CHAPTER III

THE AMORIAN DYNASTY, A.D. 820-867

Sect. I

MICHAEL II THE STAMMERER  A.D. 820-829

 

MICHAEL II was proclaimed emperor with the fetters on his limbs; and the first spectacle of his reign was the jailor delivering him from a felon’s bonds. When relieved from his irons, he proceeded to the church of St. Sophia, where he was crowned by the Patriarch.

Michael II was born in the lowest rank of society. He had entered the army as a private soldier in early youth, but his attention to his duties, and his military talents, quickly raised him to the rank of general. His influence over the troops aided in placing Leo V on the imperial throne. Amorium was his birthplace, an important and wealthy city, inhabited by a mixed population of various races and languages, collected together by trading interests. The Phrygians, who formed the majority, still retained many native usages, and some religious ideas adverse to Greek prejudices. Many Jews had also been established in the city for ages, and a sect called the Athingans, who held that the touch of many things was a contamination, had numerous votaries.

The low origin of Michael, and the half-suppressed contempt he disclosed for Greek learning, Roman pride, and ecclesiastical tradition, awakened some animosity in the breasts of the pedants, the nobles, and the orthodox of Constantinople. It is not surprising, therefore, that the historians who wrote under the patronage of the enemies of the Amorian dynasty should represent its founder as a horse-Jockey, a heretic, and a stammerer. As he showed no particular favour to the Greek party in the Byzantine church, his orthodoxy was questioned by the great body of the clergy; and as he very probably expressed himself with hesitation in the Greek language, as spoken at court, any calumny would find credit with the Hellenic populace, who have always been jealous of strangers, and eager to avenge, by words, the compliance they have been compelled to yield by deeds to foreign masters.

Michael, however, had sagacity to observe the difficulties which the various parties in the church and court had the power of raising up against his administration. To gain time, he began by conciliating every party. The orthodox, headed by Theodore Studita and the exiled Patriarch Nicephoros, were the most powerful. He flattered these two ecclesiastics, by allowing them to return to the capital, and even permitted Theodore to resume his functions as abbot of Studion; but, on the other hand, he refused to adopt their suggestions for a reaction in favour of image-worship. He seems to have been naturally inclined to religious toleration, and he was anxious to repress all disputes within the pale of the church, as the best means of maintaining the public tranquillity. In order to give a public guarantee for the spirit of the civil power, which he desired should characterize his reign, he held a silention to announce toleration of private opinion in ecclesiastical questions; but it was declared that the existing laws against the exhibition of images and pictures in churches were to be strictly enforced. The indifference of Michael to the ecclesiastical disputes which agitated a church, to many of whose doctrines he was at heart adverse, did not create so violent an opposition as the sincerer conduct of his predecessors, who banished images on religious grounds.

The elevation of a new emperor, who possessed few claims to distinction, awakened, as usual, the hopes of every ambitious general. A formidable rival appeared in the person of Thomas, the only officer of eminence who had remained faithful to the rebel Bardanes, when Leo and Michael deserted his standard. Thomas, as has been already mentioned, was appointed general of the federates by Leo V, but, owing to some circumstances which are not recorded, he had retired into the dominions of the caliph, and remained for some time on the borders of Armenia. His origin, whether Slavonian or Armenian, by separating him in an unusual degree from the ruling classes in the empire for he was, like Michael, of a very low rank in society caused him to be regarded as a friend of the people; and all the subject races in the empire espoused his cause, which in many provinces took the form of an attack on the Roman administration, rather than of a revolution to place a new emperor on the throne. This rebellion is remarkable for assuming more of the character of a social revolution than of an ordinary insurrection. Thomas overran all Asia Minor without meeting with any serious opposition even on the part of the towns; so that, with the exception of the Armeniac theme and Opsikion, his authority was universally acknowledged, and the administration was conducted by his officers. He concluded an alliance with the Saracens to enable him to visit Antioch, and receive the imperial crown from the hands of the Patriarch Job. This alliance with the infidels tended to injure his popularity; and when he returned accompanied by large bodies of mercenary troops, collected from the Mohammedan tribes on the frontier, the public enthusiasm for his cause became sensibly diminished. Thomas, too, feeling more confidence in the power of his army, began to show himself careless of the good-will of the people.

The only manner of putting an end to the war was by taking Constantinople, and this Thomas prepared to attempt. An immense fleet was assembled at Lesbos. Gregorios Pterotes, a relation of Leo V, who had been banished to Skyros by Michael, was sent into Thrace at the head of ten thousand men to prepare for the arrival of Thomas, who soon followed with the bulk of his army, and formed the siege of Constantinople. Michael had taken every precaution for sustaining a long siege, and Thomas seems to have committed a serious error in attacking so strong a city, while the troops of the Armeniac theme and of Opsikion were in sufficient strength to attack his communications with the centre of Asia Minor, and maintain a constant communication with the garrison of Constantinople from the coast of Bithynia. The army of Thomas, though very numerous, was in part composed of an undisciplined rabble, whose plundering propensities increased the difficulty of obtaining supplies. On the other hand, Constantinople, though closely invested, was well supplied with all kinds of provisions and stores, and the inhabitants displayed great firmness in opposing an enemy whom they saw bent on plunder, while Michael and his son Theophilus performed the duties of able generals. Two attempts were made to storm the fortifications, one during the winter, in 821, and the other in the spring of 822; and both were equally unsuccessful and entailed considerable loss on the besiegers. In the meantime the partisans of Michael collected a fleet of 350 ships in the islands of the Archipelago and Greece; and this force, having gained a complete victory over the fleet of Thomas, cut off the besiegers from communication with Asia.

The Bulgarians, in order to profit by the civil war, invaded the empire, and plundered the country from which the rebels were compelled to draw their supplies. Thomas marched to oppose them with a part of his army, but was defeated, and lost the greater part of his baggage. He was so much weakened by this defeat that Michael sallied out from Constantinople, again routed him, and compelled the rebel army to retire to Arcadiopolis, where Thomas was soon closely besieged. For five months the place was obstinately defended, but at last Thomas was delivered up by his own followers; and his adopted son, who had been invested with the title of Emperor, was captured shortly after in Byza. Both were hanged, after their limbs had been cut off. This junction of a son with the reigning emperor as his successor had become a rule of the Byzantine constitution, which was rarely neglected by any sovereign. Two chiefs attached to the party of Thomas continued for some time to defend the towns of Kabala and Saniana in Asia Minor, until the latter place was betrayed by one who bargained to be appointed archbishop of Neocesarea, a fact recorded in a satirical verse preserved by one of the Byzantine historians.

This remarkable civil war lasted nearly three years, and is distinguished by some features of unusual occurrence from most of the great rebellions in the Byzantine Empire. The large fleets collected on both sides prove that the population and wealth of the coasts and islands of the Archipelago had not declined under the administration of the Iconoclasts, though this part of the empire was likely to be least favoured by the central power, as having attempted to dethrone Leo III, and having always firmly supported the party of the image worshippers. The most numerous partisans of Thomas, and those who gave the strong revolutionary impulse to the rebellion at its commencement, were that body of the Asiatic population which national distinctions or religious opinions excluded from participation in public and local affairs, and to whom even the ecclesiastical courts were shut, on account of their heretical opinions; and to the ecclesiastical courts alone recourse could be had for the equitable administration of justice in some cases. The discontent of these classes, joined to the poverty created by excessive taxation, supplied the army of Thomas with those numerous bands of marauders, eager to seek revenge, who spread desolation far and wide, alarmed all men possessing property, and ultimately rained his enterprise. The indiscipline of his troops, and his incapacity to apply any remedy to the financial oppression and religious intolerance against which the population of the Asiatic provinces had taken up arms, alienated the minds of all who expected to find in him an instrument for reforming the empire. But had Thomas really been a man of a powerful mind, he might have laid the foundation of a new state of society in the Eastern Empire, by lightening the burden of taxation, carrying out toleration for religious opinions, securing an impartial administration of justice even to heretics, and giving every class of subjects, without distinction of nationality or race, equal security for their lives and property. The spirit of the age was, however, averse to toleration, and the sense of justice was so defective that these equitable principles could only have been upheld by the power of a well-disciplined mercenary army.

The necessity of adopting a general measure for improving the condition of the people was not felt by Michael II, even when this rebellion was suppressed; and though he saw that some reduction of taxation to the lower classes was required, he restricted the boon to the Armeniac theme and Opsikion, because these provinces had not joined Thomas in the civil war; and even in them he only reduced the hearth-tax to one half of the amount imposed by Nicephorus I. The rest of the empire was oppressed more than usual, as a punishment. It is certain that this unfortunate rebellion caused an immense destruction of property in Asia Minor, and was no inconsiderable cause of the accumulation of property in immense estates, which began to depopulate the country, and prepare it for the reception of a new race of inhabitants.

The state of society under every known government was at this period troubled by civil wars. The seeds of these convulsions may, therefore, be sought in some general cause affecting the relations of the various classes of men in the development of social progress, and so far it lay beyond the immediate influence of the political laws of the respective governments, whether Mohammedan or Christian. The frame of society in the Saracen and Frank empires betrayed as many signs of decay as in the Byzantine. One of the remarkable features of the age is the appearance of bands of men, so powerful as to set the existing governments everywhere at defiance. These bands consisted in great part of men of what may be called the middle and higher classes of society, driven by dissatisfaction with their prospects in life to seek their fortunes as brigands and pirates; and the extent to which slavery and the slave-trade prevailed, afforded them a ready means of recruiting their forces with daring and desperate men. The feeling which in our days impels nations to colonise new countries, and improve uncultivated lands, in the ninth century led the Saracens and Normans to ravage every country they could enter, destroy capital, and consequently diminish cultivation and population.

Crete and Sicily, two of the most valuable provinces of the Byzantine empire, inhabited almost exclusively by Greeks, and both in a high state of civilisation and prosperity, were conquered by the Saracens without offering the resistance that might have been expected from the wealth and numbers of the 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. In almost every case in which the Saracens conquered Christian nations, history unfortunately reveals that they owed their success chiefly to the favour with which their progress was regarded by the mass of the people. To the disgrace of most Christian governments, it will be found that their administration was more oppressive than that of the Arabian conquerors. Oppression commenced when the rude tribes of the desert adopted the corruptions of a ruling class. The inhabitants of Syria welcomed the first followers of Mahomet; the Copts of Egypt contributed to place their country under the domination of the Arabs; the Christian Berbers aided in the conquest of Africa. All these nations were induced, by hatred of the government at Constantinople, to place themselves under the sway of the Mohammedans. The treachery of the nobles, and the indifference of the people, made Spain and the south of France an easy prey to the Saracens. The conquest of Crete and Sicily must be traced to the same causes, for if the mass of the people had not been indifferent to the change, the Byzantine government could easily have retained possession of these valuable islands. The same disgraceful characteristic of Christian monarchies is also apparent at a much later period. The conquest of the Greeks, Servians, and Vallachians by the Othoman Turks was effected rather by the voluntary submission of the mass of the Christians than by the power of the Mohammedans. This fact is rendered apparent by the effective resistance offered by the Albanians under Scanderbeg. Church and state must divide between them this blot on Christian society, for it is difficult to apportion the share due to the fiscal oppression of Roman centralisation, and to the unrelenting persecution of ecclesiastical orthodoxy.

Crete fell a prey to a band of pirates. The reign of Al Hakem, the Ommiade caliph of Spain, was disturbed by continual troubles; and some theological disputes having created a violent insurrection in the suburbs of Cordova, about 15,000 Spanish Arabs were compelled to emigrate in the year 815. The greater part of these desperadoes established themselves at Alexandria, where they soon took an active part in the civil wars of Egypt. The rebellion of Thomas, and the absence of the naval forces of the Byzantine Empire from the Archipelago, left the island of Crete unprotected. The Andalusian Arabs in Alexandria availed themselves of this circumstance to invade the island, and establish a settlement on it, in the year 823. Michael was unable to take any measures for expelling these invaders, and an event soon happened in Egypt which added greatly to the strength of this Saracen colony. The victories of the lieutenants of the Caliph Almamun compelled the remainder of the Andalusian Arabs to quit Alexandria; so that Abou Hafs, called by Greeks Apochaps, joined his countrymen in Crete with forty ships, determined to make the new settlement their permanent home. It is said by the Byzantine writers that they commenced their conquest of the island by destroying their fleet, and constructing a strong fortified camp, surrounded by an immense ditch, from which it received the name of Chandak, now corrupted by the Western nations into Candia. The construction of the new city, as the capital of their conquests, was part of the Saracen system of establishing their domination. The foundation of Cairo, Cairowan, Fez, Cufa, and Bagdad, was the result of this policy. A new state of society, and new institutions, were introduced with greater facility in a new residence.

The Saracen pirates derived some facilities towards rendering their conquests permanent, from the circumstance that their bands generally consisted of young men, destitute of domestic ties, who were seeking family establishments as well as wealth. It was thus that they became real colonists, to a much greater extent than is usually the case with conquerors in civilised countries. The ease, moreover, with which the Saracens, even of the highest rank, formed marriages with the lower orders, and the equality which reigned among the followers of the Prophet, presented fewer barriers to the increase of their number than prevailed in the various orders and classes of Byzantine society. The native population of Crete was in a stationary, if not a declining condition, at the time of the arrival of the Saracens, while these new colonists were introduced into the country under circumstances extremely favourable to a rapid increase of their numbers. History, however, rarely enables us to mark, from age to age, the increase and decrease of the different classes, tribes, and nations concerning whose affairs it treats, though no fact is more important to enable us to form a correct estimate of the virtues and vices of society, to trace the progress of civilisation, and understand the foundations of political power.

