Chapter XX: An Emperor's Day

Day after day the emperor rose at dawn, and with his staff rode forth to the strategion, the great review ground of the city--the Campus Martius of New Rome--to exercise troops newly arrived as contingents for the army of the east. The day after the sailing of the Sicilian expedition (destined to end as ill as another famous Sicilian expedition), there was a lively stir in the palace to witness the manœuvres of a division of five thousand horsemen recently arrived from the upper Danube--Magyars as we call them, Turks as they were then named--a tribe which had been admitted to settle within the limits of the empire.

Basil Digenes, Bardas Skleros, with our young friend Eric still at his side, and a crowd of officers rode into the ground on the staff of the emperor. The strategion, or review-ground, stood on the low land to the west of the modern "Seraglio," close to the Golden Horn, between the Stamboul end of the floating bridge and the present railway terminus. Bardas called Eric's attention to the typical monuments with which it was adorned--the equestrian statue of Constantine the Great, and the pillar bearing the imperial edict, whereby New Rome had been endowed with the name and privileges of the city of the Tiber.

"Six hundred and thirty years have passed," said the general to his young follower, "since our immortal founder placed us here on this Golden Horn beneath the new Seven Hills, and more than a thousand years had passed before he moved Rome from the Tiber to the Bosphorus. These various subject tribes, allies, and tributaries, whose arms and ensigns cover this great plain to-day, change and pass, form new nations, and go from one seat to another; but Rome exists forever. In one thousand seven hundred years she has never met her conqueror, nor even her match."

Eric's history was far too slight and vague to enable him to follow this bold boast, much less to dispute it; but, where all was wonderful and gigantic, he accepted the antiquity of the city with awe. His mind was wholly occupied with the martial sight spread out before him. In front of headquarters, where stood what we now call "the saluting-point," was stationed a detachment of the Varangian guard, who to-day were told off as an escort to the general, to keep the ground and mark the lines. Opposite to them, at the farther limit of the ground, was the position of the Macedonian heavy-armed shieldsmen. Hirsute Abasgians and Iberians from the southern valleys of the Caucasus, on mountain ponies and in shaggy sheepskins and furs, held another side of the ground. But the main interest of the day was a series of cavalry charges and evolutions by the mass of Magyar mounted archers, which was the latest body of troopers enlisted in the imperial army. The emperor glowed with pride and hope as he shouted the word of command, which was repeated in Hungarian dialects by the interpreter, or captain of each squadron; and as he watched the rapid movements and consummate horsemanship of men, who then, as now, were accounted to rank with the finest cavalry of their age. Nicephorus, a cavalry-man from youth, called his staff round him, and enlarged with enthusiasm and in detail on the paramount importance on the mounted arm in war, and he forced on them those lessons as to scouting, rapidity in advance, and the system of successive charges which are laid down so authoritatively in his own book on _Tactics_.

As they rode with the staff in the exercises, Eric plied his general with inquiries and amused him with his naïve remarks. The young hero, who had seen active service with several different nations, had already that soldier's eye which distinguished him so much in after years in the campaigns of Basil II. against the Bulgarians; when, under the adopted name of Nicephorus Ouranos, he gained so splendid a victory over King Samuel. What amazed the young Norwegian was the complicated evolution whereby a whole cavalry division of five thousand troopers was regularly divided into four lines, the first the fighting line, the second the supporting line, the third behind them as another reserve, and, fourthly, detachments on both wings. And small squadrons were detached to lie in wait and were called the "outlying guard."

"The force now engaged in manœuvres," said Bardas to his young aide, whose military genius he had already perceived and resolved to train, "the force on the field, is what we call a division (or turma). Each division, you observe, is composed of two brigades (or drungi). Each brigade of five regiments (bandas). The senior general of division, whom we call a turmarch, leads the front line, stationed in the centre of it with his standard-bearer, orderlies, and trumpeters. Then you will see the intervals between the regiments, to enable the reserve to pass through or the front line to retire in order."

