Part 11 / Book 1 — CHAPTER VII LEO THE ISAURIAN TO JOANNES ZIMISCES [717-969 A.D.] (continued 2)

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]

[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.)

[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.)

[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.

[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.)

[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.

[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.

[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