showed great bravery against the
Turks, but he could not stay their progress in Anatolia, nor prevent
their descents on Europe. Neither could he complete the conquest of
Epirus nor live at peace with his neighbours on the peninsula.
He died in 1341, leaving his son, Joannes V (Palæologus), a minor,
under the regency of his wife, Anne of Savoy. The lord chamberlain,
Cantacuzenus, affected at first to protect them, but his protégés soon
found him too powerful. They got up scandals about him, imprisoned his
relatives, allowed the houses of his partisans to be destroyed. These
latter forced him to take the crown under the title of Joannes VI. Civil
war again broke out in the empire. Cantacuzenus allied himself with
Stephen, krall of Servia, and with Omur Beg, the Seljuk emir of Ionia.
Anne of Savoy asked help from the latter’s rival, Orkhan, sultan of the
Ottomans.
Intrigue alternated with massacre. Cantacuzenus contrived to gain over
this same Orkhan by giving him his daughter Theodora. On both sides the
infidels were authorised to carry off Byzantine subjects, and the ports
and vessels of the empire were placed at their disposal to enable them
to transport their captives into Asia. The foreigners took advantage of
the general anarchy to oppress the provinces and towns. The krall of
Servia conquered Macedonia as far as Pheræ, and called himself czar of
the Greeks and Servians. The Genoese retook Chios, which Andronicus III
had seized from them, and blockaded Constantinople, defended by other
Italians, under Facciolati.
The latter, whilst the empress was giving a banquet to her partisans,
opened the Golden Gate to Cantacuzenus. Anne was obliged to come to an
agreement. It was arranged that Cantacuzenus should be emperor first, but
only for ten years; that is, until Joannes V attained his twenty-first
year. The partisans of neither side were satisfied with this transaction.
So feeble was the empire that the Genoese ventured to impose their
own will in the very capital. Cantacuzenus had tried to reconstruct
an Hellenic navy, and attempted to bring a little life into the port
of Byzantium by lowering the port dues. The Genoese considered this
injurious to their Galatian colony. They massacred the crew of a Grecian
ship, and exacted that a large territory adjoining Galata should be ceded
to them. A war followed, which lasted four years (1348-1352). To fight
the Genoese the Greeks had called in Venetian and Catalan fleets. A
bloody naval battle was fought under the very walls of the town, and the
Greeks were victorious. Cantacuzenus had to capitulate (May 6, 1352) and
give them all they demanded.
Civil war also soon recommenced. The whole country was horribly
ravaged. An Ottoman army under Suleiman (Solyman), son of Orkhan and in
Cantacuzenus’ pay, carried off the inhabitants by thousands. Joannes V
was despoiled of his authority and private domains; in the room of the
fallen prince, Matthias, son of Joannes VI, was associated with his
father and crowned emperor at St. Sophia (1354). Then, in 1355, with
the concurrence of Francesco Gattilusio and other Genoese, Palæologus
surprised and entered Constantinople. He had to negotiate.
Joannes V and Joannes VI continued to live in the palace with equal
authority. Matthias was to keep the crown for life, as well as
Hadrianopolis. Lesbos had ceded its full sovereignty to Gattilusio (1355).
Joannes VI did not feel at all secure. Perhaps he felt remorse for having
brought so many evils on the empire; perhaps he had a fit of religious
fervour and contempt for worldly things, but at any rate he donned the
monkish garb and retired into the convent of Mangana (1355). He only came
out to join his prayers to the threats of Joannes V in order to make
Matthias lay aside the purple (1357).
By the abdication to which he had forced his son, the legitimate order of
succession resumed its course in the house of Palæologus. Unhappily, the
Greek Empire of the fourteenth century was not strong enough to stand the
shocks of civil war. Irreparable losses in men, money, and territory were
inflicted on her. Genoa and Venice were driving their talons deeper and
deeper into her enfeebled body. The Greek Morea, and even Thessalonica,
had grown used to doing as they would. Finally, the different parties had
shown the Ottomans methods which they were not likely to forget.[88]
THE CRUSADE OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY
[Sidenote: [1343-1391 A.D.]]
Latin Europe alone could have saved the Greek Empire, but in the
fourteenth century she was worn out by wars with nation after nation,
by the antagonism between the Roman pope and the Avignon pope, and even
between council and council. When a sovereign pontiff appeared authorised
to speak in the name of Europe, he imposed, as the first condition to an
uncertain union, the recognition of his supremacy by the Eastern church.
It would take too long to recall all the crusading projects which were
raised in the papal court of Avignon, and in that of the French kings
from Philippe le Bel to Philippe VI of Valois. Under Benedict XII, a
fleet was placed under the orders of the legate Henry, patriarch _in
partibus_ of Constantinople. Smyrna was taken from the Ionian emir, Omur
Beg (1343). Fifty-two pirate ships were destroyed by the Christian fleet
in sight of Athos (1344).
In 1366 Amadeus VI of Savoy, uncle of Joannes V, appeared in Byzantine
waters. He took Gallipoli and Sozopolis from the Turks, repulsed an
invasion of the Bulgarians, took from them Mesembria and Varna, and
dictated a peace. In 1390, Louis II of Clermont, duke of Bourbon, landed
at Tunis, Africa (Mehadia), but failed in the assault.
Thus in the West the crusading spirit was not yet extinct. Many of these
crusades inspired little love for the Grecian Empire. Among the numerous
projects presented to the popes and western sovereigns, there was one
urging that the conquest of Byzantium was an indispensable preliminary to
delivering the Holy Land.
Joannes V Palæologus hoped, although this formidable Western sword was in
so many hands, to turn it against the enemies of the empire. So pressing
was the danger, that the head of the orthodox church had to consent to go
and kneel at Rome before Pope Urban V (1369). Unfortunately the resources
of the pope had been exhausted by the last enterprise. At Venice Joannes
V had to borrow, at high interest, enough money to continue his journey.
After a fruitless tour in the south of France, as Joannes V was passing
through Venice, quite unable to repay the loan, he was imprisoned at
the request of his creditors. Thus the sacred person of the heir of
Constantine the Great was kept in pledge by Venetian usurers.
THE EMPIRE TRIBUTARY TO THE TURKS
[Sidenote: [1369-1391 A.D.]]
Joannes V had two sons, between whom he had divided his dominions
beforehand. The elder, Andronicus, had been associated with the emperor;
the second, Manuel, was governor of Thessaly. The emperor first addressed
himself to the elder, begging him to collect funds for his ransom.
Andronicus coldly replied that the treasury was empty. In truth, he was
in no hurry to hasten the return of his father and colleague. Manuel had
more pity. He mortgaged his lands and sent the money.
When Joannes returned to Constantinople he rewarded the two sons
according to their deserts. Andronicus he disgraced, and associated
Manuel with him in the empire. Abandoned by all his supporters, he
consented to pay tribute to Murad I in 1381. Then, under the weight of
crushing necessities, he had to sustain a further humiliation. Besides
the tribute, he promised Murad to furnish a military contingent, and to
give him one of his sons as hostage.
The Greek Empire now found itself in exactly the same position with
regard to the Turks as the Russian princes were in relation to the khans
of the Golden Horde. Like the princes of Moscow, Tver, and Ryazan, the
basileus only existed by submitting to humiliations; like them, he
had to cringe to the horde. His situation was worse than theirs; the
khan only asked from the Russian _kniazes_ tribute, obedience, and a
military contingent. What more could he find to tempt his avarice in
poverty-stricken Russia? The relations of the sultan and the basileus
were not the same. The one could not pardon the other for perpetuating
his memory in a city that was to be the capital of the new empire. The
exactions were therefore more severe, the humiliations more cruelly
calculated, the desire for spoliation was inextinguishable. Joannes V
ended his miserable life in 1391, and his son Manuel succeeded him.
Of all the Palæologi, Manuel was the most cultivated and the most
generous. He only felt the more shame at the degradation of the times.
Perhaps he may best be compared with the Russian prince, Alexander
Nevski.[e]
FOOTNOTES
[85] [Well may Gelzer[f] comment on this event, “The very worst friend of
the Greeks did not see that the regaining of Constantinople was the true
beginning of the national misfortune.”]
[86] The ceremony took place on the 2nd February, 1267.--PACHYMERES,[d]
I, 207. The power of Michael was despotic, and his conduct arbitrary
in the extreme. To render Veccus and Xiphilinus amenable to his
ecclesiastical reasoning, he ordered their houses to be destroyed and
their vineyards to be rooted out.--PACHYMERES,[d] I, 151, 165.
[87] [We may here omit, as more properly belonging to religious history,
the procession of patriarchs whom Andronicus raised to power and who
fairly cudgelled one another with excommunications. Veccus was deposed
for Joseph, who yielded to Gregorius, against whom the Arsenites
conspired; he fell, and Athanasius lasted four years, leaving wholesale
excommunication in a jar, which was not found for four years, and caused
immense confusion and terror until Athanasius said he had revoked it some
years before as secretly as he had invoked it. He was then restored for a
time, till he was forced out for Nephon, who set a better table than the
emperor. Glycys followed, and then Gerasimus, who was chosen because he
was old and deaf, but he died in a year. His successor was Isaiah, whose
failure to be compliant brought on many of the troubles of the later
civil wars.]
[88] [The fate of the empire was sealed when Murad took Hadrianopolis in
1361, following this the next year with the capture of Philippopolis and
Serres.]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XI
MANUEL II TO THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE
[1391-1453 A.D.]
MANUEL II (1391-1399 A.D.)
The emperor Manuel was at Brusa[89] when he heard of his father’s death.
He was generally esteemed, being neither destitute of talent nor personal
courage, while his disposition was mild and conciliatory. Before Bajazet
was informed of the death of Joannes V the new emperor had made his
escape, and reached Constantinople in safety; but the sultan treated him
as a rebellious vassal in consequence of his secret departure. Joannes
Palæologus, the son of Andronicus, who had succeeded his father in the
appanage of Selymbria, was encouraged to claim the empire in virtue of
the treaty of 1381, by which the succession had been secured to his
father and himself. A body of Turkish troops was instructed to ravage the
Greek territory up to the very walls of Constantinople; but other matters
calling for Bajazet’s care, he accepted the submission of Manuel, and the
Greek emperor again appeared as a vassal at the Sublime Porte.
The ambition of Bajazet was unbounded, and his love of war was inflamed
by an inordinate confidence in his own military talents, and in the power
of the Ottoman army. He despised the Christians, and considered it his
first duty to reduce them to the condition of subjects, if not of slaves.
The position of Manuel was therefore as dangerous as it was degrading;
for although the spectacle of a Roman emperor standing as a suppliant
before his throne soothed the pride of Bajazet, it was apparent that his
vanity would readily yield to his ambition, if an opportunity presented
of gaining Constantinople.
[Sidenote: [1395-1399 A.D.]]
For several years Bajazet was employed consolidating his dominions both
in Europe and Asia, and he was compelled to watch the movements of the
western powers, which threatened him with a new crusade. At last, when
Sigismund, king of Hungary, was about to invade the Ottoman dominions,
the sultan convoked an assembly of the Christian princes who were then
his vassals, in order to prevent their combining to assist the invaders.
Manuel, the Greek emperor, Joannes, despot of Selymbria, Theodore, despot
of the Peloponnesus, Stephen, king of Servia, Constantine Dragazes,
the son of Tzarco, prince of the valley of the Vardar, and several
Greek, Servian, Bulgarian, and Albanian chiefs of less importance,
who were already independent, appeared in the Ottoman camp at Serres.