"Oh, but this is a complicated order of battle indeed," said Eric. "Is all this quadruple and quintuple disposition observed on the field in actual war, or is it a mere peace manœuvre to practise discipline?"

"This is but the abc of tactics, my son," said Bardas, smiling. "Of course, a Roman army on the field of battle is drawn up as you see it here, with all of these rules--all of them and a great many more. All this is what you have to learn, my young friend."

"But it is difficult to follow it with the eye in the clouds of dust and the rapid manœuvres of the squadrons," said the youth, perplexed by the amazing variety of the interlacing movements he saw.

"Well, you must study your books of military science. You don't suppose a Roman general is to be made without hard study of rules and formations in our manuals of the art of war. There is the excellent _Strategicon_ of the illustrious Emperor Maurice, which, old as it is, is still to be read. Then there are the _Tactics_ of the Emperor Leo, the Learned, ancestor of the young Basileis minors; and, above all others, there is the _Tactics_ of our present Augustus, which I have myself drafted at his dictation, and which is being now circulated to the army chiefs in the rough. Pore over that by night, my boy, and practise its rules by day, and you may one day lead a Roman army yourself."

"But I never saw or heard anything of all this _science_ as you call it," said Eric, puzzled. "I have seen hard fighting with Danes, Russ, and Bulgars. I have seen the Frank knights on the Seine. Indeed, I was a squire of Rudolph when he marched to join the great king of the Germans in the expedition wherein he routed the Magyars. And I saw the flower of the Saracens of Spain when the Caliph Abd-er-Rahman was buried at Cordova. But we never heard anything of divisions, brigades, and regiments, much less of first, second, and third lines of attack, reserves, and flank charges. With Russ, Franks, Saxons, and Saracens each chief leads his own men-at-arms, and they follow his pennon as close as they can."

"Why, of course, you never heard of all this among those wild men," cried Bardas, aloud, with a hearty laugh. "The Roman army is the only army on earth that is scientifically equipped and led by officers who are masters of their art. These outlandish barbarians are brave enough and strong enough and proud enough, God knows, but they know less of the glorious arts of war, of tactics, manœuvres, and stratagem than any one of those transport details you see waiting there with the carts and spades and shovels, or, indeed, less than any common bearer from the ambulance train. A Frank or Saxon knight, even a Saracen emir, would think he knew the whole of his business when he could sit his charger, wield his lance and his sword with dexterity, and lead a mob of his own followers pell-mell in a furious charge."

"Ay, I have seen Saxons, Franks, and Lombards charge like a herd of wild bulls in the Thuringian forests," said Eric.

"Oh, heroic enough, no doubt," said Bardas, with a sardonic smile. "These knight-errants would prefer to lose a battle amid prodigies of valor rather than to win it by craft and science. To us Byzantines craft and science are two-thirds of war."

"And is the whole Roman army thus organized in divisions, brigades, regiments, and attendant corps, and has each squadron and regiment a distinctive arm and uniform of its own?" asked Eric again.

"Certainly," said Bardas; "a Roman army consists of regulars, regularly drilled, equipped, and armed. They are not a levy of countrymen or a casual muster of followers, tenants, vassals, and tribesmen."

As the heat of the day began to strike, the corps were paraded, distributed, and marched off to barracks. The young Varangian was amazed at the ease and precision with which so large a force was drawn off the review-ground to barracks in various quarters, and the exact order which each arm and detachment observed. Light and heavy cavalry, bowmen, shield-men, and foot-guards drew off in turn, with the regularity of a modern review, each corps attended by its own followers, engineers, transport, and bearers, with carts, pack-horses, and camp utensils, spades, picks, saws, arrows, and bolts--the whole equipped to take the field.