The Emperor Michael II was at length, by the defeat of Thomas, enabled to make some attempts to drive the invaders out of Crete. The first expedition was intrusted to the command of Photinos, general of the Anatolic theme, a man of high rank and family; it was also strengthened by a reinforcement under Damianos, count of the imperial stables and protospatharios; but this expedition was completely defeated. Damianos was slain, and Photinos escaped with a single galley to Dia. The second attack on the Saracens was commanded by Krateros, the general of the Kibyrraiot theme, who was accompanied by a fleet of seventy ships of war. The Byzantine historians pretend that their army was victorious in a battle on shore, but that the Saracens, rallying during the night, surprised the Christian camp, and captured the whole fleet. Krateros escaped in a merchant vessel, but was pursued and taken near Cos, where he was immediately crucified by the Saracens.

The Saracens, having established their sovereignty over the twenty-eight districts into which Crete was then divided, sent out piratical expeditions to plunder the islands of the Archipelago and the coasts of Greece. Michael, alarmed lest more of his subjects should prefer the Saracen to the Byzantine government, fitted out a well-appointed fleet to cruise in the Aegean Sea, and named Oryphas to command it. A choice of the best soldiers in the empire was secured, by paying a bounty of forty byzants a man; and in this, a most effective squadron, with a body of experienced warriors on board, the Byzantine admiral scoured the Archipelago. The Saracen pirates from Syria, Egypt, Africa, and Spain, who had been stimulated by the successes of their countrymen to plunder the Greeks, were pursued and destroyed; but Oryphas was unable to effect anything, when he attacked the Cretan colony on shore. This fleet was subsequently neglected; and, in the first year of the reign of Theophilus, an imperial squadron was totally destroyed by the Saracens, in a naval engagement near Thasos, leaving the corsairs masters of the sea. The islands of the Archipelago were then plundered, and immense booty in property and slaves was carried off. The Saracens retained possession of Crete for one hundred and thirty-five years.

The conquest of Sicily was facilitated by the treachery of Euphemios, a native Greek of high rank, who is said to have carried off a nun, and whom the emperor ordered to be punished by the loss of his nose; for though Michael himself espoused Euphrosyne, the daughter of Constantine VI, after she had taken the veil, he did not intend that any of his subjects should be allowed a similar license. Euphemios was informed of the emperor’s order in time to save his nose, by exciting a sedition in Syracuse, his native city. In this tumult, Gregoras the Byzantine governor was slain. Michael then deputed Photinos, whose unsuccessful expedition to Crete has been already mentioned, to supply the place of Gregoras, and carry on the war against the Saracens of Africa, whom Euphemios had already invited into Sicily, to distract the attention of the Byzantine military. Ziadet Allah, the Aglabite sovereign of Cairowan, had paid particular attention to his fleet, so that he was well prepared to carry on the war, and delighted to gain an entrance for his troops into Sicily. In June, 827, his admiral effected a junction with the ships of Euphemios, who had been driven out of Syracuse, and the Saracens landed at Mazara. Photinos was defeated in a battle near Platana, and retreated to Enna. The Saracens occupied Girgenti, but they were not strong enough to commence offensive operations until the Byzantine fleet was driven off the coast by the arrival of a squadron of ships from Spain, which joined the Aglabites, and enabled fresh reinforcements to arrive from Africa. The war was then carried on with activity: Messina was taken in 831; Palermo capitulated in the following year; and Enna was besieged, for the first time in 836. The war continued with various success, as the invaders received assistance from Africa, and the Christians from Constantinople. The Byzantine forces recovered possession of Messina, which was not permanently occupied by the Saracens until 843. The Emperor Theophilus was too much engaged by his military operations in Asia Minor to send effectual aid to the Sicilians; while his father Michael II had been too fond of his ease on the throne to devote the requisite attention to the business of the distant provinces. Michael III thought of nothing but his pleasures. At lengths in the year 859, Enna was taken by the Saracens. Syracuse, in order to preserve its commerce from ruin, had purchased peace by paying a tribute of 50,000 byzants; and it was not until the reign of Basil I, in the year 878, that it was compelled to surrender, and the conquest of Sicily was completed by the Arabs. Some districts, however continued, either by treaty or by force of arms, to preserve their municipal independence, and the exclusive exercise of the Christian religion, within their territory, to a later period.

The loss of Crete and Sicily seems to have been viewed with strange apathy by the court at Constantinople. The reason of this is probably to be attributed to the circumstance that the surplus revenue was comparatively small, and the defence of these distant possessions was found often to require a military force, which it was deemed might be more advantageously employed in the capital. These feelings of the statesmen at Constantinople were doubtless strengthened by the circumstance that a portion of the population, both in Crete and Sicily, had acquired a degree of municipal independence extremely adverse to the principles which guided the imperial cabinet.

The bold and indefatigable abbot, Theodore Studita, still struggled to establish the supremacy of the church over the emperor in religious and ecclesiastical affairs. He appears to deserve the credit of having discovered the necessity of creating a systematic restraint on the arbitrary authority of the sovereign; but his scheme for making the ecclesiastical legislation superior to the executive power was defective, inasmuch as it sought to confer on the church a more irresponsible and dangerous authority than that of which the emperor would have been deprived. Experience had not yet taught mankind that no irresponsible power, whether it be intrusted to king or priest, in a monarchy or a republic, can be exercised without abuse. Until the law is superior to the executive government there is no true liberty; but in the Byzantine Empire the emperor was above the law, and the imperial officials and the clergy had a law of their own, and so the people were doubly oppressed.

The conduct of Michael in conducting ecclesiastical business indicates that he was not destitute of statesmanlike qualities, though he generally thought rather of enjoying his ease on the throne than of fulfilling the duties of his high station. During the civil war he was anxious to secure the good-will of the monks and of the Greek party in the church. He recalled Theodore from banishment, and declared himself in favour of perfect toleration. This was far from satisfying the enthusiastic abbot, and the bigoted ecclesiastics of his party; and after the establishment of tranquillity they incited the image-worshippers to an open violation of the laws against presenting pictures to the adoration of the people. Theodore also engaged with fresh zeal in an extensive correspondence with all persons of influence whom he knew to be favourable to his party. The emperor ordered him to discontinue this correspondence, as of a seditious tendency; but the bold abbot ventured to argue the case with Michael himself in a long letter, which is preserved in his works.

The policy of forming friendly relations with the western nations of Europe was every day becoming more apparent to the rulers of the Byzantine Empire, as the political influence of the Popes extended itself, and the power of the western nations increased. Michael II, in order to prevent the discontented image-worshippers from receiving support from the Franks, opened negotiations with the Emperor Louis le Debonnaire, in the hope of obtaining a condemnation of image-worship similar to that of Charlemagne. In the year 824, an embassy, bearing a vainglorious and bombastical letter, announcing the defeat of Thomas, reached the court of Louis. In this epistle Michael recapitulates the religious principles which ought to guide the emperors of the Romans in their ecclesiastical affairs. He alludes to the condemnation of image-worship by the council of Frankfort, and declares that he has not destroyed holy images and pictures, but only removed them to such an elevation as was necessary to prevent the abuses caused by popular superstition. He considers the councils held for the condemnation of image worship merely as local synods, and fully recognises the existence of a higher authority in general councils of the church, giving, at the same time, his own confession of faith, in terms which he knew would secure the assent of Louis and the Frank clergy. He then solicits the Frank emperor to induce the Pope to withdraw his protection from the rebellious image worshippers who had fled from the Byzantine Empire to Rome. A synod was convoked at Paris in consequence of this communication, which condemned the worship of images in the same terms as the Caroline Books, and blamed the second council of Nicaea for the superstitious reverence it had shown for images, but, at the same time, approved of the rebuke given to the Eastern emperors, for their rashness in removing and destroying images, by Pope Hadrian, A.D. 825. The Emperor Louis was also requested by the synod to forward a letter to Pope Eugenius, inviting him to write to the Emperor Michael, in order to re-establish peace and unity in the Christian church. But the Pope, the two emperors, and Theodore Studita, were all afraid of plunging into ecclesiastical discussions at this period; for public opinion had been so exercised in these polemics, that it was impossible to foresee the result of the contest. Matters were therefore allowed to go on during the reign of Michael without any open rupture. The imprisonment of Methodios, afterwards Patriarch of Constantinople, and the condemnation to death of Euthymios, bishop of Sardis, were the only acts of extreme severity with which the image-worshippers could reproach Michael; and these seem to have originated from political and party motives rather than from religious opinions, though the zeal of these ecclesiastics rendered them eager to be considered as martyrs.

The marriage of Michael with Euphrosyne, the daughter of Constantine VI, who had already taken the veil, was also made a ground for exciting public reprobation against the emperor. It is probable, however, that more importance is given to this marriage, as a violation of religion, by later writers, than it received among contemporaries. The Patriarch absolved Euphrosyne from her vows, and the senate repeatedly solicited the emperor to unite himself with the last scion of Leo the Isaurian, the second founder of the Eastern Empire. Michael affected to be averse to second marriages, and to yield only to the public wish. That the marriage of the emperor with a nun excited the animosity of the monks, who regarded marriage as an evil, and second marriages as a delict, is very natural; and it would, of course, supply a fertile source of calumnious gossip to the enemies of the Amorian dynasty.

Michael II died in October, 829, and was buried in a sarcophagus of green Thessalian marble, in the sepulchral chapel erected by Justinian in the Church of the Holy Apostles.

 

Sect. II

THEOPHILUS

A.D. 829-842

 

No emperor ever ascended the throne of Constantinople with greater personal and political advantages than Theophilus. His education had been the best the age could supply, and he possessed considerable talent and industry. The general direction of his education had been intrusted to John the Grammarian, one of the most accomplished as well as the most learned men of the time. In arts and arms, in law and theology, the emperor was equally well instructed: his taste made him a lover of poetry, music, and architecture; his courage rendered him a brave soldier, his sense of justice a sound legislator, but his theology made him a stern bigot; and a discontented temperament of mind prevented his accomplishments and virtues from producing a harmonious union. All acknowledged his merit, none seemed affectionately attached to his person; and in the midst of his power he was called the Unfortunate. During his father’s lifetime he had been intrusted with an active share in the government, and had devoted particular attention to the ecclesiastical department. He embraced the party of the Iconoclasts with fervour; and though his father endeavoured to moderate his zeal, his influence seems to have produced the isolated acts of persecution during the reign of Michael, which were at variance with that emperor’s general policy.

Theophilus observed that the population of the empire was everywhere suffering from the defects of the central government, and he was anxious to remedy the evil. He erroneously attributed the greatest part of the sufferings of the people to the corruption of the administration, instead of ascribing it to the fact that the central authorities assumed duties which they were unable to execute, and prevented local bodies, who could easily have performed these duties in an efficient manner, from attempting to undertake them. Theophilus, however, justly believed that a great reform might be effected by improving the administration of justice, and he set about the task with vigour; still many of his measures for enforcing equitable conduct on the part of the judges were so strongly marked with personality, that his severity, even when necessary, was stigmatised as cruel. He was in the habit of riding through the streets of Constantinople on a weekly visit to the church of St Mary at Blachern, in order to afford his subjects a public opportunity of presenting such petitions as might otherwise never reach his hands. The practice is perpetuated in the Othoman Empire to this day. The sultan pays a public visit to one of the principal mosques of his capital weekly for the same purpose. In both cases it may be received as a proof of the want of a better and more systematic control over the judicial administration of a mighty empire. There was no emperor, in the reign of Theophilus, to parade the streets of provincial towns, where control was most wanted; and there is no substitute for the sultan’s procession to the mosque in the provincial cities of Turkey.

The first proof Theophilus gave of his love of justice was so strangely chosen, that it was represented as originating in the wish to get rid of some dangerous courtiers, rather than in a sense of equity. He assembled the senate, and, exhibiting to its astonished members the candelabrum of which one of the branches had been struck off at the assassination of Leo V, he demanded whether the laws of the empire and divine justice did not both call for the punishment of the men who had committed the double sacrilege of murdering their emperor, and shedding his blood before the altar. Some senators, prepared for the scene, suggested that, in order to avert the vengeance of Heaven, it was necessary to put the traitors to death. Theophilus immediately ordered the prefect of Constantinople to arrest every person concerned in Leo’s assassination and bring them to trial, whether they belonged to the party of the image-worshippers or of the Greek ecclesiastics. They were all convicted, and executed in the Hippodrome, vainly protesting against the injustice of their sentence, since their deed had been ratified and pardoned by the Emperor Michael II, and the reigning emperor confirmed that ratification by enjoying the profit of their act.

Other examples of the emperor’s severity were less liable to suspicion. A poor widow accused Petronas, the emperor’s brother-in-law, an officer of talents and courage, of having, in violation of law, raised his house so high as to render hers almost uninhabitable from want of air and light. The laws concerning the disposition of private buildings in Constantinople were always regarded as an important object of imperial legislation. Theophilus ordered the grievance to be redressed; but the complaint was subsequently reiterated, and the emperor discovered that his brother-in-law had disobeyed his decision. He now gave orders that the newly built house should be levelled with the ground, and condemned Petronas to be scourged in the public highway. Sometime after this, Petronas was appointed to the high post of governor of Cherson, and during the reign of his nephew, Michael III, he defeated the Saracens in an important battle in Asia Minor, as will be hereafter related. This anecdote illustrates the state of society at the Byzantine court, by the contrast it presents between the servile feelings of the Romans and Greeks of Constantinople, and the independent spirit of the Franks and Germans of Western Europe. In the Eastern Empire the shame of blows was nothing, and a bastinado inflicted on an emperor’s brother-in-law, who retained his official rank, was not likely to be a very painful operation. The degradation of the punishment was effaced by the arbitrary nature of the power that inflicted it. The sense of justice inherent in mankind is always wounded by the infliction of arbitrary punishment; cruelty or caprice are supposed to dictate the sentence; the public attention is averted from the crime, and pity is often created when the sufferer really deserves to be branded with infamy.