Circumstances induced the emperor Manuel and the despot Theodore to
believe that their correspondence with the pope was known to the sultan,
and that their lives were in danger. They both fled, and gained their
own states in safety. Joannes of Selymbria remained to profit by the
flight of his uncles; but Bajazet could only attend to the Hungarian
war. His brilliant victory at Nicopolis in 1396 taught all Europe that
the discipline of the janizaries was more than a match for the valour
of the chivalry of France, and left him at liberty to punish the Greek
princes for their desertion. He immediately turned his arms against the
despot Theodore, and marched in person into Thessaly. The bishop of
Phocis was the first traitor who joined the Mussulmans, and urged them to
conquer Greece. The Wallachians of Thessaly and the widow of the count
of Galona submitted to the terms imposed on them; and the sultan, seeing
that no resistance would be offered to his troops by the Greeks in the
Peloponnesus, turned back to Thrace. His generals, Yakub and Evrenus,
took Corinth and Argos; while Theodore shut himself up within the walls
of Misithra, and contemplated the ruin of his subjects without making
an effort to save them. The Ottoman army, after ravaging great part of
the peninsula, retired, carrying away immense booty and thirty thousand
prisoners, whom they sold as slaves.
As Bajazet was not master of a sufficient naval force to attempt
blockading Constantinople, he resolved to undermine the power of Manuel
in such a way as would be least likely to awaken the jealousy of the
commercial republics of Italy. He fanned the flames of family discord,
which shed their lurid light on the records of the house of Palæologus
by acknowledging Joannes, despot of Selymbria, as the lawful emperor of
Constantinople and supplying him with a Turkish army to blockade Manuel
by land.
The emperor Manuel, as soon as he saw that war with Bajazet was
inevitable, had sent an ambassador to solicit assistance from Charles
VI king of France. The marshal de Boucicault, who had already served
with distinction in the East, and had been taken prisoner by Bajazet at
Nicopolis, was appointed to command the forces which Charles VI sent to
assist the Greek emperor. Boucicault sailed from Aigues-Mortes, and after
some delay effected his junction with a fleet composed of eight Genoese,
eight Venetian, two Rhodian galleys, and one of Mytilene, and proceeded
to Constantinople, where he arrived in 1398. The arrival of Boucicault
and his little army, which consisted of six hundred men-at-arms,
without horses, six hundred infantry soldiers, and one thousand archers
and cross-bowmen, revived the courage of the Greeks. The Genoese and
Venetians were well acquainted with the Ottoman coast, and all under
the direction of Constantinople carried on a succession of plundering
incursions along the Asiatic coast, from the gulfs of Nicomedia and
Mudania to the shores of the Black Sea. It was evident that this system
of warfare could not long uphold the empire, and Boucicault, finding the
Greeks incapable of making any exertions in their own defence, advised
Manuel to seek assistance from the western nations. This advice would
have in all probability arrived too late, had not the Ottoman power at
this moment been threatened by the great Tatar conqueror, Timur. The
sultan was therefore as much inclined to conclude a temporary peace
as the emperor. The pretensions of Joannes of Selymbria were the only
obstacle, and Manuel overcame this difficulty by a generous resolution.
He opened communications with his nephew, whom he easily convinced
that, if he entered Constantinople with Turkish troops, his reign would
prove of short duration. He then offered to receive Joannes as his
colleague, and invest him with the government, while he himself visited
western Europe. The marshal Boucicault guaranteed these arrangements,
and a French force remained in the capital to protect the interests of
Manuel during his absence. On the 4th of December, 1399, Joannes entered
Constantinople, and was proclaimed emperor, and on the 10th, Manuel
quitted his capital with Boucicault to present himself as a suppliant at
the European courts.
[Sidenote: [1399-1410 A.D.]]
Manuel II gained very little by his mendicant pilgrimage to Italy,
France, and England. Some valuable presents were bestowed upon him by
Visconti, the magnificent duke of Milan, and Charles VI of France granted
him a pension of thirty thousand crowns; but he was compelled to return
to Constantinople at the end of two years, with a little money and a
few volunteers collected from people poorer and not more numerous than
the Greeks. He learned on his way home that his enemy Bajazet had been
defeated by Timur at Angora, and that the Ottoman Empire was utterly
ruined. On reaching Constantinople he deprived his nephew Joannes, who
had ruled during his absence, of the imperial title, and banished him
to Lemnos. Joannes had already placed the Greek Empire in a state of
vassalage to the Tatar conqueror; Manuel ratified the treaty, and paid to
Timur the tribute which he had formerly paid to Bajazet. Rarely has the
world seen a more total defeat than that sustained by the Ottoman army.
Bajazet died a captive in the hands of Timur.
Rarely has so great a victory produced so little effect on the fate of
the vanquished. For a moment, indeed, the Ottoman power was humbled, and
an opening formed for the revival of the Greek Empire; but no energy
remained in the political organisation of the Hellenic race beyond the
confined sphere of local and individual interests; while the institutions
of Orkhan, surviving the defeats and civil wars of the Ottomans, soon
restored power to their central government, and rendered the sultan again
the arbiter of the fate of Greece.
The civil wars among the sons of Bajazet had no small influence in
prolonging the existence of the Greek Empire. The Ottoman historians
reckon an interregnum of ten years after the battle of Angora, during
which four of the sons of Bajazet contended for the sovereignty.
Suleiman, Isa, and Mousa successively perished, and the youngest of the
family, Muhammed I, at last reunited all his father’s dominions, and
was regarded as his legitimate successor and the fifth sultan of the
Ottomans, including Osman, the founder of the dynasty.
After the battle of Angora, Suleiman sought safety in Constantinople,
where he concluded a treaty with the emperor Manuel in the year 1403, by
which he yielded up Thessalonica, the valley of the Strymon, Thessaly,
and the coast of the Black Sea, as far as Varna, to the Greeks. Joannes
of Selymbria was recalled from Lemnos, and established at Thessalonica
with the title of emperor; but the control of the government was vested
by Manuel in the hands of Demetrius Leontaris, a Byzantine noble. In
return for the cession of these provinces, the emperor furnished Suleiman
with money to collect an army and to establish his authority over the
remainder of the Ottoman dominions in Europe.
[Sidenote: [1410-1421 A.D.]]
But the debauchery of Suleiman at last induced the janizaries to join
Mousa, and Suleiman was slain in attempting to escape to Constantinople,
1410 A.D. The close alliance which had existed between Suleiman and
Manuel induced Mousa to turn his arms against the Greek Empire. He
reconquered all the towns in Macedonia and Thessaly which his brother
had ceded to Manuel, with the exception of Thessalonica and Zeitounion.
Mousa then laid siege to Constantinople; but his operations were
paralysed by the destruction of a naval armament he had fitted out. The
emperor had strengthened the imperial fleet, the command of which he had
entrusted to his natural brother, named also Manuel, a man of courage and
military talents. The admiral gained a complete victory over the Ottoman
fleet; but his brilliant success excited the jealousy of his imperial
brother. On returning to receive the thanks of his country, he was
thrown into prison on an accusation of treason, and remained a prisoner
during the life of his brother. The siege of Constantinople was merely a
succession of skirmishes under its walls, in which several Greek nobles
were slain; and the attention of Mousa was soon exclusively occupied by
the attacks of his brother Muhammed.
Mousa rendered his government as unpopular by his severity as Suleiman
by his debauchery, and many of the Ottoman officers in Europe invited
Muhammed to seize the throne. The emperor Manuel agreed to furnish
transports to convey the Asiatic troops over the Bosporus; but he refused
to admit them into Constantinople, though he allowed them to form their
camp under its walls. The first operations of Muhammed were unsuccessful:
but at last he forced Mousa to retire to Hadrianopolis, who, in the end,
was deserted by all his followers and slain, 1413 A.D. Little more than
ten years had elapsed from the day that Muhammed, then a mere youth,
fled from the field of Angora with only one faithful companion, until he
reunited under his sway nearly all the extensive dominions which had been
ruled by his father. Timur had not perceived the fact that, the tribute
of Christian children being the keystone on which the whole fabric of the
Ottoman power rested, its resources were really much greater in Europe
than in Asia.
[Illustration: A FOURTEENTH CENTURY KNIGHT]
The Greek Empire enjoyed an uninterrupted peace during the reign of
Muhammed I, which lasted until the year 1421; and Manuel devoted his
attention during this period to restoring some order in the public
administration, and to re-establishing the sway of the central authority
in the distant provinces of the empire. After completing his reforms
in the civil, financial, military, and ecclesiastical departments of
Constantinople, he found it necessary to visit the provinces in person,
in order to reduce the local power of the Greek archons within reasonable
bounds. He quitted Constantinople in the month of July, 1413, and
commenced his operations by reducing the island of Thasos, the citadel of
which resisted his little army for two months. The emperor then visited
Thessalonica, where it appears that he remained more than a year. His
nephew Joannes, who was governor of the city, assumed the monastic habit;
but whether he was compelled by the emperor to adopt this step, in order
to allow the new reforms to be carried into execution, is uncertain. The
despot Andronicus, the emperor’s second son, was appointed governor of
Thessalonica. After his father’s death he sold the city to the Venetians
for the sum of fifty thousand sequins.
In March, 1415, Manuel visited the Peloponnesus. The Roman Empire of the
East had shrunk to such pitiful dimensions that the Byzantine province,
which comprised only about three-quarters of that peninsula, was now its
most extensive province. The first care of the emperor was to strengthen
the means of defending this territory by fortifying the Isthmus of
Corinth. He then directed his attention to reforming the abuses which the
feudal tyranny of the Franks and the unprincipled fiscal extortions of
the Greek archons had introduced into the administration. These abuses
were rapidly exterminating the Greek agricultural population, and making
way for the immigration of a ruder class of Albanian labourers.
When we compare the reforms of Manuel with the legislation of Orkhan, we
are astonished at the great intellectual superiority displayed by the
Ottomans at this period. The Greek emperor adopted only a few temporary
devices to arrest the progress of social putrefaction in a diseased
society. His own talents and the energies of his people were incompetent
to make any bold efforts for extirpating the sources of the evil, and for
infusing a spirit of honesty and patriotism into Greek society. Yet the
fact that Greek society as well as the imperial government was rapidly
decaying was generally acknowledged. The despot Theodore, Manuel’s
brother, who died about the year 1407, had felt the task of undertaking
the regeneration of Greece so hopeless, and had found the difficulty of
governing the Peloponnesians so great, that he attempted to sell his
province to the knights of Rhodes, after he had introduced numerous
colonies of Albanians to fill up the void caused by the decrease of the
native population.
From a satirist of the time, we learn that while the emperor Manuel was
occupied in diminishing the power and checking the abuses of the archons
of the Peloponnesus and of the Constantinopolitan officials, many of the
courtiers in his household made a traffic of creating new corruptions
in the administration by selling imperial decrees and golden bulls. The
character of the native Greeks he declares to be equally bad. He says:
“They are formed of three parts: their tongue speaks one thing, their
mind meditates another, and their actions accord with neither.” There can
be no good administration among an utterly demoralised people. When the
emperor returned to Constantinople, he carried with him some of the most
turbulent and intriguing of the Peloponnesian chiefs, who had, previous
to his arrival, contrived to appropriate the greater part of the taxes
levied on the people to their own use. Indeed the most important result
of Manuel’s visit was the introduction of such a degree of order in the
provincial administration, that a fixed sum could be regularly remitted
to the imperial treasury at Constantinople. His son Theodore remained as
his viceroy at Misithra.
