A HI STORY

OF THE

EASTERN ROMAN EMPIRE

FROM THE FALL OF IRENE TO THE

ACCESSION OF BASIL I.

”

L(A.D. 802—86 7 )

J. B. BURY

REG IUS P ROFESSOR OF MODERN H ISTORYAND FEL LOW OF K ING

'

S COL LEGE,IN THE UN IVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE

MACM I L LAN AND CO.,L IM ITED

ST. MAR T IN ’

S STREE T,LOND ON

1 9 1 2

PREFACE

THE history of Byzantine c ivilization, in which social elementsof the West and the East are so curious ly blended and fusedinto a unique culture, will not be written for many years tocome. I t cannot be written until each successive epoch hasbeen exhaustively studi ed and its distinguishing characteristicsclearly ascertained. The fallacious assumption

,once accepted

as a truism, that the Byzantine Spirit knew no change or

shadow of turni ng,that the social atmosphere of the Eastern

Rome was always immutably the same, has indeed been discredited ; but even in recent sketches of this civilization bycompetent hands we can see unconscious survivals of thatbelief. The curve of the whole development has still to be

accurately traced,and this can only b e done by defining each

section by means of the evidence which applies to that sectionalone. No other method will enable us to discriminate the

series of gradual changes which transformed the Byzantiumof Justinian into that— so different in a thousand ways— of

the last Constantine.

This consideration has guided me in writing the presentvolume, which continues, but on a larger scale, my H istory ofthe Later Roman Empire from Arcadius to I rene, publishedmore than twenty years ago, and covers a period of two

generations,which may b e called for the sake of convenience

the Amorian epoch . I think there has been a tendency toregard this period, occurring, as it does, between the revivalunder the Isaurian and the territorial expansion under the

viii EA S TE RN ROM AN EM P IRE

Basilian sovrans, as no more than a passage from the one to

the other ; and I think there has been a certain failure to

comprehend the significance of the Amorian dynasty. The

period is not a mere epilogue,and it is much more than a

prologue. It has its own distinct, co-ordinate place in the

series of developmen t ; and I hope that this volume mayhelp to bring in to relief the fact tha t the Amorian age meanta new phase in Byzantine culture.

In recent years various and valuable additions have beenmade to the material available to the historian. Arabic andSyriac sources important for the Eastern wars have beenprinted and translated. Some new G reek documents, buriedin MSS. ,

have been published . Perhaps the most unexpectedaccessions to our knowledge concern Bul garia, and are due to

archaeological research . Pliska, the palace of the early princes,

has been excavated, and a number of interesting and difficultinscriptions have come to ligh t there and in other parts of

the country. This material, published and illustrated byMM. Uspenski and Shkorpil, who conducted the Pliskadiggings, has furnished new fac ts of great importance.

A further advance has been made, since the days whenFinlay wrote, by the application of modern methods of

criticism to the chronicles on which the history of thisperiod principally depends. The pioneer work of Hirsch

(Byzantinisehe Studien) , published in 1 876 , is still an indispensable guide ; but since then the obscure questions connectedwith the chronographies of George and Simeon have beenmore or less illuminated by the researches of various scholars

,

especially by de Boor’s edition of George and Sreznevski’

s

publica tion of the Slavonic version of Simeon . But thoughit is desirable to determine the mutual relations among theSimeon documents, the historian of Theophilus and Michael I II .

is more concerned to discover the character of the sources

P REFA CE ix

which Simeon used . My own studies have led me to the

conclusion that his narrative of those reigns is chiefly basedon a lost chronicle which was written before the end of the

century and was not unfavourable to the Amorian dynasty.

Much , too, has been done to elucidate perplexing historicalquestions by the researches of A . A. Vasil

’

ev (to whose bookon the Saracen wars of the Amorians I am greatly indebted) ,E . W . Brooks, the late J . Pargoire, C . de Boor, and manyothers.

1The example of a period not spec iallv favoured may

serve to illustrate the general progress of Byzantine studiesduring the last generation .

When he has submitted his material to the requisitecritical analysis, and reconstructed a narrative accordingly,the historian has done all that he can,

and his responsibilityends. When he has had before him a number of independentreports of the same events, he may hope to have elicited an

approximation to the truth by a process of comparison . Buthow when he has only one ? There are several narratives inthis volume which are mainly derived from a single independentsource. The usual practice in such cases is, having elimina tedany errors and inconsistencies that we may have means of

detecting, and having made allowances for bias, to accep t thestory as substantially true and accurate. The single accountis assumed to b e veracious when there is no coun ter-evidence .

But is this assumption valid ? Take the account of the

murder of Michael III . which has come down to us. If eachof the several persons who were in various ways concernedin that transaction had written down soon or even immediately afterwards a detailed report of what happened, each

1 I regret that the paper of Mr. Brooks on the Age of Basil I . (in Byzanti

nische Zeitschrrgft, xx . ) was not published t i ll this volume was correc ted forpress. His arguments for postponing the date of Basil

’

s birth till the reign of

Theophilus have much weight. But, if we accept them,I th ink that the

tradition retains such value as it possessed for dating the return of the Greekcaptives from Bulgaria (cp. below, p .

EAS TE RN R OMAN EM P IRE

endeavouring honestly to describe the events accurately, it isvirtually certain that there would have been endless divergenciesand contradictions between these reports. Is there, then, aserious probability that the one account which happens to havebeen handed down, whether written by the pen or derived fromthe lips of a narrator of whose mentality we have no knowledge,— is there a serious probability that th is story presen tsto our minds images at all resembling those which wouldappear to us if the scenes had been preserved by a c inemato

graphic process ? I have followed the usual practice— it is

difficult to do otherwise ; bu t I do not pretend to justify it.There are many portions ofmedieval and of ancient recordedhistory which will always remain more or lessfables convenues,or for the accuracy of which , at least, no discreet person willb e prepared to stand sec urity even when scien tific method hasdone for them all it can do.

It would not b e just to the leading men who guidedpublic affairs during this period, such as Theophilus and

Bardas,to attempt to draw their portraits. The data are

entirely insufficient . Even in the case of Photius,who has

left a considerable li terary legacy, while we can appreciate,

perhaps duly,his historical significance, his personality is only

half revealed ; his character may be variously conceived ; andthe only safe course is to record his acts without presumingto know how far they were determined by personal motives.

J . B. BURY.

ROME, January 1912.

CONTENT S

CHAPTER I

NICEPHORUS I .,STAURACIUS

,AND M ICHAEL I . (A D . 802-8 13)

THE FALL or IRENE .

N ICEPHORU S I . (A .D . 802-811 )

STAURACIU S (A. D . 811 )

RE IGN AND POL I CY or M ICHAEL I . (A .D . 811 -813)

5 . TH E ECCLES IAST ICAL POLICIES OF N I CEPHORUSI . AND MI CHAEL I.

CHAPTER I I

LEO V.,THE ARMENIAN

,AND THE REVIVAL or ICONOCLASM

(A D . 8 13-820)

1 . REIGN AND ADMIN ISTRATION or LEO V.

2 . CONSP IRACY or M ICHAEL AND MURDER or LEo

3 . THE REVIVAL or ICONOCLASM

CHAPTER III

M ICHAEL I I .

,THE AMORIAN (A D . 820-829 )

1 . THE ACCESSION or MICHAEL (A .D . THE CORONAT ION AND

MARR IAGE or THEOPH ILU S (A.D . 821)

2. THE CIVIL WAR (A .D . 821-823)

3 . THE ECCLESIASTI CAL POL ICY or M ICHAEL II.

x1i EA S TE RN ROMAN EM P IRE

CHAPTER IV

THEOPHILUS (A D . 8 29 -842)SEC .

1. THE ADMINISTRAT ION OF THEOPH I LU S2. THE BU I LDINGS or THEOPHILU S3 . ICONOCLASM4 . DEATH or THEOPH ILU S (A.D . 842) AND RESTORATION or ICONS

(A.D . 843)

CHAPTER V

M ICHAEL I I I . (A.D . 842-867)

1 . THE REGENCY (A. D . 842-856)

2 . BARDAS AND BASIL THE MACEDON IAN (A .D . 856-866)

3 . THE ELEVAT ION OF BASIL (AD . 866) AND THE MURDER or

M ICHAEL (A .D . 867)

CHAPTER VI

PHOTIUS AND IGNATIUS

CHAPTER VII

FINANCIAL AND M IL ITARY ADMINISTRAT ION

1 . FINANCE

2. M IL ITARY AND NAVAL ORGAN IZATION

CHAPTER VIII

THE SARACEN WARS

1 . THE EMPIRE OF THE ABBASIDS

2 . BAGHDAD3 . THE FRONT IER DEFENCES or THE EMPIRE AND THE CAL IPHATE 244

CON TEN TS xiiiSEC . PAGE

4. THE WARFARE IN THE REIGNS or HARUN AND MAMUN(A.D . 802-833)

5 . THE EMBASSY OF JOHN THE GRAMMARIAN AND THE FL IGHT OF

MANUEL

6 . THE CAMPAIGNS or A .D . 837 and 838

7 . THE WARFARE OF A .D . 839-867

CHA PTER IX

THE SARACEN CONQUESTS or CRETE AND SICILY

1. THE CONQUEST OF CRETE

2. THE INVASION or SICILY3 . THE INVASION or SOUTHERN ITALY

CHAPTER X

RELATIONS W ITH THE WESTERN EMPIRE. VENICE

CHAPTER XI

BULGAR IA

1 . THE BULGARIAN KINGDOM2 . KRUM AND N ICEPH ORUS I.

3 . KRUM AND M ICHAE L I .THE BULGARIAN SIEGE OF CONSTANT INOPLE (A .D . 813)

5 . THE RE IGN or OMURTAG6. THE REIGNS OF MALAMIR AND BORIS

CHAPTER X I I

THE CONVERSION OF SLAvs AND BULGARIANS

I . THE SLAvs IN GREECE

2 . THE CONVERSION OF BULGAR IA

3. THE SLAVONIC APOSTLES

THE EMPIRE OF THE KHAzARs AND THE PEOPLES OF THE NORTHSEC O

1 . THE KHAZAR S2. THE SUBJECTS AND NEIGHBOU RS OF THE KHAZARS3 . THE RUSSIAN S AND THE IR COMMERCE4 . IMPER IAL POL ICY. THE RUSSIAN DANGER

5 . THE MAGYARS

CHAPTER XIV

ART,LEARNING , AND EDUCAT ION IN THE AMORIAN PER IOD

l . ART

2 . EDUCATION AND LEARNING

APPENDICES

I . THE LETTERS OF THEODORE OF STUDION

II. GEORGE’

S CHRON ICLEIII . THE CHRONICLE OF SIMEON ,

MAG I STER AND LOGOTHETEIV. GENESIOS AND THE CONT INUAT ION OF THEOPHANESV. CHRONOLOGY OF THE WAR BETWEEN M ICHAEL II. AND

THOMAS THE SLAv

VI . THE FAMILY OF THEOPH ILU SVII . THE FALL OF THEODORA (chronology)VIII . THE WARFARE W ITH THE SARACENS IN A .D . 830-832

IX. THE REVOLT OF EU PHEM IOS

X . PRESTAM , MALAMI RXI . ON SOME OF THE SOU RCES FOR THE H ISTORY OF CONSTANT INE

AND METHODIU SXII. THE MAGYARS

CON TE N TS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I . SOURCESPAGE

1 . General

Ia . Hagiographic al2. Western3 . Oriental4. Relating to the North (Slavs, Khazars, etc . etc . )

4a . Relating to Constantine (Cyril) and Methodius5 . Archaeological (inc luding Coins and Seals )A. Critic ism, etc .

,of Sourc es

I I . M ODERN WORKS

1 . General Histories2. Monographs and Works bearing on spec ial portions of the subjec t3 . Works relating primarily to Western Europe4. Works relating primarily to Eastern Europe or the Saracens

5 . Works relating primarily to Northern Europe (Slavs, Russians,Hungarians, etc . )

5a . Works relating to Constantine (Cyril) and Metliodius

6 . Civil ization7 . Administration, Institutions, Laws8 . G eography8a . Maps9 . Topography of Constantinople and adjac ent regions10. Chronology and Genealogy

INDEX

I ENG L ISH

CHAPTER I

NICEPHORUS I .,STAURACIUS , AND MICHAEL I.

(A.D . 802-813)

1 . The Fall of Irene

THE Isaurian or Syrian dynasty, which had not only di schargedefficien tly the task of defending the Roman Empire againstthe Saracens and Bulgarians, but had also infused new li feinto the administration and institutions, terminated ingloriously two years after the Imperial coronation of Charles theGreat at Rome. Ambassadors of Charles were in Con

stantinople at the time of the revolution which hurled theEmpress Irene from the throne. Their business at her courtwas to treat concerning a prOposal of marriage from theirmaster. I t appears that the Empress entertained seriousthoughts of an alliance wh ich her advisers would hardly haveSuffered her to contract,1 and the danger may have precipibated a revolution which could not long b e postponed. Few

palace revolutions have been more completely justified by theexigencies of the common weal, and if personal ambitions hadnot sufficed to bring about the fall of Irene

,public interest

woul d have dictated the removal of a sovran whose incapacitymust soon have led to public disaster.

The career of Irene of Athens had been unusually brilli ant .An obscure provincial, she was elevated by a stroke of fortuneto be the consort of the heir to the greatest throne in Europe .

Her husband died after a short reign, and as their son was a

mere child she was left in possession of the supreme power.

She was thus enabled to lead the reaction against iconoclasm,

and connect her name indissolubly with an EcumenicalFor this negotiation see further below, Chap. X .

l

2 EAS TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE C HAP. I

Council. By this policy she covered herself with glory in theeyes of orthodox posterity ; She received the eulogies of popes ;and the monks, who basked in the light of her countenance,extolled her as a saint. We have no records that wouldenable us to draw a portrait of Irene’s mind, but we knowthat she was the most worldly of women

,and that love of

power was a fundamental trait of her character. When herson Constantine was old enough to assume the reins of

government, She was reluctant to retire ‘ into the background ,and a struggle for power ensued, which ended ultimately inthe victory of the mother. The son

, deprived of his eyesight ,was rendered incapable of reigning (A.D. and Ireneenjoyed for fi ve years undivided sovran power

,not as a regent,

but in her own righ t .Extreme measures of ambition which

,if adopted by

heretics, they would execrate as crimes,are easily pardoned or

overlooked by monks in the case of a monarch who believesrightly; But even in the narrative of the prejudiced monk,who is our informant we can see that he himself disapprovedof the behaviour of the

“ most pious ” Irene, and, wha t is moreimportant

,that the public sympathy was with her son. Her

conduct of the government did not secure her the respectwhich her previous actions had forfeited. She was under thealternating influence of two favourite eunuchs,l whose intriguesagainst each other divided the court. After the death of

Staurac ius, his rival Aetius enjoyed the supreme control of theEmpress and the Empire.

2 He may have been a capable man ;b ut his position was precarious, his power was resented by theother ministers of state

,and

,in such circumstances, the policy

of the Empire could not b e efficiently carried on. He unitedin his own hands the commands of two of the Asiatic Themes,the Opsikian and the Anatolic

,and he made his brother Leo

stratégos of both Macedonia and Thrace. By the con trol of

the troops of these provinces he hoped to compass his schemeof raising Leo to the Imperial throne.

We can hardly doubt that the political object of mitigating1 évrwn jow c 6V‘

r es r fis Bamxela s, ii. 97, of Odrysian nobles who had

Theoph . A .M . 6290. influenc e with the king) . In the9 We may describe his position as tenth and eleventh c enturi es the

that of first minister— eu unoffic ial r apaavvaar eéwv regularly appears in

position expressed by wapa é vvaar eéwu the reigns of weak emperors.

(a word which occurs in Thucydides ,

https://www.forgottenbooks.com/join

4 EA S TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE 0 CHAP. I

occasion by Theodore, the abbot of Studion. We mustremember that the writer was an ardent partisan of the

Empress, whom he lauds in hyperbolic phrases, according to

the manner of the age, and we may reasonably suspect that hehas overdrawn the abuses which she remedi ed in order to

exalt the merit of her reform .

1

The monks of Studi on, driven from their Cloister by herson,

had been restored with high honour by Irene, and we maybelieve that they were the most devoted of her supporters.

The letter which Theodore addressed to her on this occasionshows that in his eyes her offences against humanity countedas nothing, if set against her services to orthodoxy and

canonical law . It is characteristic of medieval Christianitythat one who made such high professions of respect forChristian ethics should ex tol the “

Virtue ” of the woman whohad blinded her son, and assert that her virtue has made hergovernment popular and will preserve it unshaken .

Even if Irene’s capacity for ruling had equalled her appetitefor power, and if the reverence which the monks entertainedfor her had been universal, her sex was a weak point in herposition . Other women had governed— Pulcheria

,for instance

—in the name of an Emperor ; b ut Irene was the first who hadreigned alone

,not as a regent , but as sole and supreme au tocrat .

This was an innovation against which no constitutionalobjection seems to have been urged or recognized as valid at

Constantinople ; though in Western Europe it was said thatthe Roman Empire could not devolve upon a woman

, and thisprinciple was alleged as an argument justifying the coronationof Charles the Great . But in the army there was undoubtedlya feeling of dissatisfaction that the sovran was disqualifiedby her sex from leading her hosts in war ; and as the spirit oficonoclasm was still prevalent in the army

, especially in the

powerful Asiatic Themes, there was no inclination to waivethis objection in the case of the restorer of image-worship .

2

1 It is remarkable that Theoiphanes to b e disclosed undesignedly by an

(loo. cit. ) does not mention irectly admirer, the deacon Ignatius , who

the existence of the abuses described s eaks of her as a woman,and then

by Theodore. The reforms for which a most apologizes for doing so. Vit.Theodore chiefly thanks her must b e N tceph . 146 To KpaT a 16¢pOV e

’

xeivo m 2inc luded in the Chronic ler's a im (170x013 ¢LA60€0V yéva tou

‘

el’

1rep yvva i‘

xa OémsIrokkoi

'

s. xakei‘

v“r ip: Ka i dI/Opc

'

bv 7 93 660 6136?2 That her sex was regarded as a xavo' av ¢pom§namdisadvantage by public opinion seems

SECT . I THE FAL L OF IRENE 5

The power exercised by the eunuch Aetius was in tolerableto many of the magnates who held h igh offices of state, andthey had good reason to argue that in the interests of the

Empire, placed as it was between two formidable foes, a

stronger government than that of a favourite who wieldedauthority at the caprice of a woman was imperatively required.

The negotiations of the Empress with Charles the Great, andthe arrival of ambassadors from him and the Pope , to discussa marriage between the two monarchs which should restorein Eastern and Western Europe the political unity of the

Roman Empire once more,were equally distasteful and alarming

to Aetius and to his opponents. The overtures of Charlesmay well have impressed the patricians of New Rome withthe danger of the existing situation and with the urgent needthat the Empire should have a strong sovran to maintainits rights and prestige against the pretensions of the Westernbarbarian who claimed to b e a true Augustus. I t might also b eforeseen that Actins would now move heaven and earth to securethe elevation of his brother to the throne as speedily as possible .

These circumstances may sufficiently explain the fact thatthe di scontent of the leading officials with Irene’s governmentculminated in October A.D . 802, while the Western ambassadorswere still in ConstantinOple .

1The leader of the conspiracy

was Nicephorus, who held the post of Logothete of the GeneralTreasury, and he was recognized by his accomplices as the

man who should succeed to the Imperial crown . H is two

chief supporters were N icetas Triphyllios, the Domestic of thescholarian guards, and his brother Leo, who had formerly beenstra tegos of Thrace . The co-operation of these men was

highly important ; for Aetius counted upon their loyalty, asNicetas had espoused his part against his rival Staurac ius.

2

Leo, who held the high financial office of Sakellarios, and the

quaestor Theoktistos joined in the plot, and several otherpatricians.

3

1 Theoph . 47527, 47828. The manner them 7 63V ém épxwv xa l Ooh -

p6 1! Tpt¢v)\in which the presenc e of the am N e w Michael Syr. iii. 12

'

as

b assadors (dr oxpm épwt) is notic ed signs a leading r61e to Nicetas .

in the second passage (6pu’wrwv 7 a 3 As Leo Serantapé chos andGregory,suggests that Theophanes son of Musulakios (formerly Count of

derived some of his information from the Opsikian Theme) . Also some of

their account of the transac tions. the chief offic ers of the other Tagmata2 For this reas on Theophanes c alls (the Excub itors and the Arithmos) .