On another occasion, as Theophilus rode through the streets, a man stepped forward, and, laying his hand on the horse the emperor was riding, exclaimed, “This horse is mine, O emperor!”. On investigating the circumstances, it appeared that the horse had really been taken by force from its proprietor by an officer of rank, who wished to present it to the emperor on account of its beauty. This act of violence was also punished, and the proprietor received two pounds’ weight of gold as an indemnity for the loss he had sustained. The horse was worth about one hundred byzants.

Theophilus was also indefatigable in examining the police details of the capital, and looking into the state of the markets. It is true that the abundance of provisions, and their price at Constantinople, was a matter of great importance to the Byzantine government, which, like the Roman, too often sacrificed the prosperity of the provinces to the tranquillity of the capital; yet still the minute attention which Theophilus gave to performing the duties of a prefect, indicate that he was deficient in the grasp of intellect required for the clear perception of the duties of an emperor.

The reign of Theophilus was an age of anecdotes and tales. It had many poetic aspirations, smothered in chronicles and legends of saints. Volumes of tales were then current which would have given us a better insight into Byzantine manners than the folios of the historians, who have preserved an outline of a few of these stories. Theophilus seems to have been a kind of Byzantine Haroun Al Rashid. Unfortunately the Iconoclasts appear to have embodied more of this species of literature in their habits than the orthodox, who delighted in silly legends concerning saints rather than in imaginative pictures of the deeds of men; and thus the mirror of truth has perished, while the fables that have been preserved are neglected from their unnatural stupidity.

Theophilus was unmarried when he ascended the throne, and he found difficulty in choosing a wife. At last he arranged with his stepmother, Euphrosyne, a project for enabling him to make a suitable selection, or at least to make his choice from a goodly collection. The empress-mother invited all the most beautiful and accomplished virgins at Constantinople to a fête in her private apartments. When the gaiety of the assembled beauties had removed their first shyness, Theophilus entered the rooms, and walked forward with a golden apple in his hand. Struck by the grace and beauty of Eikasia, with whose features he must have been already acquainted, and of whose accomplishments he had often heard, he stopped to address her. The proud beauty felt herself already an empress; but Theophilus commenced his conversation with the ungallant remark, “Woman is the source of evil”, to which the young lady too promptly replied, “But woman is also the cause of much good”. The answer or the tone jarred on the captious mind of the emperor, and he walked on. His eye then fell on the modest features of the young Theodora, whose eyes were fixed on the ground. To her he gave the apple without risking a word. Eikasia, who for a moment had felt the throb of gratified ambition, could not recover from the shock. She retired into a monastery which she founded, and passed her life dividing her time between the practice of devotion and the cultivation of her mind. She composed some hymns, which continued long in use in the Greek Church. A short time after this, the Empress Euphrosyne retired into the monastery of Gastria, an agreeable retreat, selected also by Theodista, the mother of Theodora, as her residence.

Theodora herself is the heroine of another tale, illustrating the corruption of the officials about the court, and the inflexible love of justice of the emperor. The courtiers in the service of the imperial family had been in the habit of drawing large profits from evading the custom-duties to which other traders were liable, by engaging the emperor-colleague or the empress in commercial adventures. The revenue of the state and the commerce of the honest merchant both suffered by this aristocratic mode of trading. Theophilus, who knew of the abuse, learned that the young empress had been persuaded to lend her name to one of these trading speculations, and that a ship, laden with a valuable cargo in her name, was about to arrive at Constantinople. In order to put an end to these frauds by a striking example, he took care to be informed as this ship entered the port. When this vessel arrived, it displayed the imperial standard, and stood proudly towards the public warehouses with a fair wind. Theophilus, who had led the court to a spot overlooking the port, pretending to be struck by the gallant appearance of the vessel, demanded with what military stores she was laden, and whence she came. The truth was soon elicited, and when he obtained a full confession of the nature of the cargo, he ordered it to be landed and publicly burned; for he said, it was never heard that a Roman emperor or empress turned trader.

The principles of toleration which had guided the imperial administration during the preceding reigns were not entirely laid aside by Theophilus, and though his religious bigotry was strong, he preferred punishing the image worshippers for disobedience to the civil laws to persecuting them for their ecclesiastical opinions. The emperor’s own prejudices in favour of the divine right of kings were as intolerant as his aversion to image-worship, so that he may really have acted as much on political as religious grounds. His father had not removed pictures from the walls of churches when they were placed in elevated situations; and had Theophilus followed his example, Iconoclasts and image worshippers might at last have accepted the compromise, and dwelt peaceably together in the Eastern Church. The monks, too, had been wisely allowed considerable latitude within the walls of their monasteries, though they were forbidden to preach publicly to the people in favour of image-worship. Theophilus was inclined to imitate the policy of Leo the Isaurian, but he could not venture to dissolve the refractory monasteries and imprison the monks. The government of the earlier Iconoclasts reposed on an army organised by themselves, and ready to enforce all their orders; but in the time of Theophilus, the army neither possessed the same power over society, nor was it equally devoted to the emperor.

In the year 832, an edict was issued prohibiting every display of picture-worship, and commanding that the word holy, usually placed in letters of gold before the name of a saint, should be erased. This edict was at times carried into execution in an arbitrary and oppressive manner, and caused discontent and opposition. A celebrated painter of ecclesiastical subjects, named Lazaros, who acquired great fame during the reign of Michael III, was imprisoned and scourged, but subsequently released from confinement at the intercession of Theodora. Two monks, Theophanes the Singer and Theodore Graptos, were much more cruelly treated, for, in addition to other tortures, some verses were branded on the forehead of Theodore, who from that circumstance received his surname of Graptos.

Sometime after the publication of this edict against image worship, John the Grammarian was elected Patriarch. Though a decided opponent of image-worship, he was a man of a larger intellect and more tolerant disposition than his imperial pupil, over whose mind, however, he fortunately retained considerable influence. Still, when the emperor found his edict unavailing, he compelled the Patriarch to assemble a synod, which was induced to excommunicate all image-worshippers. As the Patriarch was averse to these violent proceedings, it can hardly be supposed that they produced much effect within the pale of the church; but they certainly tended to inflame the zeal of those marked out for persecution, and strengthened the minds of the orthodox to perform what they considered to be their duty, arming them with faith to resist the civil power. The spirit of religious strife was awakened, and the emperor was so imprudent as to engage personally in controversies with monks and priests. These discussions ruffled his temper and increased his severity, by exposing the lofty pretensions he entertained of his dignity and talents to be wounded by men who gloried in displaying their contempt for all earthly power. Theophilus sought revenge for his injured vanity. The monks who persisted in publicly displaying images and pictures were driven from their monasteries; and many members of the clergy, distinguished for learning and beloved for virtue, were imprisoned and scourged. Yet, even during the height of his resentment, the emperor winked at the superstition of those who kept their opinions private, tolerated the prejudices of the Empress Theodora, and at her request released Methodios, the future Patriarch of Constantinople, from prison.

The wealth of the Byzantine Empire was at this period very great, and its industry in the most flourishing condition, Theophilus, though engaged in expensive and disastrous wars, found the imperial revenue so much increased by the augmented commerce of his subjects, that he was able to indulge an inordinate passion for pomp and display. His love of art was gratified by the fantastic employment of rich materials in luxurious ornament, rather than by durable works of useful grandeur. His architectural taste alone took a direction at times advantageous to the public. The walls of Constantinople towards the sea were strengthened, and their height increased. He founded an hospital, which remained one of the most useful institutions of the city to the latest days of Byzantine history; but, at the same time, he gratified his love of display in architecture, by constructing palaces, at an enormous expense, in no very durable manner. One of these, built in imitation of the great palace of the caliphs at Bagdad, was erected at Bryas, on the Asiatic shore. The varied form, the peculiar arches, the coloured decorations, the mathematical tracery, and the rich gilding, had induced John the Grammarian, when he visited the Caliph Motassem as ambassador from Theophilus, to bring back drawings and plans of this building, which was totally different from the Byzantine style then in use. Other buildings constructed by Theophilus are described by historians in a way that indicates they must have been far superior in magnificence to the works of preceding or following emperors.

Theophilus was also an enthusiastic admirer of music, and as church-music was in his time one of the principal amusements of persons of taste, musical science was devoted to add to the grandeur and solemnity of ecclesiastical ceremonies. In works of art, the emperor's taste appears not to have been very pure. A puerile vanity induced him to lavish enormous sums in fabricating gorgeous toys of jewellery. In these ornaments, singular mechanical contrivances were combined with rich figures to astonish the spectator. A golden plane-tree, covered with innumerable artificial birds that warbled and fluttered their wings on its branches, vultures that screamed, and lions that roared, stood at the entrance of the hall of state. Invisible organs, that filled the ceilings of the apartments with soft melody, were among the strange things that Theophilus placed in the great palace of Constantinople. They doubtless formed the theme of many Byzantine tales, of which we still see a reflected image in the Arabian Nights.

Two laws of Theophilus deserve especial notice: one exhibits him in the character of a capricious tyrant; the other reveals the extent to which elements adverse to Roman and Greek nationality pervaded Byzantine society. The first of these edicts ordered all the Romans that is, all the subjects of the empire, to wear their hair cropped short, under the pain of the bastinado. Theophilus pretended that he wished to restore old Roman fashions, but the world believed that the flowing locks of others rendered him ashamed of his own bald head. The other law declared that the marriage of Persians and Romans did in no way derogate from the rights of those who were citizens of the empire; and it shows that a very great emigration of Persian Christians from the dominions of the caliphs must have taken place, or such a law would not have become necessary. Theophobus, one of the most distinguished leaders of the Persians, who claimed descent from the Sassanides, married Helena, the emperor’s sister.

The wide extended frontiers of the empire required Theophilus to maintain relations with the sovereigns of a large portion of Asia and Europe. To secure allies against his great enemy, the Caliph of Bagdad, he renewed the ancient alliance of the emperors of Constantinople with the sovereign of the Khazars; but this people was now too much occupied in defending its own territories against a new race of intruders, called Patzinaks, to renew their invasions of the northern provinces of the Mohammedan empire. The progress of the Patzinaks alarmed Theophilus for the security of the Byzantine commerce with the northern nations, from which the imperial treasury drew immense duties; and he sent his brother-in-law Petronas (whom, as we have mentioned, he had condemned to be scourged) to Cherson, which was then a free city like Venice, with orders to construct a fortress on the banks of the Don. This commercial colony, called Sarkel, was used as the trading depot with the north. A friendly intercourse was kept up with Louis le Debonnaire and his son Lothaire. The Venetians were invited to assist in the naval war for the defence of Sicily and southern Italy against the Saracens of Africa. An embassy was sent to Abderrahman II, the caliph of Spain, to secure the commerce of the Greeks in the West from any interruption, and to excite the Ommiad caliph to hostilities against the Abassides of Bagdad.

When Theophilus ascended the throne, the Byzantine and Saracen empires enjoyed peace; but they were soon involved in a fierce contest, which bears some resemblance to the mortal combat between the Roman and Persian empires in the time of Heraclius. Almamun, who ruled the caliphate from 813 to 833, was a magnificent and liberal sovereign, distinguished for his love of science and literature, and eager to surpass the Greeks in knowledge and the Romans in arms. Though not himself a soldier, his armies were commanded by several celebrated generals. The want of a moral check on the highest officials of arbitrary governments usually prevents the existence of a sense of duty in political relations, and hence rebellions and civil wars become prevalent. In the reign of Almamun, the disturbances in Persia reduced the population, whether fire-worshippers or Christians, to despair; and a great number, unable to live in their native country, escaped into the Byzantine Empire, and established themselves at Sinope. This immigration seems to have consisted chiefly of Christians, who feared equally the government of Almamun and the rebel Babek, who, though preaching the equality of all mankind, was accused of allowing every license to his own followers. The Persian troops at Sinope were placed under the command of Theophobos, and their number was increased by an addition of seven thousand men, when Afshin, the general of the Caliph Motassem, defeated Babek, and extinguished the civil war in Persia.

The protection granted by Theophilus to refugees from the caliph’s dominions, induced Almamun to invade the empire in the year 831; and the Saracen general, Abu Chazar, completely defeated the Byzantine army, commanded by Theophilus in person. The emperor repaired this disgrace in the following year by gaining a victory over the Saracens in Charsiana, which he celebrated with great pomp and vainglory in the hippodrome of Constantinople. Almamun revenged the defeat of his generals by putting himself at the head of his army, ravaging Cappadocia, and capturing Heracleia.

The armies of the Byzantine Empire at this period consisted in great part of foreign mercenaries. Some secondary causes, connected with the development of society, which have escaped the notice of historians, operated to render the recruitment of armies more than usually difficult among the civilised portions of mankind, and caused all the powerful sovereigns of the age to exclude their native subjects as much as possible from the use of arms. In the Saracen Empire this feeling led to the transference of all military power into the hands of Turkish mercenaries; and in the Frank Empire it led to the exposure of the country, without defence, to the incursions of the Normans. It is true that jealousy of the Arab aristocracy in one case, and fear of the hostile disposition of the Romanised population in the other, had considerable influence on the conduct of the caliphs and the Western emperors. The Byzantine Empire, though under the influence of similar tendencies, was saved from a similar fate by a higher degree of political civilization. The distrust of Theophilus for his generals was shown by the severity with which he treated them. Manuel, one of the best officers of the empire, disgusted at his suspicions, fled to the Saracens, and served with distinction in their armies against the rebels of Chorasan. Alexis Mousel, an Armenian, who received the favourite daughter of Theophilus in marriage, with the rank of Caesar, was degraded and scourged in consequence of his father-in-law’s suspicions.