[Sidenote: [1421-1431 A.D.]]
The death of Sultan Muhammed I in 1421 involved the empire in a contest
with his son, Murad II. The self-conceit of the Greeks persuaded them
that they could guide the progress of the Ottomans by their superiority
in diplomacy. No experience could teach them that rhetoric and scholastic
learning are feeble arms against military discipline and national
courage. A pretender to the Ottoman throne resided at Constantinople,
named Mustapha, who asserted that he was a son of Bajazet. He was now
acknowledged as lawful sultan, and Manuel concluded with him a treaty,
by which Mustapha promised to restore Gallipoli, the Chalcidice of
Macedonia, and the maritime cities on the Black Sea, while the emperor
engaged to furnish money and military stores. He was abandoned by his
followers, taken prisoner by Murad II, and hanged, in order to convince
the world that he was an impostor.
Murad resolved to punish Manuel for his intrigues. The emperor was now
weakened by age, and the direction of public affairs was in a great
measure entrusted to his son Joannes, who endeavoured to appease the
sultan with abject apologies. Murad gave the imperial ambassadors no
answer until his preparations were completed. He then marched forward and
formed the siege of Constantinople, establishing his own headquarters at
the church of the Fountain, and commencing his lines of circumvallation
in the month of June, 1422. His lines extended from the Golden Gate to
the Wooden Gate; two movable towers were built to assist the storming of
the wall, and cannon were employed by the Ottomans for the first time.
This early artillery, however, was so ill-constructed and ill-served
that it produced little effect. A thousand of the bravest janizaries
fell before the walls; while the Greeks, fighting under cover of their
battlements, lost only 130 killed and wounded. Murad II did not renew
his attack on Constantinople, and the last act of Manuel’s reign was to
sign a treaty of peace, by which Murad left the empire in possession of
a few cities in Thrace, of Thessalonica, and a few forts near the mouths
of the Strymon, Mount Athos, Zeitounion, and some places in Thessaly.
Manuel also engaged to pay the sultan an annual tribute of three hundred
thousand aspers.
Manuel adopted the monastic habit two years before his death, and took
the name of Matthew, but he continued to give his advice on public
affairs. He died in July, 1425, at the age of seventy-seven, after a
reign of thirty-four years.
REIGN OF JOANNES VII (1423-1448 A.D.)
Joannes VII found the Eastern Roman Empire reduced to the city of
Constantinople, a few neighbouring towns, Thessalonica, and a part of
the Peloponnesus. His reign of twenty-three years passed in almost
uninterrupted peace; yet this long period of tranquillity was productive
of no improvement. As far as the revenues both of the government and of
the nation were concerned, the emperor and the people alike consumed,
before the expiration of each year, all that the year had produced.
The diminution of the Greek population contrasted strangely with the
rapid increase of the Ottomans, while their decline in wealth and
industry offered a still more unfavourable point of comparison with
the Genoese colony of Galata. The trade of the Greeks had passed into
the hands of the Italians; the power of the Byzantine emperors was
transferred to the Ottoman sultans. The loss of personal dignity and
courage followed the loss of national honour and power. Plague and
pestilence, as often happens, came as attendants on neglected police, bad
government, and social disorder. In the year 1431 a contagious disease of
fearful mortality decimated the population of Constantinople; and it was
the ninth return of pestilence since the great plague of 1347. Nations,
however, are rarely sensible of their own degradation, and at this time
the Greeks looked on the Latins with contempt as well as hatred; they
despised the western Europeans as heretics, and the Turks as barbarians.
Court processions, religious ceremonies, and national vanity amused and
consoled them as they hastened along the path of degradation and ruin.
All the fortified posts had been destroyed by Murad II when he besieged
Constantinople, and the country, as far as Selymbria, was inhabited only
by a few Greeks engaged in agriculture, who dwelt in open villages. The
Greek empire ended at Selymbria. The frontier territory of the Ottomans
was a similar scene of devastation, the land being tilled by a few
Christian peasants for their Turkish masters.
BRIEF UNION OF THE GREEK AND ROMAN CHURCHES
[Sidenote: [1430-1440 A.D.]]
The conquest of Thessalonica by Sultan Murad in 1430, the quarrels of
the despots Theodore, Constantine, and Thomas in the Peloponnesus, and
the insolence of the Genoese of Galata, who attacked Constantinople
on account of some disputes relating to the Black Sea trade, warned
the emperor Joannes VII that, unless he could secure some efficient
military aid from strangers, the Ottoman power would soon overwhelm the
Greek Empire. The pope was the only sovereign who possessed sufficient
power and influence to obtain effectual aid for the Eastern Empire: but
there was no probability that he would exert that influence, unless the
emperor Joannes consented to the union of the Greek and Latin churches,
and recognised the papal supremacy. In this critical conjuncture the
statesmen and ecclesiastics of rank at Constantinople decided that the
political exigencies of their situation authorised their truckling even
with the doctrines of their church.
In the year 1438 the emperor Joannes and the Greek patriarch made their
appearance at the council of Ferrara. In the following year the council
was transferred to Florence, where, after long discussions, the Greek
emperor and all the members of the clergy who had attended the council,
with the exception of the bishop of Ephesus, adopted the doctrines
of the Roman church concerning the procession of the Holy Ghost, the
addition to the Nicene Creed, the nature of purgatory, the condition of
the soul after its separation from the body until the day of judgment,
the use of unleavened bread in the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, and
the papal supremacy. The union of the two churches was solemnly ratified
in the magnificent cathedral of Florence on the 6th of July, 1439, when
the Greeks abjured their ancient faith in a vaster edifice and under a
loftier dome than that of their own much-vaunted temple of St. Sophia.
The emperor Joannes derived none of the advantages he had expected from
the simulated union of the churches. Pope Eugenius, it is true, supplied
him liberally with money, but his holiness forgot his promise to send a
fleet to defend Constantinople.
On his return Joannes found his subjects indignant at the manner in which
the honour and doctrines of the Greek church had been sacrificed in an
unsuccessful diplomatic speculation. The bishops who had obsequiously
signed the articles of union at Florence, now sought popularity by
deserting the emperor, and making a parade of their repentance, lamenting
their wickedness in falling off for a time from the pure doctrine of
the orthodox church. The only permanent result of this abortive attempt
at Christian union was to increase the bigotry of the orthodox, and
to furnish the Latins with just grounds for condemning the perfidious
dealings and bad faith of the Greeks. In both ways it assisted the
progress of the Ottoman power.
[Sidenote: [1440-1448 A.D.]]
The emperor Joannes, seeing public affairs in this hopeless state,
thought only of keeping on good terms with the sultan. His brother
Demetrius, however, who had accompanied him to Florence, shared his
apostasy, and partaken of the papal bounty, now basely attempted to take
advantage of the popular dissatisfaction with the union. He claimed the
throne as being the first child of Manuel who was a Porphyrogenitus, but
he trusted to gain his ends by the aid of Turkish troops rather than by
the merits of his title or the preference of the Greeks. Collecting a
large force composed of the Turkish nomads, who were ready to join any
standard that offered them an opportunity of plundering and enslaving the
Christians, Demetrius marched to besiege his brother in Constantinople.
Sultan Murad took no direct part in the contest, but he allowed Demetrius
to enrol Turkish troops without opposition, and viewed with satisfaction
a rebellion which tended to weaken the empire. When called upon to choose
between the two brothers, the Greek people acknowledged the superiority
of the reigning emperor. Demetrius, after plundering the suburbs of
Constantinople, saw his army melt away, and was happy to find that his
brother’s moderation and love of peace was so great that he was allowed
to retain his principality at Mesembria with the title of despot.
The deeds of Joannes (Janos) Hunyady might have awakened the Greeks
from their lethargy, had any warlike spirit survived in the nation. The
victory of the Hungarian army at the pass of Isladi, and a war with the
sultan of Karamania, threatened the Ottoman Empire with serious danger;
but the victory of Varna re-established the glory of the sultan’s arms.
Neither the successes of the Hungarians nor the presence of a papal force
in the Hellespont, which at last made its appearance under the command
of Cardinal Gondolmieri, could induce Emperor Joannes to unite his cause
with that of the western powers. He had obtained too many proofs of
the instability and imprudence of their counsels. The moment he heard
of the great victory of Sultan Murad at Varna, he sent an embassy to
congratulate his suzerain, and solicit a renewal of their alliance, which
the sultan immediately granted. Joannes even contrived to avoid taking
part in the war carried on against the sultan by his brother Constantine
in Greece, and succeeded in preserving uninterrupted peace until his
death in 1448. During his inglorious reign of twenty-three years he never
forgot that he was a vassal of the Ottoman Empire. He proved precisely
the temporising manager of the state that circumstances required; and his
pliancy averted, during his lifetime, the calamities which were ready to
overwhelm the Greek Empire.
REIGN OF CONSTANTINE XIII (1448-1453 A.D.)
Constantine XIII, the last of the Greek emperors, was residing in his
despotat at Sparta when his brother Joannes VII died. As he had been
recently engaged in hostilities with the sultan, it was doubtful whether
Murad would acknowledge him as emperor, and Demetrius availed himself of
these doubts to make another attempt to occupy the throne. The deficiency
of truth, honour, and patriotism among the Greek aristocracy during
the last century of the Eastern Empire is almost without a parallel in
history; but Demetrius was too well known and too generally despised to
find a large party even in that worthless aristocracy disposed to espouse
his cause, while Constantine, on the other hand, was known to possess
both candour and energy, and was respected by all except the most bigoted
among the orthodox Greeks.
[Sidenote: [1451 A.D.]]
Sultan Murad II died in February, 1451, after a prosperous reign of
thirty years, and was succeeded by his son Muhammed II, who was only
twenty-one years old. Muhammed II was a man of great ambition and great
talents; he united with extraordinary activity and courage a degree of
judgment rare in his high station, and still rarer at his early age.
The conquest of Constantinople was the first object of his ambition. It
was by nature the capital of his dominions, and as long as it remained
in the hands of the Greeks the Ottoman Empire lay open to the invasions
of the western Christians. Having concluded a truce for three years with
John Hunyady, the young sultan crossed over into Asia to suppress the
hostile proceedings of Ibrahim, the sultan of Karamania.
Constantine, who appears to have formed a very erroneous idea of the
talents and character of Muhammed, took this opportunity of insulting
him in the most sensitive manner by sending an embassy to demand an
augmentation of the pension of three hundred thousand aspers, which the
Ottoman court had accorded to the Greek for the maintenance of Orkhan,
the grandson of Suleiman. The ambassadors were instructed to insinuate
that, if the demand were not granted, Orkhan might be allowed to lay
claim to the Ottoman throne.