The following day was appointed for the reception of embassies from foreign rulers, tributaries, and tribes, who had been deputed to congratulate the new sovereign. Bardas Skleros was on duty in the court of the emperor, and he desired to impress the imagination of his young follower, whose great promise as a soldier of keen intelligence and strong character he had begun to recognize. Accordingly, he placed Eric under the charge of his honor, Symmachos, a silentiary, or gentleman-in-waiting of the chambers, who undertook to coach the young Norseman in the ceremonies of the day. No part of the imperial system was more important than the practice of the military officials to attract new blood into their service and to impress on outlying tribesmen of all nations a sense of the power and culture of the empire.

Eric entered the Sacred Palace from the Augusteum through the brazen porch of Chalce, where he was now known to the guards and porters, and, making his way through the triclinium of the scholares--_i.e._, the guardroom of the body-guard--into the great, open, outer court, he passed through the bronze gates there, where he was met by Symmachos in the spacious cloister in which there stood, apart from the main palace, the sumptuous court known as the Magnaura. He was allowed to witness the passage of their Majesties through the Gallery of the Forty Saints, adorned with colossal mosaic representations of the chief martyrs and glories of the Orthodox Church; and so on through the sigma, or great oval, to the long corridor of the Daphne. The emperor and empress were escorted by their cubiculars, spathaires, vestiaries, lords and ladies in waiting, gold-stick, and sword-bearers, all marshalled by the grand master of the household. All were in state robes and gold-embroidered mantles, with collars and badges, according to their rank and office. From the long corridor of the Daphne, their Majesties passed into the Church of our Lord, which in former dynasties had been the private chapel of the palace. There they received the lighted wax candles which they placed before the sacred emblem, and prostrated themselves in worship at the altar over which stood the grand and pathetic figure of the Redeemer of Mankind.

While their Majesties were engaged in their devotions, the silentiary took the young guardsman into the great Hall of Magnaura, which he had not previously seen. It stood, as we have said, apart from the Sacred Palace itself, in the gardens to the north, and it abutted on the senate-house and Church of Mary of the copper mart, which lay between it and the Cathedral of the Holy Wisdom. This magnificent basilica was in the oblong form, with a semicircular apse and a raised platform, of which examples remain to us in Rome, Pompeii, and in Greece and Asia Minor. On each side six porphyry columns supported the gilded cornice and formed the openings to seven lateral exedras, or recesses. Beside the terminal apse there rose from the platform on which stood the throne four vast monoliths of the lovely green marble of Sparta--in groups of two each on either side. The walls of the hall were entirely covered with panels of Proconnesian and Phrygian streaked marbles, as we see it to-day in Aya Sophia. The capitals were mainly of bronze gilt, in form such as we see at St. Mark's at Venice. The central doors were also of bronze gilt. The roof was covered with mosaic designs made of glass and gilt tesseræ, having figures of the Saviour, Virgin, and saints, mixed with arabesque patterns of vine leaves, acanthus, Greek crosses, monograms, and exquisite geometric traceries.

As Eric entered and surveyed in mute awe this grand edifice, glowing with soft radiance like a sunset, for its supreme splendor of color was harmonized into a tone of solemnity and peace, the royal architects were just giving the last touches to the special adornments of the day. Gilded chains were suspended from column to column, and from each chain was hung a huge candelabrum of silver, each bearing twenty-five lamps. Tapestries and curtains were hung over the doorways and lateral recesses and partly concealed the golden organ and choir of the emperor on one side and the silver organ and choir of the factions on the other side. Rich rugs, of the design we now call Persian, were strewn over the marble flooring of the hall and across the steps and the dais whereon the imperial cortège was to stand.

That which, to the untutored but imaginative mind of the young viking, was the most beautiful and mystic work before him was the throne of Solomon, which served as the emperor's seat. It had been exactly reproduced from the account of the first book of Kings, chapter x.:

"The king made a great throne of ivory, and overlaid it with the best gold. The throne had six steps, and the top of the throne was round behind: and there were stays on either side on the place of the seat, and two lions stood beside the stays. And twelve lions stood there on the one side and on the other upon the six steps: there was not the like made in any kingdom."