Immediately after the death of Almamun, the emperor sent John the Grammarian on an embassy to Motassem, who had succeeded his brother as caliph. The object of this embassy was to conclude a lasting peace, and at all events to persuade Manuel, whose fame in the war of Chorasan had reached the ears of Theophilus, to return home. With the caliph the negotiations appear not to have been as successful as the emperor expected, but with Manuel they succeeded perfectly. The magnificence of John on this occasion gave rise to many wonderful tales, and the Greeks were long amused by the accounts of the marvellous wealth displayed by the priestly ambassador.

Not very long after this embassy, Theophilus, availing himself of the troubles occasioned in the caliph's dominions by the civil wars arising out of the heretical opinions concerning the human composition of the Koran, which had been favoured by Almamun, invaded the caliph's dominions. The Byzantine troops ravaged the country to the south of Melitene, anciently called Commagene, defeated the Saracens with great loss, captured Zapetra, and penetrated as far as Samosata, which Theophilus also took and destroyed. Zapetra, or Sosopetra, lay about two days’ journey to the west of the road from Melitene to Samosata. The Greeks pretended that it was the birthplace of Motassem, and that the caliph sent an embassy to the emperor entreating him to spare the town, which he offered to ransom at any price; but Theophilus dismissed the ambassadors and razed Zapetra to the ground. This campaign seems to have been remarkable for the cruelty with which the Mohammedans were treated, and the wanton ravages committed by the Persian emigrants in the Byzantine service. The Saracens repeated one of the tales in connection with this expedition which was current among their countrymen, and applied, as occasion served, from the banks of the Guadalquivir to those of the Indus. In Spain it was told of Al Hakem, in Asia of Motassem. A female prisoner, when insulted by a Christian soldier, was reported to have exclaimed in her agony, “Oh, shame on Motassem”. The circumstance was repeated to the caliph, who learned at the same time that the unfortunate woman was of the tribe of Hashem, and consequently, according to the clannish feelings of the Arabs, a member of his own family. Motassem swore by the Prophet he would do everything in his power to revenge her.

In the meantime Theophilus, proud of his easy victories, returned to Constantinople, and instead of strengthening his frontier, and placing strong garrisons near the mountain passes, brought his best troops to Constantinople to attend on his own person. As he entered the hippodrome in a chariot drawn by four white horses, wearing the colours of the blue faction, his happy return was hailed by the people with loud shouts. His welcome was more like that of a successful charioteer than of a victorious general.

The Persian mercenaries, whose number had now increased to thirty thousand, were placed in winter-quarters at Sinope and Amastris, where they began to display a seditious spirit; for Theophilus could neither trust his generals nor acquire the confidence of his soldiers. These mercenaries at last broke out into rebellion, and resolved to form a Persian kingdom in Pontus. They proclaimed their general Theophobus king; but that officer had no ambition to insure the ruin of his brother-in-law’s empire by grasping a doubtful sceptre; and he sent assurances to Theophilus that he would remain faithful to his allegiance, and do everything in his power to put an end to the rebellion. Without much difficulty, therefore, this army of Persians was gradually dispersed through the different themes, but tranquillity was obtained by sacrificing the efficiency of one of the best armies in the empire.

Motassem, having also re-established tranquillity in the interior of his dominions, turned his whole attention to the war with the Byzantine Empire. A well-appointed army of veterans, composed of the troops who had suppressed the rebellion of Babek, was assembled on the frontiers of Cilicia, and the caliph placed himself at the head of the army, on the banks of the Cydnus, in the year 838. A second army of thirty thousand men, under Afshin, advanced into the empire at a considerable distance to the north-east of the grand army, under the immediate orders of the caliph. Afshin had suppressed the rebellion of Babek after it had lasted twenty years, and was considered the ablest general of the Saracens. On hearing that the army of Afshin had invaded Lykandos, Theophilus intrusted the defences of the Cilician passes, by which the caliph proposed to advance, to Aetios, the general of the Anatolic theme, and hastened to stop the progress of Afshin, whose army, strengthened by a strong body of Armenians under Sembat the native governor of the country, and by ten thousand Turkish mercenaries, who were then considered the best troops in Asia, was overrunning Cappadocia. Theophilus, apprehensive that this army might turn his flank, and alarmed lest the Armenians and Persians, of which it was part composed, might seduce those of the same nations in his service, was anxious to hasten an engagement. The battle was fought at Dasymon, where the Byzantine army, commanded by Theophobus and Manuel, under the immediate orders of Theophilus, attacked the Saracens. The field was fiercely contested, and for some time it seemed as if victory would favour the Christians; but the admirable discipline of the Turkish archers decided the fate of the day. In vain the emperor exposed his person with the greatest valour to recover the advantage he had lost; Manuel was compelled to make the most desperate efforts to save him, and induce him to retreat. The greater part of the Byzantine troops fled from the field, and the Persian mercenaries alone remained to guard the emperor's person. During the night, however, Theophilus was informed that the foreigners were negotiating with the Saracens to deliver him up a prisoner, and he was compelled to mount his horse, and ride almost unattended to Chiliokomon, where a portion of the native troops of the empire had rallied. From thence he retired to Dorylaeum, where he endeavoured to assemble an army to defend Amorium, Manuel died of the wounds he received in saving the emperor.

While Theophilus was marching to his defeat, the advanced guard of the Caliph’s army, under Ashnas and Wassif, threaded the Cilician passes in the direction of Tyana; and Aetios, unable to resist their advance, allowed the main body of the Saracens to penetrate into the central plains of Asia Minor without opposition. Abandoning the whole of the Anatolic theme to the invaders, he concentrated his forces under the walls of Amorium. After ravaging Lycaonia and Pisidia, Motassem marched to besiege Amorium. The capture of this city, as the birthplace of the Amorian dynasty, had been announced by the caliph to be the object of the campaign; and it was said that 130,000 men had marched out of Tarsus with AMORIUM painted on their shields. Motassem expected to carry the place by assault, and the defeat of Theophilus by his lieutenants inspired him with the hope of carrying his arms to the shores of the Bosphorus, and plundering the Asiatic suburb of Constantinople. But all his attempts to storm Amorium, though repeated with fresh troops on three successive days, were defeated by Aetios, who had thrown himself into the city with the best soldiers in his army, and the caliph found himself obliged to commence a regular siege. Theophilus now sued for peace. The bishop of Amorium and the leading citizens offered to capitulate, for the numerous army within the walls soon exhausted the provisions. But Motassem declared that he would neither conclude a peace nor grant terms of capitulation; vengeance was what he sought, not victory, Amorium was valiantly defended for fifty-five days, but treachery at length enabled the caliph to gratify his passion, just as he was preparing to try the fortune of a fourth general assault. The traitor who sold his post and admitted the Saracens into the city was named Voiditzes. In this case both the Christian and Mohammedan accounts agree in ascribing the success of the besiegers to treason in the Christian ranks, and the defence appears to have been conducted by Aetios both with skill and valour. The cruelty of Motassem far exceeded that of Theophilus. Thirty thousand persons were massacred, and the inhabitants who were spared were sold as slaves. The city of Amorium was burned to the ground, and the walls destroyed. The ambassadors sent by Theophilus to beg for peace had been detained by the caliph, to witness his conquest. They were now sent back with this answer, “Tell your master that I have at last discharged the debt contracted at Zapetra”.

Motassem, however, perceived that a considerable change had taken place in the empire since the days in which the Saracens had besieged Constantinople. He did not even consider it prudent to attempt advancing to the shores of the Bosphorus, but returned to his own dominions, carrying with him Aetios and forty officers of rank captured in Amorium. For seven years these men were vainly urged to embrace the Mohammedan faith; at last they were put to death by Vathek, the son of Motassem, and they are regarded as martyrs by the Orthodox Church. Theophilus is said to have offered the Caliph Motassem the sum of 2400 Ib. of gold to purchase peace, and the deliverance of all the Christians who had been taken prisoner during the war; but the caliph demanded in addition that a Persian refugee named Naser, and Manuel, of whose death he appears not to have been assured, should also be given up. Theophilus refused to disgrace himself by delivering up Naser, and the treaty was broken off. Naser was shortly after killed in an engagement on the frontier.

The war was prosecuted for some years in a languid manner, and success rather inclined to the Byzantine arms. The port of Antioch, on the Orontes, was taken and plundered by a Greek fleet; the province of Melitene was ravaged as far as Marash; Abou Said, who had defeated and slain Naser, was in turn himself defeated and taken prisoner. At last a truce seems to have been concluded, but no exchange of prisoners took place.

Theophilus never recovered from the wound his pride received at Amorium. The frequent defeats he sustained in those battles where he was personally engaged, contrasted with the success of his generals, rankled in his melancholy disposition. His sensitive temperament and the fatigues of his campaigns undermined his health. To divert his mind, he indulged his passion for building; and so great were the resources of the Byzantine treasury, that even at this period of misfortune he could lavish enormous sums in idle ornament it would have been well, both for him and for the Christian world, had he employed some of this wealth at an earlier period in fortifying the frontier and diminishing the burden of the land-tax. He now erected a new chapel called Triconchos, a circus for public races, a staircase called Sigma, a whispering gallery called the Mystery, and a magnificent fountain called Phiala. But the emperor’s health continued to decline, and he perceived that his end was not very distant.

Theophilus prepared for death with prudence and courage, but with that suspicion which disgraced his character. A council of regency was named to assist Theodora. His habitual distrust induced him to exclude Theophobos from this council. He feared lest Theophobos might seize the throne by means of the army, or establish an independent kingdom in the Armeniac theme by means of the Persian mercenaries. The conspiracy on the night after the defeat at Dasymon had augmented the jealousy with which the emperor regarded his brother-in-law ever after the rebellion of the Persian troops at Sinope and Amastris. He now resolved to secure his son's throne at the expense of his own conscience, and ordered Theophobos to be beheaded. Recollecting the fortune of his father, and the fate of Leo the Armenian, he commanded the head of his brother-in-law to be brought to his bedside. The agitation of the emperor's mind, after issuing this order, greatly increased his malady; and when the lifeless head of his former friend was placed before him, he gazed long and steadily at its features, his mind doubtless wandering over the memory of many a battle-field in which they had fought together. At last he “slowly exclaimed, Thou art no longer Theophobos, and I am no more Theophilus”, then, turning away his head, he sank on his pillow, and never again opened his lips.

 

Sect. III

MICHAEL III THE DRUNKARD A.D. 842-867

 

Michael the son of Theophilus was between three and four years old when his father died. His mother Theodora, having been crowned empress, was regent in her own right. The will of her husband had joined with her, as a council of administration, Theoktistos, the ablest statesman in the empire; Manuel, the uncle of the empress; and Bardas, her brother. Thekla, an elder sister of Michael, had also received the title of Empress before her father’s death.

The great struggle between the Iconoclasts and the image worshippers was terminated during the regency of Theodora, and she is consequently regarded by the orthodox as a pattern of excellence, though she countenanced the vices of her son, by being present at his most disgraceful scenes of debauchery. The most remarkable circumstance, at the termination of this long religious contest, is the immorality which invaded all ranks of society. The moral and religious sincerity and strictness which, during the government of the early Iconoclasts, had raised the empire from the verge of social dissolution to dignity and strength, had subsequently been supplanted by a degree of cant and hypocrisy that became at last intolerable. The sincerity of both the ecclesiastical parties, in their early contests, obtained for them the respect of the people; but when the political question concerning the subjection of the ecclesiastical to the civil power became the principal object of dispute, official tyranny and priestly ambition only used a hypocritical veil of religious phrases for the purpose of concealing their interested ends from popular scrutiny. As usual, the people saw much farther than their rulers supposed, and the consequence was that, both parties being suspected of hypocrisy, the influence of true religion was weakened, and the most sacred ties of society rent asunder. The Byzantine clergy showed themselves ready on all occasions to flatter the vices of the civil government: the monks were eager for popular distinction, and acted the part of demagogues; while servile prelates and seditious monks were both equally indifferent to alleviating the people’s burdens.

Every rank of society at last proclaimed that it was weary of religious discussion and domestic strife. Indifference to the ecclesiastical questions so long predominant, produced indifference to religion itself, and the power of conscience became dormant; enjoyment was soon considered the object of life; and vice, under the name of pleasure, became the fashion of the day. In this state of society, of which the germs were visible in the reign of Theophilus, superstition was sure to be more powerful than religion. It was easier to pay adoration to a picture, to reverence a relic, or to observe a ceremony, than to regulate one's conduct in life by the principles of morality and the doctrines of religion. Pictures, images, relics, and ceremonies became consequently the great objects of veneration. The Greek population of the empire had identified its national feelings with traditional usages rather than with Christian doctrines, and its opposition to the Asiatic puritanism of the Isaurian, Armenian, and Amorian emperors, ingrafted the reverence for relics, the adoration of pictures and the worship of saints, into the religious fabric of the Eastern Church, as essentials of Christian worship. Whatever the church has gained in this way, in the amount of popular devotion, seems to have been lost to popular morality.

The senate at this time possessed considerable influence in administrative business. It was called upon to ratify the will of Theophilus, and a majority of its members were gained over to the party of the empress, who was known to favour image-worship. The people of Constantinople had always been of this party; and the Iconoclasts of the higher ranks, tired of the persecutions which had been the result of the ecclesiastical quarrel, desired peace and toleration more than victory. The Patriarch, John the Grammarian, and some of the highest dignitaries in the church, were, nevertheless, conscientiously opposed to a species of devotion which they thought too closely resembled idolatry, and from them no public compliance could be expected. Manuel, however, the only member of the regency who had been a fervent Inconoclast, suddenly abandoned the defence of his opinions; and his change was so unexpected that it was reported he had been converted by a miracle. A sudden illness brought him to the point of death, when the prayers and the images of the monks of Studion as suddenly restored him to health. Such was the belief of the people of Constantinople, and it must have been a belief extremely profitable to the monks.