[Illustration: MOHAMMED II
(From a medallion in the Royal Muenz Cabinet, Berlin)]
Such an insult was not likely to be ever forgotten by a haughty and
ambitious prince. The wary young sultan, however, dismissed the
ambassadors with courtesy. But as soon as his Asiatic campaign was
finished, he ordered the imperial agents to be expelled from the
territory in the valley of the Strymon which had been assigned for the
maintenance of Orkhan, and stopped all further payments. Shortly after,
without informing Constantine of his intention, he constructed a fortress
on the Greek territory at the narrowest part of the Bosporus, opposite a
fort which had been constructed by Bajazet I on the Asiatic shore. The
distance between the two forts is about three-quarters of a mile, and
a rapid current flows between. The sultan had made every preparation
for completing the work with extraordinary celerity. An ample supply of
materials had been collected before his object was known, and as soon
as the plan of the fortress was marked out, a thousand masons and two
thousand labourers worked incessantly to complete the walls.
Constantine had good reason to consider the construction of this fortress
on his territory, within five miles of his capital, and commanding its
approach from the Black Sea, as an infraction of the treaty between the
two empires, but he was too weak to resent this signal revenge for his
own recent threats. He complained of the hostile invasion of the Greek
territory, but Muhammed treated his reclamations with contempt, observing
that the ground on which the fortress was built, having been purchased
and paid for, was Turkish property, and the emperor of Constantinople,
being a vassal of the Porte, had no right to dispute the will of the
sultan.
The first open resistance was offered by some Greeks, who endeavoured
to prevent Muhammed’s engineers from carrying off the marble columns
from a church. These pious Christians were cut to pieces by the Ottoman
troops. As the work advanced the sultan’s aggressions increased. His
soldiers were allowed to plunder; quarrels ensued in which blood was
shed, and then the Turks attacked the Greeks who were getting in the
harvest, and slew the reapers. Constantine in alarm closed the gates of
Constantinople, cut off all communications between the Greeks and the
Ottomans, and sent another embassy to the sultan to ask redress. Muhammed
replied by a formal declaration of war.
WAR WITH MUHAMMED
[Sidenote: [1451-1452 A.D.]]
Both parties now began to prepare for the mortal contest. The siege
of Constantinople was to be the great event of the coming year. The
sultan, in order to prevent the emperor’s brothers in the Peloponnesus
from sending any succours to the capital, ordered Tourakhan, the pasha
of Thessaly, to invade the peninsula. He himself took up his residence
at Hadrianopolis, to collect warlike stores and siege artillery.
Constantine, on his part, made every preparation in his power for
vigorous defence. He formed large magazines of provisions, collected
military stores, and enrolled all the soldiers he could muster among the
Greek population of Constantinople. But the inhabitants of that city were
either unable or unwilling to furnish recruits in proportion to their
numbers. Bred up in peaceful occupation, they probably possessed neither
the activity nor the habitual exercise which was required to move with
ease under the weighty armour then in use.
So few were found disposed to fight for their country, that not more
than six thousand Greek troops appeared under arms during the whole
siege. The numerical weakness of the Greek army rendered it incapable of
defending so large a city as Constantinople, even with all the advantage
to be derived from strong fortifications. The emperor was, therefore,
anxious to obtain the assistance of the warlike citizens of the Italian
republics, where good officers and experienced troops were then numerous.
As he had no money to engage mercenaries, he could only hope to succeed
by papal influence. An embassy was sent to Pope Nicholas V, begging
immediate aid, and declaring the emperor’s readiness to complete the
union of the churches in any way the pope should direct. Nicholas
despatched Cardinal Isidore, the metropolitan of Kieff, who had joined
the Latin church, as his legate. Isidore had represented the Russian
church at the council of Florence; but on his return to Russia he was
imprisoned as an apostate, and with difficulty escaped to Italy. He was
by birth a Greek; and being a man of learning and conciliatory manners,
it was expected that he would be favourably received at Constantinople.
The cardinal arrived at Constantinople in November, 1452. He was
accompanied by a small body of chosen troops, and brought some pecuniary
aid, which he employed in repairing the most dilapidated part of the
fortifications. Both the emperor and the cardinal deceived themselves in
supposing that the dangers to which the Greek nation and the Christian
church were exposed would induce the orthodox to yield something of their
ecclesiastical forms and phrases. It was evident that foreign aid could
alone save Constantinople, and it was absurd to imagine that the Latins
would fight for those that treated them as heretics, and who would not
fight for themselves. The crisis, therefore, compelled the Greeks to
choose between union with the church of Rome or submission to the Ottoman
power. They had to decide whether the preservation of the Greek Empire
was worth the ecclesiastical sacrifices they were called upon to make in
order to preserve their national independence.
CHURCH DISSENSIONS
[Sidenote: [1452-1453 A.D.]]
In the meantime, the emperor Constantine celebrated his union with the
papal church, in the cathedral of St. Sophia, on the 12th of December,
1452. The court and the great body of the dignified clergy ratified
the act by their presence; but the monks and the people repudiated the
connection. In their opinion, the church of St. Sophia was polluted by
the ceremony, and from that day it was deserted by the orthodox. The
historian Ducas declares that they looked upon it as a haunt of demons,
and no better than a pagan shrine. The monks, the nuns, and the populace
publicly proclaimed their detestation of the union; and their opposition
was inflamed by the bigotry of an ambitious pedant, who, under the name
of Georgius Scholarius, acted as a warm partisan of the union at the
council of Florence, and under the ecclesiastical name of Gennadius is
known in history as the subservient patriarch of Sultan Muhammed II.
On returning from Italy, he made a great parade of his repentance for
complying with the unionists at Florence. He shut himself up in the
monastery of Pantocrator, where he assumed the monastic habit, and the
name of Gennadius, under which he consummated the union between the Greek
church and the Ottoman administration.
At the present crisis he stepped forward as the leader of the most
bigoted party, and excited his followers to the most furious opposition
to measures which he had once advocated as salutary to the church, and
indispensable for the preservation of the state. The unionists were now
accused of sacrificing true religion to the delusions of human policy, of
insulting God to serve the pope, and of preferring the interests of their
bodies to the care of their souls. In place of exhorting their countrymen
to aid the emperor, who was straining every nerve to defend their
country--in place of infusing into their minds the spirit of patriotism
and religion, these teachers of the people were incessantly inveighing
against the wickedness of the unionists and the apostasy of the emperor.
So completely did their bigotry extinguish every feeling of patriotism
that the grand duke Notaras declared he would rather see Constantinople
subjected to the turban of the sultan than to the tiara of the pope. His
wish was gratified; but, in dying, he must have felt how fearfully he
had erred in comparing the effects of papal arrogance with the cruelty
of Mohammedan tyranny. The emperor Constantine, who felt the importance
of the approaching contest, showed great prudence and moderation in his
difficult position. The spirit of Christian charity calmed his temper,
and his determination not to survive the empire gave a deliberate
coolness to his military conduct. Though his Greek subjects often raised
seditions, and reviled him in the streets, the emperor took no notice
of their behaviour. To induce the orthodox to fight for their country,
by having a leader of their own party, he left the grand duke Notaras
in office; yet he well knew that this bigot would never act cordially
with the Latin auxiliaries, who were the best troops in the city; and the
emperor had some reason to distrust the patriotism of Notaras, seeing
that he hoarded his immense wealth, instead of expending a portion of it
for his country.
PREPARATIONS FOR DEFENCE
The fortifications were not found to be in a good state of repair.
Two monks, who had been entrusted with a large sum for the purpose of
repairing them, had executed their duty in an insufficient, and, it was
generally said, in a fraudulent manner. The extreme dishonesty that
prevailed among the Greek officials explains the selection of monks
as treasurers for military objects; and it must lessen our surprise
at finding men of their religious professions sharing in the general
avarice, or tolerating the habitual peculation of others.
Cannon were beginning to be used in sieges, but stone balls were used in
the larger pieces of artillery; and the larger the gun, the greater was
the effect it was expected to produce. Even in Constantinople there were
some artillery too large to be of much use, as the land wall had not been
constructed to admit of their recoil, and the ramparts were so weak as
to be shaken by their concussion. Constantine had also only a moderate
supply of gunpowder. The machines of a past epoch in military science,
but to the use of which the Greeks adhered with their conservative
prejudices, were brought from the storehouses, and planted on the walls
beside the modern artillery. Johann Grant, a German officer, who arrived
with Justiniani, was the most experienced artilleryman and military
engineer in the place.
A considerable number of Italians hastened to Constantinople as soon
as they heard of its danger, eager to defend so important a depot of
eastern commerce. The spirit of enterprise and the love of military
renown had become as much a characteristic of the merchant nobles of the
commercial republics as they had been, in a preceding age, distinctions
of the barons in feudal monarchies. All the nations who then traded with
Constantinople furnished contingents to defend its walls.
A short time before the siege commenced, John Justiniani arrived with two
Genoese galleys and three hundred chosen troops, and the emperor valued
his services so highly that he was appointed general of the guard. The
resident bailo of the Venetians furnished three large galleasses and a
body of troops for the defence of the port. The consul of the Catalans,
with his countrymen and the Aragonese, undertook the defence of the great
palace of Bukoleon and the port of Kontoskalion. The cardinal Isidore,
with the papal troops, defended the Kynegesion, and the angle of the city
at the head of the port down to St. Demetrius. The importance of the aid
which was afforded by the Latins is proved by the fact that, of twelve
military divisions into which Constantine divided the fortifications, the
commands of only two were trusted to the exclusive direction of Greek
officers. In the others, Greeks shared the command with foreigners, or
else foreigners alone conducted the defence.
When all Constantine’s preparations for defence were completed, he found
himself obliged to man a line of wall on the land side of about five
miles in length, every point of which was exposed to a direct attack. The
remainder of the wall towards the port and the Propontis exceeded nine
miles in extent, and his whole garrison hardly amounted to nine thousand
men. His fleet consisted of only twenty galleys and three Venetian
galleasses, but the entry of the port was closed by a chain, the end of
which, on the side of Galata, was secured in a strong fort of which the
Greeks kept possession. During the winter the emperor sent out his fleet
to ravage the coast of the Propontis as far as Cyzicus, and the spirit of
the Greeks was roused by the booty they made in these expeditions.
Muhammed II spent the winter at Hadrianopolis, preparing everything
necessary for commencing the siege with vigour. His whole mind was
absorbed by the glory of conquering the Roman Empire, and gaining
possession of Constantinople, which for more than 1150 years had been
the capital of the East. While the fever of ambition inflamed his soul,
his cooler judgment also warned him that the Ottoman power rested on
a perilous basis as long as Constantinople, the true capital of his
empire, remained in the hands of others. Muhammed could easily assemble
a sufficient number of troops for his enterprise, but it required all
his activity and power to collect the requisite supplies of provisions
and stores for the immense military and naval force he had ordered to
assemble, and to prepare the artillery and ammunition necessary to
insure success. Early and late, in his court and in his cabinet, the
young sultan could talk of nothing but the approaching siege. With
the writing-reed and a scroll of paper in his hand, he was often seen
tracing plans of the fortifications of Constantinople and marking out
positions for his own batteries. Every question relating to the extent
and locality of the various magazines to be constructed in order to
maintain the troops was discussed in his presence; he himself distributed
the troops in their respective divisions and regulated the order of their
march; he issued the orders relating to the equipment of the fleet, and
discussed the various methods proposed for breaching, mining, and scaling
the walls. His enthusiasm was the impulse of a hero, but the immense
superiority of his force would have secured him the victory with any
ordinary degree of perseverance.
