Chapter VII: Leo the Isaurian to Joannes Zimisces (3)

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.]