The emperors of the Romans, who claimed to be, in a sense, the successors of the chosen people, and who are often represented in illuminated manuscripts in royal robes as kings of Israel, had carefully restored the throne of Solomon as their seat of high state. The chair itself was of ivory and gold, and the lions which supported the arms of the chair were of silver gilt, as were the smaller lions which acted as supporters on the six steps below it. Such a throne was taken as a pattern throughout the west; and the famous seat of Dagobert in the Louvre is supported by lions in the same way. The throne of Solomon, however, was not a curule chair, but a much more solid and magnificent erection, having a high back adorned with gems and enamel enrichments. Eric gazed in amazement and awe at the splendid hall; but he was presently dragged by his guide to witness the procession that was forming in the court-yard outside the Magnaura itself.

The magistri, the patricians, and the senate in a body, with a crowd of officials of various ranks, awaited the summons to attend the court. A silentiary having given the signal, Eric and Symmachos were able to enter the hall and view the approach of their Majesties. Before they took their seats on the thrones, the imperial crowns, with their long pendants of pearls and gems, were placed on their heads, and the royal mantles were thrown over their state robes. Nicephorus himself sat on the throne of Solomon, Theophano at his left hand, and the two child-Basileis on low stools behind them. Around them were placed the secretaries and notaries to take a report of the words spoken, with the logothete, or finance minister, and the chancellor. In the rear behind the throne stood a crowd of cubiculars, silentiaries, and the lords-in-waiting and gentlemen of the golden banqueting chamber.

When the royal party were all seated and placed, the master of the household gave the signal for the sacramental cheer; and from the choirs behind the curtains and from the crowd at the end of the hall broke forth the ritual chant, "Long, long live our Basileus! Long live our Basilissa! Many--many--happy years give them, O Lord God!" At another signal from the master of the household, the gold-stick-in-waiting introduced the first "curtain"--_i.e._, the magistri, or marshals, who had been stationed in the nearest recess. The magistri advanced to the throne and prostrated themselves before the steps. A second usher introduced the second "curtain"--_i.e._, the patricians, who stood next in rank--and so on, the senators and each successive order in due turn drawing aside the curtain which served to mark their place in the ceremonial.

It was now the turn of the foreign envoys, the first of whom were from the powerful caliph of Cordova, now Hakim II., with whom relations of amity were still maintained. The master of the household again signalled to the gold-stick, who, with great ceremony, introduced the mission, at the head of which was the Emir Ghalib, supported by the learned Ibn Khaldun, the same who had escorted Digenes and his companions in the capital of the Spanish empire. The emir was accompanied on his right hand by the catepano, or master of the ceremonies, on the left by the master of the horse, and was attended by an interpreter and his secretaries. The envoy of the mighty caliph was permitted to make his obeisance in his own way--while the envoys of the rude tribes of the north or the east were required to prostrate themselves at full length before the mystic throne.

As each ambassador advanced and made his salaam, the organs pealed forth a triumphal march, and as he rose from the ground the kettle-drums crashed a sonorous welcome. The chancellor then addressed the ambassador, and inquired of the health of the sovereign or chief whom he represented, and the ceremonial compliments of friendship and congratulation were duly recited. Then the golden lions around the throne were made to utter sounds in imitation of a roar of the beast by an ingenious mechanism, which was nothing but the stop of an organ concealed beneath the floor. To Eric and to the untutored envoys of the north the sounds issuing from the throats of the lions seemed little less than miraculous. To the citizens of Constantinople, with whom the wind-organ and other instruments of the kind were familiar, the mechanical roar of the lions on the throne and the twittering of the golden birds in the canopy above, which was also a favorite device, had ceased to be anything but a useful toy, that amused the groundlings and amazed the barbarians.