The Ottomans were already familiar with the use of cannon. Murad II had
employed them when he besieged Constantinople in 1422; but Muhammed now
resolved on forming a more powerful battering-train than had previously
existed. Neither the Greeks nor the Turks possessed the art of casting
large guns. Both were obliged to employ foreigners. An experienced
artilleryman and founder, named Urban, by birth a Wallachian, carried
into execution the sultan’s wishes. He had passed some time in the Greek
service; but even the moderate pay he was allowed by the emperor having
fallen in arrear, he resigned his place and transferred his services to
the sultan, who knew better how to value warlike knowledge. He now gave
Muhammed proof of his skill by casting the largest cannon which had ever
been fabricated. He had already placed one of extraordinary size in the
new castle of the Bosporus, which carried a ball across the straits. The
gun destined for the siege of Constantinople far exceeded in size this
monster, and the diameter of its mouth must have been nearly two feet
and a half. Other cannon of great size, whose balls of stone weighed 150
pounds, were also cast, as well as many guns of smaller calibre. All
these, together with a number of ballists and other ancient engines still
employed in sieges, were mounted on carriages in order to transport them
to Constantinople. The conveyance of this formidable train of artillery,
and of the immense quantity of ammunition required for its service, was
by no means a trifling operation.[90]
THE SIEGE BEGINS
[Sidenote: [1453 A.D.]]
The first division of the Ottoman army moved from Hadrianopolis in the
month of February, 1453. In the meantime a numerous corps of pioneers
worked constantly at the road, in order to prepare it for the passage
of the long train of artillery and baggage wagons. Temporary bridges,
capable of being taken to pieces, were erected by the engineers over
every ravine and watercourse, and the materials for the siege advanced
steadily, though slowly, to their destination. The extreme difficulty
of moving the monster cannon with its immense balls retarded the
sultan’s progress, and it was the beginning of April before the whole
battering-train reached Constantinople, though the distance from
Hadrianopolis is barely a hundred miles. The division of the army under
Karadja Pasha had already reduced Mesembria, Anchialus, Bizya, and
the castle of St. Stephanus. Selymbria alone defended itself, and the
fortifications were so strong that Muhammed ordered it to be closely
blockaded, and left its fate to be determined by that of the capital.
[Illustration: MUHAMMED II
(From a medallion in the Royal Muenz Cabinet, Berlin)]
On the 6th of April, Sultan Muhammed II encamped on the slope of the hill
facing the quarter of Blachernæ, a little beyond the ground occupied by
the crusaders in 1203, and immediately ordered the construction of lines,
extending from the head of the port to the shore of the Propontis. These
lines were formed of a mound of earth, and they served both to restrain
the sorties of the besieged, and to cover the troops from the fire of
the enemy’s artillery and missiles. The batteries were then formed; the
principal were erected against the gate Charsiasæ, in the quarter of
Blachernæ, and against the gate of St. Romanus, near the centre of the
city wall. It was toward this last gate that the fire of the monster gun
was directed and the chief attack was made.
The land-forces of the Turks probably amounted to about seventy thousand
men of all arms and qualities; but the real strength of the army lay in
the corps of janizaries, then the best infantry in Europe, and their
number did not exceed twelve thousand.[91] At the same time, twenty
thousand cavalry, mounted on the finest horses of the Turkoman breed,
and hardened by long service, were ready to fight either on horseback or
on foot under the eye of their young sultan. The fleet which had been
collected along the Asiatic coast, from the ports of the Black Sea to
those of the Ægean, brought additional supplies of men, provisions, and
military stores. It consisted of 320 vessels of various sizes and forms.
The greater part were only half-decked coasters, and even the largest
were far inferior in size to the galleys and galleasses of the Greeks and
Italians. The fortifications of Constantinople towards the sea afford
great facilities for attack. Even though they were partly ruined by time,
and weakened by careless reparations, they still offered a formidable
resistance to the imperfect science of the engineers in Muhammed’s
army.[c]
Of the triangle which composes the figure of Constantinople, the two
sides along the sea were made inaccessible to an enemy; the Propontis by
nature, and the harbour by art. Between the two waters the basis of the
triangle, the land side, was protected by a double wall, and a deep ditch
of the depth of one hundred feet. Against this line of fortification,
which Phrantzes, an eye-witness, prolongs to the measure of six miles,
the Ottomans directed their principal attack; and the emperor, after
distributing the service and command of the most perilous stations,
undertook the defence of the external wall. In the first days of the
siege, the Greek soldiers descended into the ditch or sallied into the
field; but they soon discovered that, in the proportion of their numbers,
one Christian was of more value than twenty Turks; and, after these
bold preludes, they were prudently content to maintain their rampart
with their missile weapons. Nor should this prudence be accused of
pusillanimity. The nation was indeed pusillanimous and base; but the last
Constantine deserves the name of a hero; his noble band of volunteers was
inspired with Roman virtue; and the foreign auxiliaries supported the
honour of the western chivalry.
Each day added to the science of the Christians; but their inadequate
stock of gunpowder was wasted in the operations of each day. Their
ordnance was not powerful, either in size or number; and if they
possessed some heavy cannon, they feared to plant them on the walls, lest
the aged structure should be shaken and overthrown by the explosion.
The great cannon of Muhammed has been separately noticed; an important
and visible object in the history of the times; but that enormous engine
was flanked by two fellows almost of equal magnitude; the long order of
the Turkish artillery was pointed against the walls; fourteen batteries
thundered at once on the most accessible places; and of one of these it
is ambiguously expressed, that it was mounted with 130 guns, or that it
discharged 130 bullets. Yet, in the power and activity of the sultan, we
may discern the infancy of the new science. Under a master who counted
the moments, the great cannon could be loaded and fired no more than
seven times in one day. The heated metal unfortunately burst: several
workmen were destroyed; and the skill of an artist was admired who
bethought himself of preventing the danger and the accident, by pouring
oil, after each explosion, into the mouth of the cannon.
The first random shots were productive of more sound than effect; and
it was by the advice of a Christian, that the engineers were taught to
level their aim against the two opposite sides of the salient angles of
a bastion. However imperfect, the weight and repetition of the fire made
some impression on the walls; and the Turks, pushing their approaches
to the edge of the ditch, attempted to fill the enormous chasm, and to
build a road to the assault. After a long and bloody conflict, the web
that had been woven in the day was still unravelled in the night. The
next resource of Muhammed was the practice of mines; but the soil was
rocky; in every attempt, he was stopped and undermined by the Christian
engineers; nor had the art been yet invented of replenishing those
subterraneous passages with gunpowder, and blowing whole towers and
cities into the air.
[Illustration: FIFTEENTH CENTURY CANNON
(After De Montfaucon)]
A circumstance that distinguishes the siege of Constantinople, is
the reunion of the ancient and modern artillery. The cannon were
intermingled with the mechanical engines for casting stones and darts;
the bullet and the battering-ram were directed against the same walls;
nor had the discovery of gunpowder superseded the use of the liquid and
unextinguishable fire. A wooden turret of the largest size was advanced
on rollers; the tower of St. Romanus was at length overturned; after a
severe struggle, the Turks were repulsed from the breach, and interrupted
by darkness. Of this pause of action, this interval of hope, each moment
was improved by the activity of the emperor and Justiniani, who passed
the night on the spot, and urged the labours which involved the safety of
the church and city. At the dawn of day, the impatient sultan perceived,
with astonishment and grief, that his wooden turret had been reduced to
ashes; the ditch was cleared and restored; and the tower of St. Romanus
was again strong and entire. He deplored the failure of his design; and
uttered a profane exclamation, that the word of the thirty-seven thousand
prophets should not have compelled him to believe that such a work, in so
short a time, could have been accomplished by the infidels.
In the first apprehension of a siege, Constantine had negotiated, in the
isles of the Archipelago, the Morea, and Sicily, the most indispensable
supplies. Five great ships, equipped for merchandise and war, sailed from
the harbour of Chios. One of these ships bore the imperial flag; the
remaining four belonged to the Genoese; and they were laden with wheat
and barley, with wine, oil, and vegetables, and above all, with soldiers
and mariners, for the service of the capital. The Turkish fleet at the
entrance of the Bosporus, was stretched from shore to shore, in the form
of a crescent, to intercept these bold auxiliaries. The reader who has
present to his mind the geographical picture of Constantinople, will
conceive and admire the greatness of the spectacle.
The five Christian ships continued to advance with joyful shouts, and
a full press both of sails and oars, against a hostile fleet of three
hundred vessels; and the rampart, the camp, the coasts of Europe and
Asia, were lined with innumerable spectators, who anxiously awaited the
event of this momentous succour. At the first view that event could not
appear doubtful; the superiority of the Moslems was beyond all measure or
account; and, in a calm, their numbers and valour must inevitably have
prevailed. But their hasty and imperfect navy had been created, not by
the genius of the people, but by the will of the sultan; in the height of
their prosperity, the Turks have acknowledged that if God had given them
the earth, he had left the sea to the infidels; and a series of defeats,
a rapid progress of decay, has established the truth of their modest
confession. In this conflict, the imperial vessel, which had been almost
overpowered, was rescued by the Genoese; but the Turks, in a distant and
closer attack, were twice repulsed with considerable loss.
Muhammed himself sat on horseback on the beach to encourage their valour
by his voice and presence, by the promise of reward, and by fear more
potent than the fear of the enemy. The passions of his soul, and even the
gestures of his body, seemed to imitate the actions of the combatants;
and, as if he had been the lord of nature, he spurred his horse with a
fearless and impotent effort into the sea. His loud reproaches, and the
clamours of the camp, urged the Ottomans to a third attack, more fatal
and bloody than the two former; and we must repeat, though we cannot
credit, the evidence of Phrantzes, who affirms from their own mouth that
they lost above twelve thousand men in the slaughter of the day. The
Christian squadron, triumphant and unhurt, steered along the Bosporus,
and securely anchored within the chain of the harbour.
The reduction of the city appeared to be hopeless, unless a double attack
could be made from the harbour as well as from the land; but the harbour
was inaccessible; an impenetrable chain was now defended by eight large
ships, more than twenty of a smaller size, with several galleys and
sloops; and instead of forcing this barrier, the Turks might apprehend a
naval sally, and a second encounter in the open sea.
In this perplexity, the genius of Muhammed conceived and executed a
plan of a bold and marvellous cast, of transporting by land his lighter
vessels and military stores from the Bosporus into the higher part of
the harbour. The distance is about ten miles; the ground is uneven, and
was overspread with thickets; and, as the road must be opened behind
the suburb of Galata, their free passage or total destruction must
depend on the option of the Genoese. But these selfish merchants were
ambitious of the favour of being the last devoured; and the deficiency
of art was supplied by the strength of obedient myriads. A level way was
covered with a broad platform of strong and solid planks; and to render
them more slippery and smooth, they were anointed with the fat of sheep
and oxen. Fourscore light galleys and brigantines of fifty and thirty
oars were disembarked on the Bosporus shore; arranged successively on
rollers; and drawn forward by the power of men and pulleys. Two guides
or pilots were stationed at the helm and the prow of each vessel; the
sails were unfurled to the winds; and the labour was cheered by song
and acclamation. In the course of a single night, this Turkish fleet
painfully climbed the hill, steered over the plain, and was launched
from the declivity into the shallow waters of the harbour, far above the
molestation of the deeper vessels of the Greeks. The real importance of
this operation was magnified by the consternation and confidence which
it inspired; but the notorious, unquestionable fact was displayed before
the eyes, and is recorded by the pens, of the two nations. A similar
stratagem had been repeatedly practised by the ancients.