It was necessary to hold a general council in order to effect the restoration of image worship; but to do this as long as John the Grammarian remained Patriarch was evidently impossible. The regency, however, ordered him to convoke a synod, and invite to it all the bishops and abbots sequestered as image worshippers, or else to resign the patriarchate. John refused both commands, and a disturbance occurred, in which he was wounded by the imperial guards. The court party spread a report that he had wounded himself in an attempt to commit suicide, the greatest crime a Christian could commit. The great mechanical knowledge of John, and his studies in natural philosophy, were already considered by the ignorant as criminal in an ecclesiastic; so that the calumnious accusation, like that already circulated of his magical powers, found ready credence among the orthodox Greeks. The court seized the opportunity of deposing him. He was first exiled to a monastery, and subsequently, on an accusation that he had picked out the eyes in a picture of a saint, he was scourged, and his own eyes were put out. His mental superiority was perhaps as much the cause of his persecution as his religious opinions.

Methodios, who had been released from imprisonment by Theophilus at the intercession of Theodora, was named Patriarch, and a council of the church was held at Constantinople in 842, to which all the exiled bishops, abbots, and monks who had distinguished themselves as confessors in the cause of image worship were admitted. Those bishops who remained firm to their Iconoclastic opinions were expelled from their Sees, and replaced by the most eminent confessors. The practices and doctrines of the Iconoclasts were formally anathematised, and banished for ever from the Orthodox Church. A crowd of monks descended from the secluded monasteries of Olympus, Ida, and Athos, to revive the enthusiasm of the people in favour of images, pictures, and relics; and the last remains of traditional idolatry were carefully interwoven with the established religion in the form of the legendary history of the saints.

A singular scene was enacted in this synod by the Empress Theodora. She presented herself to the assembled clergy, and asked for an act declaring that the church pardoned all the sins of her deceased husband, with a certificate that divine grace had effaced the record of his persecutions. When she saw dissatisfaction visible in the looks of a majority of the members, she threatened, with frank simplicity, that if they would not do her that favour, she would not employ her influence as empress and regent to give them the victory over the Iconoclasts, but would leave the affairs of the church in their actual situation. The Patriarch Methodios answered, that the church was bound to employ its influence in relieving the souls of orthodox princes from the pains of hell, but, unfortunately, the prayers of the church had no power to obtain forgiveness from God for those who died without the pale of orthodoxy. The church was only intrusted with the keys of heaven to open and shut the gates of salvation to the living, the dead were beyond its help. Theodora, however, determined to secure the services of the church for her deceased husband. She declared that in his last agony Theophilus had received and kissed an image she laid on his breast. Although it was more than probable that the agony had really passed before the occurrence happened, her statement satisfied Methodios and the synod, who consented to absolve its dead emperor from excommunication as an Iconoclast, and admit him into the bosom of the orthodox church, declaring that, things having happened as the Empress Theodora certified in a written attestation, Theophilus had found pardon from God.

The victory of the image worshippers was celebrated by the installation of the long-banished pictures in the church of St. Sophia, on the 19th February, 842, just thirty days after the death of Theophilus. This festival continues to be observed in the Greek Church as the feast of orthodoxy on the first Sunday in Lent.

The first military expedition of the regency was to repress a rebellion of the Slavonians in the Peloponnesus, which had commenced during the reign of Theophilus. On this occasion the mass of the Slavonian colonists was reduced to complete submission, and subjected to the regular system of taxation; but two tribes settled on Mount Taygetus, the Ezerits and Melings, succeeded in retaining a certain degree of independence, governing themselves according to their own usages, and paying only a fixed annual tribute. For the Ezerits this tribute amounted to three hundred pieces of gold, and for the Melings to the trifling sum of sixty. The general who commanded the Byzantine troops on this occasion was Theoktistos Briennios, who held the office of protospatharios.

In the meantime Theoktistos the regent, anxious to obtain that degree of power and influence which, in the Byzantine as in the Roman Empire, was inseparable from military renown, took the command of a great expedition into Cholcis, to conquer the Abasges. His fleet was destroyed by a tempest, and his troops were defeated by the enemy. In order to regain the reputation he had lost, he made an attempt in the following year to reconquer the island of Crete from the Saracens. But while he was engaged in the siege of Chandax, (Candia,) the report of a revolution at Constantinople induced him to quit his army, in order to look after his personal interests and political intrigues. The troops suffered severely after they were abandoned by their general, whom they were compelled at last to follow.

The war with the caliph of Bagdad still continued, and the destruction of a Saracen fleet, consisting of four hundred galleys, by a tempest off Cape Chelidonia, in the Kibyrraiot theme, consoled the Byzantine government for its other losses. The caliph had expected, by means of this great naval force, to secure the command of the Archipelago, and assist the operations of his armies in Asia Minor. The hostilities on the Cilician frontier were prosecuted without any decided advantage to either party, until the unlucky Theoktistos placed himself at the head of the Byzantine troops. His incapacity brought on a general engagement, in which the imperial army was completely defeated, at a place called Mauropotamos, near the range of Mount Taurus. After this battle, an officer of reputation, (Theophanes, from Ferganah) disgusted with the severity and blunders of Theoktistos, deserted to the Saracens, and embraced Islamism. At a subsequent period, however, he again returned to the Byzantine service and the Christian religion.

In the year 845, an exchange of prisoners was effected on the banks of the river Lamus, a day’s journey to the west of Tarsus. This was the first that had taken place since the taking of Amorium. The frequent exchange of prisoners between the Christians and the Mussulmans always tended to soften the miseries of war; and the cruelty which inflicted martyrdom on the forty-two prisoners of rank taken at Amorium in the beginning of this year, seems to have been connected with the interruption of the negotiations which had previously so often facilitated these exchanges.

A female regency was supposed by the barbarians to be of necessity a period of weakness. The Bulgarians, under this impression, threatened to commence hostilities unless the Byzantine government consented to pay them an annual subsidy. A firm answer on the part of Theodora, accompanied by the display of a considerable military force on the frontier, however, restrained the predatory disposition of King Bogoris and his subjects. Peace was re-established after some trifling hostilities, an exchange of prisoners took place, the commercial relations between the two states became closer; and many Bulgarians, who had lived so long in the Byzantine empire as to have acquired the arts of civilised life and a knowledge of Christianity, returning to their homes, prepared their countrymen for receiving a higher degree of social culture, and with it the Christian religion.

The disturbed state of the Saracen Empire, under the Caliphs Vathek and Motawukel, would have enabled the regency to enjoy tranquillity, had religious zeal not impelled the orthodox to persecute the inhabitants of the empire in the south-eastern provinces of Asia Minor. The regency unfortunately followed the counsels of the bigoted party, which regarded the extinction of heresy as the most important duty of the rulers of the state. A numerous body of Christians were persecuted with so much cruelty that they were driven to rebellion, and compelled to solicit protection for their lives and property from the Saracens, who seized the opportunity of transporting hostilities within the Byzantine frontiers.

The Paulicians were the heretics who at this time irritated the orthodoxy of Constantinople. They were enemies of image worship, and showed little respect to the authority of a church establishment, for their priests devoted themselves to the service of their fellow-creatures without forming themselves into a separate order of society, or attempting to establish a hierarchical organization. Their social and political opinions were viewed with as much hatred and alarm by the ecclesiastical counsellors of Theodora, as the philanthropic principles of the early Christians had been by the pagan emperors of Rome. The same calumnies were circulated among the orthodox against the Paulicians, which had been propagated amongst the heathen against the Christians. The populace of Constantinople was taught to exult in the tortures of those accused of manicheanism, as the populace of Rome had been persuaded to delight in the cruelties committed on the early Christians as enemies of the human race.

From the time of Constantine V the Paulicians had generally enjoyed some degree of toleration; but the regency of Theodora resolved to consummate the triumph of orthodoxy, by a cruel persecution of all who refused to conform to the ceremonies of the established church. Imperial commissioners were sent into the Paulician districts to enforce ecclesiastical union, and every individual who resisted the invitations of the clergy was either condemned to death or his property was confiscated. 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.

The cruelty of the Byzantine administration at last goaded the oppressed to resistance within the empire and the injustice displayed by the officers of the government induced many, who were themselves indifferent on the religious question, to take up arms against oppression. Karbeas, one of the principal officers on the staff of Theodotos Melissenos, the general of the Anatolic theme, hearing that his father had been crucified for his adherence to the doctrines of the Paulicians, fled to the emir of Melitene, and collected a body of five thousand men, with which he invaded the empire. The Paulician refugees were established, by the caliph's order, in two cities called Argaous, and Amara; but their number soon increased so much, by the arrival of fresh emigrants, that they formed a third establishment at a place called Tephrike, (Divreky), in the district of Sebaste, (Sivas,) in a secluded country of difficult access, where they constructed a strong fortress, and dwelt in a state of independence. Omar, the emir of Melitene, at the head of a Saracen army, and Karbeas with a strong body of Paulicians, ravaged the frontiers of the empire. They were opposed by Petronas, the brother of Theodora, then general of the Thrakesian theme. The Byzantine army confined its operations to defence; while Alim, the governor of Tarsus, having been defeated, and civil war breaking out in the Saracen dominions in consequence of the cruelties of the Caliph Motawukel, the incursions of the Paulicians were confined to mere plundering forays. In the meantime a considerable body of Paulicians continued to dwell in several provinces of the empire, escaping persecution by outward conformity to the Greek Church, and by paying exactly all the dues levied on them by the Byzantine clergy. The whole force of the empire was not directed against the Paulicians until some years later, during the reign of Basil I.

In the year 852, the regency revenged the losses inflicted by the Saracen pirates on the maritime districts of the empire, by invading Egypt. A Byzantine fleet landed a body of troops at Damietta, which was plundered and burned: the country round was ravaged, and six hundred female slaves were carried away.

Theodora, like her female predecessor Irene, displayed considerable talents for government. She preserved the tranquillity of the empire, and increased its prosperity in spite of her persecuting policy; but, like Irene, she neglected her duty to her son in the most shameful manner. In the series of Byzantine sovereigns from Leo III (the Isaurian) to Michael III, only two proved utterly unfit for the duties of their station, and both appear to have been corrupted by the education they received from their mothers. The unfeeling ambition of Irene and the heartless vanity of Theodora were the original causes of the folly of Constantine VI and the vices of Michael III. The system of education generally adopted at the time seems to have been singularly well adapted to form men of ability, as we see in the instances of Constantine V, Leo IV, and Theophilus, who were all educated as princes and heirs to the empire. Even if we take the most extended view of Byzantine society, we shall find that the constant supply of great talents displayed in the public service must have been the result of careful cultivation and judicious systematic study. No monarchical government can produce such a long succession of able ministers and statesmen as conducted the Byzantine administration during the eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries. The remarkable deficiency of original genius during this period only adds an additional proof that the mind was disciplined by a rigid system of education.

Theodora abandoned the care of her child’s education to her brother Bardas, of whose taste and talents she may have been a very incompetent judge, but of whose debauched manners she must have seen and heard too much. With the assistance of Theoktistos she arrogated to herself the sole direction of the public administration; and viewed with indifference the course of idleness and profligacy by which Bardas corrupted the principles of her son in his endeavour to secure a mastery over his mind. Both mother and uncle appear to have expected to profit by the young emperor’s vices. Bardas soon became a prime favourite, as he not only afforded the young emperor every facility for gratifying his passions, but supported him in the disputes with the regency that originated on account of his lavish expenditure. Michael at last came to an open quarrel with his mother. He had fallen in love with Eudocia, the daughter of Inger, of the great family of the Martinakes, a connection which both Theodora and Theoktistos viewed with alarm, as likely to create a powerful opposition to their political influence. To prevent a marriage, Theodora succeeded in compelling Michael, who was then in his sixteenth year, to marry another lady named Eudocia, the daughter of Dekapolitas. The young debauchee, however, made Eudocia Ingerina his mistress, and, towards the end of his reign, bestowed her in marriage on Basil the Macedonian as a mark of his favour. She became the mother of the Emperor Leo VI, the Wise.

This forced marriage enabled Bardas to excite the animosity of Michael against the regency to such a degree that he was persuaded to sanction the murder of Theoktistos, whose able financial administration was so generally acknowledged that Bardas feared to contend openly with so honest a minister. Theoktistos was arrested by order of the young emperor, and murdered in prison. The majority of Michael III was not immediately proclaimed, but Bardas was advanced to the office of Master of the Horse, and assumed the direction of the administration. He was consequently regarded as the real author of the murder of Theoktistos.

Theodora, though her real power had ceased, continued to occupy her place as empress-regent; but in order to prepare for her approaching resignation, and at the same time prove the wisdom of her financial administration, and the value of the services of Theoktistos, by whose counsels she had been guided, she presented to the senate a statement of the condition of the imperial treasury. By this account it appeared that there was then an immense accumulation of specie in the coffers of the state. The sum is stated to have consisted of 109,000 Ib. of gold, and 300,000 lb. of silver, besides immense stores of merchandise, jewels, and plate. The Empress Theodora was evidently anxious to guard against all responsibility, and prevent those calumnious accusations which she knew to be common at the Byzantine court. The immense treasure thus accumulated would probably have given immortal strength to Byzantine society, had it been left in the possession of the people, by a wise reduction in the amount of taxation, accompanied by a judicious expenditure for the defence of the frontiers, and for facilitating the conveyance of agricultural produce to distant markets.