6 EAS TE RN R OILIAN EM P IRE CHAP. 1

On the night of October 3 1 the conspirators appearedbefore the Brazen Gate (Chalké) of the Palace , and inducedthe guard to admit them

,by a Story which certainly bore

little appearance of likelihood. They said that Aetius hadbeen attempting to force the Empress to elevate his brotherto the rank of Augustus

,and that she

,in order to obviate his

importunities, had dispatched the patricians at this late hourto proclaim Nicephorus as Emperor. The authority of suchimportant men could hardly b e resisted by the guardiansof the gate, and in obedience to the supposed command of

their sovran they joined in proclaiming the usurper. It was

not yet midnight . Slaves and others were sent to all quartersof the city to Spread the news, and the Palace of Eleutherios,in which the Augusta was then staying, was surrounded bysoldiers. This Palace, which she had built herself, was probablysituated to the north of the harbour of Eleutherios

,somewhere

in the vicinity of the Forum which was known as Bous.

1 In

the morning she was removed to the Great Palace and detainedin custody

,while the ceremony of coronation was performed

for Nicephorus by the Patriarch Tarasius, in the presence of a

large multitude,who beheld the spectacle with various emotions.

The writer from whom we learn these events was a monk,violently hostile to the new Emperor, and devoted to the

orthodox Irene, who had testified so brilliantly to the “ true

faith . We must not forget his bias when we read that all 2

the spectators were imprecating curses on the Patriarch , andon the Emperor and his well -wishers. Some

,he says,

marvelled how Providence could permit such an event and

see the pious Empress deserted by those courtiers who hadprofessed to b e most attached to her

,like the brothers

Triphyllios. Others, unable to believe the evidence of theireyes, thought they were dreaming. Those who took in the

Situation were contrasting in prophetic fancy the days thatwere coming with the blessed condition of things whichexisted under Irene. This description represents the attitude

1 It is supposed that Ak Serai, (r d which stretched northWhite Palace

,

”the present name of ward from the harbour of that name.

the quarter where the Forum Bous 2 Theophanes (476) rea l n iv'

r es é1rl

was situated,is derived from Irene

’

s r ots r paTToILéI/ocs éavoxépaw ou «TIM,

palac e . See Mordtmann, Esqu isse, and again xowh se r dw a s Kar etxe

p . 76 . In any c ase, it must have been (“

offi cia l s Ka t am ped -7m ddvnta .

situated in the Eleutherios quarter

SECT . I THE FAL L OF IRENE 7

of the monks and the large number of people who were undertheir influence. But we may well believe that the populaceshowed no enthusiasm at the revolution ; Nicephorus can

hardly have been a popular minister.

The new Emperor determined,as a matter of course, to

send the deposed Empress into banishment,but she possessed

a secret which it was important for him to discover. The

economy of Leo III . and Constantine V. had accumulated a

large treasure, which was stored away in some secret hidingplace , known only to the sovran , and not communicated tothe Sakellarios, who was head of the treasury . Nicephorus

knew of its existence, and on the day after his coronation hehad an in terview with Irene in the Palace, and by promisesand blandi shments persuaded her to reveal where the storewas hidden . Irene on this occasion made a dignified speech ,1

explaining her fall as a punishment of her sins, and askingto b e allowed to live in her own house of Eleutherios.

N icephorus, however, banished her first to Prince’s I sland inthe Propontis

,and afterwards to more distant Lesbos, where

she died within a year. We cannot accept unhesitatingly theassertion of the

“

Greek ' chronographer that Nicephorus brokehis faith . There is some evidence, adequate at least to makeus suspicious

,that he kept his promise , and that Irene was

not bani shed until She or her partisans organized a conspiracyagainst his life .

2

1 Theophanes pro fesses to giveIrene

’

s speech verbatim ; and the

substance of it may perhaps b e

genuine. Some patricians were present at the interview, and the chronographer may have derived h is information from one of these. Irene

’

s

steadfast bearing after her suddenmisfortune made an impression.

2 M ichael Syr. 12-13 . The passageis literally transc ribed by Bar

Hebraeus, 138 :“ Imperium igitur

adeptus est anno 1114 et honorifi ce

habuit It enem reginam et Aetium .

Hi c aedem ejue parare volueruntmanu monachorum. Insidiis veromanifestatis Irene in exilium missaest Athenas ub i monache facta est

[leg. obu t] . Actio retribuit uti

ci fac ere voluit.”

The details of

Michael ’s statements concerningRoman history are frequently in

accurate and confused, b ut it seemsprobable that there was some real

foundation for this explicit notic e of

a conspiracy in which Irene was c onc erned after her dethronement. The

silence of Theophanes proves nothing .

He Wished to tell as little as possibleto the discredit of the Empress and

to blacken the charac ter of the

Emperor. The last sentence in th e

above passage means that Ac tinswas spared, because he had c on

c ealed Nicephorus from the anger of

Irene .

8 EAS TERN ROMAN EM P IRE CHAP, I

2 . Nicephorus I .

According to Oriental historians,1 Nicephorus was descendedfrom an Arabian king, Jab allah of Ghassan , who in the reignof Heraclius became a Mohammadan

,but soon

,di ssatisfied

with the principle of equality which marked the early periodof the Caliphate, fled to Cappadocia and resumed the profes

sion of Christianity along with allegiance to the Empire.

Perhaps Jaballah or one of his descendants settled in Pisidia,for N icephorus was born in Seleucia of that province.

2 His

fame has suffered,because he had neither a fair historian to

do him justice,nor apologists to countervail the coloured

statements of opponen ts. He is described 3 as an unblushinghypocrite, avaricious, cruel, irreligious, unchaste, a perjuredslave

,a wicked revolutionary. H is every act is pain ted as a

crime or a weakness,or as prompted by a sinister motive.

When we omit the adjectives and the comments and set downthe facts, we come to a different conclusion . The h istory of

his reign shows him a strong and masterful man, who was

fully alive to the difficulties of the task of governing and was

prepared to incur unpopularity in discharging his duty as

guardian of the state. Like many other competent statesmen ,he knew how to play upon the weaknesses of men and to

conceal his own designs ; he seems indeed to have been expertin dissimulation and the cognate arts of diplomacy .

4It was

said that tears came with convenient readiness,enabling him

to feign emotions which he was far from feeling and win a

false reputation for having a good heart .5

1 M ichael Syr. 15 (Bar-Heb raeus,Tabari says “

the Romans(Vet . N icet. xxix . ) as 6 euaefléo

'

r a‘

ros

Ka i ¢ IA61rrwxos Ka i ¢Lkop6mxoa H e is

record that this Nikephoros was a

descendant of Cafua of Ghassan ”

(apud Brooks, i .2 It is strange that Theophanes

calls him a swineherd but the

point of the c ontumely may b e hisprovincial birth . Michael Syr. 12 cal lshim a Cappadocian. His head on

c oins is— as general ly in Byzantinec omage urely c onventional .

3 By heophanes . Over againstTheophanes, however, we may placethe brief eulogy of another con

temporary monk , Theosteriktos (whowrote the L ife of N ic etas of Medikion

c. A .D . 824 who describes him

also praised for piety and orthodoxyin the Ep . Synod . Or ient. ad Theozoh .

365 .

4 Theoph . 477,pnjxavos) .

5 l b . 480. The same faculty was

attributed to Lord Thurlow . Whenthe Regency question came I]

the occasi on of George the T ird ’sfirst seizure with insanity, as the

Chancellor was trimming betweenloyalty to the King , whose recoverywas uncertain, and the favour of the

Prince ofWales, 3. seasonable displayof emotion in the House of Lords wasone of his arts .

cp. 483 (6 1ro7\v

SECT . I I N I CE PHOR US I . 9

Most of the able RomanEmperors who were not born inthe purple had been generals before they ascended the throne.

Nicephorus, who had been a financial minister,was one of the

most notable exceptions. It is probable that he had receiveda military training

,for he led armies into the field . He was

thoroughly in earnest about the defence of the Empire againstits foes, whether beyond the Taurus or beyond the Haemus ;but he had not the qualities of a skilful general, and thisdeficiency led to the premature end of his reign . Yet his

financial experience may have been of more solid value to thestate than the military talent which might have achievedsome brill iant successes. He was fully determined to be

master in his own house. He intended that the Empire, theChurch as well as the State

,shoul d b e completely under his

control,1 and would brook no rival authorities,whether in the

court or in the cloister. He severely criticized his predecessors,asserting that they had no idea of the true methods of government.2 If a sovran , he used to say,

wishes to rule efficiently ,he must permit no one to b e more powerful than himselff— a

sound doctrine under the constitution of the Roman Empire.

The principles of his ecclesiastical policy, which rendered himexecrable in the eyes of many monks

,were religious toleration

and the supremacy of the State over the Church . Detested bythe monks on this account, he has been represented by one of

them,who is our principal informant, as a tyrannical oppressor

who imposed intolerable burdens of taxa tion upon his subjectsfrom purely avaricious motives. Some of his financialmeasures may have been severe, b ut our ignorance of the

economic conditions of the time and our imperfect knowledgeof the measures themselves render it difficult for us to criticizethem .

4

In pursuance of his conception of the sovran’s duty, totake an active part in the administration himself and keepits various departments under his own control, Nicephorusresolved to exercise more constantly and regularly the supremejudicial functions which belonged to the Emperor. His

immediate predecessors had probably seldom attended in

person the Imperial Court of Appeal, over which the Prefect1 Theoph . 479 els éa vr bv 7 a mi vra 3 l b.

nereve‘

yxei‘

v.

4 For these measures see below,2 l b. 489. Chap . VII. s I .

IO EA S TERN ROMAN EM P IRE CHAP. I

of the City presided in the Emperor’s absence ; 1 but hithertoit had been only in the case of appeals, or in those trials of

high functionaries which were reserved for his Court, that thesovran intervened in the administration of justice. Nicephorus

instituted a new court which sat in the Palace of Magnaura.

Here he used to preside himself and judge cases whichordinarily came before the Prefect of the City or the Quaestor.

I t was his purpose, he alleged,to enable the poor to obtain

justice speedily and easily. I t is instructive to observe howthis innovation was construed and censured by his enemies.

It was said that his motive was to insult and Oppress theofficial classes, or that the encouragement of lawsuits was

designed to divert the attention of his subjects from Imperialimpieties.

” 2The malevolence of these insinuations is

manifest. Nicephorus was solicitous to protect his subjectsagainst official oppression

,and all Emperors who took an

active personal part in the administration of justice wereh ighly respected and praised by the public .

Not long after Nicephorus ascended the throne he was

menaced by a serious insurrection .

3He had appointed an

able general,Bardanes Turons , to an exceptionally extensive

command,embracing the Anatolic, the Armeniac , and the

three other Asiatic Themes.

4The appointment was evidently

made with the object of prosecuting vigorously the war

against the Saracens, in which Bardanes had distinguishedhimself

,and won popularity with the soldiers by his scrupulously

fair division of booty, in which he Showed himself no respecterof persons .

5He was, as his name shows, an Armenian by

1 Op. Zacharia, Gr .-rom. Reoht, 357.

2 Theoph . 479 , 489.

3 The sources are Theoph . 479 ; Gen.

8 sqq. ; Cont. Tit. 6 sqq. The narra

tives in the two latter works are to lda propos of the history of Leo the

Armenian, and though they are c ognate (and must b e derived ultimatelyfrom the same source), Cont. Th. is

here independent of Genesios (cp.

Hirsch, Byz . Stud .

Cont. Th . 6 Itovoarpd‘

rn'

yov‘

r c'

bv

arévr e Oeudrwv Karar ip! dvarokfiu.

Theoph . and Gen. designate Bardanesas stratégos of the Anatolic Theme .

Probably he had held this post at

first,

and the Emperor afterwardsextended his c ommand . We meetagain the commission of this largemilitar Sphere to one general in A.D .

819 , W en we . fi nd rd. 1réu'

r e 0é,u.a1

'

a

under one strategos. Theod. Stud .

Epp. ii. 63 (Migne, 1284) 7 06: 7 739éfa pxIa sMyovs (t1r2yap7 6311 e

'

Oepd‘

rwv

r efiefra t) , where éEapxla suggests thoselarge administrations whic h had beenintroduc ed in the sixth century (Italy,Africa) . The other three Themes werethe Opsikian, Thrakesian, and Bukel

larian. See below, Chap . VII . 2 .

5 Cont. Th . 8-9 .

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12 EAS TERN ROMAN EM P IRE CHAP. I

the prophet’s cell, where he received a discouraging oracle .

He was bidden to abandon his designs, which would surelylead to the loss of his property and of his eyes. He left thehermit’s dwelling moody and despondent

,and he was mount

ing his horse when the holy man,who had followed to the

door and espied his three companions,summoned him to

return . Eagerly expecting a further communication Bardanescomplied, and he heard a strange prOphecy :

“ The first and

the second of these men will possess the Empire,but thou

shalt not. As for the third,he will b e merely proclaimed,

but will not prosper and will have a b ad end.

”The dis

appointed aspirant to the throne rushed from the hut, utteringmaledictions agains t the prophet who refused to flatter hishopes, and jeeringly communicated to Leo, Michael, and

Thomas the things which were said to b e in store for them .

Thus, according to the story,the destinies of the two

Emperors Leo V. and Michael II . and of the great tyrantThomas were shadowed forth at Philomelion long before itcould b e guessed how such things were to come to pass.

1

The destiny of their patron Bardanes was to b e decidedfar sooner. The insurgent army advanced along the road toN icomedia,

2 but it was soon discovered that the Emperor wasprepared for the emergency and had forces at his dispositionwhich rendered the cause of the tyrant hopeless. Thomas

,

the Slavonian, stood by his master ; but Leo, the Armenian ,

and Michael,of Amorion, deserted to Nicephorus, who duly

rewarded them . Michael was appointed a Count of the tent,3

Ana tolic Theme.1 This prediction post eventum was

proba b ly manufac tured soon a fter thedeath of Thomas

, in A.D . 824.

2 Apparently c oming from Nicaea

(Cont. Th .

3 There is a difficulty, which historians have not notic ed, as to the

meaning of this appointment. Therewas, so far as we know, no offic ialentitled xén'

qs 1 739 K6p1’

775‘

pa r excellence,while in every Theme there was an

offic er so named . Itmay b e held thatin the reign of Nic ephorus there wasa Count of the Imperial tent, who hadduties when the Emperor took part ina campaign, and that the offic e was

abol ished soon afterwards . It ap ears,

however, possible that M ichac was

appointed IaS/I ns T i} ; x6prns of the

In support of thisview

,I adduce the fact that when

Leo, the Armenian, became strate‘gos

of that Theme under M ichael I . he issaid to have renewed his friendsh ipwith Michael , the Amorian. This suggests that Michae l was connected withthe Anatolic Theme . Moreover, at thetime of Leo

’

s elevation to the thronehe appears as attached to his staff.The Counts of the tent of the variousThemes attended on the Emperor’stent in campaigns (wept m 5.The Foederati were the foreign guardof the Palace, afterwards known as

the Hetaireia ; the Count of the

Federates was the later Hetaeriarch .

See Bury, Imp. Administrative System,

107 .

SECT . I I N I CE PH OR US I . 13

Leo to b e Count of the Federates, and each of them receivedthe gift of a house in Constantinople.

1 When Bardanesfound it impracticable to establish on the Asiatic shore 2

a basis of operations against the capital, of which the in

habitants showed no inclination to welcome him,he concluded

that his wisest course would b e to sue for grace while therewas yet time, and he retired to Malagina.

3 The Emperorreadily sent him a written assurance of his personal safety

,

4

which was Signed by the Patriarch Tarasius and all the

patricians ; and the promise was confirmed by the pledge of

a little gold cross which the Emperor was in the habit of

wearing . The tyranny had lasted about seven weeks,when

Bardanes secretly left the camp at midnight (September 8)and travelling doubtless by the road which passes Nicaea and

skirts the southern shores of Lake Ascanias, escaped to the

monastery of Heraclius at Kios, the modern town of Geumlek.

5

There he was tonsured and arrayed in the lowly garment ofa monk . The Emperor ’s bark, which was in waiting at the

shore, carried him to the island of Prfité, where he had builta private monastery, which he was now permitted to select ashis retreat. Under the name of Sabbas

,

6b e devoted himself

to ascetic exercises. But Nicephorus, it would seem,did not

yet feel assured that the ex-tyrant was innocuous ; for we

can hardly doubt the assertion of our sources that it was withthe Emperor’s knowledge that a band of Lycaonians

7 landedon the island by night and deprived the exiled monk of his

eyesight. Nicephorus, however, professed to'

b e sorely dis

tressed at the occurrence ; b e shed the tears which were

1 The details are recorded in Gen. ,

more fully in Cont. Th . The house ofKarianos was assigned to Mi chael, thepalace of Zeno and a house call edDagistheus (1 0V Aa

'

yw fléa ) to Leo.

2 He waited at Chrysopolis for eightdays (Theoph .

3 The great cavalry depot, abouttwenty miles east of Nicaea on the

road to Dorylaion. See Ramsay,Asia M inor , 204-205 .

4 16. Cont. Th . (cp. Gen. 10) men

tions the gold c ross ; it was probablyan enkolpi on (worn on the breast) . A

c ross was regularly used as a pledgeof Imperial faith in such c ases. Com

pare the story of Theophilus andManuel

, below, p. 258, and the assur

ance given to Ignatius, below, p. 198.

5 Theoph . i b.6 Cont. Th. 10.

7 Theoph . 480 Avxdovds Twa s I)AvxavOpu

’

nrovs,buoyvcbaova s Ka i 6M

¢pova s dr oar elha s «TA. I would not,with some h istorians, quote this ex

pression of Theophanes as a proof ofthe charac ter of the Lycaonians.

Theophanes is a partisan of Bardanes,

and neither he nor any of his con

temporaries could resist the temptation of laying on proper names.

Besides ycaonia was infec ted withthe Paulician heresy .

14 EAS TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE CHAP. I

always at his disposal, and did not leave the Imperial b edchamber for seVen days. He even threatened to put to deathsome Lycaonian nobles ; and the Senate and the Patriarchcould hardly venture to doubt the sincerity of his indignation .

As for the rebellious army, it was punished by receiving no

pay ; several officers and landed owners were banished ; theproperty of the chief insurgent was confiscated. Such was

the fate of Bardanes Turcus and his revolt.In February 808 a plot was formed to dethrone Nicephorus

by a large number of discon ten ted senators and ecclesiasticaldignitaries. It is significant that the man who was designatedby the conspirators to b e the new Emperor was on thisoccasion also an Armenian . The patrician Arsaber held theoffice of Quaestor ; and the chronicler, who regarded withfavour any antagonist of N icephorus, describes him as pious.

The plot was detected ; Arsab er was punished by stripes,made a monk and banished to Bithynia ; the accomplices,not excepting the bishops, were beaten and exiled.

1

Nicephorus had two children, a daughter and a son .

PrOCOpia had married Michael Rangabe,2 who was createdCuropalates ; and one of their sons

,Nicetas (destined here

after to occupy the Patriarchal throne) , was appointed, as a

child, to b e the Domestic or commander of the H ikanatoi

, a

new corps of guards which his grandfather had instituted .

Stauracius was doubtless younger than Procopia, and was

crowned Augustus in December 803 , a year after his father’ssuccession.

3Theophanes, perhaps malevolently, describes

him as“ physically and intellectually unfit for the position .

1 Among the conspirators were theS nkellos, and the sakellarios and

ch’

artophylax of St. Sophia (Theoph .

Finlay justly remarks that thec onspirac ies formed againstNicephorusare no evidenc e of h is unpopularity,“ for the best Byzantine monarchswere as o ften disturbed by secret plotsas the worst ” (II . p .

2 FromNicetas, Vita Ignatii (Mansi,xvi. 210 we learn tha tM ichael andProcopia had fi ve chi ldren Gorgo,

(2) Theophylactus, (3) Staurac ius, (4)Nicetas, (5 ) Theophano. Nic etas(whose monastic name was Ignatius)was 14 years old in 813, and thereforewas born in 799 . From th is we mayinfer that Proc opia ’

s marriage cannot

have taken placemuch later than 794.

Assuming her to have been marriedearly, shemight have been born in 778and assuming that her father marriedearly , h e mi ht have been born in 758.

Thus Nicep oruS must have been 45at least when he ascended the throne

,

and was probably older. Staurac iuswas childless.

3 During his sole reign the coina e

of Nicephorus reverted to the o dfashion of exhibiting a cross on thereverse . After the assoc iation of his

son b e adopted the devic e (introduc edby Constantine V. ) of representingthe head of his collea

gue. SeeWroth ,

Imp. Byz. Coins, I . x

SECT . I I N I CE P H OR US I . 15

H is father took pains to choose a suitable wife for him. On

December 20, 807, a company of young girls from all

parts of the Empire was assembled in the Palace, to select aconsort for Staurac ius.

l For a third time in the history of

New Rome an Athenian lady was chosen to b e the bride of

a Roman Augustus . The choice of Nicephorus now fell on

Theophano, even as Constantine V. had selected Irene forhis son Leo, and nearly four centuries before Pulcheria had

discovered Athenais for her brother Theodosius. Theophano

had two advantages : she was a kinswoman of the lateEmpress Irene ; and She had already (repor t said) enjoyed theembraces of a man to whom she was betrothed.