The envoy of the caliph was succeeded by a prelate despatched from old Rome by the Pope (or anti-Pope) Leo VIII., who was struggling amid horrors of every sort to dispossess the infamous Octavian claiming to be Pope John XII. Nicephorus, whose detestation of the degraded and servile papacy was boundless, had been persuaded with difficulty to receive the opponent and rival of the ferocious murderer who now desecrated the Latin see. Basil and the astute council of the empire had warned their proud chief not to rebuff the candidate for the chair of St. Peter, who was chosen by the all-powerful Otto I. of Germany and Italy. Nicephorus listened to the hollow congratulations of the Italian prelate in silence, and directed his chancellor to reply to them with the best grace he could assume. The Roman prelate was followed by envoys from Venice, Amalphi, and the dukes of Beneventum and Capua, who still admitted a shadowy bond of vassalage to the successor of Justinian at Byzantium.

The Italian envoys were succeeded by a crowd of deputies from various nations, tribes, and princelets north of the Ister and the Euxine Sea, or such as lay beyond the eastern frontier of the empire. They were first Patzinaks, then Russ; then Chazars, Alans, and "Turks," or Hungarians, as we call them to-day. All were in uncouth and picturesque native costumes, shaggy skins, tall and pointed head-gear, and strange ornaments. They each brought presents of various sorts--embroidered garments, embossed arms, enamelled vases, horses, performing bears, and white boar-hounds, which were paraded in the court outside, then announced with much solemnity, and received with equal curiosity and interest.

The long reception was continued for hours as the envoys were presented from the kings of Armenia proper, the dwellers around Mount Ararat and the plains of Lake Van; from the Abasgians and Georgians of the Caucasus, the Lazi, and the chief of the Iberians, who had been honored with the right to assume the Byzantine title of curopalates. Long before the stream of introductions had ended, with its ever-varying changes of language, costume, and manner, the young Scandinavian had been quite lost in the babel of tongues and the moving panorama before his eyes. The impression had been fully driven into his open mind, which the subtle politicians of Constantinople ever sought to extend--the impression of the world-wide relations of the Roman empire, and its claim to be the centre of power, culture, and Christian civilization. It was the policy embodied by Constantine Born-in-the-Purple in the fifty-three chapters of his work, _The Administration of the Empire_, which he so laboriously--and so uselessly--prepared for the instruction of his feckless son.

There is a pathos to-day as we read the dedication and preface to this work, recalling, as it does, so much profound state policy and such wasted hopes. "_Constantine by grace of Christ the King Everlasting, Emperor of the Romans, these to his only son, Romanus, crowned of God and Born-in-the-Purple, Emperor._" He begins: "A wise son rejoices the heart of his father, and an affectionate father has delight in a thoughtful son. Now, therefore, my son, listen to my words; and if you take to heart these lessons you will be counted as wise among the thoughtful and as thoughtful among the wise. The people will bless thee, and many nations shall call thee fortunate. Take to heart that which it behooves thee to understand, so shalt thou wield the helm of this empire like a wise ruler. And do Thou, O Lord my God, whose heavenly kingdom is indestructible and everlasting, vouchsafe to guide in the right way this son whom I have begotten by Thy grace." Alas! the bright youth, so beloved and so promising, was guided rather in the wrong way by Theophano, by Bringas, by Chærina, and many devils like unto them, into the bottomless pit where he lay the scorn of after ages.