As soon as Muhammed had occupied the upper harbour with a fleet and army,
he constructed, in the narrowest part, a bridge or rather mole of fifty
cubits in breadth, and one hundred in length; it was formed of casks and
hogsheads, joined with rafters linked with iron and covered with a solid
floor. On this floating battery he planted one of his largest cannon,
while the fourscore galleys, with troops and scaling-ladders, approached
the most accessible side, which had formerly been stormed by the Latin
conquerors. His vigilance prevented the approach of the Greek ships;
their foremost galliots were sunk or taken; forty youths, the bravest
of Italy and Greece, were inhumanly massacred at his command; nor could
the emperor’s grief be assuaged by the just though cruel retaliation, of
exposing from the walls the heads of 260 Mussulman captives.
After a siege of forty days, the fate of Constantinople could no longer
be averted. The diminutive garrison was exhausted by a double attack; the
fortifications which had stood for ages against hostile violence, were
dismantled on all sides by the Ottoman cannon; many breaches were opened;
and near the gate of St. Romanus, four towers had been levelled with the
ground. For the payment of his feeble and mutinous troops, Constantine
was compelled to despoil the churches, with the promise of a fourfold
restitution; and his sacrilege offered a new reproach to the enemies of
the union. A spirit of discord impaired the remnant of the Christian
strength; the Genoese and Venetian auxiliaries asserted the pre-eminence
of their respective service; and Justiniani and the grand duke, whose
ambition was not extinguished by the common danger, accused each other of
treachery and cowardice.
During the siege of Constantinople, the words of peace and capitulation
had been sometimes pronounced; and several embassies had passed between
the camp and the city. The Greek emperor was humbled by adversity; and
would have yielded to any terms compatible with religion and royalty. The
Turkish sultan was desirous of sparing the blood of his soldiers; still
more desirous of securing for his own use the Byzantine treasures; and he
accomplished a sacred duty in presenting to the _gabours_ the choice of
circumcision, of tribute, or of death. The avarice of Muhammed might have
been satisfied with an annual sum of one hundred thousand ducats; but his
ambition grasped the capital of the East; to the prince he offered a rich
equivalent, to the people a free toleration, or a safe departure; but
after some fruitless treaty, he declared his resolution of finding either
a throne, or a grave, under the walls of Constantinople.
A sense of honour, and the fear of universal reproach, forbade Palæologus
to resign the city into the hands of the Ottomans; and he determined to
abide the last extremities of war. Several days were employed by the
sultan in the preparations of the assault; and a respite was granted by
his favourite science of astrology, which had fixed on the 29th of May
as the fortunate and fatal hour. On the evening of the 27th he issued
his final orders. A crowd of dervishes visited the tents, to instil the
desire of martyrdom, and the assurance of spending an immortal youth
amidst the rivers and gardens of paradise and in the embraces of the
black-eyed virgins. Yet Muhammed principally trusted to the efficacy of
temporal and visible rewards. A double pay was promised to the victorious
troops; “The city and the buildings,” said Muhammed, “are mine; but I
resign to your valour the captives and the spoil, the treasures of gold
and beauty; be rich and be happy. Many are the provinces of my empire:
the intrepid soldier who first ascends the walls of Constantinople, shall
be rewarded with the government of the fairest and most wealthy; and my
gratitude shall accumulate his honours and fortunes above the measure of
his own hopes.” Such various and potent motives diffused among the Turks
a general ardour, regardless of life, and impatient for action; the camp
re-echoed with the Moslem shouts of “God is God, there is but one God,
and Mohammed is the apostle of God;” and the sea and land, from Galata to
the Seven Towers, were illuminated by the blaze of their nocturnal fires.
Far different was the state of the Christians; who, with loud and
impotent complaints, deplored the guilt, or the punishment, of their
sins. The celestial image of the virgin had been exposed in solemn
procession; but their divine patroness was deaf to their entreaties; they
accused the obstinacy of the emperor for refusing a timely surrender;
anticipated the horrors of their fate; and sighed for the repose and
security of Turkish servitude. The noblest of the Greeks, and the bravest
of the allies, were summoned to the palace, to prepare them, on the
evening of the twenty-eighth, for the duties and dangers of the general
assault. The last speech of Palæologus was the funeral oration of the
Roman Empire: he promised, he conjured, and he vainly attempted to infuse
the hope which was extinguished in his own mind. In this world all was
comfortless and gloomy; and neither the Gospel nor the church have
proposed any conspicuous recompense to the heroes who fall in the service
of their country. But the example of their prince, and the confinement
of a siege, had armed these warriors with the courage of despair;
and the pathetic scene is described by the feelings of the historian
Phrantzes,[f] who was himself present at this mournful assembly. They
wept, they embraced; regardless of their families and fortunes, they
devoted their lives; and each commander, departing to his station,
maintained all night a vigilant and anxious watch on the rampart. The
emperor, and some faithful companions, entered the dome of St. Sophia,
which in a few hours was to be converted into a mosque, and devoutly
received, with tears and prayers, the sacrament of the holy communion.
He reposed some moments in the palace, which resounded with cries and
lamentations; solicited the pardon of all whom he might have injured; and
mounted on horseback to visit the guards, and explore the motions of the
enemy. The distress and fall of the last Constantine are more glorious
than the long prosperity of the Byzantine cæsars.
THE FINAL ASSAULT
In the confusion of darkness, an assault may sometimes succeed; but in
this great and general attack, the military judgment and astrological
knowledge of Muhammed advised him to expect the morning, the memorable
29th of May, in the fourteen hundred and fifty-third year of the
Christian era. The preceding night had been strenuously employed. Under
pain of death, silence was enjoined; but the physical laws of motion and
sound are not obedient to discipline or fear; each individual might
suppress his voice and measure his footsteps; but the march and labour
of thousands must inevitably produce a strange confusion of dissonant
clamours, which reached the ears of the watchmen of the towers. At
daybreak, without the customary signal of the morning gun, the Turks
assaulted the city by sea and land; and the similitude of a twined or
twisted thread has been applied to the closeness and continuity of their
line of attack.
The foremost ranks consisted of the refuse of the host, a voluntary
crowd, who fought without order or command; of the feebleness of age or
childhood, of peasants and vagrants, and of all who had joined the camp
in the blind hope of plunder and martyrdom. The common impulse drove
them onwards to the wall: the most audacious to climb were instantly
precipitated; and not a dart, not a bullet, of the Christians was idly
wasted on the accumulated throng. But their strength and ammunition were
exhausted in this laborious defence; the ditch was filled with the bodies
of the slain; they supported the footsteps of their companions; and of
this devoted vanguard, the death was more serviceable than the life.
Under their respective pashas and sanjaks, the troops of Anatolia and
Romania were successively led to the charge; their progress was various
and doubtful; but, after a conflict of two hours, the Greeks still
maintained and improved their advantage. In that fatal moment, the
janizaries arose, fresh, vigorous, and invincible. The sultan himself on
horseback, with an iron mace in his hand, was the spectator and judge of
their valour; he was surrounded by ten thousand of his domestic troops,
whom he reserved for the decisive occasion; and the tide of battle was
directed and impelled by his voice and eye. His numerous ministers of
justice were posted behind the line, to urge, to restrain, and to punish;
and if danger was in the front, shame and inevitable death were in the
rear of the fugitives. The cries of fear and of pain were drowned in
the martial music of drums, trumpets, and attaballs; and experience
has proved that the mechanical operation of sounds, by quickening the
circulation of the blood and spirits, will act on the human machine more
forcibly than the eloquence of reason and honour. From the lines, the
galleys, and the bridge, the Ottoman artillery thundered on all sides;
and the camp and city, the Greeks and the Turks, were involved in a cloud
of smoke, which could only be dispelled by the final deliverance or
destruction of the Roman Empire.
[Illustration: THE LAST MEROVINGIAN KING: CHILDERIC THE STUPID]
The immediate loss of Constantinople may be ascribed to the bullet, or
arrow, which pierced the gauntlet of John Justiniani. The sight of his
blood, and the exquisite pain, appalled the courage of the chief, whose
arms and counsels were the firmest rampart of the city. As he withdrew
from his station in quest of a surgeon, his flight was perceived and
stopped by the indefatigable emperor: “Your wound,” explained Palæologus,
“is slight; the danger is pressing; your presence is necessary; and
whither will you retire?” “I will retire,” said the trembling Genoese,
“by the same road which God has opened to the Turks;” and at these words
he hastily passed through one of the breaches of the inner wall. By
this pusillanimous act, he stained the honours of a military life; and
the few days which he survived in Galata, or the isle of Chios, were
embittered by his own and the public reproach.[92] His example was
imitated by the greatest part of the Latin auxiliaries; and the defence
began to slacken when the attack was pressed with redoubled vigour. The
number of the Ottomans was fifty, perhaps a hundred, times superior to
that of the Christians; the double walls were reduced by the cannon to a
heap of ruins; in a circuit of several miles, some places must be found
more easy of access, or more feebly guarded; and if the besiegers could
penetrate in a single point, the whole city was irrecoverably lost.
The first who deserved the sultan’s reward was Hassan the janizary, of
gigantic stature and strength. With his scimitar in one hand, and his
buckler in the other, he ascended the outward fortification; of the
thirty janizaries who were emulous of his valour, eighteen perished in
the bold adventure. Hassan and his twelve companions had reached the
summit; the giant was precipitated from the rampart; he rose on one knee,
and was again oppressed by a shower of darts and stones. But his success
had proved that the achievement was possible; the walls and towers were
instantly covered with a swarm of Turks; and the Greeks, now driven from
the vantage ground, were overwhelmed by increasing multitudes.
[Illustration: FIFTEENTH CENTURY CANNON
(After De Montfaucon)]
Amidst these multitudes, the emperor, who accomplished all the duties of
a general and a soldier, was long seen, and finally lost. The nobles, who
fought round his person sustained, till their last breath, the honourable
names of Palæologus and Cantacuzenus; his mournful exclamation was heard,
“Cannot there be found a Christian to cut off my head?” and his last fear
was that of falling alive into the hands of the infidels. The prudent
despair of Constantine cast away the purple; amidst the tumult he fell by
an unknown hand, and his body was buried under a mountain of the slain.
After his death, resistance and order were no more; the Greeks fled
towards the city; and many were pressed and stifled in the narrow pass
of the gate of St. Romanus. The victorious Turks rushed through the
breaches of the inner wall; and as they advanced into the streets they
were soon joined by their brethren, who had forced the gate Phenar on
the side of the harbour. In the first heat of the pursuit, about two
thousand Christians were put to the sword; but avarice soon prevailed
over cruelty; and the victors acknowledged that they should immediately
have given quarter, if the valour of the emperor and his chosen bands had
not prepared them for a similar opposition in every part of the capital.
It was thus, after a siege of fifty-three days, that Constantinople,
which had defied the power of Chosroes, the chagan, and the caliphs, was
irretrievably subdued by the arms of Muhammed II. Her empire only had
been subverted by the Latins; her religion was trampled in the dust by
the Moslem conquerors.