2The second

circumstance gave Nicephorus an opportunity of asser ting theprinciple that the Emperor was not bound by the canonicallaws wh ich interdicted such a union.

3

If a statement of Theophanes is true, which we have no

means of disproving and no reason to doubt,the beauty of

the maidens’

who had presented themselves as possible bridesfor the son,

tempted the desires of the father ; and two, whowere more lovely than the successful Athenian , were consoledfor their disappointment by the gallantries of Nicephorus

himself on the night of his son ’s marriage. The monk who

records this scandal of the Imperial Palace makes no othercomment than the rascal was ridi cul ed by all.

”

The frontiers of the Empire were maintained intact inthe reign of Nicephorus , but his campaigns were not crownedby military glory. The death of the Caliph Harun (809. A.D .)delivered him from a persevering foe against whom he had

been generally unsuccessful, and to whom he had been forcedto make some humiliating concessions ; but the Bulgarianwar brought deeper di sgrace upon Roman arms and was fatalto Nicephorus himself. In an expedition which , accompaniedby his son and his son-in-law

,he led across the Haemus, he

suffered himself to b e entrapped,and his life paid the penalty

for his want of caution (July 26, A.D .

1 For these bride shows see below, (Theoph .

p . 81 .

3 Op. below, p2 mmnc r evnévnv dy api xa l wokkdms 4 The Saracen and Bulgarian wars

a i’

mp"

xwplaa s der by dr ’

of Nic ephorus are described below ina br afi no

“

dfihlcp Dravpaq : ow ég’

evgev Chaps . VIII. and XI.

16 EAS TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE CHAP. 1

3 . Stauracius

The young Emperor Staurac ius had been severely woundedin the battle, but he succeeded in escaping to the shelter of

Hadrianople. H is Sister’s husband,Michael Rangab é , had

come off unhurt ; and two other high dignitaries,the magister

Theoktistos,1and Stephanos the Domestic of the Schools

,

reached the city of refuge along with the surviving Augustus.

But although Stauracius was still living, it was a questionwhether he could live long. His spine had been seriouslyinjured , and the nobles who stood at his beds ide despaired of

his life. They coul d hardly avoid considering the questionwhether it would b e wise at such a crisis to leave the sole

Imperial power in the hands of one who had never shownany marked ability and who was now incapacitated by a

wound, seemingly at the door of death . On the other hand,

it might b e said that the unanimity and prompt action whichthe emergency demanded would b e better secured by ao

knowledging the legitimate Emperor, however feeble he mightb e . So at least it seemed to the Domestic of the Schools

,

who lost no time in proclaiming Stauracius autokrator .

2

Staurac ius himself, notwithstanding his weak condition,

appeared in the presence of the troops who had collected at

Hadrianople after the disaster,and spoke to them . The

soldiers had been disgusted by the unskilfulness of the late

Emperor in the art of war,and it is said that the new

Emperor sought to please them by indulging in criticisms onhis father.

But the magister Theoktistos,3 although he was presenton this occasion, would have preferred another in the place of

1 Theoktistos is undoubted ly the

same erson as the quaestor who sup

ported)

N icephorus In h is conspiracyagainst Irene ; he was rewarded bythe high order ofmagister.

2 The reign of Staurac ius, reckonedfrom the date of his father’s death ,July 26, to the day of his resignation,Oc t. 2, lasted 2 months and 8 days(Cont. Th . Theophanes gives 2months and 6 days but he

reckons perhaps from the date of hisproclamation at Hadrianople, whichmight have been made on July 28.

It is worth noticing that Muralt andHirsch (190) adduce from TheophanesJuly 25 as the date of the death of

Nic ephorus. Thi s is due to a wrongreading, corrected in de Boor’s edition,

491 . In Cont. Th . 11 the date is a lsogiven as July 26, but the death of

Stauracius is wrongly placed on theday of his resignation (Oct. He

survived till Jan. 11, 812 (Theoph .

495 )3 T he divergent views of Stephanos

and Theoktistos are expressly notedby Theophanes, 492.

SECT . I II S TA URACI US 17

Stauracius. And there was one who had a certain eventualclaim to the crown , and might b e supposed not unequal to itsburdens, Michael Rangabe, the Curopalates and husband of

the princess Procopia. I t woul d not have been a violentmeasure if, in View of the precarious condition of her brother,Procopia

’

s husband had been immediately invested with the

insignia of empire . Such a course could have been abundantlyjustified by the necessity of having an Emperor capable of

meeting the dangers to b e apprehended from the triumphantBulgarian foe. Theoktistos and others pressed Michael to

assume the diadem,and if he had been willing Stauracius

would not have reigned a week. But Michael declined at

this juncture, and the orthodox historian, who admires and

lauds him,attributes his refusal to a regard for his oath of

allegiance to Nicephorus and Stauracius.

” 1

The wounded Emperor was removed in a litter fromHadrianople to Byzantium . The description of the con

sequence of his hurt 3 shows that he must have suffered muchphysical agony, and the chances of his recovery were diminishedby his mental anxieties. He had no children

,and the

question was, who was to succeed him. On the one hand,

his sister Procopia held that the Imperial power rightlydevolved upon her husband and her children . On the otherhand

,there was another lady, perhaps even more ambitious

than Procopia, and dearer to Stauracius. The AthenianTheOphano might hope to play the part of her kinswomanIrene, and reign as sole mistress of the Roman Empire.

3

Concerning the intrigues which were Spun round the

bedside of the young Emperor in the autumn months (Augustand September) of 8 1 1 , our contemporary chronicle givesonly a slight indication . The influence of Theophano causedher husband to show marked displeasure to the ministersStephanos and Theoktistos, and to his brother-in-law Michael

,

and also to regard with aversion his sister ProcOpia, whom he

suspected of conspiring against his life.

4As his condition

1 I b. Mtfl‘

fld tl’‘

rfis paxapia s Elp'évm Kpa r rjo

'

ew3 The wound is charac terized as flan ge fi ao

'

cxeta s dr a w06m .

mortal (xa zplws) xara 7 00 a rrovOIJxov To 4 The words of Theophanes are hereMoos. The consequenc e was, 68 ambiguous, and the sense depends on

ofipwv a lnoppayfiora s dnérpws xar efnpdvon the punc tuation. De Boer punc tuatesmypoés «a t axéhn. thus : dr earpecpéw os mivrn Ka i IIpo

3 1 b . a in ik a yap i) rdkaw a Kara Kor lav Thy [Olav ddehtpfiu, tbs ( 1 4900 66

0

18 EAS TE RN ROM AN EM P IRE CHAR T

grew worse and he saw that his days were numbered, he waveredbetween two alternative plans for the future of the Empire.

One of these was to devolve the succession on his wifeTheOphano .

The other alternative conceived by Staurac ius is so

strange that we hardly know what to make of it. The ideacomes to us as a surprise in the pages of a ninth -centurychronicle. It appears that this

,Emperor, as he felt death

approaching, formed the conception of changing the Imperialconstitution into a democracy.

1 It was the wild vision of a

morbid brain,but we cannot help wondering how Stauracius

would have proceeded . in attempting to carry out such a

scheme. Abstractly, indeed,so far as the constitutional

aspect was concerned,it would have been simple enough .

The Imperial constitution might b e abolished and a democratic republic established, in theory, by a

,

single measure.

All that he had to do was to repeal a forgotten law ,

which had regulated the authority of the early Caesars, andthereby restore to the Roman people the powers which it haddelegated to the Imperator more than seven hundred yearsbefore. Of the L ea: de imperio Stauracius had probably neverheard, -nor is it likely that he had much knowledge of the

early constitutional h istory of Rome. Perhaps it was fromancient Athens that b e derived the political idea which, inthe circumstances of his age, was a chimera ; and to his wife,thirsty for power

,he might have said, Athens, your own city,

has taught the world that democracy is the best and noblestform of government .

The, intervention of the Patriarch Nicephorus at this

juncture helped to determine and secure the progress of

events. He was doubtless relieved at the death of his starknamesake, however much he may have been distressed at the

calamity which brought it about ; and we are told that, whenStauracius arrived at Constantinople, the Patriarch hastenedto give him ghostly advice and exhort him to console thosewho had been pecuniarily wronged by his father, by makingaaaav (1.0 q rafsOeoqfiavofis 7 73: (I f/7 0150 7 779 drroarpe¢6uevos. The insinuations of

twosome . Themeaning of this would his wi fe caused the aversion of

b e that Theophano suborned Procopia Staurac ius to his sister.

to plot against Staurac ius . It is c lear 1 I b . I) annoxpa r taveyei‘

pa cXpwn avofs

that we should punc tuate after a il-re? tr ! 7 o r poxafloficn xaxofs (“ to crown

and c onnect r ats br ofiohafs with their

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20 EAS TERN ROMAN EM P IRE CHAP . I

the constitutional formalities of election preliminary to the

coronation were complied with (Oct. 2 , A.D . MichaelRangab é was proclaimed

“ Emperor of the Romans by theSenate and the residential troops 1 — that remnant of themwhich had escaped from the field of blood beyond the Haemus.

Meanwhile the Emperor,who had been less lucky on that

fatal day, escaping only to die after some months of pain , wassleeping or tossing in the Imperial bedchamber

,unconscious

of the scene which was being enacted not many yards away.

But the message was soon conveyed to his ears, and he

hastened to assume the Visible signs of abdica tion by whichdeposed Emperors were wont to disarm the fears or jealousyof their successors. A monk, named Simeon , and a kinsmanof his own,

tonsured him and arrayed him in monastic garb“

,

and he prepared to spend the few days of life left to him in a

lowlier place and a lowlier station . But before his removalfrom the Palace his sister Procopia, in company with her

Imperial husband and the Patriarch Nicephorus, visited him.

They endeavoured to console him and to justify the step whichhad been taken ; they repudiated the charge of a conspiracy,and explained their ac t as solely necessitated by his hopelesscondition. Staurac ius

,notwithstanding their plausible argu

ments,felt bitter ; he thought that the Patriarch had dealt

doubly with him. You will not find,he said to Nicephorus,

a better friend than me.

” 2

Nicephorus took the precaution of requiring from Michael,before he performed the ceremony of coronation , a writtenassurance of his or thodoxy and an undertaking to do no

violence to ecclesiastics, secular or regular.

3The usual pro

cession was formed ; the Imperial train proceeded from the

Palace to the Cathedral ; and the ac t of coronation was dulyaccomplished in the presence of the people.

4The rejoicings,

we are told, were universal,and we may believe that there

was a widespread feeling of relief, that an Emperor sound in

1 The Tagmata (Theoph . vised by the author.

2 Theoph . 493 ¢l7\ou at7 ai} e l7 7 0va 3 The importance of this underoéx septa

-a s. Anastasius seems right taking, in its c onstitutional aspec t,

in rendering a troi) by me. Perhaps w i ll b e c onsidered below in Section 5 .

éaofi should b e inserted , or perhaps 4 The proclamation in the H ippo

we should read etpfiaew . I suspec t, drome was at the first hour (6 o ’

eloehowever, that the last pages of his the coronation at the fourth . Theoph .

chronography were insuffi c iently re ib .

SECT . I I I S TA URACI US 21

limb was again at the head of the state. The bounty of

Michael gave cause, too, for satisfaction on the first day of his

reign . He bestowed on the Patriarch,who had done so much

in helping him to the throne, the sum of 5 0 lb s. of goldand to the clergy of St. Sophia he gave half that

amount.1

The unfortunate Stauracius 2 lived on for more than threemonths

,but towards the end of that time the corruption of

his wound became so horrible that no one could approach himfor the stench . On the 1 1th of January 8 1 2 he died, and

was buried in the new monastery of Braka. This was a

handsome building, given to Theophano by the generosity of

Procopia when She resolved,like her husband, to retire to a

Cloister ?

4. R eign and P olicy of M ichael I .

I t is worth while to note how old traditions or prejudices,surviving from the past history of the Roman Empire, gradually disappeared . We might illustrate the change that hadcome over the

“ Romans since the age of Justinian,by the

fact that in the second year of the ninth century a man of

Semitic stock ascends the throne,and is only prevented by

chance from founding a dynasty,descended from the

Ghassanids. He bears a name, too, which , though Greek and

common at the time,was borne by no Emperor before him.

His son’s name is Greek too, but unique on the Imperial list.A hundred years before men who had names which soundedstrange in collocation with Basileus and Augustus (such as

Artemius and Apsimar) adopted new names which had an

1 At the end of the ninth c enturythe custom was for the Emperor, on

his ac cession, to give 100 lb s . of gold

to the Great Church (St. Sophia )(Philotheos, ed. Bury, Thiswould inc lude the present to the

Patriarch .

2 Michael Syr. (70) has recorded aserious charge against Procopia, whichhe found in the chronic le of Dionysiosof Tell-Mahre. An intelligent andwell-informed inhabitant of Constantinople told Dionysios that PrOCOpiaadministered a dead ly poison to her

brother.

3 év 02'

s Ka l éwlanuov oIKov els fl ora

a rrjptov 7 a'

Efipa ¢x& Xeyéaevov a t’

rrfi 1rapéaxev [M txahh] {FOG Z

’

fravpdmos é7 d¢17

(ib. The loc ality is not known.

It is called 7 a Epa ka in George Men.

776. Is the name really derived fromStauracius : Zr a vpaxtov being takenfor 0 7 6, Bpaxtou ? Pargoire (L es M on.

ole Sa int Ign. 72) says 7 d 2 7 avpa xtov

dent lo peuple fit plus tard 7 6. Spe edet les demi-savants 7 a‘

Eflpa ikd. Thisis a seduc tive idea ; my diffi cult is

that the form ‘

Eflpaucd occurs in T eo

phanes, who wrote only a c ouple of

years later, and must have known thetrue name, if that name had been onlythen given to the monastery.

22 EA S TE RN R OMAN EM P IRE CHAP. I

Imperial ring (such as Anastasius and Tiberius) . It was

instinctively felt then that a Bardanes was no fit person tooccupy the throne of the Caesars, and therefore he becamePhilippicus. But this instinct was becoming weak in a citywhere strange names, strange faces, and strange tongues weregrowing every year more familiar . The time had come whenmen of Armenian, Slavonic, or even Semitic origin mightaspire to the highest positions in Church and State, to the

Patriarchate and the Empire. The time had come at last

when it was no longer deemed strange that -a successor of

Constantine should b e a Michael.The first Michael belonged to the Rangabe family, of

which we now hear for the first time.

1 He was in the primeof manhood when he came to the throne ; his hair was black

'

and curling? he wore a black beard,and his face was round.

He seems to have been a mild and good-humoured man,but

totally unfit for the position to which chance had raised him.

As a general he was incapable ; as an administrator he wasinjudicious ; as a financier he was extravagant . Throughouthis short reign he was subject to the will of a woman and the

guidance of a priest. It may have been the ambition of

Procopia that led him to undertake the duties of a sovran ;and she shared largely in the administration .

3Ten days

after her lord’s coronation , Procopia —daughter and sister,now wife, of an Emperor— was crowned Augusta in the

throne-room of Augusteus, in the Palace of Daphne, and She

courted the favour of the Senators by bestowing on themmany gifts. She distributed

,moreover, fi ve pounds of gold

1 Cont. Th . 12 6K yen/eds 66 Kar

ayoyévov 7 06'

Paw aflé. Before his

elevation he dwelled near the Man

gana. H is father ’s name was Theophylactus : N icetas, Vi t. Ignatii (Mansi

,

xvi. Family surnames beginto become frequent in the ninthc entury. They are constantly indicated by the idiom 6 xomi. (as well aséx) . For instanc e, a man of the

famil of the Melissenoi might b ecallegM . 6 M ekw onubs or M . 6 mm) .

7 6VM ekumnvbv or M . 6 Kara r obs M cNa

anvoiis or M . 6 6K TGIF Mex. (Kardywv7 6 yévos) . For Byzantine surnames see

H . Moritz, Die Zunamen bei den byz.

H istorikern and Chronisten, Teil i .

1896-97 , Teil ii. 1897-98 (Landshut) .

2 Set . Inc ert. 341 é irtayovpov

a‘

yvpav, curly) , the right read ing, as

de Boer has shown (B .Z. ii. It

may b e noted here that the Byzantinesregularly wore beards . There was a

strong prejudice against beardlessmen (c r owd ) , who were popularlyregarded as dangerous ; cp. the

modern Greek proverb, am) mravbudvfipw

'

lrov y axpva 7 6 fiovxd o’

ov : see for

this , and for further illustration,

Krumb acher, G .B .L . 809 . M ichael,of c ourse, appears bearded on his

c oins, but the face is only c onven

tional .3 Ser. Incert. 335 «1 67 77 yap fix;

6Ia 7 tfiofioa mix/7 a 7 6 7 73: Baa tkela s.

seer . Iv M I CHAEL -I . 23

among the widows of the Soldiers who had fallen withher father in Bulgaria. Nor did she forget her sister-in-law

,

who,if things had fallen out otherwise

,might have been her

sovran lady. Theophano had decided to end her life as a

nun. Her triumphant rival enriched her, and, as has beenalready mentioned, gave her a noble house

,which was con4

verted into a cloister. Nor were the poor kinsfolk of

Theophano neglected by the new Augusta. It was Said at

least that in the days of Nicephorus they had lived in pitiablepenury, as that parsimonious Emperor would not allow his

daughter-in-law to expend money in assisting them ; but thismay b e only an ill-natured invention .

The following Christmas day was the occasion of anothercoronation and distribution of presents.

1TheOphylactus, the

eldest son of Michael, was crowned in the ambo of the G reatChurch . On this auspicious day the Emperor placed in the

Sanctuary of St. Sophia a rich offering of golden vessels,inlaid with gems

,and antique curtains for the ciborium

,wovenof gold and purple and embroidered with pictures of sacredsubjects ? I t was a day of great rejoicing in the city, andpeople surely thought that the new sovran was beginning hisreign well ; he had made up his mind to ask for his son the

hand of a daugh ter of the great’

Charles, the rival Emperor ?

The note of Michael’s policy was reaction , both againstthe ecclesiastical policy of N icephorus, as we shall see,

'

and

also against the parsimony and careful book-keeping whichhad rendered that monarch highly unpopular.

4Procopia and

Michael hastened to diminish the sums which Nicephorus had

1 To the Patriarch were given 25

lb s. of gold , to the c lergy, 100

(Theoph . According to Philotheos (136) the second or subordinateEmperor gave only 50 lb s. altogetherto the Church . See above

,p . 21, II .

1 . Theophanes says that Michaelc rowned his son 157 6 c nqbbpov.

N icephorus assisted , but “Michael, ifpresent as he presumably was, placedthe crown h imself on the head of

Theophylactus. Cp. Bury, Const. ofL a ter R . Empire, 16 and 46, n. 11 .

2 These curtains were called 7 45

7 pdfinxa ,and are often mentioned in

the L iber pontifi ca lis (cp. i . p.

Paul the Silentiary mentions them

thus (Descr . S . Soph . v. 767)7 é7 pa <n 6

’

apyvpépaw £172 wkevpfiatxahthrrpas

6p007 €vefs 1re7 ri o'

avr es.

See Ducange, Const. Christ. . B . I II .

lxv . p. 37 .

3avvakka ‘

yfis els Oeogbtiham'

ov

Theo hylactus was only a b oy he is

bear less on the coins on the reverseof which his bust appears (Wroth , ii.405

4 In temper Michael resembled thearsimonious Anastasius I. , who (likeNerva ) was calledmitissimus Michaelis yaxnvémm s (Theo h . ) Cp. Scr.

Inc ert . 335 (r paos) an 341.

24 EAS TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE C HAP. I

hoarded,and much money was scattered abroad in alms.

l

Churches and monasteries were enriched and endowed ;hermits who Spent useless lives in desert places were sough tout to receive of the august bounty ; religious hostelries and

houses for the poor were not forgotten . The orphan and the

widow had their wants supplied ; and the fortunes of decayedgentle people were partially resuscitated. All this liberalitymade the new lord and lady highly popular ; complimentarysongs were composed by the demes and sung in public in theirhonour ? The stinginess and avarice of Nicephorus were nowblotted out

,and amid the general jubilation few apprehended

that the unpopular father-in-law was a far abler ruler thanhis bountiful successor.

I t was naturally part of the reactionary policy to recallthose whom N icephorus had banished and reinstate thosewhom he had degraded.

3The most eminent of those who

returned was Leo the Armenian, son of Bardas. We havemet this man before. We saw how he took part in the

revolt of Bardanes against N icephorus, and then, along withhis companion in arms

,Michael the Amorian,

left his rebelliouscommander in the lurch . We saw how Nicephorus rewardedhim by making him Count of the Federates.