The Empress Theodora continued to live in the imperial palace, after the murder of Theoktistos, until her regency expired, on her son attaining the age of eighteen. Her residence there was, however, rendered a torture to her mind by the unseemly exhibitions of the debauched associates of her son. The eagerness of Michael to be delivered from her presence at length caused him to send both his mother and his sisters to reside in the Carian Palace, and even to attempt persuading the Patriarch Ignatius to give them the veil. After her banishment from the imperial palace, Theodora still hoped to recover her influence with her son, if she could separate him from Bardas; and she engaged in intrigues with her brother's enemies, whose secret object was his assassination. This conspiracy was discovered, and only tended to increase the power of Bardas. He was now raised to the dignity of curopalat. Theodora and the sisters of Michael were removed to the monastery of Gastria, the usual residence of the ladies of the imperial family who were secluded from the world. After the death of Bardas, however, Theodora recovered some influence over her son; she was allowed to occupy apartments in the palace of St. Mamas, and it was at a party in her rural residence at the Anthemian Palace that Michael was assassinated. Theodora died in the first year of the reign of Basil I; and Thekla, the sister of Michael, who had received the imperial title, and was as debauched in her manners as her brother, continued her scandalous life during great part of Basil’s reign; yet Theodora is eulogised as a saint by the ecclesiastical writers of the Western as well as the Eastern church, and is honoured with a place in the Greek calendar.

Encouraged by the counsels and example of Bardas, Michael plunged into every vice. His orgies obtained for him the name of the Drunkard; but, in spite of his vicious conduct, his devotion to chariot-races and his love of festivals gave him considerable popularity among the people of Constantinople. The people were amused by his follies, and the citizens profited by his lavish expenditure. Many anecdotes concerning his vices have been preserved, but they are deserving of detailed notice only as proofs of the great demoralization then existing at Constantinople, for, as facts concerning Michael, it is probable they have received their colouring from the flatterers of the dynasty of his assassin. Michael’s unworthy conduct, however, ultimately rendered him contemptible to all classes. Had the emperor confined himself to appearing as a charioteer in the Hippodrome, it would have been easily pardoned; but he carried his extravagance so far as to caricature the ceremonies of the orthodox church, and publicly to burlesque the religious processions of the clergy. The indifference of the people to this ribaldry seems doubly strange, when we reflect on the state of superstition into which the Constantinopolitans had fallen, and on the important place occupied by the Eastern Church in Byzantine society. Perhaps, however, the endeavours which had been made, both by the church and the emperors, to render church ceremonies an attractive species of public amusement, had tended to prepare the public mind for this irreverent caricature. It is always imprudent to trifle with a serious subject, and more especially with religion and religious feelings. At this time, music, singing, eloquence, magnificence of costume, and scenic effect, had all been carefully blended with architectural decoration of the richest kind in the splendid church of St. Sophia, to excite the admiration and engage the attention. The consequence was, that religion was the thing least thought of by the people, when they assembled together at ecclesiastical festivals. Their object was to enjoy the music, view the pageantry, and criticise the performers. Michael gratified the supercilious critics by his caricatures, and gave variety to the public entertainments by the introduction of comedy and farce. The necessity of this was felt in the Roman Catholic Church, which authorised similar saturnalia, to prevent the ground being occupied by opponents. The Emperor Michael exhibited a clever but very irreverent caricature of the ecclesiastical processions of the Patriarch and clergy of Constantinople. The masquerade consisted of an excellent buffoon arrayed in the patriarchal robes, attended by eleven mimic metropolitan bishops in full costume, embroidered with gold, and followed by a crowd disguised as choristers and priests. This cortège accompanied by the emperor in person, as if in a solemn procession, walked through the streets of the capital singing ridiculous songs to psalm tunes, and burlesque hymns in praise of debauchery, mingling the richest melodies of Oriental church-music with the most discordant nasal screams of Greek popular ballads. This disgraceful exhibition was frequently repeated, and on one occasion encountered the real Patriarch, whom the buffoon saluted with ribald courtesy, without exciting a burst of indignation from the pious Greeks.

The depravity of society in all ranks had reached the most scandalous pitch. Bardas, when placed at the head of the public administration, took no care to conceal his vices; he was accused of an incestuous intercourse with his son’s wife, while the young man held the high office of generalissimo of the European troops. Ignatius the Patriarch was a man of the highest character, eager to obtain for the church in the East that moral supremacy which the papal power now arrogated to itself in the West. Disgusted with the vices of Bardas, he refused to administer the sacrament to him on Advent Sunday, when it was usual for all the great dignitaries of the empire to receive the Holy Communion from the hands of the Patriarch, AD 857. Bardas, to revenge himself for this public mark of infamy, recalled to the memory of the young emperor the resistance Ignatius had made to Theodora’s receiving the veil, and accused him of holding private communication with a monk who had given himself out to be a son of Theodora, born before her marriage with Theophilus. As this monk was known to be mad, and as many senators and bishops were attached to Ignatius, it would have been extremely difficult to convict the Patriarch of treason on such an accusation; and there appeared no possibility of framing any charge of heresy against him. Michael was, however, persuaded to arrest him on various charges of having committed acts of sedition, and to banish him to the island of Tenebinthos.

It was now necessary to look out for a new Patriarch, and the circumstances required that the successor of Ignatius should be a man of high character as well as talent, for the deposed Patriarch had occupied no ordinary position. His father and his maternal grandfather (Michael I and Nicephorus I) had both filled the throne of Constantinople; he was celebrated for his piety and his devotion to the cause of the church. But his party zeal had already raised up a strong opposition to his measures in the bosom of the church; and Bardas took advantage of these ecclesiastical dissensions to make the contest concerning the patriarchate a clerical struggle, without bringing the state into direct collision with the church, whose factious spirit did the work of its own degradation. Gregory, a son of the Emperor Leo V, the Armenian, was Bishop of Syracuse. He had been suspended by the Patriarch Methodios for consecrating a priest out of his diocese. During the patriarchate of Ignatius, the hereditary hostility of the sons of two rival emperors had perpetuated the quarrel, and Ignatius had probably availed himself with pleasure of the opportunity offered him of excommunicating Gregory as some revenge for the loss of the imperial throne. It was pretended that Gregory had a hereditary aversion to image-worship, and the suspicions of Methodios were magnified by the animosity of Ignatius into absolute heresy. This dispute had been referred to Pope Benedict III, and his decision in favour of Ignatius had Induced Gregory and his partisans, who were numerous and powerful, to call in question the legality of the election of Ignatius. Bardas, availing himself of this ecclesiastical contest, employed threats, and strained the influence of the emperor to the utmost, to induce Ignatius to resign the patriarchate; but in vain. It was, therefore, decided that Photius should be elected Patriarch without obtaining a formal resignation of the office from Ignatius, whose election was declared null.

Photius, the chief secretary of state, who was thus suddenly raised to the head of the Eastern Church, was a man of high rank, noble descent, profound learning, and great personal influence. If we believe his own declaration, publicly and frequently repeated, he was elected against his will; and there seems no doubt that he could not have opposed the selection of the emperor without forfeiting all rank at court, and perhaps incurring personal danger. His popularity, his intimate acquaintance with civil and canon law, and his family alliance with the imperial house, gave him many advantages in his new rank. Like his celebrated predecessors, Tarasios and Nicephorus, he was a layman when his election took place. On the 2oth December 857, he was consecrated a monk by Gregory, archbishop of Syracuse; on the following day he became an anagnostes; the day after, a sub-deacon; next day he was appointed deacon; and on the 24th he received priest’s orders. He was then formally elected Patriarch in a synod, and on Christmas-day solemnly consecrated in the church of St. Sophia.

The election of Photius, which was evidently illegal, only increased the dissensions already existing in the church; but they drew off the attention of the people in some degree from political abuses, and enabled Bardas to constitute the civil power judge in ecclesiastical matters. Ignatius and the leading men of his party were imprisoned and ill-treated; but even the clergy of the party of Photius could not escape being insulted and carried before the ordinary tribunals, if they refused to comply with the iniquitous demands of the courtiers, or ventured to oppose the injustice of the government officials. Photius soon bitterly repented having rendered himself the agent of such men as Bardas and Michael; and as he knew their conduct and characters before his election, we may believe the assertion he makes in his letters to Bardas himself, and which he repeats to the Pope, that he was compelled to accept the patriarchate against his wish.

In the meantime, Ignatius was allowed so much liberty by the crafty Bardas, who found Photius a less docile instrument than he had expected, that his partisans assembled a synod in the church of Irene for forty days. In this assembly Photius and his adherents were excommunicated. Bardas, however, declared in favour of Photius, and allowed him to hold a counter-synod in the Church of the Holy Apostles, in which the election of Ignatius was declared uncanonical, as having been made by the Empress Theodora in opposition to the protest of several bishops. The persecution of Ignatius was renewed; he was exiled to Mitylene, and his property was sequestrated, in the hope that by these measures he would be induced to resign the patriarchal dignity. Photius, however, had the sense to see that this persecution only increased his rival's popularity, and strengthened his party; he therefore persuaded the emperor to recall him, and reinstate him in the possession of his private fortune. Photius must have felt that his own former intimacy with his debauched relation Bardas, and his toleration of the vices of Michael, had fixed a deep stain on his character in the eyes of all sincere Christians.

It was now necessary to legalize the election of Photius, and obtain the ratification of the deposition of Ignatius by a general council of the church; but no general council could be convoked without the sanction of the Pope. The Emperor Michael consequently despatched ambassadors to Rome, to invite Pope Nicholas I to send legates to Constantinople, for the purpose of holding a general council, to put an end to the dissensions in the Eastern Church. Nicholas appointed two legates, Zacharias and Rodoald, who were instructed to examine into the disputes concerning the patriarchate, and also to demand the restitution of the estates belonging to the patrimony of St. Peter in Calabria and Sicily, of which the papal See had been deprived in the time of Leo III.

The Pope, moreover, required the emperor to re-establish the papal jurisdiction over the Illyrian provinces, and recognise its right to appoint the archbishop of Syracuse, and confirm the election of all the bishops in the European provinces of the empire. The Popes were how beginning to arrogate to themselves that temporal power over the whole church which had grown out of their new position as sovereign princes; but they based their temporal ambition on that spiritual power which they claimed as the rock of St. Peter, not on the donation of Charlemagne. The truth is, that the first Christian emperors had laid a firm foundation for the papal power, by constituting the Bishop of Rome a kind of secretary of state for Christian affairs. He was employed as a central authority for communicating with the bishops of the provinces; and out of this circumstance it very naturally arose that he acted for a considerable period as a minister of religion and public instruction in the imperial administration, which conferred immense power in a government so strictly centralised as that of the Roman Empire. The Christian emperors of the West, being placed in more direct collision with paganism than those of the East, vested more extensive powers, both of administration and police, in the Bishop of Rome, and the provincial bishops of the Western Church, than the clergy attained in the East. This authority of the bishops increased as the civil and military power of the Western Empire declined; and when the imperial city became a provincial city of the Eastern Empire, the popes became the political chiefs of Roman society, and inherited no small portion of the influence formerly exercised by the imperial administration over the provincial ecclesiastics. It is true, the Bishops of Rome could not exercise this power without control, but, in the opinion of a majority of the subjects of the barbarian conquerors in the West, the Pope was the legal representative of the civilisation of imperial Rome as well as the legitimate successor of St Peter, and the guardian of the rock on which Christianity was founded. Unless the authority of the popes be traced back to their original position as archbishops of Rome and patriarchs of the Western Empire, and the institutions of the papal church be viewed as they originally existed in connection with the imperial administration, the real value of the papal claims to universal domination, founded on traditional feelings, cannot be justly estimated. The popes only imitated the Roman emperors in their most exorbitant pretensions; and the vicious principles of Constantine, while he was still a pagan, continue to exert their corrupt influence over the ecclesiastical institutions of the greater part of Europe to the present day.

The popes early assumed that Constantine had conferred on the Bishop of Rome a supreme ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the three European divisions of his dominions, when he divided the empire into four prefectures. There were, indeed, many facts which tended to support this claim. Africa, in so far as it belonged to the jurisdiction of the European prefectures, acknowledged the authority of the Bishop of Rome; and even after the final division of the empire, Dacia, Macedonia, Thessaly, Epirus, and Greece, though they were separated from the prefecture of Illyricum, and formed a new province of the Eastern Empire, continued to be dependent on the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Pope. The Patriarch of Antioch was considered the head of the church in the East. Egypt formed a peculiar district in the ecclesiastical, as it did in the civil administration of the Roman Empire, and had its own head, the Patriarch of Alexandria. The Patriarchs of Jerusalem and Constantinople were modern creations. The bishop of Jerusalem, who had been dependent on the Patriarch of Antioch, received the honorary title of Patriarch at the council of Nicaea, and the Emperor Theodosius II conferred on him an independent jurisdiction over the three Palestines, the two Phoenicias, and Arabia; but it was not until after the council of Chalcedon that his authority was acknowledged by the body of the church, and it was then restricted to the three Palestines, AD 451.

The bishop of Byzantium had been dependent on the metropolitan or exarch of Heraclea before the translation of the imperial residence to his See, and the foundation of Constantinople. In the council held at Constantinople in 381, he was first ranked as Patriarch, because he was the bishop of the capital of the Eastern Empire, and placed immediately after the Bishop of Rome in the ecclesiastical hierarchy. St. Chrysostom and his successors exercised the patriarchal jurisdiction, both in Europe and Asia, over the Eastern Empire, just as the popes of Rome exercised it in the Western, yielding merely a precedence in ecclesiastical honour to the representative of St. Peter. In spite of the opposition of the bishops of old Rome, the bishops of new Rome thus attained an equality of power which made the popes tremble for their supremacy, and they regarded the Patriarchs of Constantinople rather as rivals than as joint rulers of the church. Their ambitious jealousy, joined to the aspiring arrogance of their rivals, caused all the evils they feared. The disputes between Ignatius and Photius now gave the Pope hopes of re-establishing the supremacy of Rome over the whole church, and of rendering the Patriarchs of the East merely vicegerents of the Roman See. 