THE SACK OF CONSTANTINOPLE
On the assurance of the public calamity, the houses and convents were
instantly deserted; and the trembling inhabitants flocked together in
the streets, like a herd of timid animals, as if accumulated weakness
could be productive of strength, or in the vain hope, that, amid the
crowd, each individual might be safe and invisible. From every part of
the capital they flowed into the church of St. Sophia; in the space of an
hour, the sanctuary, the choir, the nave, the upper and lower galleries,
were filled with the multitudes of fathers and husbands, of women and
children, of priests, monks, and religious virgins; the doors were barred
on the inside, and they sought protection from the sacred dome, which
they had so lately abhorred as a profane and polluted edifice. Their
confidence was founded on the prophecy of an enthusiast or impostor, that
one day the Turks would enter Constantinople, and pursue the Romans as
far as the column of Constantine, in the square before St. Sophia; but
that this would be the term of their calamities; that an angel would
descend from heaven, with a sword in his hand, and would deliver the
empire, with that celestial weapon, to a poor man seated at the foot
of the column. “Take this sword,” would he say, “and avenge the people
of the Lord.” At these animating words the Turks would instantly fly,
and the victorious Romans would drive them from the West, and from all
Anatolia, as far as the frontiers of Persia. It is on this occasion,
that Ducas,[g] with some fancy and much truth, upbraids the discord
and obstinacy of the Greeks. “Had that angel appeared,” exclaims the
historian, “had he offered to exterminate your foes if you would consent
to the union of the church, even then, in that fatal moment, you would
have rejected your safety, or have deceived your God.”
While they expected the descent of the tardy angel, the doors were broken
with axes; and, as the Turks encountered no resistance, their bloodless
hands were employed in selecting and securing the multitude of their
prisoners. Youth, beauty, and the appearance of wealth attracted their
choice; and the right of property was decided among themselves by a prior
seizure, by personal strength, and by the authority of command. In the
space of an hour, the male captives were bound with cords, the females
with their veils and girdles. The senators were linked with their slaves;
the prelates with the porters of the church; and young men of a plebeian
class with noble maids, whose faces had been invisible to the sun and
their nearest kindred. In this common captivity the ranks of society
were confounded; the ties of nature were cut asunder: and the inexorable
soldier was careless of the father’s groans, the tears of the mother, and
the lamentations of the children. The loudest in their wailings were the
nuns, who were torn from the altar with naked bosoms, outstretched hands,
and dishevelled hair; and we should piously believe that few could be
tempted to prefer the vigils of the harem to those of the monastery.
Of these unfortunate Greeks, of these domestic animals, whole strings
were rudely driven through the streets; and as the conquerors were
eager to return for more prey, their trembling pace was quickened with
menaces and blows. At the same hour, a similar rapine was exercised in
all the churches and monasteries, in all the palaces and habitations
of the capital; nor could any place, however sacred or sequestered,
protect the persons or the property of the Greeks. Above sixty thousand
of this devoted people were transported from the city to the camp and
fleet; exchanged or sold, according to the caprice or interest of their
masters, and dispersed in remote servitude through the provinces of the
Ottoman Empire. Among these we may notice some remarkable characters.
The historian Phrantzes, first chamberlain and principal secretary,
was involved, with his family, in the common lot. After suffering, for
months, the hardships of slavery, he recovered his freedom; in the
ensuing winter he ventured to Hadrianopolis, and ransomed his wife from
the _mir bashi_, or master of horse; but his two children, in the flower
of youth and beauty, had been seized for the use of Muhammed himself. The
daughter of Phrantzes died in the seraglio, perhaps a virgin; his son, in
the fifteenth year of his age, preferred death to infamy, and was stabbed
by the hand of the royal lover.
The pride or cruelty of Muhammed would have been most sensibly gratified
by the capture of a Roman legate; but the dexterity of Cardinal Isidore
eluded the search, and he escaped from Galata in a plebeian habit. The
chain and entrance of the outward harbour was still occupied by the
Italian ships of merchandise and war. They had signalised their valour
in the siege; they embraced the moment of retreat, while the Turkish
mariners were dissipated in the pillage of the city. When they hoisted
sail, the beach was covered with a suppliant and lamentable crowd; but
the means of transportation were scanty; the Venetians and Genoese
selected their countrymen; and, notwithstanding the fairest promises
of the sultan, the inhabitants of Galata evacuated their houses, and
embarked with their most precious effects.
In the fall and the sack of great cities, an historian is condemned to
repeat the tale of uniform calamity; the same effects must be produced
by the same passions; and when those passions may be indulged without
control, small, alas! is the difference between civilised and savage
man. Amidst the vague exclamations of bigotry and hatred, the Turks are
not accused of a wanton or immoderate effusion of Christian blood; but
according to their maxims (the maxims of antiquity) the lives of the
vanquished were forfeited; and the legitimate reward of the conqueror was
derived from the service, the sale, or the ransom of his captives of both
sexes. The wealth of Constantinople had been granted by the sultan to his
victorious troops; and the rapine of an hour is more productive than the
industry of years. But as no regular division was attempted of the spoil,
the respective shares were not determined by merit; and the rewards of
valour were stolen away by the followers of the camp, who had declined
the toil and danger of the battle. The narrative of their depredations
could not afford either amusement or instruction; the total amount, in
the last poverty of the empire, has been valued at four millions of
ducats; and of this sum, a small part was the property of the Venetians,
the Genoese, the Florentines, and the merchants of Ancona. Of these
foreigners, the stock was improved in quick and perpetual circulation;
but the riches of the Greeks were displayed in idle ostentation, or
deeply buried in treasures of ingots and old coin, lest it should be
demanded at their hands for the defence of their country.
The profanation and plunder of the monasteries and churches excited
the most tragic complaints. The dome of St. Sophia itself, the earthly
heaven, the second firmament, the vehicle of the cherubim, the throne of
the glory of God, was despoiled of the oblations of ages; and the gold
and silver, the pearls and jewels, the vases and sacerdotal ornaments,
were most wickedly converted to the service of mankind. After the divine
images had been stripped of all that could be valuable to a profane eye,
the canvas, or the wood, was torn, or broken, or burned, or trod under
foot, or applied, in the stables or the kitchen, to the vilest uses.
The example of sacrilege was imitated, however, from the Latin conquerors
of Constantinople; and the treatment which Christ, the Virgin, and the
saints had sustained from the guilty Catholic, might be inflicted by
the zealous Mussulman on the monuments of idolatry. Perhaps instead
of joining the public clamour, a philosopher will observe that in the
decline of the arts the workmanship could not be more valuable than the
work, and that a fresh supply of visions and miracles would speedily be
renewed by the craft of the priest and the credulity of the people. He
will more seriously deplore the loss of the Byzantine libraries, which
were destroyed or scattered in the general confusion; 120,000 manuscripts
are said to have disappeared; ten volumes might be purchased for a
single ducat; and the same ignominious price, too high perhaps for a
shelf of theology, included the whole works of Aristotle and Homer, the
noblest productions of the science and literature of ancient Greece. We
may reflect, with pleasure, that an inestimable portion of our classic
treasures was safely deposited in Italy; and that the mechanics of a
German town had invented an art which derides the havoc of time and
barbarism.
From the first hour of the memorable 29th of May, disorder and rapine
prevailed in Constantinople, till the eighth hour of the same day; when
the sultan himself passed in triumph through the gate of St. Romanus.
He was attended by his vizirs, pashas, and guards, each of whom (says a
Byzantine historian) was robust as Hercules, dexterous as Apollo, and
equal in battle to any ten of the race of ordinary mortals. The conqueror
gazed with satisfaction and wonder on the strange though splendid
appearance of the domes and palaces, so dissimilar from the style of
oriental architecture. In the Hippodrome, or _atmeidan_, his eye was
attracted by the twisted column of the three serpents; and, as a trial
of his strength, he shattered with his iron mace, or battle-axe, the
under-jaw of one of these monsters, which in the eyes of the Turks were
the idols or talismans of the city.
At the principal door of St. Sophia, he alighted from his horse, and
entered the dome; and such was his jealous regard for that monument of
his glory, that on observing a zealous Mussulman in the act of breaking
the marble pavement, he admonished him, with his scimitar, that if the
spoil and captives were granted to the soldiers, the public and private
buildings had been reserved for the prince. By his command the metropolis
of the Eastern church was transformed into a mosque; the rich and
portable instruments of superstition had been removed; the crosses were
thrown down; and the walls, which were covered with images and mosaics,
were washed and purified, and restored to a state of naked simplicity.
On the same day, or on the ensuing Friday, the _muezzin_ or crier,
ascended the most lofty turret, and proclaimed the _ezan_, or public
invitation in the name of God and his prophet; the imam preached; and
Muhammed II performed the _namaz_ of prayer and thanksgiving on the
great altar, where the Christian mysteries had so lately been celebrated
before the last of the cæsars. From St. Sophia he proceeded to the august
but desolate mansion of a hundred successors of the great Constantine;
but which, in a few hours, had been stripped of the pomp of royalty.
A melancholy reflection on the vicissitudes of human greatness forced
itself on his mind; and he repeated an elegant distich of Persian poetry:
“The spider hath woven his web in the imperial palace; and the owl hath
sung her watch-song on the towers of Afrasiab.”
Yet his mind was not satisfied; nor did the victory seem complete, till
he was informed of the fate of Constantine--whether he had escaped, or
been made prisoner, or had fallen in the battle. Two janizaries claimed
the honour and reward of his death; the body, under a heap of slain, was
discovered by the golden eagles embroidered on his shoes; the Greeks
acknowledged with tears the head of their late emperor; and, after
exposing the bloody trophy, Muhammed bestowed on his rival the honours
of a decent funeral. Clemency was extended to the principal officers of
state, of whom several were ransomed at his expense; and during some
days he declared himself the friend and father of the vanquished people.
But the scene was soon changed; and before his departure the Hippodrome
streamed with the blood of his noblest captives. His perfidious cruelty
is execrated by the Christians; they adorn with the colours of heroic
martyrdom the execution of the grand duke and his two sons; and his death
is ascribed to the generous refusal of delivering his children to the
tyrant’s lust. Yet a Byzantine historian has dropped an unguarded word
of conspiracy, deliverance, and Italian succour; such treason may be
glorious, but the rebel who bravely ventures, has justly forfeited his
life; nor should we blame a conqueror for destroying the enemies whom he
can no longer trust. On the 18th of June the victorious sultan returned
to Hadrianopolis; and smiled at the base and hollow embassies of the
Christian princes, who viewed their approaching ruin in the fall of the
Eastern Empire.
Constantinople had been left naked and desolate, without a prince or a
people. But she could not be despoiled of the incomparable situation
which marks her for the metropolis of a great empire; and the genius
of the place will ever triumph over the accidents of time and fortune.
Brusa and Hadrianopolis, the ancient seats of the Ottomans, sank into
provincial towns; and Muhammed established his own residence, and that
of his successors, on the same commanding spot which had been chosen
by Constantine. The fortifications of Galata, which might afford a
shelter to the Latins, were prudently destroyed; but the damage of the
Turkish cannon was soon repaired. As the entire property of the soil
and buildings, whether public or private, or profane or sacred, was
now transferred to the conqueror, he first separated a space of eight
furlongs from the point of the triangle for the establishment of his
seraglio or palace. In the new character of a mosque, the cathedral
of St. Sophia was endowed with an ample revenue, crowned with lofty
minarets, and surrounded with groves and fountains, for the devotion and
refreshment of the Moslems. The same model was imitated in the _jami_ or
royal mosques; and the first of these were built, by Muhammed himself, on
the ruins of the church of the holy apostles and the tombs of the Greek
emperors.