4He sub

sequently received a command in the Anatolic Theme,but for

gross carelessness and neglect of his duties 5 he was degradedfrom his post, whipped, and banished in disgrace. He was

recalled by Michael,who appointed him G eneral of the

Anatolic Theme,with the dignity of Patrician— little guess

ing that he was arming one who would dethrone himself anddeal ruthlessly with his children . Afterwards when the

General of the Anatolios had become Emperor of the Romans,

1 See Theoph . 494, and Scr. Incert .

335, 336.

2 Sc r. Incert. ib.

3 l b.4 See above, p . 13. Ac cording to

G enesios (10) he was twoarpdrnyos 7 6Wsubsequent] to his tenure

of the c aptaincy of theFederates, andthen Michael advanced him to the

dignity of Patric ian. It is probablethat Leo was a turmarch of the

Anatolics when he was disgrac ed ;but observe that Genesios (1) knows

nothing of his disgrace, which we

learn from the Fragment of the

Scriptor Incertus and Cont. Th . ,and

(2) omits to mention in this passagethat M ichael made him (Imam-

ybs

5 He gave himself up to luxuryand idleness év woxixvy Eaxamfi v

(COnt. Th . Euchaita, in the

Armeniac Theme, lay west of Amasea,

on the road to Gangra ; see the discussion in Anderson

, S tudia P ontica ,

i. 7 sqq. H e equates it with themodern Elwan Chelebi.

SECT . Iv M I CHAE L I . 25

it was said that signs and predictions of the event were not

wanting. Among the tales that were told was one of a littleslave-girl of the Emperor, who was subject to visitations of

the spirit of Pytho.

” 1On one occasion when she was thus

seized she went down from the Palace to the seashore below,

near the harbour of Bucoleon? and cried with a loud voice,

addressing the Emperor , Come down,come down , resign

what is not thine ' These words she repeated again and

again . The attention of those in the Palace above was

attracted ; the Emperor heard the fatal cry, and attemptedto discover what it meant. He bade his intimate friendTheodotos Kassiteras

3to see that when the damsel was next

seized she should be confined within doors,and to investigate

the meaning of her words. To whom did the Palace belong,

if not to its present lord ? Theodotos was too curious himselfto fail to carry out his master’s order, and the girl made an

interesting communication. She told him the name and

mark of the true Lord of the Palace, and urged him to visitthe acropolis at a certain time, where he would meet twomen, one of them riding on a mule. This man, she said

,was

destined to Sit on the Imperial throne. The cunning spatharo

candidate took good care not to reveal his di scovery to hismaster. Questioned by Michael, he pretended that he couldmake nothing of the ravings of the possessed girl. Buthe did not fail to watch in the prescribed place at the pre

scribed time for the man who was to come riding on a mule .

It fell out as the damsel said ; Leo the Armenian appeared on

1 This story is told by Genesios(10, but I doubt whether he

had the ta le from popular hearsay,which he mentions as one of his

sources (3 ) £7: r e (than: 67300 (Spa/I oao'm

fixow waévos. See H irsc h , 124. Th e

s tory of the possessed woman who

brought forth a monster, in the Epist.Synod . Orient . ad Theoph . 367, is

regarded by Hirsch as a variant b ut

it is quite different ; this Pythonesswas c onsulted by Leo .

2 M illingen ( Wa lls,269 sqq. ) shows

that Hammer was right in identifyingthe port of Bucoleon with ChatladyKapu (a water -gate on the levelground below the H ippodrome) , and

that the port and palac e of Hormisdaswere the o lder names for the port andpalace c alled by tenth -century writers

Bucoleon (from a marble group of a

lion and bull ). Genesios here (10)says that the girl stood év xwplq.)

MOM/(a 6 wpoa ayopeiier ac Bovxohéwv.

Perhaps this was a paved plac e roundthe group. I think it may b e inferredfrom this passage that in the time of

the writer fromwhom Genesios derivedthe story B ucoleon had not yet beenapplied to the port and palace .

He belon ed to the importantfamily of Me issenos. His father,M ichael , was stratégos of the Anatoliosunder Constantine V. ,

and married a

sister of that Emperor’s third wifeEudoc ia (a irw anfipos, Sc r. Incert.

He afterwards became Patriarch . Forthe fami ly of the Melissenoi

,see

Ducange, Fam. Byz . 145 .

26 E AS TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE CHAP . I

a mule ; and the faithless Theodotos hastened to tell him the

secret and secure his favour. This story, noised abroad at

the time and remembered long afterwards, is highly characteristic of the epoch, and the behaviour of Theodotos is

'

thoroughly in the character of a Byzantine palace offi cial.In matters that touched the Church the pliant Emperor

was obedient to the counsels of the Patriarch . In mattersthat touched the State he seems also to have been under theinfluence of a counsellor, and one perhaps whose views werenot always in harmony with those of the head of the Church .

N0 single man had done more to compass the elevation of

Michael than the Magister Theoktistos. This minister hadhelped in the deposition of Irene

,and he was probably

influential, though he played no prominent part,in the reign

of Nicephorus. Nicephorus was not one who stood in needof counsellors, except in warfare ; but in Michael

’

s reignTheoktistos stood near the helm and was held responsible byhis contemporaries for the mistakes of the helmsman . The

admirers of the orthodox Emperor were forced to admit that,

notwithstanding his piety and his clemency, he was a bad

pilot for a state, and they threw the blame of the false courseon Theoktistos among others.

lIt was Theoktistos

, we may

suspect, who induced Michael to abandon the policy, ad cated

by the Patriarch , of putting to death the Paulician heretics ?

But Michael’s reign was destined to b e brief. The struggleof the Empire with the powerful and ambitious Bulgariankingdom was fatal to his throne, as it had been fatal '

to the

throne of N icephorus. In the Spring, A.D. 8 1 3 , Michael tookthe field at the head of a great army which included the As iaticas well as the European troops. Michael was no general

,

but the overwhelming defeat which he experienced atVersinicia(June 22) was probably due to the treachery of the Anatolicregiments under the command of Leo the Armenian ?

Michael himself escaped . Whether he understood the

import of what had happened or not, it is impossible to

1 Theoph . 500 ; also 497 m fg 7 677: war with Bulgaria. See also a letterKaxoo

'

vafi oéhwv elanyfia eaw . addressed to him by Theodore in A.D .

2 We can infer from some words of 808, Epp. i. 24, p . 981 .

Theophanes that Theodore of Studion 3 For the Bulgarian war in A.D .

was an ally of Theoktistos : 498 at 812, 813, and the c ircumstances of the63 rural 0 6/4601;o (i . e. Theoktistos defeat, see below, Chap . XI . § 3.

chiefly ) 0 677 9 750667q were in favour of

https://www.forgottenbooks.com/join

28 EAS TE RN R OMAN EM P IRE CHAP. I

have suffered this,”said the weeping Emperor in a council of

his patricians, on account of my sins. God hates the

Empire of my father-in-law and his race . For we were morethan the enemy, and yet none had heart, but all fled

” 1The

advice of the Patriarch Nicephorus did not coincide “With thecounsels of the patricians. He was inclined to approveMichael’s first intention ; he saw that the present reign couldnot last, and thought that , if Michael himself proposed a

successor, that successor might deal mercifully with him and

his children .

Meanwhile the soldiers were pressing Leo to assume theImperial title without delay. The general of the Anatolios at

first resisted, and pretended to b e loyal to the Emperor at

such a dangerous crisis,when the enemy were in the land .

But when he saw3 that the Bulgarians intended to advance

on Constantinople,he no longer hesitated to seize the prize

which had been placed within his reach . He did not intendto en ter the Imperial city in any other guise than as an

Emperor accepted by the army ; and the defence of Con

stantinople could not b e left in the hands of Michael. I t

may b e asked why Leo did not attempt to hinder Krum fromadvancing

,by forcing him to fight another battle, in which

there Should b e no feigned panic. The answer is that it wasalmost impossible to inveigle the Bulgarians into . a pitchedbattle when they did not wish . Their prince could not fail tohave perceived the true cause of his victory

,and he was not

likely to b e willing to risk another combat .July had already begun when Leo at length took the step

of writing a letter to the Patriarch . In it b e affirmed hisown orthodoxy ; he set forth his new hopes, and asked the

blessing and consent of the head of the Church . Immediatelyafter this he arrived at Hebdomon,

and was proclaimed inthe Tribunal legitimate 3 Emperor of the Romans by the

1 This is related by Scr. Incert. cent. )— in which older pic tures are

339-340. It is stated in Cont. Th . reproduc ed— M ichael Is represented asthat Michael secretly sent by a trusty crowning Leo both are standing on a

servant [ the Imperial insignia (the raised shield . See Diehl, L ’

Art byzan

diadem, the purple robe

,and the red tin

, 778 For another story of the

shoes) to Lee ; henc e the anger resignation see Michael Syr . 70.

of P rocopia, mentioned in the last 2 Th is moment in the situation isnote but one. Theophanes does not mentioned by Theophanes, ib.

mention this . In the ric hly illus 3 éw oadrram s, i h. For the Palac e

trated Madrid MS . of Skylitzes (14th of Hebdomon (which van Millingen

M I CHAE L 1 . 29SECT . IV

assembled army. On Monday,July 1 1

,at mid-day,

he enteredby the Gate of Charisios

1and proceeded to the Palace ; on

Tuesday he was crowned in the ambo of St. Sophia by thePatriarch .

When the tidings came that Leo had been proclaimed, thefallen Emperor with his wife and children hastened to assumemonastic garb and take refuge in the Church of the Virgin of

the Pharos ? Thus they might hope to avert the suSpicions

of him who was entering in to their place ; thus they mighthOpe to secure at least their lives and an obscure retreat .The lives of all were spai

‘

ed ;3the father, the mother, and the

daughters escaped without any bodily harm,but the sons

were not so lucky. Leo anticipated the possibility of futureconspiracies in favour of his predecessor’s male children bymutilating them . In eunuchs he woul d have no rivals to

fear. The mutilation which excluded from the most exaltedposition in the State did not debar

,however

,from the most

exalted position in the Church ; and Nicetas,who was just

four teen years old when he underwent the penalty of being an

Emperor’s son,will meet us again as the Patriarch Ignatius.

‘1

Parents and children were not allowed to have the solace of

living together ; they were transported to differen t islands.

Proc opia was immured in the monastery dedicated to her

namesake St. Proc opia.

5

proved to b e situated at Makri-Keuion the Marmora ) and the Tribunal,see Bieliaev, iii . 57 sqq. The Tri

bunal was evidently a large pavedlac e, c lose to the Palac e, with a tri

unal or tribunals . Theodosius II . ,

Constantine V. , and others had beenproc la imedEmperors in the same plac e.

1 This gate (also cal led the Gate of

Polyandrion) was on the north side ofthe river Lyons and identical withEdirne Kapu,

as van Mil lingen has

proved (83 The street from thisgate led directly to the Church of theApostles, and Leo must have followedthis route .

2 This church had been built byConstantine V. It was easily ac c essible from the Chrysotriklinos, be ingsituated a

pparently between this

building an the Pharos, which wasc lose to the seashore . There is a de

sc ription of the church in Mesarites

(29 sqq. in Heisenberg’

s Programm,

Michael,

under the name of

N ikolaos Mesar ites, Die Pa lastrevolution des Johannes Komnenos,See further Eb ersolt , 104 sqq.

3 On the fate of Mi chael and hisfamily, the most important recordsare Cont. Th . 19-20, and Nicetas , Vit .

Ign . 212-213. Genesios is not so wellinformed as Cont. Th . , and speaks as

if Ignatius alone suffered mutilation.

4 The e ldest son, Theophylac tus, hisfather’s colleague, was less distinguished. He also became a monkand changed his name, b ut Eustratiosdid not rival the fame of Ignatius.

Of the third, Staurac ius, called perhaps after his uncle, we only hear thathe d ied before h is father.

5 The site is unknown. It was

founded by Justin I ., who was buriedthere (cp. Dueange, Const. Chri st.Bk . iv . p . and is to b e d istinguished from th e monas tery of Procopius, which the Empress Procopia issaid to have founded

30 EAS TE RN R OM AN‘

EM P IRE CHAP. I

Athanasius,eked out the remainder of his life in the rocky islet

of Plate,

1 making atonemen t for his sins,and the new Emperor

provided him with a yearly allowance for his sustenance . Byone of those strange coincidences

,which in those days might

seem to men something more than chance, the death of

Michael occurred 2 on an anniversary of the death of the rivalwhom he had deposed. The 1 1th day of January , which hadrelieved Stauracius from his sufferings, relieved Michael fromthe regrets of fallen greatness. He was buried on the rightside of the altar in the church of the island where he died.

Opposite, on the left, was placed, fi ve years later, the body of

the monk Eustratios,who had once been the Augustus

TheOphylactus . This,however, was not destined to b e the

final resting-plac e of Michael Rangabe. Many years after,the Patriarch Ignatius remembered the grave of his Imperialfather, and having exhumed the remains, transferred them to

a new monastery which he had himself erected and dedicatedto the archangel Michael at Satyros,

» on the Bithynianmainland

,Opposite to the Prince’s islands. This monastery

of Satyros was also called by the name of Anatellon or the

Riser, an epithet of the archangel. The story was that theEmperor N icephorus was hunting in the neighbourhood, wherethere was good cover for game, and a large stag was pulleddown by the hounds. On this Spot was found an old table,supported by a pillar

,with an inscription on this wise : This

is the altar of the Arch-Captain (apxw rpa'

rfiryov) Michael, theRising Star, which the apostle Andrew set up .

” 3

1 Oxeia and Plate are the two most steriktos, writing in the latter yearswesterly islands of the Prince ’s group .

Cont. Th . states (20) that M ichaelwent to Plate

, N ic etas (Vit. 1977. 211 )says vaguely 1rp69 7 6s wptyxwretovs

miaous (and that Procopia went withhim) . Some modern historians followSkylitzes (Cedrenus, ii. 48 ; Zonaras.

iii. 319) in stating that he was banishedto the large island of Prote, the mostnortherly of the group (Fi nlay, Ii .

112 Schlumberger, L es Iles des

Princes,36 ; Marin, For a

description of Plate see Schlumberger,ib . 296 egg.

2 Cont. Th . 20, A . M . 6332= A.D .

839-840 (reckoning by theAlexandrineera) ; cp. Muralt, su b 840. Theo

OfM ichael II. , speaks ofM ichael I . as

alive (Vit. N icet. xxix . 6 7707» £7 7 év

6¢a 7rpé 1rwv dfii cbpa fl ).3 The anecdote is told in Cont.

Th . 21 . H irsch (178) referred the

anecdote to Nicephorus II and drewconc lusions as to the revision of Cont.

Th . But Nic ephorus I. is unquestionablymeant. Cp. Brooks, B .Z. x . 416417 . Pargoire has Shown that Ignatius did not found this monasterytill h is second Patriarchate in the

reign of Basil I . (L es Mon. de Sa intIgn. 71 and has proved theapproximate position of the monas

tory. For‘

the topography of the

coast, see below, p. 133.

SECT . v E CCLE SIAS TICAL' P OL I CY

‘

OF N I CE PH OR US 31

5 . Ecclesiastical P olicies of Nicephorus I . and M ichael I .

The principle that the authority of the autocrat wassupreme in ecclesiastical as well as secular administration hadbeen fundamental in the Empire since the days of Constantinethe Grea t, who took it for granted ; and, in spite of sporadicattempts to assert the independence of the Church

,it always

prevailed at Byzan tium . The affairs of the Church wereVirtually treated as a Special department of the affairs of the

State, and the Patriarch of Constantinople was the minister of

religion and public worship. This theory of the State Churchwas expressed in the fac t that it was the function of the

Emperor both to convoke and to preside at Church Councils ,

which , in the order of proceedings,were modelled on the

Roman Senate.

1I t was expressed in the fact that the canons

ordained by ecclesiastical assemblies were issued as laws bythe Imperial legislator, and that he independently issued edictsrelating to Church affairs. I t is illustrated by those mixedsynods which were often called to decide ecclesiastical questionsand Consisted of the dignitaries of the Court as well as the

dignitaries of the Church .

The Seventh Ecumenical Council (A.D. 787) marks an

epoch in the history of the relations between Church and

State. On that occasion the right of presiding was transferredfrom the sovran to the Patriarch , but this concession to the

Church was undoubtedly due to the fact that the PatriarchTarasius had been a layman and Imperial minister, who hadbeen elevated to the Patriarchal throne in defiance of the

custom which had hitherto prevailed of preferring only monksto such high ecclesiastical posts. The significance of the

epoch of the Seventh Council is that a new principle was

signalized : the assertion of ecclesiastical independence in

questions of dogma,and the assertion of the autoc rat’s wil l in

all matters pertaining to ecclesiastical law and administration .

This was the View which guided the policy of Tarasius,who

represented what has been called “the third party,

” 3standing

between the extreme theories of thorough -going absolutism,

1 Gelzer, Staat and Kirche, 198 .

2 Gelzer, i b. 228 sqq. He comparesSee this able article for the whole it to the pa rti politique in Franc e inhistory of the Imperial authority over the reigns of Henry III. and Henrythe Church . IV.

32 EAS TERN ROMAN EM P IRE CHAP. I

which had been exercised by such monarchs as Justinian, LeoII I . and Constantine V.,

and of complete ecclesiastical independence, of which the leading advocate at this time was

Theodore, the abbot of Studion. The doctrine of the thirdparty was ultimately, but not without opposition and protest,victorious ; and the ecclesiastical interest “

of the reign of

Nicephorus centres in this question .

Tarasius, who had submitted by turns to the oppositepolicies of Constantine VI . and Irene, was an ideal Patriarchin the eyes of Nicephorus. He died on February 25 , A.D.

and the Emperor looked for a man of mild and

complacent disposition to succeed him. The selection of a

layman was suggested by the example of Tarasius ; a laymanwould b e more pliable than a priest or a monk and morereadily understand and fall in with the Emperor s views of

ecclesiastical policy. His choice was judicious. He selecteda learned 2 man,

who had recently retired from the post of

First Secretary 3 to a monastery which he had built on the

Bosphorus, but had not yet taken monastic vows. He was a

man of gentle disposition , and conformed to the Imperial ideaof a model Patriarch .

The celebrated Theodore, abbot of the monastery of

Studion, now appears again upon the scene. N 0 man con

tributed more than he to reorganize monastic life and rendermonastic opinion a force in the Empire . N icephorus, the

Emperor, knew that he would have to reckon with the

influence of Theodore and the Studite monks,and accordingly

he sought to disarm their opposition by writing to him and

his uncle Plato before the selection of a successor to Tarasius,and asking their advice on the matter. The letter in whichTheodore replied to the Imperial communication is extant

,

4

and is highly instructive . I t permits us to divine that theabbot would have been prepared to fi ll the Patriarchal chairhimself. He begins by flattering Nicephorus, ascribing his

1 Theo h . A .M . 6298, p . 48115. avw ekovnévqr 7ré,u.7rr 77v ¢épor7 ¢

All the SS . have Ke'

(i . e. the 25th ). O’OV irevra

‘

rrlxfi r erpddt.

De Boor reads on the ground that 2 See Ignatius, Vi t. N ic . Pa tr . 149

the version of Anastasius, which has sqq. H is learning is also shown byduodecimo Ka lendas Martias (i . e. the h is extant writings.

18th ) , represents an older and better 3 Protoasecrétés. For his monas

text. This is not c onfirmed by teries see below,p . 68.

Ignatius , Vit. Tar. 27 (b evpovaplcp4Mp. i . 16, p . 960.

SECT . V E CCL E S IA S TI CAL P OL I CY OF N I CE P H OR US 33

elevation to God’s care for the Church . He goes on to say

that he knows of no man really worthy of the Patriarchate,

and he names three conditions which a suitable candidateShould ful fil : he should b e able

,with perfect heart, to seek

out the judgments of God ; he Should have been raised bygradual steps from the lowest to higher ecclesiastical ranks ;he shoul d b e experienced in the various phases of Spirituallife and so able to help others. This was manifestly aimed atexcluding the possible election of a layman . But Theodoregoes further and actually suggests the

'

election of an abbotor an anchoret,1 without mentioning a bishop . We cannotmistake the tendency of this epistle. It is probable thatPlato proposed his nephew for the vacant dignity ? But

Theodore ’s bigotry and extreme views of ecclesiastical independence rendered his appoin tment by an Emperor likeNicephorus absolutely out of the question .

Respect for Church tradition, with perhaps a touch of

jealousy, made Theodore and his party indignant at the

designation of N icephorus, a layman, as Patriarch . Theyagitated against him

,

3and their opposition seemed to the

Emperor an intolerable insubordination to his own authority.

Nor did their attitude meet with much sympathy outsidetheir own immediate circle. A contemporary monk, who wasno friend of the Emperor, dryly says that they tried to createa schism ?