At the very end of the audience a scene of extraordinary violence roused the whole hall to a state of wild excitement. The envoys of the sovereign of Bulgaria, the Czar Peter, had the right, as the Czar was allowed the title of Basileus, to be presented before all other foreign ambassadors. To-day they had been purposely kept to the last, in spite of their remonstrances and indignation. Peter, when nearly forty years before he had succeeded to the throne of his father, the powerful Symeon, had made a treaty of amity with the Byzantine kingdom, and had married a granddaughter of the Emperor Lecapenus, a cousin of Romanus II. By this treaty the Bulgarian sovereign was entitled to receive a yearly subsidy in consideration of his protecting the empire from the incursions of the Magyars on the other side of the Danube. The Bulgarian kingdom now extended from Belgrade to Adrianople, which under Symeon had been a terrible incubus to Constantinople, had become weak and peaceful under Peter, and a docile imitator of the arts and manners of Byzantium. The subsidy was regularly paid; but the Bulgarian monarchy had been little able to restrain the incursions of the Danubian raiders. To all the remonstrances of the empire, they alleged their own weakness. Nicephorus in council had resolved to refuse any further payment; and, indeed, he had secretly decided on a policy which should bring the Bulgarian kingdom to its knees by force of arms.

When at last admitted to the hall of audience, the Bulgarian envoys committed the imprudence of adding to the formal compliments to the new Basileus the exasperating demand for payment of the annual subsidy, which they spoke of as "the tribute they had been sent to claim." Nicephorus, who wanted but a pretext of the kind to justify a rupture with the kingdom, rose from his throne, and in a tone of indignation, which he had no need to feign, for the very word "tribute" had roused him to ungovernable passion, he broke out thus: "Foul shame would it be to us Romans, to us who in arms have driven before us every enemy who has dared to meet us, if we consent to pay 'tribute' as if we were slaves buying their freedom by coin--ay, pay tribute to a horde of Scythians, this miserable and unclean tribe of barbarians."

This extraordinary outburst, so unusual in a man as taciturn and as self-controlled as Nicephorus, electrified the audience; for only the privy-councillors, and but few of them, knew of the emperor's settled purpose to bring on a war with the Czar Peter.

Then the emperor, kindling with his own passion, in a voice of thunder that he never used in public councils, turned to his aged father, Bardas, as if to recall some by-gone incident of the Lecapenian usurpers, and said: "What on earth do these Mœsians mean, my father, by talking about tribute as due to them from Rome?--'tribute,' do they say? What, sir, am I not your own true-born son? Am I, the august emperor of the Romans, to be a tributary--the tributary, forsooth--of a pitiful and ungodly tribe?"

The audience held their breath in awe. The Bulgarian envoys cowered.

"Here!" roared Nicephorus. "Ushers, bring your rods and drive these fellows from our presence!"

Nicephorus was now choking with rage, and attempted no longer to restrain himself.

"Be off with you!" he cried, hoarsely. "Go tell your master, whose food is the leather and whose garments are the hides of his own cattle, they say--go back and tell him that the mighty and irresistible Basileus of the Romans is now about to march from his own country into his, and he will himself bring the tribute that is demanded of him--tribute that your people will little care to have. Now learn, slaves as you are, with slaves for your fathers and your grandsires--learn to address the sovereign of the Romans as your lord and master, and never dare in this palace to talk to him about tribute, as if he were a caitiff and a serf."

The emperor closed the audience, and the hall was forthwith emptied. Excited groups gathered outside to discuss the meaning of it all. No one was more amazed than Eric, and meeting the general Bardas Skleros in the throng, he ventured to ask him what it portended.

"It portends," said Bardas, quietly, "that war will be declared against the Bulgarian kingdom this very day. Rome, in her hour of victory, will not suffer those savages to threaten our very existence from the passes of the Hasmus. We will crush this Bulgarian kingdom. The emperor crosses their frontier to-morrow at the head of the advanced army. In ten days we shall reach their so-called capital on the northern side of the mountains. I am to command a brigade, and you shall be on my staff."

So Eric began his service in the long, secular duel between the Bulgarian and Byzantine kingdoms--a duel wherein he himself was destined to play so heroic a part, a duel wherein the child-Basil who had witnessed the rebuff of the envoys of King Peter was destined to earn his title of "Slayer of the Bulgarians."