Constantinople no longer appertains to the Roman historian; nor shall
we enumerate the civil and religious edifices that were profaned or
erected by its Turkish masters; the population was speedily renewed;
and before the end of September, five thousand families of Anatolia and
Romania had obeyed the royal mandate, which enjoined them, under pain
of death, to occupy their new habitations in the capital. The throne
of Muhammed was guarded by the numbers and fidelity of his Moslem
subjects; but his rational policy aspired to collect the remnant of the
Greeks; and they returned in crowds as soon as they were assured of
their lives, their liberties, and the free exercise of their religion.
In the election and investiture of a patriarch, the ceremonial of the
Byzantine court was revived and imitated. With a mixture of satisfaction
and horror, they beheld the sultan on his throne; who delivered into
the hands of Gennadius the crosier or pastoral staff, the symbol of his
ecclesiastical office; who conducted the patriarch to the gate of the
seraglio, presented him with a horse richly caparisoned, and directed
the vizirs and pashas to lead him to the palace which had been allotted
for his residence. The churches of Constantinople were shared between the
two religions, their limits were marked; and, till it was infringed by
Selim, the grandson of Muhammed, the Greeks enjoyed above sixty years the
benefit of this equal partition.[93]
END OF THE COMNENI AND PALÆOLOGI
[Sidenote: [1453-1481 A.D.]]
The final extinction of the last two dynasties which have reigned in
Constantinople terminates the decline and fall of the Roman Empire in
the East. The despots of the Morea,[94] Demetrius and Thomas, the two
surviving brothers of the name of Palæologus, were astonished by the
death of the emperor Constantine, and the ruin of the monarchy. Hopeless
of defence, they prepared, with the noble Greeks who adhered to their
fortune, to seek a refuge in Italy, beyond the reach of the Ottoman
thunder. Their first apprehensions were dispelled by the victorious
sultan, who contented himself with a tribute of twelve thousand ducats;
and while his ambition explored the continent and the islands in search
of prey, he indulged the Morea in a respite of seven years. But this
respite was a period of grief, discord, and misery. The _hexamilion_,
the rampart of the isthmus, so often raised and so often subverted,
could not long be defended by three hundred Italian archers; the keys
of Corinth were seized by the Turks; they returned from their summer
excursions with a train of captives and spoil; and the complaints of the
injured Greeks were heard with indifference and disdain. The Albanians, a
vagrant tribe of shepherds and robbers, filled the peninsula with rapine
and murder; the two despots implored the dangerous and humiliating aid
of a neighbouring pasha; and when he had quelled the revolt, his lessons
inculcated the rule of their future conduct.
Neither the ties of blood, nor the oaths which they repeatedly pledged
in the communion and before the altar, nor the stronger pressure of
necessity, could reconcile or suspend their domestic quarrels. They
ravaged each other’s patrimony with fire and sword; the alms and succours
of the West were consumed in civil hostility; and their power was only
exerted in savage and arbitrary executions. The distress and revenge
of the weaker rival invoked their supreme lord; and, in the season of
maturity and revenge, Muhammed declared himself the friend of Demetrius,
and marched into the Morea with an irresistible force. When he had taken
possession of Sparta, “You are too weak,” said the sultan, “to control
this turbulent province; I will take your daughter to my bed; and you
shall pass the remainder of your life in security and honour.”
Demetrius sighed and obeyed; surrendered his daughter and his castles;
followed to Hadrianopolis his sovereign and son, and received for his
own maintenance, and that of his followers, a city in Thrace, and the
adjacent isles of Imbros, Lemnos, and Samothrace. He was joined the
next year by a companion of misfortune, the last of the Comnenian race,
who, after the taking of Constantinople by the Latins, had founded
a new empire on the coast of the Black Sea. In the progress of his
Anatolian conquests Muhammed invested with a fleet and army the capital
of David, who presumed to style himself emperor of Trebizond; and the
negotiation was comprised in a short and peremptory question,“Will you
secure your life and treasures by resigning your kingdom; or would you
rather forfeit your kingdom, your treasures, and your life?” The feeble
Comnenus was subdued by his own fears, and the example of a Mussulman
neighbour, the prince of Sinope; who, on a similar summons, had yielded
a fortified city with four hundred cannon and ten or twelve thousand
soldiers. The capitulation of Trebizond was faithfully performed; and the
emperor with his family was transported to a castle in Romania; but on a
slight suspicion of corresponding with the Persian king, David and the
whole Comnenian race were sacrificed to the jealousy or avarice of the
conqueror.
Nor could the name of father long protect the unfortunate Demetrius from
exile and confiscation; his abject submission moved the pity and contempt
of the sultan; his followers were transplanted to Constantinople; and
his poverty was alleviated by a pension of fifty thousand aspers, till
a monastic habit and a tardy death released Palæologus from an earthly
master. It is not easy to pronounce whether the servitude of Demetrius,
or the exile of his brother Thomas, be the most inglorious. On the
conquest of the Morea, the despot escaped to Corfu, and from thence to
Italy, with some naked adherents; his name, his sufferings, and the head
of the apostle St. Andrew entitled him to the hospitality of the Vatican;
and his misery was prolonged by a pension of six thousand ducats from the
pope and cardinals. His two sons, Andrew and Manuel, were educated in
Italy; but the eldest, contemptible to his enemies and burdensome to his
friends, was degraded by the baseness of his life and marriage. A title
was his sole inheritance; and that inheritance he successively sold to
the kings of France and Aragon. During his transient prosperity, Charles
VIII was ambitious of joining the empire of the East with the kingdom of
Naples; in a public festival, he assumed the appellation and the purple
of augustus; the Greeks rejoiced, and the Ottoman already trembled at the
approach of the French chivalry. Manuel Palæologus, the second son, was
tempted to revisit his native country; his return might be grateful, and
could not be dangerous, to the Porte; he was maintained at Constantinople
in safety and ease; and an honourable train of Christians and Moslems
attended him to the grave. If there be some animals of so generous a
nature that they refuse to propagate in a domestic state, the last of the
imperial race must be ascribed to an inferior kind; he accepted from the
sultan’s liberality two beautiful females; and his surviving son was lost
in the habit and religion of a Turkish slave.
The importance of Constantinople was felt and magnified in its loss;
the pontificate of Nicholas V, however peaceful and prosperous, was
dishonoured by the fall of the Eastern Empire; and the grief and terror
of the Latins revived, or seemed to revive, the old enthusiasm of the
Crusades. Had the union of the Christians corresponded with their
bravery; had every country, from Sweden to Naples, supplied a just
proportion of cavalry and infantry, of men and money, it is indeed
probable that Constantinople would have been delivered, and that the
Turks might have been chased beyond the Hellespont or the Euphrates. But
the secretary of the emperor, who composed every epistle, and attended
every meeting, Æneas Sylvius, a statesman and orator, describes from his
own experience the repugnant state and spirit of Christendom. “It is a
body,” says he, “without a head; a republic without laws or magistrates.
The pope and the emperor may shine as lofty titles, as splendid images;
but they are unable to command, and none are willing to obey; every state
has a separate prince, and every prince has a separate interest. What
eloquence could unite so many discordant and hostile powers under the
same standard? Could they be assembled in arms, who would dare to assume
the office of general? What order could be maintained what military
discipline? Who would undertake to feed such an enormous multitude?
Who would understand their various languages, or direct their stranger
and incompatible manners? What mortal could reconcile the English with
the French, Genoa with Aragon, the Germans with the natives of Hungary
and Bohemia? If a small number enlisted in the holy war, they must be
overthrown by the infidels; if many, by their own weight and confusion.”
Yet the same Æneas, when he was raised to the papal throne, under the
name of Pius II, devoted his life to the prosecution of the Turkish War.
In the council of Mantua, he excited some sparks of a false or feeble
enthusiasm; but when the pontiff appeared at Ancona, to embark in person
with the troops, engagements vanished in excuses; a precise day was
adjourned to an indefinite term; and his effective army consisted of some
German pilgrims, whom he was obliged to disband with indulgences and alms.
Regardless of futurity, his successors and the powers of Italy were
involved in the schemes of present and domestic ambition; and the
distance or proximity of each object determined, in their eyes, its
apparent magnitude. A more enlarged view of their interest would have
taught them to maintain a defensive and naval war against the common
enemy; and the support of Scanderbeg (Iskander Bey) and his brave
Albanians might have prevented the subsequent invasion of the kingdom of
Naples. The siege and sack of Otranto by the Turks diffused a general
consternation; and Pope Sixtus was preparing to fly beyond the Alps, when
the storm was instantly dispelled by the death of Muhammed II, in the
fifty-first year of his age. His lofty genius aspired to the conquest of
Italy: he was possessed of a strong city and a capacious harbour; and the
same reign might have been decorated with the trophies of the new and the
ancient Rome.[d]
FOOTNOTES
[89] [The name given to ancient Prusa after it fell into the hands of the
Turks.]
[90] Leonard says the balls of the large gun were eleven of his spans in
circumference.
[91] [This is Finlay’s account, but Hertzberg[b] says: “The number of
troops (beside the great camp following and a mass of fanatic imams,
mullahs and dervishes) totalled at the lowest, and therefore the most
trustworthy, estimate 165,000 men, of which, with the 15,000 janissaries,
well over 80,000 were regular soldiers. The fleet, according to an
apparently reliable account, numbered 145 sail, namely 12 great galleys,
about 80 double-deckers, some 25 smaller coasters, and a number of
brigs.”]
[92] Justiniani is defended by Finlay[c] on apparently good grounds. He
demanded additional guns for the defence of the great breach; these were
refused by the grand duke Notaras, who had the official control over the
artillery, and Constantine was obliged to exert all his authority to
prevent the two generals coming to blows. Justiniani’s wound must have
disabled him; he retired to his ship to have it dressed and it was found
to be mortal. His dialogue with Constantine, Finlay says, “is evidently a
rhetorical invention.”
[93] [With regard to the meaning of the “fall” of Constantinople and the
hope of its rise, it may be well to quote the theory of the Russophile
historian, Gelzer[e]: “The month of May, 1453, had dragged the Byzantine
Empire finally to its grave. The Greek supremacy had long been a thing of
the past; the hollow phantom of it was now to vanish away. But Byzantium
has found a mighty heir. The czar of Russia took a princess of the house
of Palæologus to wife; the crown of Constantine Monomachus was placed on
the head of the autocrat of all the Russias in the Kremlin. The Russian
Empire is _de facto_ the sequel to the Byzantine. And if ever St. Sophia
is to be restored to the true faith, and Asia Minor delivered from the
hideous misrule of the Turk, it can only come to pass through the agency
of the czar of Russia. None but the czar of Russia, ‘the defender of the
orthodox faith,’ and inspired with a sense of the obligations involved in
his great office, can become emperor of Constantinople.”]
[94] [The modern name for the Peloponnesus.]
[Illustration]
BRIEF REFERENCE-LIST OF AUTHORITIES BY CHAPTERS
[The letter [a] is reserved for Editorial Matter.]
CHAPTER I. THE REIGN OF ARCADIUS
[b] ALBERT GUELDENPENNING, _Geschichte des Oströmischen Reichs_.
[c] GEORGE FINLAY, _Greece under the Romans_.
[d] EDWARD GIBBON, _The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire_.
[e] COUNT ZOSIMUS, _The History of Count Zosimus_.