The Emperor was fain to banish the abbot and

his uncle, and break up the monastery ; but it was representedto him that the elevation of the new Pa triarch would b econsidered inauspicious if it were attended by the dissolutionof such a famous Cloister in which there were about sevenhundred brethren ? He was content to keep the two leadersin prison for twenty-four days, probably till after Nicephorushad been enthroned 3 The ceremony was solemnised on Easter

1 A iryobaevos oro'

7 vM7 77s or é‘

yxxewm s. against the appointment of N ic ephoThe mention of a c rv s is remark rus (Theodore, This monk was

able, and I conjecture that Theodore doubtless one Simeon, to whom we

had in his mind Simeon (A.D . 764 have several letters of Theodore .

843) who lived on a pi llar inMytilene 4 Theoph . A .M . 6298.

see Acta S . David is,etc .

3 l b. M ichael , Vit. Theod . Stud . 2602 Theodore

,Epitaph . P la t. 837 . says the number nearly approached

Cp. Schneider, Der hl . Theodor,27 . 1000.

3 Plato went at night to a monk 3 Theodore,Epitaph . P la t. , ib.

who was a kinsman of the Emperor, Other members of the communityseeking to make him use his influence were imprisoned too.

34 EAS TERN R OM AN EM P IRE CHAP. 1

day (April 1 2) in the presence of the two Augusti,1 and theStudites did not persist in their protest ?

The Emperor Nicephorus now resolved to make an asser

tion of Imperial absolutism,in the sense that the Emperor

was superior to canonical laws in the same way that he wassuperior to secular laws. His assertion of this principle wasthe more impressive, as it concerned a question which did not

involve his own interests or actions.

I t will b e remembered that Tarasius had given his

sanction to the divorce of Constantine VI . from his first wifeand to his marriage with Theodote (Sept . A.D . Afterthe fall of Constan tine, Tarasius had been persuaded by Ireneto declare that both the divorce and the second marriagewere illegal, and Joseph , w ho had performed the marriageceremony

,was degraded from the priesthood and placed under

the b an of excommunication . This b an had not beenremoved, and the circumstance furnished Nicephorus with a

pretext for reopening a question which involved an importantconstitutional principle. I t would have been inconvenient toask Tarasius to broach again a matter on which his own

conduct had been conspicuously inconsistent and opportunistbut soon after the succession of the new Patriarch , Nicephorusproceeded to procure a definite affirmation of the superiorityof the Emperor to canonical laws. At his wish a synod wassummoned to decide whether Joseph should b e receivedagain in to communion and reinstated in the sacerdotal office.

The assembly vo ted for his rehabilitation,and declared the

marriage of Constantine and Theodote valid .

4

In this assembly of bishops and monks one dissentientvoice was raised, that of Theodore the abbot of Studion. He

and his uncle Plato had suffered under Constantine VI . the

penalty of banishment from their monastery of Sakkudion, on

account of their refusal to communicate with Joseph , who hadtransgressed the laws of the Church by uniting Constantine1 TheOph . ib. It is interesting to to b e expected .

observe the tendency of the writer 2 Cp. Theodore, Epp. i . 25,p. 989 ;

here . He approved of the elec tion 30, p . 1008.

of Nic ephorus, but could not bear to 3 Bury,L ater Roman Empire, 11.

attribute a good act to the Emperor, 487 .

and therefore adds c asual ly 11'

p Oé’ 4 Mansi, xiv . 14. Hefele (iii. 397)

m i 7 65V flaa théwv, as though the speaks inadvertently of the affair of

presenc e of Nic ephorus and Staurac ius the Ab t Johannes . Cp. Theodore ,were something unimportant or hard ly Epp. i. 33 , p . 101 .

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36 EAS TERN R OMAN EM P I RE CHAP. I

against the recent synod,and in their schism the Studites

were isolated.

1But the attitude of this important monastery

could no longer b e ignored .

The mere question of the rehabilitation of a priest was,of course

,a very minor matter. Nor was the legitimacy

of Constantine ’s second marriage the question which reallyinterested the Emperor. The question at issue was whetherEmperors had power to override laws established by the

Church , and whether Pa triarchs and bishops might dispensefrom ecclesiastical canons. Theodore firmly main tained thatthe laws of God bind all men

,

”and the circumstance that

Constantine wore the purple made no difference ? The

significance of Theodore ’s position is that in contending forthe validity of canonical law as independent of the State and

the Emperor, he was vindicating the independence of the

Church . Although the Studi tes stood virtually alone —for

if any sympathised with them they were afraid to expresstheir opinions— the persistent opposition of such a large and

influential institution coul d not b e allowed to continue. A

mixed synod of ecclesiastics and Imperial officials met inJanuary A.D . 809 , the legality of the marriage of Theodote

was reaffirmed,and it was laid down that Emperors were

above ecclesiastical laws and that bishops had the power of

dispensing from canons ? Moreover, sentence was passed on

the aged Plato, the abbot Theodore, and his brother Joseph,

who had been dragged before the assembly, and they werebanished to the Prince ’s Islands, where they were placed inseparate retreats ? Then N icephorus proceeded to deal withwhom Theodore complains (i . 26, the possible interpretation that theaddressed to the abbot Simeon

,a

different person) that he was a,u¢o7 ep6yluoaaos.

1 If there were secret sympathisers,they had not the courage of theiropinion (see i . 31, p. 1009 v r epw ol

Geoaefi ei‘

s, afraid to come out into thelight) .

2 16. i. 22 . At this time Theodorewrote (i. 28) to an old friend , Basil ofSt . Saba, who was then at Rome, and

had renounc ed communion with himand we learn that Pope Leo had ex

pressed indifferenc e as to the sins

of Joseph (p .

3 The date is given by Theophanes(484) whose words, however, admit

synod was held in Dec . 808 and theexpulsion followed in January (0Hefele

,iii . For the ac ts of t e

synod (Sn/l oa fer) see Theodore,Epp. i. 33 , pp. 1017-19 olxovoplav 06V

7 731! feq xmxelav 6o'

yaa'

r lf‘

ova tw é irl 7 63V

Baa ihéwv 7 069 0610179 Vbaovs pf}; Kpa 7 e’

iv

6Ioplg’

oI/7 a i‘ 3Kaor ou 7 6317 lepapxc

’

bu

éEovo'

Iaf'

ew éV 7 ols 06l0t$ Ka t/60 1. rrapc‘

t 7 a

év Kexavovw'

ae‘va airocpa lvoura t.

Of course this is Theodore ’ s way ofputting it . The Ac ts assuredly d idnot speak of 7 06: 061009 venous. Forthe composition of the Synod cp, i b . i .

34, p . 1021 .

4 Plato in the islet Oxeia (Theodore,Epi taph in P la t. c . 39, p . 841, where

SEC'

I‘

. v E CCLE S IAS TI CAL P OL I C Y OF N I CE P H OR US

the seven hundred monks of Studion. He summoned them to

his presence in the palace of Eleutherios, where he receivedthem with impressive ceremonial. When he found it impossible to in timidate or cajole them into disloyalty to theirabbot or submission to their sovran

, he said : “Whoever willobey the Emperor and agree with the Patriarch and the

clergy,let him stand on the righ t ; let the disobedient move

to the left,that we may see who consent and who are

stubborn .

”But this device did not succeed, and they were

all confined in various monasteries in the neighbourhood of

the city.

1Soon afterwards we hear that they were scattered

far and wide throughout the Empire ?

Dur ing his exile,Theodore maintained an active corre

spondence with the members of his dispersed flock, and in

order to protect his communications against the curiosity of

ofiic ial supervision he used the twenty-four letters of the

alphabet to designate the principal members of the Studitefraternity. In this cipher, for example

,alpha represented

Plato , beta Joseph, omega Theodore himself? Confident in the

justice of his cause , he invoked the intervention of the RomanSee

,and urged the Pope to undo the work of the adulterous

synods by a General Council . Leo wrote a paternal and

consolatory letter, but he expressed no Opinion on the merits

of the question. W e may take it as certain that he had o therinformation derived from adherents of the Patriarch, who wereactive in influencing opinion at Rome

,and that he considered

Theodore ’s action ill -advised. In any case, he declined to

commi t himself ?

The resolute protest of the Studi tes aroused,as we have

seen,little enthusiasm,

though it can hardly b e doubtedthat many ecclesiastics did not approve of the Acts of the

recent synod. But it was felt that the Patriarch had, in thecircumstances

,acted pruden tly and with a sage economy. In

later times en thusiastic admirers of Theodore were ready toread Theodore in Chalkités

,

4 The first letter that Theodorenow Halk i (id . , Epigramm. 98-104, wrote to Leo b e destroyed himself (seep- 1804) i b . i . 34, p. The second is

1 Michael, Vit. Theod . Stud . 269 ; extant (i. We learn the dri ft ofop. Anon. Vit. Theod . Stud . 160. the Pope ’s reply from i . 34, written in

2 Theodore,Epp. i . 48, pp . 1072-73 . the joint names of Plato and Theodore .

Some were exi led at Cherson, others in See also their letter to Bas il of Saba ,the island of L ipari. i . 35 . For the ac tivity of the other3 R) . i . 41 . side at Rome, see i. 28.

38 E AS TE RN ROM AN EM P IRE CHAP. I

allow that N icephorus had wisely consented lest the Emperorshould do something worse .

1And after the Emperor’s death

he showed that his consent had been unwillingly given .

If the Emperor Nicephorus asserted his supreme authorityin the Church , it could not b e said that he was not formallyorthodox, as he accepted and maintained the set tlement of theCouncil of N icaea and the victory of Picture-worship. But

though his enemies did not accuse him of iconoclastic tendencies,he was not an enthusiastic image-worshipper. H is policy wasto permit freedom of opinion

,and the orthodox considered

such toleration equivalent to heresy. They were indignan twhen he sheltered by his patronage a monk named N icolaswho preached against images and had a following of disc iples ?

The favour which he showed to the Paul icians gave his enemiesa pretext for hinting that he was secretly inclined to thatflagrant heresy, and the fact that he was born in Pisidiawhere Paulicianism flourished len t a colour to the charge.

These heretics had been his useful supporters in the rebellionof Bardanes

,and the superstitious believed that he had been

victorious on that occasion by resorting to charms and sorcerieswh ich they were accustomed to employ ? Others said thatthe Emperor had no religion at all

?The truth may b e that

he was little in terested in religious matters,except in relation

to the State. He was,at all events, too crafty to commit

himself openly to any heresy. But it is interesting to observethat in the policy of toleration Nicephorus was not unsupported,though his supporters may have been few. There existed inthe capital a party of enlightened persons who held that it

1 Michael, Vit. Theod . Stud . 268

qixovbuno'

eu,ui; Bovhbuevos amt Blad dels

67 6 7 06 dram as. Ignatius in h is L ifeof N ic ephorus completely omits thispassage in his career. Theo hanestouc hes on it lightly in his hrono

graphy, and we know otherwise thathe d id not blame the policy of the

Patriarch and therefore incurred the

severe censure of Theodore, who

describes him as a Moechian, t. e. one

of the adulterous party. See Theodore,Epp . 11. 31, p . 1204, where y ou 6 7 00

axfiuam s dudaoxos refers toTheophanes,who had been Theodore ’s sponsorwhen he became a monk

,as Pargoire

has shown (Sa int Theophane, 56See also ib. ii. 218, p. 1660.

2 Theoph . 488. In writing to themonk Simeon (i. 21) Theodore Studiteshimse lf speaks thus o f N ic ephorus

oi 6earr67 a c oi aya fiol ,ueo

' fr a t Ka t

Kpt7 a l 7 00 Oma lov. ¢ 7An7 a l 7 6311

w a ppna ta foué vwv 61V ahnde lqv i n

G 67 6 7 6 7“r a r bua 1r o )\

)xam s dca '

y Ope b e I.

3 Theoph . i b. He is said to haveslaughtered a bull in a particular way,

and to have ground garments of

Bardanes in a mil l .4 Anon. Vi t. Theod . Stud . 153 : he

was nominally a Christian, really anenemy of Christianity .

”Ignatius ,

Vit. N icephori Patr . 153, admits thathe was orthodox .

SECT . v E CCL E S IA S TI CAL P OL I C Y OF M I CHAE L I . 39

was wrong to sentence heretics to death,

1and they were strong

enough in the next reign to hinder a general persecution of

the Paulicians.

But for the most part the policy of Nicephorus was

reversed under Michael, who proved himself not the masterbut the obedient son of the Church . The Patriarch knew the

character of Michael,and had reason to believe that he would

be submissive in all questions of faith and morals. But he

was determined to assure himself that his expectations wouldb e fulfilled, and he resorted to an expedien t which has a

considerable constitutional interest.The coronations of the Emperors Marcian and Leo I . by

the Patriarch,with the accompanying ecclesiastical ceremony ,

may b e said to have definitely introduced the new constitutionalprinciple that the profession of Chris tianity was a necessaryqualifica tion for holding the Imperial offi ce ? I t also impliedthat the new Emperor had not only been elected by the Senateand the people

, but was accepted by the Church . But whatif the Patriarch declined to crown the Emperor-elect ? Here ,clearly

,there was an Opportunity for a Patriarch to do what it

might b e difficul t for him to do when once the coronation wasaccomplished. The Emperor was the head of the ecclesiasticalorganization, and the influence wh ich the Patriarch exerteddepended upon the relative strengths of his own and the

monarch ’s characters. But the Patriarch had it in his powerto place limitations on the policy of a

.

future Emperor byexacting from him certain definite and solemn promises beforethe ceremony of coronation was performed ? It was not oftenthat in the annals of the later Empire the Patriarch had the

strength of will or a suffi cient reason to impose such capitulationS. The earliest known instance is the case of Anasta

sius I .,who

,before the Patriarch crowned him,

was requiredR . Empire, 27-29 . In later times a1 Theophanes calls them KaKorpbrrwv

regular c oronation oath (we do not0 14.7606t They argued on

the ground of the possibility of t e

pentance, é6oyud7 rg'

ov 66 dua fi c’

bs Ii i;éEelva L iepe ilaw ar omlveo fi a c Ka7 6. do e/SOPGava r ov, Kara mi x/7 a (adds the writer)r afs 0610 49 7 pa¢afs évavr tobpevoc wept

manor .

2 The case of Marc ian is not quitec erta in.

3 Cp. Bury, Constitution of L a ter

know at what date it was introduced )rendered spec ial capitulations less

nec essary . In the tenth c entury thePatriarc h Polyeuktoswas able to extorta concession from John Tzimisces as

a c ond ition of coronation. It mustalways b e remembered that coronationby the Patriarch , though looked on as

a matter of c ourse, was not a constitu

tional sine qua non (i b . 11

40 EAS TERN R OMAN EM P IRE CHAP. I

to swear to a written undertaking that he would introduceno novelty into the Church .

Nicephorus obtained from Michael an autograph assuranceand the sign of the cross was doubtless affixed to the Signa

ture— in which he pledged himself to preserve the orthodoxfaith

,not to stain his hands with the blood of Christians, and

not to scourge ecclesiastics, whether priests or monks.

The Patriarch now showed that,if there had been no

persecutions during his tenure of offi ce,he at least would not

have been lacking in zeal. At his instance the penalty of

capital punishment was enacted against the Paulicians and

the Athingani,1who were regarded as no better than

Manichaeans and altogether outside the pale of Christianity.

The persecution began ; not a few were decapitated ; but

influential men,to whose advice the Emperor could not close

his ears,intervened

,and the bloody work was stayed. The

monk, to whom we owe most of our knowledge of the events of

these years, deeply laments the successful interference of theseevil counsellors ? But the penalty of death was only commuted ;the Athingani were condemned to confiscation and banishment.

The Emperor had more excuse for proceeding against theiconoclasts, who were still numerous in the army and the

Imperial city. They were by no means conten ted at the rule

of the orthodox Rangabe? Their discontent bur st out afterMichael's fruitless Bulgarian expedition in June

, A.D . 8 12 .

We shall have to return to the dealings of Michael wi th theBulgarians ; here we have only to observe how this Juneexpedition led to a conspiracy . When the iconoclasts saw

Thrace and Macedonia at the mercy of the heathen of the

north,they thought they had good grounds for grumbling at

the iconodulic sovran . When the admirers of the great Leoand the great Constantine

,who had ruled in the days of their

fa thers and grandfathers, saw the enemy harrying the land at

will and possessing the cities of the Empire, they might bitterly1 The Athingani, if not Sim

ply a Zigeuner (gipsy) is derived from the

sec t of the Paulic ians,were c osely Athingani ; Since delw avos means

related to them. The name is supposed gipsy in Modern Greek .

to b e deI ived from d aw n-em, re

ferring to th e doc trine that the touch2 Theoph . 495°

of many things defi led (Cp. St . Paul , 3 It may b e noted that M ichaelColoss. i i. 21 unfit 0lym) . They seem made no changes, significant of orthoto have chiefly flourished in Phrygia . doxy, in the types of the coinage ;It has been supposed by some that cp. Wroth, I . xli.

SECT . v E CCL E S IA S TI CAL P OL I C Y OF M I CHAE L I . 41

remember how heavy the arm of Constantine had been on the

Bulgarians and how well he had defended the frontier of

Thrace ; they might plausibly asc ribe the difference in mili tarysuccess to the difference in religious doctrine. I t was a goodOpportunity for the bold to conspire ; the diffi cul ty was to

discover a successor to Michael, who would support iconoclasmand who had some show of legitimate claim to the throne.

The choice of the conspirators fell on the blind sons of

Constantine V .,who still survived in Panormos

,or as it was

also,and is still, called Antigoni, one of the Prince ’s Islands.

These princes had been prominent in the reign of Constan tineVI . and Irene, as repeatedly conspiring against their nephewand sister-in-law . The movement was easily suppressed

,the

revolutionaries escaped with a few stripes,and the blind princes

were removed to the more distant island of Aphusia.

1But

though the iconoc lasts might b e disaffected, they do not seemto have provoked persecution by openly showing flagrantdisrespect to holy pic tures in the reigns of N icephorus and

Michael . Michael, however, would not sufi er the iconoc lasticpropaganda which his father-in-law had allowed . He edifi ed

the people of Constantinople by forcing the iconoclasticlecturer Nicolas to make a public recantation of his error.

The Emperor and the Patriarch lost no time in annullingthe decisions of those assemblies which the Studite monkss tigmatised as synods of adulterers. The notorious Joseph

,

who had celebrated the adulterous marriage,was again

suspended ; the Studites were recalled from exile ; and the

schism was healed. I t might now b e alleged that Nicephorushad not been in sympa thy with the late Emperor’s policy,and had only co-operated with him from considerations of

economy.

” 3 But the dissensions of the Studite monks,

first1 Theoph . 496. Aphusia, still so a kr as) hermit scraped and insu lted a

called,is one of the Proc onnesian

islands , apparently not the same as

Ophiusa , for Diogenes of Cyzicus(Miiller, E H. C . iv. 392) distinguishesQuo ta. Ka t The other chiefislands of the group are Proconnesus,Aulonia, and Kutalis ; the four are

described in Gedeon, Hpos vvnoros,1895 . Cp. Hasluck

,J.E . S . xxix . 17 .

2 The fac t that Theophanes onlyrec ords one c ase in M ichae l ’s reign

(ib ) . is significant. A vagabond (ép. 1rept

pic ture of the Mother of God, and was

punished by the exc ision of his tongue .

3 It is not known whether the

Emperor or the Patriarch was the

prime mover. It is interesting to

note that the Emperor N icephorus

had given the brothers of the EmpressTheodote quarters in the Palac e, thusemphasizing his approbation of

,h er

marriage, and that M ichae l 1. ex

pelled them (Scr. Inc ert .

42 E A S TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE CHAP. I

with Tarasius and then with N icephorus, were more thanpassing episodes. They were symptomatic of an opposition or

discord between the hierarchy of the Church and a portion of

the monastic world. The heads of the Church were moreliberal and more practical in their views ; they realized the

importance of the State,on which the Church depended ; and

they deemed it b ad policy, unless a fundamental principlewere at stake, to oppose the supreme authority of the

Emperor. The monks were no politicians ; they regarded theworld from a purely ecclesiastical poin t of view they lookedupon the Church as infinitely superior to the State ; and

they were prepared to take extreme measures for the sake of

maintaining a canon . The third party and the monks wereunited

,after the death of Michael I .

,in a common struggle

against iconoclasm,but as soon as the enemy was routed, the

disagreement between these two powers in the Church brokeout

,as we shall see, anew.

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44 EAS TERN R OM AN EM P IRE CHAP . I I

personal appearance has been preserved . He was of smallstature and had curling hair ; he wore a full b oard his hair

was thick ; his voice loud.