The Papal legates sent by Nicholas were present at a general council held at Constantinople in the year 861, which was attended by three hundred and eighteen bishops. Bardas and Photius had succeeded in securing the goodwill of the majority of the Eastern clergy. They also succeeded in gaining the support of the representatives of the Pope, if they did not purchase it. Ignatius, who was residing in his mother’s palace of Posis, was required to present himself before the council. He was deposed, though he appealed to the Pope’s legates, and persisted in protesting that the council did not possess a legal right to depose him. It is said that a pen was placed forcibly between his fingers, and a cross drawn with it, as his signature to the act of deposition. He was then ordered to read his abdication, on the day of Pentecost, in the Church of the Holy Apostles; but, to avoid this disgrace, he escaped in the disguise of a slave to the Prince's Islands, and concealed himself among the innumerable monks who had taken up their abode in these delicious retreats. Bardas sent Oryphas with six galleys to examine every one of the insular monasteries in succession, in order to arrest the fugitive; but the search was vain. After the termination of the council, Ignatius returned privately to his maternal palace, where he was allowed to remain unmolested. The discussions of this council are said by its enemies to have been conducted in a very tumultuous manner; but as the majority was favoured by the Patriarch, the papal legates, and the imperial administration, it is not likely that any confusion was allowed within the walls of the council, even though the party of Ignatius was supported by the Empresses Theodora and Eudocia, and by the great body of the monks. The Emperor Michael, with great impartiality, refused to throw the whole weight of his authority in either scale. The truth is, that, being somewhat of a freethinker as well as a debauchee, he laughed at both parties, saying that Ignatius was the patriarch of the people, Photius the patriarch of Bardas, and Gryllos (the imperial buffoon) his own patriarch. Nevertheless, Ignatius was deposed, and the acts of the council were ratified by the papal legates.

The legates of the Pope certainly yielded to improper influence, for, besides approving the measures of the Byzantine government with reference to the patriarchate, they neglected to demand the recognition of the spiritual authority of the papal see in the terms prescribed by their instructions. They were consequently disavowed on their return to Rome. The party of Ignatius appealed to the Pope, who, seeing that no concessions could be gained from Michael, Bardas, or Photius, embraced the cause of the deposed Patriarch with warmth. A synod was convoked at Rome; Photius was excommunicated, in case he should dare to retain possession of the patriarchal chair, after receiving the papal decision in favour of Ignatius, A.D. 863. Gregory, the archbishop of Syracuse, who had ordained Photius, was anathematised, and declared a schismatic, as well as all those who held communion with him, if he continued to perform the sacerdotal functions. When the acts of this synod were communicated to Michael by papal letters, the indignation of the emperor was awakened by what he considered the insolent interference of a foreign priest in the affairs of the empire, and he replied in a violent and unbecoming letter. He told his Holiness that he had invited him to send legates to the general council at Constantinople, from a wish to maintain unity in the church, not because the participation of the Bishop of Rome was necessary to the validity of the acts of the Eastern Church. This was all very reasonable; but he went on to treat the Pope and the Latin clergy as barbarians, because they were Ignorant of Greek. For this insult, however, the emperor received a sharp and well-merited rebuke from Pope Nicholas, who asked him why he styled himself Emperor of the Romans, if he thought the language of the Roman Empire and of the Roman church a barbarous one. It was a greater disgrace, in the opinion of the Pope, for the Roman emperor to be ignorant of the Roman language, than for the head of the Roman church to be ignorant of Greek.

Nicholas had nothing to fear from the power of Michael, so that he acted without the restraint imposed on Gregory II In his contest with Leo the Isaurian. Indeed, the recent success of the Pope, in his dispute with Lothaire, king of Austrasia, gave him hopes of coming off victorious, even in a quarrel with the Eastern emperor. He did not sufficiently understand the effect of more advanced civilisation and extended education on Byzantine society. Nicholas, therefore, boldly called on Michael to cancel his insolent letter, declaring that it would otherwise be publicly burned by the Latin clergy; and he summoned the rival Patriarchs of Constantinople to appear in person before the papal court, that he might hear and decide their differences.

This pretension of the Pope to make himself absolute master of the Christian church, awakened the spirit of resistance at Constantinople, and caused Photius to respond by advancing new claims for his See. He insisted that the Patriarchs of Constantinople were equal in rank and authority to the Popes of Rome. The disputes of the clergy being the only subject on which the government of the Eastern Empire allowed any expression of public opinion, the whole attention of society was soon directed to this ecclesiastical quarrel. Michael assembled a council of the church in 866, at which pretended representatives of the patriarchs of Antioch, Alexandria, and Jerusalem were present: and in this assembly Pope Nicholas was declared unworthy of his See, and excommunicated. There was no means of rendering this sentence of excommunication of any effect, unless Louis II, the emperor of the West, could be induced, by the hatred he bore to Nicholas, to put it in execution. Ambassadors were sent to urge him to depose the Pope, but the death of Michael suddenly put an end to the contest with Rome, for Basil I embraced the party of Ignatius.

The contest between Rome and Constantinople was not merely a quarrel between Pope Nicholas and the Patriarch Photius. There were other causes of difference between the two Sees, in which Ignatius was as much opposed to papal pretensions as Photius. Not to mention the old claim of Rome to recover her jurisdiction over those provinces of the Byzantine Empire which had been dissevered from her authority, a new conflict had arisen for supremacy over the church in Bulgaria. When the Bulgarian king Crumn invaded the empire, after the defeat of Michael I, he carried away so many prisoners that the Bulgarians, who had already made considerable advances in civilisation, were prepared, by their intercourse with these slavs, to receive Christianity. A Greek monk, Theodore Koupharas, who remained long a prisoner in Bulgaria, converted many by his preaching. During the invasion of Bulgaria by Leo V, a sister of King Bogoris was carried to Constantinople as a prisoner, and educated with care. The Empress Theodore exchanged this princess for Theodore Koupharas, and on her return she introduced the Christian religion into her brother’s palace.

War subsequently broke out between the Bulgarian monarch and the empire, and Michael and Bardas made an expedition against the Bulgarians in the year 861. The circumstances of the war are not detailed; but in the end the Bulgarian king embraced Christianity, receiving the name of Michael from the emperor, who became his sponsor. To purchase this peace, however, the Byzantine emperor ceded to the Bulgarians all the country along the range of Mount Haemus, called by the Greeks Sideras, and by the Bulgarians Zagora, of which Debeltos is the chief town. Michael pretended that the cession was made as a baptismal donation to the king. The change in the religion of the Bulgarian monarch caused some discontent among his subjects, but their opposition was soon vanquished with the assistance of Michael, and the most refractory were transported to Constantinople, where the wealth and civilisation of Byzantine society produced such an impression on their minds that they readily embraced Christianity.

The Bulgarian monarch, fearing lest the influence of the Byzantine clergy on his Christian subjects might render him in some degree dependent on the emperor, opened communications with Pope Nicholas for the purpose of balancing the power of the Greek clergy by placing the ecclesiastical affairs of his kingdom under the control of the Latins. He expected also to derive some political support for this alliance, when he saw the eagerness of the Pope to drive the Eastern clergy out of Bulgaria, Pope Nicholas appears to have thought that Photius would have made great concessions to the papal See, in order to receive the pallium from Rome; but when that Patriarch treated the question concerning the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Eastern church in Bulgaria as a political affair, and referred its decision to the imperial cabinet, the Pope sent legates into Bulgaria, and the churches of Rome and Constantinople were involved in a direct conflict for the ecclesiastical patronage of that extensive kingdom. At a later period, when Ignatius was re-established as Patriarch, and the general council of 869 was held to condemn the acts of Photius, Pope Hadrian found Ignatius as little inclined to make any concessions to the papal See in Bulgaria as his deposed rival, and this subject remained a permanent cause of quarrel between the two churches.

Michael, though a drunkard, was not naturally deficient in ability, activity, or ambition. Though he left the ordinary administration of public business in the bands of Bardas, on whom he conferred the title of Caesar, which was then almost equivalent to a recognition of his title as heir-apparent to the empire, still he never allowed him to obtain the complete control over the whole administration, nor permitted him entirely to crush his opponents in the public service. Hence many officers of rank continued to regard the emperor, with all his vices, as their protector in office. Like all the emperors of Constantinople, Michael felt himself constrained to appear frequently at the head of his armies. The tie between the emperor and the soldiers was perhaps strengthened by these visits, but it can hardly be supposed that the personal presence of Michael added much to the efficiency of military operations.

The war on the frontiers of the Byzantine and Saracen empires was carried on by Omar, the emir of Melitene, without interruption, in a series of plundering incursions on a gigantic scale. These were at times revenged by daring exploits on the part of the Byzantine generals. In the year 856, Leo, the imperial commander-in-chief, invaded the dominions of the caliph. After taking Anazarba, he crossed the Euphrates at Samosata, and advanced with his army into Mesopotamia, ravaging the country as far as Amida. The Saracens revenged themselves by several plundering incursions into the different parts of the empire. To stop these attacks, Michael put himself at the head of the army, and laid siege to Samosata without effect. Bardas accompanied the emperor rather to watch over his own influence at court, than to assist his sovereign in obtaining military glory. The following year Michael was engaged in the campaign against the Bulgarians, of which the result has been already mentioned. In 860, he led an army of 40,000 European troops against Omar of Melitene, who had carried his plundering incursions up to the walls of Sinope. A battle took place in the territory of Dasymon, near the spot which had witnessed the defeat of Theophilus, and the overthrow of Michael was as complete as that of his father. The same difficulties in the ground which had favoured the retreat of Theophilus enabled Manuel, one of the generals of Michael, to save the army.

The war was still prosecuted with vigour on both sides. In 863, Omar entered the Armeniac theme with a large force, and took Amisus. Petronas, the emperor’s uncle, who had now acquired considerable military experience and reputation as general of the Thrakesian theme, was placed at the head of the Byzantine army. He collected his forces at Aghionoros, near Ephesus, and when his army was reinforced by a strong body of Macedonian and Thracian troops, marched towards the frontier in several divisions, which he concentrated in such a manner as to cut off the retreat of Omar, and enclose him with an overwhelming force. The troops under Nasar, the general of the Boukelkrian theme, strengthened by the Armeniac and Paphlagonian legions, and the troops of the theme Koloneia, enclosed the Saracens on the north. Petronas himself, with the Thrakesian, Macedonian, and Thracian legions, secured the passes and advanced from the west; while the troops of the Anatolic, Opsikian, and Cappadocian themes, with the divisions of the Kleisourarchs of Seleucia and Charsiana, having secured the passes to the south, cut off the direct line of Omar's retreat. An impassable range of rocky mountains, broken into precipices, rendered escape to the eastward impracticable. The headquarters of Petronas were established at Poson, a place situated on the frontiers of the Paphlagonian and Armeniac themes, near the river Lalakon, which flows from the north to south. Omar had encamped in a plain without suspecting the danger lurking in its rugged boundary to the east. He suddenly found himself enclosed by the simultaneous advance of the various divisions of the Byzantine army, and closely blockaded. He attempted to escape by attacking each division of the enemy in succession, but the strength of the positions selected by the imperial officers rendered all his attacks vain. Omar at last fell in the desperate struggle; and Petronas, leading fresh troops into the plain to attack the weary Saracens, completed the destruction of their army. The son of Omar contrived to escape from the field of battle, but he was pursued and taken prisoner by the Kleisourarch of Charsiana, after he had crossed the Halys. When Petronas returned to Constantinople, he was allowed to celebrate his victory with great pomp and public rejoicings. The Byzantine writers estimated the army that was destroyed at 40,000, while the Arabian historians reduced their loss to only 2000 men. Public opinion in the empire of the caliph, however, considered the defeat as a great calamity; and its real importance may be ascertained from the fact, that alarming seditions broke out against the government when the news reached Bagdad. After this victory, too, the eastern frontier enjoyed tranquillity for some time

In the year 865, a nation hitherto unknown made its first appearance in the history of the world, where it was destined to act no unimportant part. Its entrance into the political system of the European nations was marked by an attempt to take Constantinople, a project which it has often revived, and which the progress of Christian civilisation seems to indicate must now be realised at no very distant date, unless the revival of the Bulgarian kingdom to the south of the Danube create a new Slavonian power in the east of Europe capable of arresting its progress. In the year 862, Rurik, a Scandinavian or Varangian chief, arrived at Novgorod, and laid the first foundation of the state which has grown into the Russian empire. The Russian people, under Varangian domination, rapidly increased in power, and reduced many of their neighbours to submission. Oskold and Dir, the princes of Kiof, rendered themselves masters of the whole course of the Dnieper, and it would seem that either commercial jealousy or the rapacity of ambition produced some collision with the Byzantine settlements on the northern shores of the Black Sea; but from what particular circumstances the Russians were led to make their daring attack on Constantinople is not known. The Emperor Michael had taken the command of an army to act against the Saracens, and Oryphas, admiral of the fleet, acted as governor of the capital during his absence. Before the Emperor had commenced his military operations, a fleet of two hundred Russian vessels of small size, taking advantage of a favourable wind, suddenly passed through the Bosphorus, and anchored at the mouth of the Black River in the Propontis, about eighteen miles from Constantinople. This Russian expedition had already plundered the shores of the Black Sea, and from its station within the Bosphorus it ravaged the country about Constantinople, and plundered the Prince’s Islands, pillaging the monasteries, and slaying the monks as well as the other inhabitants. The emperor, informed by Oryphas of the attack on his capital, hastened to its defence. Though a daring and cruel enemy, the Russians were by no means formidable to the strength and discipline of the Byzantine forces. It required no great exertions on the part of the imperial officers to equip a force sufficient to attack and put to flight these invaders; but the barbarous cruelty of the soldiers and sailors, and the wild daring of their Varangian leaders, made a profound impression on the people of Constantinople, suddenly rendered spectators of the miseries of war, in their most hideous form, in a moment of perfect security. We need not, therefore, be surprised to find that the sudden destruction of these dreaded enemies by the drunken emperor, of whom the citizens of the capital entertained probably even more contempt than he merited as a soldier, was ascribed to the miraculous interposition of the Virgin of the Blachern, rather than to the superior military tactics and overwhelming numbers of the imperial forces. How far this expedition of the Russians must be connected with the enterprising spirit of that vigorous band of warriors and pirates from Scandinavia, who, under the name of Danes, Normans, and Varangians, became the sovereigns of Normandy, Naples, Sicily, England, and Russia, is still a subject of learned discussion.