1

On the very day of his entry into Constantinople as an

Augustus proclaimed by the army,an incident is related to

have occurred which seemed an allegorical intimation as to

the ultimate destiny of the new Emperor. I t is one of those .

stories based perhaps upon some actual incident, but improvedand embellished in the light of later events, so as to bearthe appearance of a mysterious augury. I t belongs to the

general atmosphere of mystery that seemed to envelop the

careers of the three young squires of Bardanes, whosedestinies had been so closely interwoven . The prophecy of

the hermit of Philomelion,the raving of the slave-girl of

Michael Rangabe? and the incident now to b e related,

3 markstages in the development of the drama.

Since Michael the Amorian had been rewarded byNicephorus for his desertion of the rebel Bardanes, we losesight of his career. He seems to have remained an officer inthe Anatolic Theme, of which he had been appointed Countof the tent

,and when Leo the Armenian became the

stratégos of that province the old comrades renewed theirfriendship ? Leo acted as sponsor to Michael’s son and

Michael played some part in bringing about Leo’s eleva tion .

The latter is said to have shrunk from taking the great step,1 Pseudo-Simeon, 603. This is one

of the notic es peculiar to th ischronic le and not found in our other

at Constantinople (Panchenko, Kat.M al. viii.

authorities . I have c onj ec tured thatthe source was the Scriptor Incertus ,of whose work we possess the valuablefragment frequently c ited in thesenotes . See Bury, A Source of SymeonMagister R Z. i. 572 Note deBoor

’

s emendation c yvpdu for 6‘yvpdv

(Kemp ) in th is passage, and cp. above,

p . 22,n. 2 . On most of the coins of

Leo, which are of the ordinary type of

this period , his son Constantine appears beardless on the reverse. A seal,which seems to belong to theseEmperors, with a c ross potent on theobverse, and c losely resemb ling

'

one

type of the silver c oinage of theseEmperors and of their predec essors

Mic ael and Theophylactus'

(seeWroth , Pl . x lvii . 4, 11 , is pre

served in the Russian Arch. Institute

2 Constantine Por hyrogennetoswasc onscious of th is rama tic development. We may trace h is hand in thec omment (in Cont. Th. 23) that theprophecy of Philomelion was the firstvague sketch , and -the words of the

slave-girl “second colours — 6str epa

7 wa xpu'

I/I awa dis 61V p acpla 7 a2

’

9

7rp07 6pa29 émuopdiwfiéura amai’

s.

3 Told by Genesios, 7, and in Cont.

Th . 19 (after Genesios) .4 Cont. Th . See above , p . 12.

It is not c lear whether M ichael ’s officewas still that of K6

,U. 7; 9 7 739 K6p7 779 of

the Anatol ic Theme. Gen. 7 describeshim as 7 56V Imroxbuwv

‘n'

pwrdpxcp

(Cp. Cont. Th . which seems to

mean that he was the private protoIstrator of L eo as stratégos .

5 Gen. 1215.

SECT . I L E O V. 45

as he was not sure that he would obtain simultaneous recogni

tion in the camp and in the capital, and Michael the Lisper,threa tening to slay him if he did not consent , undertook to

make the necessary arrangemen ts ? W hen Leo entered the

city he was met and welcomed by the whole Senate near theChurch of St. John the Forerunner, which still stands

,not

far from the G olden Gate, and marks the site of the monasteryof Studion. Accompanied by an acclaiming crowd

,and closely

a ttended by Michael his confidant, the new Augustus rode to

the Palace . He halted in front of the Brazen Gate (Chalké)to worship before the great image of Christ which surmountedthe portal. The Fifth Leo, who was afterwards to b e suchan ardent emulator of the third Emperor of his name, nowdismounted, and paid devotion to the fi gure restored by Irenein place of that which Leo the Isaurian had demolished.

Perhaps the Armenian had not yet decided on pursuing an

iconoclastic poli cy ; in any case he recognized that it wouldb e a false step to suggest by any omission the idea that hewas not strictly orthodox. Halting and dismounting he con

signed to the care of Michael the loose red military garmentwhich he wore . This cloak, technically called an eagle,

2and

more popularly a kolobion,was worn without a belt. Michael

is said to have put on the“eagle ” which the Emperor had

put off. It is not clear whether this was strictly accordingto etiquette or not, but the incident was supposed to b e an

omen that Michael would succeed Leo. Another still moreominous incident is said to have followed. The Emperor didnot enter by the Brazen Gate, but, having performed his ac t

of devotion, proceeded past the Baths of Zeuxippos, and

passing through the Hippodrome reached the Palace at the

entrance known as the Skyla ? The Emperor walked rapidlythrough the gate, and Michael

,hurrying to keep up with

him ,awkwardly trampled on the edge of his dress which

touched the ground behind.

I t was said that Lee himself recognized the omen,but it

certainly did not influence him in his conduct ; nor is there1 G en. 5 , repeated in Cont. Th . an il lustration in the Madrid MS .

2also Oaxac a a , Cont. Th . 19 . of Skylitzes (reproduced in Beylié,

Genesios says it was c alled a Kohl/Stow L’

H a bi ta tion byzantine,

(a garment with very short sleeves, 3 Compare the route of Theophiluswhence its name ; cp. Dueange, G loss. on the occasion of his triumph . See

The incident is the subjec t of below, p. 128.

46 EAS TE RN R OMAN E M P IRE C HAP. II

anything to suggest that at this time Michael was jealous of

Leo,or Leo suspicious of Michael. The Emperor made him

the Domestic or commander of the Excub itors,with rank of

patrician,and treated him as a confidential adviser. Nor did

he forget his other comrade, who had served with him underBardanes

,b ut cleaved more faithfully to his patron than had

either the Amorian or the Armenian . Thomas the Slavonianreturned from Saracen territory

,where he had lived in exile,

and was now made Turmarch of the Federates. Thus the

three squires of Bardanes are brought into association again .

Another appointment which Leo made redounds to his credit,

as h is opponents grudgingly admitted. He promoted Manuelthe Protostrator, who had strongly Opposed the resignation of

Michael and his own elevation,to the rank of patrician and

made him G eneral of the Armeniacs. Manuel could hardlyhave looked for such favour ; he probably expected that hisfee would b e exile He was a bold

,outspoken man,

and whenLeo said to him

,You ought not to have advised the late

Emperor and Procopia against my interests,” he replied, Nor

ought you to have raised a hand against your benefactor and

fellow-father,referring to the circumstance that Leo had stood

as sponsor for a child of Michael ?

The revolution which established a new Emperor on the

throne had been accomplished speedily and safely at a momentof great national peril . The defences of the city had to b e

hastily set in order,and Krum

, the Bulgarian victor, appearedbefore the walls within a week. Al though the barbarians of

the north had little chance of succeeding where the Saracenforces had more than once failed, and finally retired

, the

destruction which they wrought in the suburbs was a gloomybeginning for a new reign . The active hostilities of the

Bulgarian prince claimed the solicitude of Leo for more thana year

,when his death , as he was preparing to attack the

capital again, led to the conclusion of a peace.

On the eastern frontier the internal troubles of the

Caliphate relieved the Empire from anxiety during this

1 Or perhaps M ichael for a child of 23. There is perhaps no need to sus

Leo (Cont. Th . Leo was the cot a confusion of the two M ichaels .

godfather of a son of M ichael the he advancements of M ichael and

Amorian (Theophilus— unless Michael Thomas are told in Gen. 12, that ofhad another son who d ied early ) , i b . Manuel only in Cont. Th .

SECT . I L E O V. 47

reign , and, after the Bulgarian crisis had passed, Leo was ableto devote his atten tion to domestic administration . But of

his ac ts almost nothing has been recorded except of thoseconnected with his revival of iconoclasm . H is warfare againstimage-worship was the conspicuous featur e of his rule

, and,

occupied wi th execrating his ecclesiastical policy, the chroniclershave told us little of his other works. Yet his most bitteradversaries were compelled unwillingly to confess 1 that hisactivity in providing for the military defences of the Empireand for securing the administration of justice waS vdeserving of

all commendation . This was the judgmen t of the PatriarchNicephorus, who cannot b e accused of par tiality. He saidafter the dea th of Leo :

“The Roman Empire has lost an

impious but great guardian .

” 2He neglected no measure

which seemed likely to prove advantageous to the State ; and

this is high praise from the mouths of adversaries. He was

severe to criminals, and he endeavoured,in appointing judges

and governors, to secure men who were superior to bribes.

N0 one could say that love of money was one of the Emperor’sweak points. In illustration of his justice the followinganecdote is told . One day as he was issuing from the Palace

,

a man accosted him and complained of a bitter wrong whichhad been done him by a certain senator. The lawless noblehad carried off the poor man ’s attractive wife and had kepther in his own possession for a long time. The husband hadcomplained to the Prefect of the City, b ut complained in vain .

The guilty senator b ad influence , and the Prefect was a

respecter of persons. The Emperor immediately commandedone of his attendants to bring the accused noble and the

Prefect to his presence. The ravisher did not attempt todeny the charge, and the minister admitted that the matterhad come before him. Leo enforced the penalties of the law

,

and stripped the unworthy Prefect of his office ?

Our authorities tell us lit tle enough about the administration of this sovran

,and their praise is bestowed reluctantly.

But it is easy to see that he was a strenuous ruler,of the

1 Gen. 17-18 . for show. Gieseler regarded him as

2 Gen. 17 . The account in Cont.“einer der besten Regenten (L ehr

Th . 30 is taken from G enesios , but buch der Kirchengeschichte, ii. 1 , p. 4,the writer, on h is own authority, ed . 4,

makes out Lee to have b een a hypocrite, G en. 18 .

and to have feigned a love of justi ce

48 EA S TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE C HAP. I I

usual Byzantine type, devoted to the duties of his post,and

concerned to secure efficiency both in his military and civilofficers. He transacted most of his State business in the longhall in the Palace which was called the Lausiakos. There hissecretaries, who were noted for efficiency, worked under hisdirections ? In undertakings of public utility his industrywas unsparing. After the peace with Bulgaria he rebuilt andrestored the cities of Thrace and Macedonia

,and himself with

a military retinue made a progress in those provinces, to forward and superintend the work ? He personally supervisedthe drill and discipline of the army ?

2 . Conspiracy of M ichael and Murder of L eo

The reign of Leo closes with another act in the historicaldrama which opened with the revolt of Bardanes Turcus. W e

have seen how the Emperor Leo bestowed offices on his two

companions, Michael and Thomas. But Michael was not to

prove himself more loyal to his Armenian comrade who hadoutstripped him than he had formerly shown himself to his

Armenian master who had trusted him. Thomas indeed hadfaithfully clung to the desperate cause of the rebel ; but hewas not to bear himself with equal faith to a more legitimatelord.

The treason of Thomas is not by any means as clear as the

treason of Michael. But this at least seems to b e certain,that towards the end of the year 820

4he organized a revolt

in the East ; that the Emperor, forming a false conception of

the danger, sent an inadequate force, perhaps under an incom

petent commander, to quell the rising, and that this force wasdefeated by the rebel.

But with Thomas we have no further concern now ; our

instant concern is with the commander of the Excub itors,who

was more directly under the Imperial eye . I t appears thatMichael had fallen under the serious suspicion of the Emperor.

1 Gen. 18. than a month or two before Leo’

s

2 l b . 28. For his new wall at death, Leo would have been c on

Blachernae see below,p. 94. strained to deal seriously with it

,

3 Cont . Th . 30. and we should have heard about4 The date is not g iven,

but may b e the operations . For the statement ofinferred with tolerable c ertainty. If M ichae l in his letter to Lewis the

the rebell ion had broken out sooner Pious see Appendix V.

sECT . I I fM URDE R OF L E O V 49

The evidence against him was so weighty that he had hardlysucceeded in freeing himself from the charge of treason . He

was a rough man, without education or breeding ; and while

he could not speak polite G reek, his tongue lisped insolentlyagainst the Emperor. Perhaps he imagined that Leo was

afraid of him ; for, coarse and untrained as he may have been,Michael proved himself afterwards to b e a man of ability

,and

does not strike uS as one who was likely to have been a reckless babbler. He spoke doubtless these treasonable things inthe presence of select friends, but he must have known wellhow perilous words he uttered . The matter came to the ears

of the Emperor, who, unwilling to resort to any extrememeasure on hearsay, not only set eavesdroppers to watch thewords and deeds of hi s disaffected officer, but took care that heshould b e privately admonished to control his tongue. Theseofli ces he specially en trusted to the Logothete of the Course,

John H exab ul ios, a discreet and experienced man,whom we

met before on the occasion of the return of Michael Rangabeto the city after the defeat at Hadrianople ? We may feelsurprise that he who then reproved Michael I . for hi s folly inleaving the army in Leo

’

s hands , should now be the trustedminister of Leo himself. But we Shall find him stillholding ofli ce and enjoying influence in the reign of Leo

’

s

successor. The same man who has the confidence of the FirstMichael, and warns him against Leo, wins the confidence of

Leo, and warns him against another Michael,then wins

the confidence of the Second Michael,and advises him on his

dealing with an unsucc essful rebel ? Had the rebelli on of

Thomas prospered, Hexabulios would doubtless have been a

trusted minister of Thomas too.

Michael was deaf to the warnings and rebukes of the

Logothete of the Course ; he was indifferent to the dangersin which his unruly talk seemed certain to involve him.

The matter came to a crisis on Christmas Eve, A .D . 8 20.

Hexab uli os had gained information which pointed to a con

spiracy organized by Michael and had laid it before the

Emperor. The peril which threatened the throne could no

longer b e overlooked, and the wrath of Leo himself was

furious. Michael was arrested, and the day before the feast1 Above

,p. 27 .

2 Below, p . 106.

50 EA S TE RN ROM AN EM P IRE CHAP. I I

of Christmas was spent in proving his guilt . The inquirywas held in the chamber of the State Secre taries,1 and the

Emperor presided in person . The proofs of guilt were so

clear and overwhelming that the prisoner himself was con

strained to confess his treason. After such a long space of

patience the wrath of the judge was all the more terrible,and he passed the unusual sentence that his old companionin-arms should b e fastened to a pole and cast into the

furnace which heated the baths of the Palace. That theindignity might b e greater

,an ape was to be tied to the

victim,in recollection perhaps of the old Roman punishmen t

of parricides.

This sentence would have been carried out and the reignof Leo would not have come to an untimely end

,if the Empress

Theodosia had not intervened. Shocked at the news of the

atrocious sentence, she rose from her couch , and, not eventaking time to put on her Slippers, rushed to the Emperor ’spresence, in order to prevent its execution . If she had

merely exclaimed against the barbarity of the decree, she

might not have compassed her wish , but the very day of the

event helped her . It was Christmas Eve. How could the

Emperor dare,with hands stained by such foul cruelty, to

receive the holy Sacrament on the morrow ? Must he not b eashamed that such an act should b e associated with the feastof the Nativity ? These arguments appealed to the piousChristian . But Theodosia had also an argument which mightappeal to the prudent sovran : let the punishment b e

postponed ; institute a stricter investigation , and di scover thenames of all those who have been implicated in the plot .The appeal of the Empress was not in vain . Her counselsand her entreaties affected the mind of her husband . Butwhile he consented to defer his final decision, it would seemthat he had misgivings, and that some dim feeling of dangerentered into him. He is reported to have said : “W ife

, you

have released my soul from sin to-day ; perhaps it will sooncost me my life too. You and our children will see whatShall happen .

In those days men were ready to see fatal omens and

1 Gen. 20 7repl 7 6W danxprrr lwv far from the Lausiakos (Cp. Bieliaev,

xc'

bpov. These offices were Situated not i .

https://www.forgottenbooks.com/join

52 EA S TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE CHAP. I I

him. A little b oy1in the service of Michael, who had been

allowed (doubtless irregularly) to bear his master company,heard the approaching steps and crept under the couch

,from

which hiding-place he observed the movements of Leo,whom

he recognized as the Emperor by his red boots. Leo bentover Michael and laid his hand on his breast

, to discoverwhether the beating of his heart pointed to anxiety or

security. When there was no response to his touch, the

Emperor marvelled much that his prisoner. enjoyed such a

sound and careless Sleep . But he was vexed at the circumstance that the keeper had resigned his couch to the criminal ;such leniency seemed undue and suspicious. Perhaps he wasvexed too that the guardian was himself asleep . In any casethe lad under the b ed observed him

,as he was retiring from

the cell,to shake his hand threateningly at both the guardian

and the prisoner. The unseen spectator of Leo’s visit reportedthe matter to his master, and when the keeper of the Palacesaw that he too was in jeopardy they took common counselto save their lives. The only chance was to effect a com

munication with the other COR Spirators, whose names hadnot yet been revealed. The Emperor had directed that, ifMichael were moved to confess his sins and wished for ghostlyconsolation

,the offices of a priest should not b e withheld from

him,and the matter was entrusted to a certain Theoktistos,

who was a servant of Michael, perhaps one of the Excub itors.

I t certainly seems strange that Leo, who took such anxiousprecautions In other ways

,should have allowed the condemned

to hold any converse with one of his own faithful dependants.

The concession proved fatal. The keeper led Theoktistos to

Michael’s presence,and Theoktistos soon left the Palace

,under

the plea of fetching a minister of religion, but really in orderto arrange a plan of rescue with the other conspirators. He

assured the accomplices that, if they did not come to deliverthe prisoner from death , Michael would not hesitate to revealtheir names.

The plan of rescue which the conspirators imagined and

carried out was simple enough ; but its success depended on

the circumstance that the season was winter and the morningsdark . I t was the custom that the choristers who chanted the

1 The b oy was an eunuch (Gen.

SECT . I I M URDE R OF LE O V. 53

matins in the Palace Chapel of St. Stephen 1 should enter bythe Ivory Gate at daybreak, and as soon as they sang themorning hymn

,the Emperor used to enter the church. The

conspirators arrayed themselves in clerical robes, and havingconcealed daggers in the folds, mingled with the choristerswho were waiting for admi ssion at the Ivory Gate. Underthe cover of the gloom easily escaping detection

,they entered

the Palace and hid themselves in a dark corner of the chapel.Leo

,who was proud of his singing (according to one writer he

sang execrably,but another

,by no means well disposed to him

,

states tha t he had an unusually melodious voice arrivedpunctually to take part in the Christmas service, and harbouring no suspicion of the danger -which lurked so near. It was a

chilly morning,and both the Emperor and the priest who led the

service had protected themselves against the cold by wearingpeaked felt caps. At a passage in the service which the

Emperor used to sing with Special unction, the signal wasgiven and the conspirators leaped out from their hiding-place .

The likeness in head-dress , and also a certain likeness in faceand figure, between Leo and the chief of the officiating clergy, ledat first to a blunder . The weapons of the rebels were directedagainst the priest, b ut he saved his life by uncovering his headand showing that he was bald. Leo, meanwhile, who saw his

danger,had used the momentary respite to rush to the altar

and seize some sacred object, whether the cross itself, or thechain of the censer

,or a candelabrum

,as a weapon of defence .

When this was shattered by the swords of the foes who

surrounded him and only a useless fragment remained in hishands

,he turned to one of them who was distinguished above

the others by immense stature and adjured him to Spare his life.

1 Acta David e'

s, etc . ,229 Kara 7 6V

7 00 wporroudpr vpos E7 e¢avou va 6u 7 6V

é‘vaov Ow en 7 630 Baa ihelwv év 7 6mg 7 93

émhe‘youéwy Aapvy . ButN ic etas (Vit.Ign. 2 16 ) places the murder in the

Church of the Virgin of the Pharos,and this is accepted by Eb ersoltwho consequently gets into difficultiesabout the Ivory Gate . From G en. 24

it is c lear that this gate was an ex

terior gate of the Pa lace (this is inac cordance wi th Constantine, Cer .

doubtless c ommunic ating with the

H ippodrome, and c lose to the DaphnePalac e . Lab arte (122 ; followed by

Bieliaev ) thought that the church

(which Gen. and Cont. Th . do not

identify ) is that of the Lord , whichwas a lso c lose to De fi ne . The

Armenian h istorian Wardhn (see Mar

quart, Streifzuge, 404) says that thekee er of the prison was a friend of

Michael and bribed the uaw xafli’

m t

(palac e-guards ), and that they exe

cuted the murder . He also mentionsthe intervention of the Empress.

2 Gen. p. 19 (7 0,8a éufi oé

’

w Ka i

xaxépvfipos, but Cont. Th . 39 fiv yap4700 6 7. 7 6 cart on/09 Ita l év ,

uehqni law 7 67V

Kar’

éxei’

vo Katpo0 (ix/Opu'

mwv ij 6b‘

ra7 09 .

54 EAS TE RN ROM AN EM P IRE CHAP. I I

But the giant, who for his height was nicknamed One-and-a

half,

” 1swore a great oath that the days of Leo were numbered

,

and with the word brought down his sword so heavily on the

shoulder of his Victim that not only was the arm cut fromthe body, but the implement which the hand still held wascleft and bounded to a distant spot of the building. The

Imperial head was then cut off,and the work of murder and

rescue was accomplished ?

Thus perished the Armenian Leo more foully than any

Roman Emperor since Maurice was slain by Phocas. He was,

as even hi s enemies admitted (apart from his religious policy) ,an excellent ruler, and a rebellion against him

,not caused by

ecc lesiastical discontent, was inexcusable. Michael afterwardsdeclared, in palliation of the conspiracy

,that Leo had Shown

himself to b e unequal to coping with the rebellion of Thomas,and that this incompetence had caused discontent among theleading men of the State. But this plea cannot b e admitted ;for although Thomas defeated a small force which Leo

,not

ful ly realizing the danger, had sent against him,there is no

reason to suppose that, when he was ful ly informed of the

forces and numbers of the rebel, he would have shown himselfless able or less energetic in suppressing the insurrection thanMichael himself. Certainly his previous conduct of warfarewas not likely to suggest to his ministers that he was

incapable of dealing with a revolt. But in any case we haveno Sign

,except Michael’s own statemen t , that the rebellion of

Thomas was already formidable. We must conclude that theconspiracy was entirely due to Michael’s personal ambition

,

stimulated perhaps by the Signs and omens and soothsayingsof which the air was full. I t does not appear that thereligious question entered into the situation ; for Michael washimself favourable to iconoclasm.

The body of the Slain Emperor was cast by his murderersinto some sewer or outhouse 3 for the moment . It was after

which they interpreted to signifysome portentous event . See Gen. 26,Cont. Th . 40. Cp. the story told of the

1 év xa l fimav, see Gen. 25 . FromCont. Th . 39 we get another fac t aboutthe giant : he belonged to the fami lyof the KrambOnites.

2 There was a story told that at

the very hour at which the deedwas wrought, four o

’

c lock in the

morning, some sailors,sai ling on the

sea,heard a strange voice in the air

,

death of Wa la of Corbie (A. D . 836)S imson, L udw ig, ii. 157 .

3 Gen. 26 év e07\oe¢6éa’ c xefi

pon T ois

7rp69 7 0 665771077 (6. seems to mean a

rec eptacle for sewerage ; not noticedin Duc ange

’

s G loss . )

SECT . I I M URDER OF L E O V. 55

wards dragged naked from the Palace by the Gate of Spoilsto the Hippodrome,1 to b e exposed to the spurns of the

popul ace,which had so lately trembled in the presence of the

form which they now insul ted . From the Hippodrome the

corpse was borne on the back of a horse or mule to a harbourand embarked in the same boat which was to convey the

widow and the children of the Emperor to a lonely and lowlyexile in the island of Pr6té . Here a new sorrow was in storefor Theodosia : the body of the son who was called by her own

name was to b e laid by that of his father. The decree hadgone forth that the four sons were to b e made eunuchs, in

order that they might never aspire to recover the throne fromwhich their father had fallen . The same measure which Leohad meted to his predecessor’s children was dealt out to hisown offspring. Theodosius, who was probably the youngest ofthe bro thers, did not survive the mutilation

,and he was

buried with Leo. There is a tale that one of the otherbrothers

, but it is not quite clear whether it was Constantineor Basil? lost his power of speech from the same cause, butthat by devout and continuous prayer to God and to St.

G regory, whose image had been set up in the island, his voicewas restored to him. The third son

,Gregory, lived to

become in later years bishop of Syracuse. Both Basil and

Gregory repented of their iconoclastic errors, and iconodulehistorians spoke of them in after days as great in Virtue.

” 3

But although Michael, wi th a View to his own security,dealt thus cruelly with the boys, he did not leave the familydestitute. He gave them a portion of Leo

’

s property for theirsupport, but he assigned them habitations in different places.

The sons were confined in Pr6té , while the wife and the motherof Leo were allowed to dwell “ safely and at their own will in a

more verdant and charming island of the same group, Chalkités,which is now known as Halki ?

course, is a mistake. Constantinewas not Basil. The renaming was of

Symb atios, who became Constantine(ib. 41 below, p . It seems probable that Basi l was meant, as we

1 There is a picture of the sc ene in

the Madrid MS. of Skylitzes (Beylié,L

’Ha bi ta tion byzantine, 106) . Partisans

o f Mi c hael appear above the roof ofthe Palace to il lustrate the chronic ler’swords (Cedrenus, ii. 67 ) 676. 7 6 fi n;

fiaalka ov (i f/M W 617'M I9 00051079 7 6177 000 7

wepr¢pax073va ¢.2 Cont. Th .

“n ova/m odels

47 v o'

r avr fvos 6

Baa lhecos. Thi s, of

find the story told of him in PseudoSimeon, 619 .

3 Gen. 99 .

4 Cont. Th . 46,where their retreat

is designated as the monastery

EAS TE RN R OM AAl EM P IRE CHAP . I I

3 . The Revival of I conoclasm

The revival of image-worship by the Empress Irene and

the authority of the Council of Nicaea had not extinguishedthe iconoclastic doctrine, which was still obstinately maintained by powerful parties both in the Court circles of

Byzantium and in the army. I t is not surprising that thestruggle should have been

,however unwisely

,renewed . The

first period of iconoclasm and persecution , which was initiatedby Leo the Isaurian , lasted for more than fifty

, the second,

which was initiated by Leo the Armenian , for less than thirtyyears. The two periods are distinguished by the greaterprominence of the dogmatic issues of the question in the

later epoch , and by the circumstance that the persecution wasless violent and more restricted in its range.

We have already seen that Leo, before he entered Constantinople to celebrate his coronation , wrote to assure the Patriarchof his orthodoxy

?No hint is given that this letter was a

reply to a previous communication from the Patriarch . We

may suppose that Leo remembered how Nicephorus had exacteda written declaration of orthodoxy from Michael

,and wished

to anticipate such a demand. We know not in what termsthe letter of Leo was couched, b ut it is possible that he gaveN icephorus reason to believe that he would b e ready to Signa more formal documen t to the same effect after his Coronation .

The crowned Emperor, however, evaded the formality, whichthe uncrowned Emperor had perhaps promised or suggested ;and thus when he afterwards repudiated the Acts of the

Seventh Ecumenical Council he could not legally b e said toAeanoraw. I know no other referenceto th is C loister, b ut infer that it wasin Halki from the letter of Theodoreof Studien to Theodosia and her son

Basil (ii. 204 é7rec67‘

7 6é 0’

wre66077 tutu

1rapa 7 00,ueyahov Baa chéws 73 11 730 09 7 739

Xahxl‘rov 619 KGT OIKflTfipIou) . Theodorec omplains that the abbot and monkshad been turned out of their house tomake room for Theodosia , and have nohome. The letter might suggest thatBasil was with Theodosia (in c ontradiction to the statement of Cont. Th ) ,b ut the inferenc e is not nec essary andthe superscription may b e inaccurate .

For a description of Halki and its

monasteries, see Schlumberger, op. cit.

102 sqq.

1 Theoph . 502 was“ ,ae‘v N txn¢6p<p

7ra7 ptapxp 7 6 7rep2 709 éavr o0 6p006oEfa 9 6Iafi efia iobucvos, a lrd

’

w,ue7 6. 7 739

66x09 Ka i érrwebo'ews 7 00 xparovs

émAafle‘aOa c. This statement of Theo

phanes is most important and seems toe the key to the d ifficulty. Theophanesdoes not say a word in prejudice of Leo .

He wrote probably very soon afterLeo

’

s accession and before the iconoc lastic olicy had been announced . If

L eo ha signed , like M ichael, a formal

document , Theophanes would almostcertainly have mentioned it.

SECT . I I I THE RE VI VAL OF I CONOCLA SM 57

have broken solemn engagements. But his adversaries wereeager to represen t him as having broken faith . Accordingto one account? he actually signed a solemn undertaking topreserve inviolate the received doctrines of the Church ; and

this he flagrantly violated by his war against images.

According to the other accoun t? b e definitely promised to

Sign such a document after his coronation , but, when it cameto the point, refused. The first story seizes the fact of his

reassuring letter to N icephorus and represents it as a bindingdocument ; the second story seizes the fact that Leo after hiscoronation declined to bind himself

,and represents this

refusal as a breach of a definite promise.

The iconoclastic doctrine was still widely prevalent in thearmy

,and was held by many among the higher classes in the

capital.,If it had not possessed a strong body of adherents

,

the Emperor could never have though t of reviving it. Thathe commit ted a mistake in policy can hardly b e disputed inview of subsequent events. N icephorus I . , in preserving thesettlemen t of the Council of N icaea

,while he allowed icono

clasts perfect freedom to propagate their opinions,had proved

himself a competent statesman . For, considered in the interestof ecclesiastical tranquillity

, the great superiority of imageworship to iconoclasm lay in the fact that it need not lead topersecution or oppression . The iconoclasts could not b e com

pelled to worship pictures, they had only to endure the offenceof seeing them and abstain from insulting them ; whereas theadoption of an iconoclastic policy rendered persecution inevitable . The course pursued by N icephorus seems to have been

1 Scr. Incert . 340 1rp67 €pou 17 07 730 01 9i676xa pov ; cp. 349 . Simeon (Leo Gr .

207 ) fi efla co’

ma s G br6u éyypd¢w9 wept 709éa vr oO 6p9060$la 9 (Cp. Vers. Slav. 90 ;Add . Georg. ed. Mur. 679 has 7 6

éyypa¢ov H irsch is the

only modern authority since Lebeau(xii . 297) who accepts this acc ount

Ac cording to Vi t. Theod . Gr apt.

665 , Leo gave an undertaking at the

time of the coronation.

2 Ignatius, Vit. N iceph . Pa tr . 163 ,164 : Nicephorus sent an elaborateform c ontaining the orthodoxcreed, to Leo before his coronation ;Leo assented to its c ontents , b ut postponed signing until the diadem was

plac ed on his head ; then 6ev7 épa 7 39

fi amhela s 7'

7,u. épa s Ka i 6 060¢6p097 739 6p006o£la9 7 6q 7 6V ap7 ¢¢av73

flaa ihéa xarrjna‘

yev éuanufivaada c 6 66Kpa 7 a 7639 dIrnpveir o. This story mayb e near the truth though it is told bya partisan. It is repeated by Genesios ,e tc .

,and acc epted by Finlay, ii . 113

(who here confounds the Patriarchwith the deacon Ignatius) , Hergen

r'

other, i . 234, and most writers . Hefele

leaves the question open (iv .

Ignatius relates that the Patr iarch,

when plac ing the crown on Leo’

s head,

felt as if he were pr icked by thorns

58 EA S TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE C HAP. I I

perfectly satisfactory and successful in securing the peace of

the Church .

All this, however, must have been as obvious to Leo theArmenian as it seems to us. He cannot have failed to realizethe powerful opposition which a revival of iconoclasm wouldarouse ; yet he resolved to disturb the tranquil condition of

the ecclesiastical world and enter upon a dangerous and dis

agreeable conflict wi th the monks.

Most of the Eastern Emperors were theologians as wellas statesmen, and it is highly probable that Leo’s personalconviction of the wrongfulness of icon-worship,1 and the factthat this conviction was shared by many prominent peopleand widely diffused in the Asiatic Themes, would havebeen sufficient to induce him to revive an aggressive iconoclastic policy. But there was certainly another motive whichinfluenced his decision . It was a patent fact that the iconoclastic Emperors had been conspicuously strong and successfulrulers

,whereas the succeeding period

,during wh ich the worship

of images had been encouraged or permit ted,was marked by

weakness and some signal disasters. The day is not yet

entirely past for men,with vague ideas of the nexus of cause

and effect, to attribute the failures and successes of nations tothe wrongness or soundness o

.

f their theological beliefs ; andeven now some who read the story of Leo

’

s reign may

sympathize with him in his reasoning that the iconoclasticdoctrine was proved by events to b e pleasing in the sight ofHeaven . We are told that he imitated the Isaurian EmperorsLeo and Constantine

,whose heresy he revived

,wishing to

live many years like them and to become illustrious .

” 2

To the ardent admirer of Leo the Isaurian , his own nameseemed a good omen in days when men took such coincidencesseriously ; and to make the parallel between his own caseand that of his model nearer still

,he changed the Armenian

name of his eldest son Symb atios and designated him Con

stantine?

The new Constantine was crowned and proclaimedAugustus at the end of 8 1 3 , when the Bulgarians were still

1 That the iconoc lastic policy of Leo stantin V, cap. viii. See also Schenk ,III . and Constantine V. is not to b e R Z. v. 272 sqq. ; Bréh ier, 41

-42. Thisexplained by considerations of ad ap

plies to the later iconoc lasts also.

ministrative and mi litary interest ” Scr. Incert . 346, 349 .

has been shown by Lombard , Con 3 l b . 346. Cp. G en. 26.

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60 EAS TERN R OMAN EM P IRE CHAP . I I

was confirmed when Antonius recognized him. This story,

which,of course, we cannot un

’

reservedly believe, becamecurrent at the time, and was handed down to subsequentgenerations in a verse pasquinade composed by TheophanesConfessor ?

The Emperor discovered a valuable assistant in a youngman known as John the G rammarian? who had the distinotion of earning as many and as bitter maledictions from the

orthodox party of the time and from subsequent orthodoxhistorians as were ever aimed at Manes or at Arius or at

Leo III . He was one of the most learned men of his day,

and,like most learned men who fell foul of the Church in

the middle ages, he was accused of practising the black art.

H is accomplishments and scientific ability will appear moreconspicuously when we meet him again some years henceas an illustrious figure in the reign of Theophilus. He

was known by several names. We meet him as John the

Reader, more usually as John the G rammarian ; but those whodetested him used the opprobrious titles of Hylilas,

3 by whichthey understood a forerunner and coadjutor of the devil, orLekanomantis

,meaning that he conjured with a dish . H is

parentage,if the account is true, was characteristic . He was

the son of one Pankratios, a hermit , who from childhood hadbeen possessed with a demon . But all the statements of our

authorities with respect to John are coloured by animositybecause he was an iconoclast. Patriarchs and monks loved todrop a vowel of his name and call him “ Jannes after thecelebrated magician , just as they loved to call the EmperorLeo Chame-leon .

”

The project of reviving iconoclasm was begun warily and

silently ; Leo had determined to make careful preparationsbefore he declared himself. At Pentecost, 8 14 , John the

G rammarian , assisted by several colleagues? began to prepare1 Gen. 15 .

2 See Scr. Incert. 349 , 350.

3 l b . It is not quite clear, however,whether this obscure name was applied to John or to Pankratios h is

father . Pseudo-Simeon (606) interprets the passage in the former sense

,

and I have followed him. See Hirsch ,332 . He belonged to the family of

the Morocharzamioi (Morocharzanioi

in Cedrenus, ii. Cont. Th . 154

a distinguished family in Constantinople, whic h St. Martin (apud Lebeau,

xiii . 14) thinks was of Armenianorigin. H is brother bore the Armenian

name Arsab er, and his father’s name

Pankratios may b e a hel lenization of

Bagrat.4 Besides Bishop Antonius, men

tioned below , the other members of

SECT . I I I THE RE VI VAL OF I CON OCLA SM 61

an elaborate work against the worship of images. The

Emperor provided him with full powers to obtain access to any

libraries that he might wish to consul t. Rare and ancientbooks were scattered about in monasteries and churches

,and

this notice suggests that it was not easy for private individualsto obtain permission to handl e them . It is said that the zealof the scholar was increased by a promise of Leo to appointhim Patriarch

,in case it shoul d b e found necessary to remove

Nic ephorus. John and his colleagues collected many booksand made an extensive investigation . Of course their Opponentsalleged that they found only what they sough t, and soughtonly for passages which might seem to tell in favour of

iconoclasm,while they ignored those which told against it.

The Acts of the Synod of 75 3 gave them many references, andwe are told how they placed marks in the books at the relevantpassages ?

I t was desirable to have a bishop in the commission,and

in July a suitable person was found in Antonius, the bishopof Syllaion in Pamphylia

? He is said to have been originallya lawyer and a schoolmaster, and in consequence of somescandal to have found it advisable to enter a monastery. He

became an abbot, and, although his behaviour was loose and

unseeml y, God somehow allowed him to become bishop of

Syllaion. H is indecent behaviour seems to have consisted inamusing the young monks with funny tales and practical jokes.

He was originally orthodox and only adopted the heresy inorder to curry favour at the Imperial Court. Such is the

sketch of the man drawn by a writer who was Violentlyprejudiced against him and all his party.

3

Private apartments in the Palace were assigned to the

committee, and the bodily wants of the members were so wellprovided for that their opponents described them as living likepigs ? In the tedious monotony of their work they wereconsoled by delicacies supplied from the Imperial kitchen

,and

the commission were the laymenJoannes S ektas and Eutychi anos ,members 0 the Senate

,and the monks

Leontios and Zosimas (Theosteriktos ,Vit. N icct. xxix . , who adds thatZosimas soon afterwards died in con

sequence of having his nose cut off asa

punishment for adul tery ) .Scr. Incert . 350 (a rma67a. fldhhovr es

619 7 009 7 67rov9 t‘yda nflpto'

xov) .2 Syllaion was near the inland

Ki byra (see Anderson’

s Map of Asia

Minor) .3 Sc r. Incert . 351.

4 Ignatius, Vit. N ic . Patr . 165 7 67 pv¢ijv avé

’

m 6lmv dr o7 d£a 9 a0‘rofs

acmpéorzou.

62 EAS TERN R OM AN EM P IRE CHAP. I I

while the learning and subtlety of John lightened the diflicultiesof the labour, the jests and buffoonery of the bishop mightenliven the hours of relaxation . The work of research wascarried on with scrupul ous secrecy. W henever any curiousperson asked the studen ts what they were doing they said,The Emperor commissioned us to consult these books, because

some one told him that he has only a short time to reign thatis the object of our search .

” 1

In December the work of the commission was completedand the Emperor summoned N icephorus to a private interviewin the Palace ? Leo advocated the iconoclastic policy on the

ground that the worship of images was a scandal in the army.

Let us make a compromise,”he said

,

“to please the soldiers

,

and remove the pictures which are hung low. But Nicephorus

was not disposed to compromise ; he knew that compromise inthis matter would mean defeat. When Leo reminded himthat image-worship was not ordained in the Gospels and laiddown that the Gospels were the true standard of orthodoxy

,

Nicephorus asserted the inspiration of the Holy Spirit insuccessive ages. This interview probably did not last verylong . The Pa triarch was fi rm and the Emperor polite. Leo

was not yet prepared to proc eed to extremes, and Nicephorusstill hoped for his conversion, even as we are told that PopeGregory I I . had hoped for the conversion of his Isauriannamesake.

The policy of the orthodox party at this crisis was to

refuse to argue the question at issue. The Church had alreadydeclared itself on the matter in an Ecumenical Council ; and

to doubt the decision of the Church was heretical. And so

when. Leo proposed that some learned bishops whom the

Patriarch had sent to him should hold a disputation withsome learned iconoclasts

,the Emperor presiding, they em

phatical ly declined, on the ground that the Council of N icaea

1 According to the Epist. Synod .

Orient. ad TheOph . 373, Nic ephorus at

rately informed . See C . Thomas,Theodor, 104, n. 2 . The synod, at

which 270 ec clesiastic s are said tolength obtained an inkling of whatwas going on in the Palace and summoned a synod in St. Sophia, at whichhe charged the members of the commission with heretical opinions ; andthe synod anathematized Antonius .

It may b e questioned whether the

authors of this document were ac cu

have been present, was doubtless a

mix/0609 éu677u000a , for which see Her

genrOther, i. 38, and Pargoire, L’Egl.

byz. 55-56 .

2 This interview is described by Scr.Inc ert. 352-353 .

SECT . I I I THE RE VI VAL OF I CON OCLA SM 63

in A.D. 78 7 had settled the question of image-worship for

ever.

Soon after these preliminary parleys, soldiers of the

Tagmata or residential regimen ts showed their sympathies byat tacking the Image of Christ over the Brazen Ga te of the

Palace . I t was said that this riot was suggested and en

couraged by Leo and the inscription over the image, tellinghow Irene erected a new icon in the place of that whichLeo I II . destroyed, mi ght stimulate the fury of those who

revered the memory of the I saurian Emperors. Mud and

stones were hurled by the soldiers at the sacred figure,and

then the Emperor innocently said, “ Let us take it down, tosave it from these insul ts. This was the first overt act in

the new campaign , and the Patriarch thought it high time to

summon a meeting of bishops and abbots to discuss the

danger which was threatening the Church . The convocationwas held in the Patriarch ’s palace. All those who werepresent swore to stand fast by the doctrine laid down at the

Seventh Council, and they read over the passages which theiropponents cited against them ? When Christmas came

,

Nicephorus begged the Emperor to remove h im from the

pontifi cal chair if he (Nicephorus) were unpleasing in his

eyes, but to make no innovations in the Church . To this Leoreplied by disclaiming either intention ?