About the same time a fleet, manned by the Saracens of Crete, plundered the Cyclades, and ravaged the coast of Asia Minor, carrying off great booty and a number of slaves. It would seem that the absence of the Emperor Michael from Constantinople at the time of the Russian attack was connected with this movement of the Saracens.

Our conceptions of the manner in which the Byzantine Empire was governed during Michael’s reign, will become more precise if we enter into some details concerning the court intrigues and personal conduct of the rulers of the state. The crimes and assassinations, which figure as the prominent events of the age in the chronicles of the time, were not, it is true, the events which decided the fate of the people; and they probably excited less interest among contemporaries who lived beyond the circle of court favour, than history would lead us to suppose. Each rank of society had its own robberies and murders to occupy its attention. The state of society at the court of Constantinople was not amenable to public opinion, for few knew much of what passed within the walls of the great palace; but yet the immense machinery of the imperial administration gave the emperors’ power a solid basis, always opposed to the temporary vices of the courtiers. The order which rendered property secure, and enabled the industrious classes to prosper, through the equitable administration of the Roman law, nourished the vitality of the empire, when the madness of a Nero and the drunkenness of a Michael appeared to threaten political order with ruin. The people, carefully secluded from public business, and almost without any knowledge of the proceedings of their government, were in all probability little better acquainted with the intrigues and crimes of their day than we at present. They acted, therefore, when some real suffering or imaginary grievance brought oppression directly home to their interests or their feelings. Court murders were to them no more than a tragedy or a scene in the amphitheatre, at which they were not present.

Bardas had assassinated Theoktistos to obtain power, yet, with all his crimes, he had great natural talents and some literary taste. He had the reputation of being a good lawyer and a just judge; and after he obtained power, he devoted his attention to watch over the judicial department as the surest basis of popularity. Nevertheless, we find the government of Michael accused of persecuting the wealthy, merely for the purpose of filling the public treasury by the confiscation of their property. This was an old Roman fiscal resource, which had existed ever since the days of the republic and whose exercise under the earlier emperors calls forth the bitterness of Tacitus in some of his most vigorous pages. After Bardas was elevated to the dignity of Caesar, his mature age gave him a deeper interest in projects of ambition than in the wild debauchery of his nephew. He devoted more time to public business and grave society, and less to the wine-cup and the imperial feasts. New boon-companions assembled round Michael, and, to advance their own fortunes, strove to awaken some jealousy of the Caesar in the breast of the emperor. They solicited the office of spies to watch the conduct of one who, they said, was aspiring to the crown. Michael, seeing Bardas devoted to improving the administration of justice, reforming abuses in the army, regulating the affairs of the church, and protecting learning, felt how much he himself neglected his duties, and naturally began to suspect his uncle. The reformation of the Caesar was an act of sedition against the worthless emperor.

The favourite parasite of Michael at this time was a man named Basil, who from a simple groom had risen to the rank of lord chamberlain. Basil had attracted the attention of the emperor while still a stable-boy in the service of an officer of the court. The young groom had the good fortune to overcome a celebrated Bulgarian wrestler at a public wrestling match. The impression produced by this victory over the foreigner, who had been long considered invincible, was increased by a wonderful display of his power in taming the wildest horses, for he possessed the singular natural gift of subduing horses by a whisper. The emperor took him into his service as a groom; but Basil’s skill as a sportsman soon made him a favourite and a companion of one who showed little discrimination in the choice of his associates. At the imperial orgies, Basil's perseverance as a boon-companion, and his devotion to all the whims of the emperor, raised him quickly to the highest offices of the court, and he was placed in constant attendance on his sovereign. These favours awakened the jealousy of Bardas, who suspected the Macedonian groom of the power of whispering to Michael as well as to horses. At the same time it secured Basil the support of all the Caesar’s enemies, who considered a drunken groom, even though he had risen to great power at court, as a person not likely to be their rival in ministerial offices.

Basil, however, soon received a very high mark of Michael's personal favour. He was ordered to divorce his wife and marry Eudocia Ingerina, who had long been the emperor's mistress; and it was said that the intercourse continued after she became the wife of the chamberlain. Every ambitious and debauched officer about the court now looked to the fall of Bardas as the readiest means of promotion. Symbatios an Armenian, a patrician and postmaster of the empire, who was the son-in-law of Bardas, dissatisfied with his father-in-law for refusing to gratify his inordinate ambition, joined Basil in accusing the Caesar of plotting to mount the throne. The emperor, without much hesitation, authorised the two intriguers to assassinate his uncle.

An expedition for reconquering Crete from the Saracens was about to sail. The emperor, the Caesar, and Basil all partook of the holy sacrament together before embarking in the fleet, which then proceeded along the coast of Asia Minor to Kepos in the Thrakesian theme. Here the army remained encamped, under the pretext that a sufficient number of transports had not been assembled. Bardas expressed great dissatisfaction at this delay; and one day, while he was urging Michael to give orders for the immediate embarkation of the troops, he was suddenly attacked by Symbatios and Basil, and murdered at the emperor’s feet. Basil, who, as chamberlain, had conducted him to the imperial tent, stabbed him in the back.

The accomplished but unprincipled Bardas being removed, the project of invading Crete was abandoned, and Michael returned to the capital. On entering Constantinople, however, it was evident that the assassination of his uncle had given universal dissatisfaction. Bardas, with all his faults, was the best of Michael's ministers, and the failure of the expedition against Crete was attributed to his death. As Michael passed through the streets, a monk greeted him with this bitter salutation: “All hail, emperor! all hail from your glorious campaign! You return covered with blood, and it is your own!”. The imperial guards attempted in vain to arrest the fanatic; the people protected him, declaring he was mad.

The assassination of Bardas took place in spring 866; and on the 26th of May, Michael rewarded Basil by proclaiming him his colleague, with the title of Emperor. Symbatios expected that his participation in his father-in law’s murder would have secured him the title of Caesar; but he soon perceived he had injured his own fortunes by his crime. He now sought to obtain by open force what he had failed to gain by private murder. He succeeded in drawing Peganes, who commanded the troops in the Opsikian theme, into his conspiracy. The two rebels took up arms, and proclaimed that their object was not to dethrone Michael, but to depose Basil. Though they drew together a considerable body of troops, rendered themselves masters of a great extent of country, and captured many merchant-ships on their passage to Constantinople, they did not venture to attack the capital. Their plan was ill concerted, for before the end of the summer they had allowed themselves to be completely surrounded by the imperial troops. Peganes was taken prisoner at Kotaeion, and conducted to Constantinople, where his eyes were put out. He was then placed in the Milion, with a platter in his hand, to ask charity from the passers-by. Symbatios was subsequently captured at Keltizene. When he reached Constantinople, he was conducted before Michael. Peganes was brought out to meet him, with a censer of earthenware filled with burning sulphur instead of incense. Symbatios was then deprived of one of his eyes, and his right hand was cut off. In this condition he was placed before the palace of Lausus, with a dish on his knees, as a common beggar. After exhibiting his rebellious officers in this position for three days, Michael allowed them to be imprisoned in their own houses. When Basil mounted the throne, they were pardoned as men no longer dangerous.

The degrading punishment, to which two men of the highest rank in the empire were subjected, made a deep impression on the people of Constantinople. The figure of Peganes, a soldier of high reputation, standing in the Milion, asking for an obolos, with a platter in his hand like a blind beggar, haunted their imagination, and, finding its way into the romances of the age, was borrowed to illustrate the greatest vicissitudes of court favour, and give colouring to the strongest pictures of the ingratitude of emperors. The fate of Peganes and Symbatios, woven into a tale called the Life of Belisarius, in which the interest of tragic sentiment was heightened by much historical and local truth, has gained immortality in European literature, and confounded the critical sagacity of eminent modern writers.

One of the few acts which are recorded of the joint reign of Michael and Basil was the desecration of the tomb of Constantine V (Copronymus). This base act was perpetrated to flatter a powerful party in the church, of which the leading members were hostile to Bardas, on account of his persecution of Ignatius. The precarious position of Photius after the murder of his patron, and the inherent subserviency of the Greek ecclesiastical dignitaries, made him ready to countenance any display of orthodoxy, however bigoted, that pleased the populace. The memory of Constantine V was still cherished by no inconsiderable number of Iconoclasts. Common report still boasted of the wealth and power to which the empire had attained under the just administration of the Iconoclast emperors, and their conduct served as a constant subject of reproach to Michael. The people, however, were easily persuaded that the great exploits of Constantine V, and the apparent prosperity of his reign, had been the work of the devil. The sarcophagus in which the body of this great emperor reposed was of green marble, and of the richest workmanship. By the order of the drunken Michael and the Slavonian groom Basil, it was broken open, and the body, after having lain for upwards of ninety years in peace, was dragged into the circus, where the body of John the Grammarian, torn also from the tomb, was placed beside it. The remains of these great men were beaten with rods to amuse the vilest populace, and then burned in the Amastrianon, the filthiest quarter of the capital, and the place often used for the execution of malefactors. The splendid sarcophagus of Constantine was cut in pieces by order of Michael, to form a balustrade in a new chapel he was constructing at Pharos.

The drunkenness of Michael brought on delirium tremens, and rendered him liable to fits of madness. He observed that Basil’s desire to maintain the high position he had reached produced the same reformation in his conduct which had been visible in that of Bardas. The Emperor Basil became a very different man from Basil the groom. The change was observed by Michael, and it rendered him dissatisfied with his colleague. In one of his fits of madness he invested another of the companions of his orgies, named Basiliskian, with the imperial title.

In such a court there could be little doubt that the three emperors, Michael, Basil, and Basiliskian, could not long hold joint sway. It was probably soon a race who should be the first murdered, and in such cases the ablest man is generally the most successful criminal. Basil, having reason to fear for his own safety, planned the assassination of his benefactor with the greatest deliberation. The murder was carried into execution after a supper-party given by Theodora to her son in the palace of Anthimos, where he had resolved to spend a day hunting on the Asiatic coast. Basil and his wife, Eudocia Ingerina, were invited by the empress-mother to meet her son, for all decency was banished from this most orthodox court. Michael, according to his usual habit, was carried from the supper-table in a state of intoxication, and Basil accompanied his colleague to his chamber, of which he had previously rendered the lock useless. Basiliskian, the third of this infamous trio, was sleeping, in a state of intoxication, on the bed placed in the imperial apartment for the chamberlain on duty. The chamberlain, on following his master, found the lock of the door useless and the bolts broken, but did not think of calling for assistance to secure the entrance in the palace of the empress-mother.

Basil soon returned, attended by John of Chaldia, a Persian officer named Apelates, a Bulgarian named Peter, Constantine Toxaras, his own father Bardas, his brother Marines, and his cousin Ayleon. The chamberlain immediately guessed their purpose, and opposed their entry into the chamber. Michael, disturbed by the noise, rose from his drunken sleep, and was attacked by John of Chaldia, who cut off both his hands with a blow of his sabre. The emperor fell on the ground. Basiliskian was slain in the meantime by Apelates. Constantine Toxaras, with the relatives of Basil, guarded the door and the corridor leading to the apartment, lest the officers of the emperor or the servants of Theodora should be alarmed by the noise. The shouts of the chamberlain and the cries of Michael alarmed Basil and those in the chamber, and they rushed into the corridor to secure their retreat. But the tumult of debauchery had been often as loud, and the cries of murder produced no extraordinary sensation where Michael was known to be present. All remaining silent without, some of the conspirators expressed alarm lest Michael should not be mortally wounded. John of Chaldia, the boldest of the assassins, returned to make his work sure. Finding the emperor sitting on the floor uttering bitter lamentations, he plunged his sword into his heart, and then returned to assure Basil that all was finished.

The conspirators crossed over to Constantinople, and having secured their entrance into the imperial palace by means of two Persians, Eulogios and Artabasd, who were on guard, Basil was immediately proclaimed sole emperor, and the death of Michael III was publicly announced. In the morning the body of Michael was interred in a monastery at Chrysopolis, near the palace of Anthimos. Theodora was allowed to direct the funeral ceremonies of the son whom her own neglect had conducted to an early and bloody death.

The people of Constantinople appear to have taken very little interest in this infamous assassination, by which a small band of mercenary adventurers transferred the empire of the Romans from the Amorian dynasty to a Macedonian groom, whose family reigned at Constantinople for two centuries, with greater power and glory than the Eastern Empire had attained since the days of Justinian.

 

 

CHAPTER IV

STATE OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE DURING THE ICONOCLAST PERIOD