These preliminary skirmishes occurred before Christmas(A.D . On Christmas day it was noticed by curious and

watchful eyes that Leo adored in public a cloth on which the

birth of Christ was represented ? But on the next great feastof the Church , the day of Epiphany

,it was likewise observed

that he did not adore, according to custom . Meanwhile, theiconoclastic party was being reinforced by proselytes

,and the

Emperor looked forward to a speedy settlement of the questionin his own favour at a general synod. H e issued a summonsto the bishops of the various dioceses in the Empire to

1 The riot of the soldiers and the 133-135 Eb ersolt,-Sa inte-Sophie de

meeting of the b ishops oc curred in Constantinople, 26-27

December before Christmas : so exA

2

17

238 512 Se

e 19°ertb

35

fhm m

gym" the1r 7 40V c aprwv. omas i

n. 5 ) seems to have overlooked this .

1

1

13 5"30

20 47 7 0 . (sw) 7 12” éof’n ’” (son

The Pa triarch ’s palace was on thencer

south side of St. Sophia, probably 3flovhbuevos 6tafi c£o a t 7 7W éop

'rrjv

towards the east ; see Bieliaev,ii .

64 EA S TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE CHAP. I I

assemble in the capital, and perhaps stirred the prelates of

Hellas to undertake the journey by a reminiscence flatteringto their pride . He reminded them that men from Mycenaein Argolis, men from Carystos in Euboea, men from Corinth ,and many o ther G reeks

,joined the Megarians in founding that

colony of the Bosphorus which had now grown to such greatestate ? According as they arrived, they were conductedstraightway to the Emperor’s presence, and were prohibitedfrom first paying a visit to the Patriarch , as was the usualpractice . The Emperor wished to ac t on their hopes or fearsbefore they had been warned or confirmed in the faith by thewords of their spiritual superior ; and this policy was regardedas one of his worst acts of tyranny. Many of the bishopssubmitted to the arguments or to the veiled threats of theirsovran

,and those who dared to resist his influence were kept

in confinement ? The Patriarch in the mean time encouragedhis own party to stand fast. He was supported by the

powerful interest of the monks,and especially by Theodore,

abbot of Studion, who had been his adversary a few years ago.

A large assembly of the faithful was convoked in the Churchof St. Sophia,

and a service lasting the whole night wascelebrated ? Nicephorus prayed for the conversion of the

Emperor,and confirmed his followers in their faith .

The Emperor was not well pleased when the news reachedthe Palace of the doings in the Church . About the time of

cockcrow he sent a message of remonstrance to the Patriarchand summoned him to appear in the Palace at break of day,

to explain his conduct . There ensued a second and morefamous in terview between the Emperor and the Patriarch

,

when they discussed at large the arguments for and againstimage-worship . N icephorus doubtless related to his friendsthe substance of what was said

,and the admirers of that

saint afterwards wrote elaborate accounts of the dialogue,which they found a grateful subject for exhibiting learning

,

1 Gen. 27 éVTGOCé ’V Ka i wax/10. 9 7ravr l assembly of the bishops was held inémo

'

xbmp Kar afpew év v aur lcp 7 4367 6 the Pa lace (7 00 6ev7 épou Kai'

éxta

Meyapéwv x7 u70éu7 t Ka t Bug‘

avr os, Ka‘

r’

a ux/10 7 77 7 6 fi ovhew fipiou, i b . ) beforeE0pu

’

m‘

nv o vvewbvrwv év 7 fi 7 0757 0v the Patriarch ’s c ounter -demonstrar ohlo’ et Kapvar fwv v nva lwu Ka l tion ; b ut of course it was not a.

Kopw fi lwv 6&t r e nohhc’

bv,

“synod .

"

m l MT OPW The mythologica l 3 Ignatius, Vit. N ic . Patr . 167 7 617

flourish may b e due to Genesios . r dvvvxov émr ehéaow a s advaSw .

2 Ignatius, Vit. N ic . Patr . 166. An

SECT . I I I THE RE VI VAL OF I CON OCLAS/II 65

subtle ty, and style. Ultimately N icephorus proposed thatthe bishops and others who had accompanied him to the gateshould b e admitted to the Imperial presence, that his Majestymight become fully convinced of their unanimity on the

question at issue. The audience was held in the Chrysotri

klinos? and guards with conspicuous swords were present, to

awe the churchmen into respect and obedience .

The Emperor bent his brows and spake thus

Ye,li ke all others

,are well aware that G od has appointed us to

watc h over the interests of this il lustrious and reasonable flock ; 3 and

that we are eager and solicitous to smoothe away and remove every thornthat grows in the Chur ch . As some members of the fold are in doubtas to the adoration of images, and cite passages of Scripture wh ich seem

unfavourable to such practices, the necessity of resolving the questiononce for all is vital ; more especially in order to compass our great end,whi ch

,as you know, is the unity of the whole Church . The questioners

supply the premisses ; we are constrained to draw the conclusion. We

have already communica ted our w ishes to the H igh Pontiff, and now we

charge you to resolve the problem speedily . If you are too Slow you

may end in saying noth ing, and disobedience to our commands will notconduce to your profit.

The bishops and abbots, encouraged by the firmness of the.

Patriarch , did not flinch before the stern aspect of the

Emperor, and several spoke out their thoughts, the othersmurmuring approval ? Later writers edifi ed their readers bycomposing orations which might have been delivered on suchan occasion . In Theodore, the abbot of Studion, the Emperorrecognised his most formidable opponent, and some words are

ascribed to Theodore, which are doubtless genuine. He is

reported to have denied the right of the Emperor to interferein ecclesiastical affairs

Leave the Church to its pastors and masters ; attend to your own

province, the State and the army. I f you refuse to do this,and are bent

on destroying our faith,know that though an angel came from heaven to

perv ert us w e would not obey him,much less you.

5

enumerates those who took a promin11rp6s 7 6. xpvo

'bpmpa. dudxr opa. (Ignatius, Vit. M e .

2 I translate freely from Ignatius .

The general tenor of the speec h isdoubtless c orrec t .37 IV m ahufiuvyou Ka i

walla/77V.

4 Theosterikto s,

ho‘yuc'

hv

Vit . N icet. 29 ,

ent part : the bishops Euthymios of

Sard is, Aemil ian of Cyzicus, Michael ofSynnada,Theophylac tus ofNicomedia,and Peter of N icaea .

5 Theosteriktos, Vit. N iest. 30

George Mon. 777 M ichael, Vit. Theod .

280,

sqq. (where, however, the strongfigure of an angel

’

s descent is omitted ) .F

66 EAS TERN ROMAN EM P IRE CHAP . I I

The protest against Caesaropapism is characteristic of

Theodore. The Emperor angrily dismissed the ecclesiastics,having assured Theodore that he had no intention of makinga martyr of him or punishing him in any way,

until thewhole question had been further investigated ?

Immediately after th is conclave an edict was issued forbidding members of the Patriarch ’s party to hold meetings or

assemble together in private houses. The iconodules werethus placed in the position of suspected conspirators

,under

the strict supervision of the Prefect of the City ; and

Nicephorus himself was practically a captive in his palace,

under the custody of one Thomas, a patrician.

The Patriarch did not yet wholly despair of convertingthe Emperor, and he wrote letters to some persons who mightexert an influence over him. He wrote to the EmpressTheodosia? exhorting her to deter her lord from his “ terribleenterprise. He also wrote to the General Logothete to the

same effect,and in more threatening language to Eutychian

,

the First Secretary. Eutychian certainly gave no heedful earto the admonitions of the pontiff. If the Empress saw goodto intervene, or if the General Logothete ventured to remonstrate

,these representations were vain. The Emperor forbade

Nicephorus to exercise any longer the functions of his office ?

Just at this time 4 the Patriarch fell sick,and if the

1 Michael, Vit. Theod . 281-284.

2 She was the daughter of Arsab er,

and showed the old coins,the Emperor

asked him whether he found them ex

p)atric ian and quaestor (Gen.

ark hints were let fall that therewas someth ing queer about her mar

riege with Leo . Perhaps she was a

relative within the forbidden limits .

Cp. i b. 19 .

3 Ignatius, Vit. N i c. 190. A curious

story is told by Michae l Syr. 71 ,that the crown of a statue of “Augustus Caesar, which stood on a highcolumn, fell off. It was difficult, butimportant, to replac e it, for it was b elieved that the crown had the powerof averting pestilence from the c ity .

When a man was found capable of the

task, the Patriarch secretly gave himsome coins and instructed him to saythat he had found them at the foot ofthe statue. He wi shed to prove thatthe representation of sacred imageswas anc ient. Whentheman descended

posed to the air or in a rece tac le. He

sa id exposed to the air.

”eEm eror

had them washed with water an the

images disappeared . The man con

fessed the imposture, and the Patriarchwas discred ited . The motif of thisfic tion is doubtless an inc ident whichoc curred in the reign of Theophilus ,when the gold c irc le (7 00¢a ) of the

equestrian statue of Justinian in theAugusteum fell, and an agile workman

reached the to of the c olumn by thedevice, inc redilile as it is described bySimeon (L eo Gr. of climbing witha rope to the roof of St. So hia, at

taching the rope to a dart, an hurlingthe dart which entered so firmly intothe statue (imrérnv, the Lat. transl .has equum) that he was able to swinghimself a long the suspended rope tothe summit of the column.

4 P robably in February.

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68 EAS TERN ROMAN EMP IRE C HAP . 11

his own sake. But there is no good reason to suppose thatLeo though t of taking the Patriarch ’s life. By such a coursehe would have gained nothing, and increased his unpopularityamong certain sections of his subjects. It was sufficient toremove Nicephorus from Constantinople

, especially as he had

been himself willing to resign his chair. On the Bosphorus,not far north of the Imperial city

,he had built himself a

retreat, known as the monastery of Agathos.

1Thither he was

first removed, b ut after a short time it was deemed expedientto increase the distance between the fallen Patriarch and the

scene of his activity. For this purpose Bardas, a nephew of

the Emperor, was sent to transport him to another but

somewhat remoter monastery of his own building,that of the

great Martyr Theodore,higher up the Bosphorus on the

Asiatic side. The want of respect which the kinsman of the

Emperor showed to his prisoner as they sailed to theirdestination made the pious shake their heads, and the tragicend of the young man four years later served as a welcometext for edifying '

sermons. Bardas as he sat on the d ecksummoned the Patriarch to his presence ; the guards did notpermit “

the great hierarch to seat himself ; and their masterirreverently maintained his sitting posture in the presence of

grey hairs. Nicephorus, seeing the haughty and presumptuousheart of -the young man

,addressed him thus : “ Fair

.

Bardas,learn by the misfortunes of others to meet your own.

” 2 The

words were regarded as a prophecy of the misfortunes in storefor Bardas.

3

On Easter day (April 1 ) Theodotos Kassiteras was

tonsured and enthroned as Patriarch of Constantinople. The

tone of the Patriarchal Palace notably altered when Theodotostook the place of Nicephorus. He isdescribed by an opponen tas a good-natured man who had a reputation for virtue

,but

was lacking in personal piety.

4I t has been already observed

that he was a relative of Constantine V.,and as soon as he

was consecrated he scandalised stricter brethren in a way

1 Ignatius, Vi t. N ic . 201 . It is not Michael, Vit. Theod . 285, as March 20.

certain on which S ide of the Strai t ar at

‘

s dM orpla cs a v,u.¢opais rawAgathos lay, but it c an b e proved that ga y-m i; M M ) , 0La1‘1060'0a t .St. Theodore was on the Asiatic (see 3 S b 1 72 Th d

'

fPargoire,B omd t

'

o'n, 476 The date

d

ee e OW’ P'

bl be e 1 5

7 11

38

of the de osition is given by Theoph .

anec on may reasona y e suspecteDe exi l. 5

?Nic . 166, as March 13, by Scr. Incert. 360.

THE REVIVAL OF I CON OCLA SM 69SECT . I I I

which that monarch would have relished. A luncheon party 1

was held in the Patriarcheion,and clerks and monks who had

eaten no meat for years, were constrained by the kindcompulsion of their host to partake unsparingly of the richviands which were set before them. The dull solemnity of an

archiepiscopal table was now enlivened by frivolous conversation ,amusing stories, and ribald w it.

2

The first duty of Theodotos was to preside at the iconoclastic Council, for which all the preparations had been made.

I t met soon after his consecration,in St. Sophia, in the

presence of the two Emperors.

3The decree of this Synod

reflects a less violen t spirit than that which had animatedthe Council assembled by Constantine V. W ith someabbreviations and omissions it ran as foll ows

The Emperors Constantine (V. ) and Leo (IV.) considering the publicsafety to depend on orthodoxy

, gathered a numerous synod of spiritualfathers and bishops, and condemned the unprofitable practice, unwarrantedby trad ition, of making and adoring icons, preferring worship in spiritand in truth .

“On th is account, the Church of G od remained tranquil for not a

few years, and th e subjects enjoyed peace, till the government passedfrom men to a woman, and the Church was distressed by female simplicity.

She followed the counsel of very ignorant bishops, she convoked an

injudicious assembly, and laid down the doctrine of painting in a materialmedium the Son and Logos of God, and of representing the Mother of

God and the Saints by dead figures, and enac ted that these representa tionsshould be adored, heedlessly defying the proper doc trine of the Church .

So she sullied our latreutic adoration,and declared that what is due onl y

to G od should b e offered to lifeless icons ; she foolishly said that theywere full of divine grace, and admitted the lighting of candles and the

burning of incense before them. T hus she caused the simme to err.

Hence w e ostracize from the Catholic Church the unauthorisedmanufacture of pseudonymous icons ;Tarasius

1 Sc r. Incert . 360 dpw rodem va,

dcfjeuner .

2 Tb . y éhoza. Kai watv ta xa l

a ca ci a/La ra. Ka i a loxpokoyla s.3 The proc eedings of this Councilwere destroyed when images wererestored ; b ut the text of the dec reehas been extrac ted li teral ly from the

anti ic onoc lastic work of the PatriarchNic ephorus entitled m 2

dyarpat h 7 01! dfiéayov K1’7\ 8pov (pre

served in cod . Paris, 1250) hy D

we rejec t the adoration defined byw e annul the decrees of his synod, on the ground that they

Serruys (see Bib liogra hy A cta con

ci lia, A .D . In t 6 first part ofthis treatise (unpublished , but see

Fabric ius, B ibl . Gr . ed. Harles, vii .

610 sq . ) Nic ephoru s reproduced and

c ommented on the princ ipa l dec rees ofthe iconoc las tic c ounc ils. The othersources for the synod of 815 are

Theodore Stud . Epp . ii. 1 ; M ichaelII . Ep . ad L ud . ; Scr. Incert. 36o-361 ;Theosteriktos, Vit . Niost. xxx . Cp.

Mansi, xiv . 135 sqq. 417 .

70~ EAS TE RN ROMAN EMP IRE CHAP. 11

granted undue honour to pictures ; and we condemn the l ighting of

candles and offering of incense.

But gladly accepting the holy Synod , which met at Blachernae inth e temple of the unspotted Virgin in the reign of Constantine and Leo

as firmly based on the doctrine of the Fathers, we decree that themanufacture of icons— we abstain from calling them idols

,for there are

degrees of evil— is neither worshipful nor serviceable.

” 1

The theological theory of image-worship must b e left todivinesl In its immediate aspect, the question migh t seem to

have no reference to the abstract problems of metaphysicaltheology which had divided the Church in previous ages. But

it was recognised by the theological champions of both parties 2

that the adoration of images had a close theoretical connexionwith the questions of Christology which the Church professedto have settled at the Council of Chalcedon . The gravestcharge which the leading exponents of image-worship broughtagainst the iconoclastic doctrine was that it compromised or

implicitly denied the Incarnation. It is to be observed thatthis inner and dogmatic

'

import of the controversy,although

it appears in the early stages,3is far more conspicuous in the

disputations which marked the later period of iconoclasm .

To the two most prominent defenders of pictures, the PatriarchNicephorus and the abbot of Studion, this is the Crucial point .They both regard the iconoclasts as heretics who have lapsedin to the errors of Arianism or M onophysitismf

"The other

aspects of the veneration of sacred pictures are treated as of

secondary importance in the writings of Theodore of Studion ;

the particular question of pictures of Christ absorbs his

1 dwpoaxévnros Ka i dxpna'

ros.

2 In the Ac ts of the Synod of A .D .

753 the iconoc lasts attemptedto show that image

-worship involvedeither Monophysitism or Nestorianism(Mansi, xiii . 247 Cp. Schwarzlose

,Der B i lderstrez

‘

t,92 sgq.

3 John of Damascus i. 4, 16,etc . ) bases the legitimacy of pic tureson the Incarnation.

See the First Antirrhesis of N ic e

phorus, who observes that ConstantineV. made war from} . 1 779 7 00 M ovoyevofis

olxovoy ia s Cp. also i b . 221, 244,and 248-249 . The works of Theodoreon th is question are subtler than thoseof N ic ephorus . H is Third Anlir

rhetikos would probably b e consideredby theologians spec ially important.It turns largely on the notion of r ept

7 pa¢7§, expound ing the doc trine thatChrist was wept

-wa r m s (as wel l as

dr epl c ircumsc ript and capable of being delineated . Theodoreconstruc ted a philosophical theory of

ic onology , which is somewhat mystical and seems to have been influencedby Neo-Platonism. It is based on theprinc iple that not only does the copy(elxu

’

w) imply the prototype, but theprototype implies the copy ; they areidentica l KaO

'

opolworw ,though not

xar’

ofw'lau. See passages quoted bySchwarzlose

,180 sqq. Schneider

,105

sq.

SECT . 111 THE REVIVAL OF ICONOCLASM 71

interest, as the great point at issue, believing, as he did, tha ticonoclasm was an insidious attack on the orthodox doctrineof the Incarnation .

W e must now glance at the ac ts of oppression and persecution of which Leo is said to have been guilty against thosewho refused to join his party and accept the guidance of

the new Patriarch . Most eminent among the sufferers was

Theodore,the abbot of Studion,

who seemed fated to incur thedispleasure of his sovrans. He had been persecuted in the

reign of Constantine VI . ; he had been persecuted in the reignof Nicephorus ; he was now to b e persecuted more sorely stillby Leo the Armenian . He had probably spoken bolder wordsthan any of his party, when the orthodox bishops and abbotsappeared before the Emperor. He is reported to have saidto Leo

’

s face that it was useless and harmful to talk with a

heretic ; and if this b e an exaggeration of his admiringbiographer, he certainly told him that Church matters wereoutside an Emperor ’s province. When the edict went forth ,through the mouth of the Prefect of the City, forbidding theiconodules to utter their opinions in public or to hold anycommunications one with another

,Theodore said that silence

was a crime.

1At this juncture b e encouraged the Patriarch

in his,

firmness, and when the‘ Patriarch was dethroned ,

addressed to him a congratulatory letter, and on Palm Sunday(March caused the monks of Studion to carry their holyicons round the monastery in solemn procession, singinghymns as they went.2 And when the second pseudo-synod(held after Easter) was approaching, he supplied his monkswith a formula of refusal, in case they should be summoned totake part in it.

'

By all these acts, wh ich, coming from a man

of his influence were doubly significant , he made himself so

obnoxious to the author of the iconoclastic policy, that at

length he was thrown into prison . His correspondence thenbecame known to the Emperor, and among his recent letters,one to Pope Paschal, describing the di visions of the Church ,was conspicuous. Theodore was accompanied into exile byNicolas, one of the Studite brethren .

3They were first sent

to a fort named Metopa situated on the Mysian Lake of

1 Theodore, Epp. ii. 2 ; Michael, 2 M ichae l, Vit. Theod . 285 .

Vi t. Theod . 284.

3 Vit. Nicola i Stud . 881 .

72 EAS TERN ROMAN EM P IRE CHAP . 11

The second prison was Bonita ,

2and there the

sufferings of the abbot of Studion are said to have beenterrible. H is biographer deligh ts in describing the stripeswh ich were inflicted on the saint 3 and dwells on the sufferingswhich he underwent from the extremes of heat and cold as

the seasons changed . The visitations of fleas and lice in the

ill-kept prison are not omitted. In reading such accounts wemust make a large allowance for the exaggeration of a bigotedpartisan

,and we must remember that in all ages the hardships

of imprisonment endured for political and religious causes are

seldom or never fairly stated by those who sympathize withthe martyrs.

”In the present instance, the harsh treatment

is intelligible. If Theodore had only consen ted to hold hispeace, without surrendering his Opinions, he would have beenallowed to live quietly in some monastic retreat at a distancefrom Constantinople. If he had behaved with the dignity of

Nicephorus, whose example he might well have imitated, hewould have avoided the pains of scourgings and the unpleasantexperiences of an oriental prison-house. From Bonita he wastransferred to the city of Smyrna

,and thrown in to a dungeon ,

where he languished until at the accession of Michael I I . he

was released from prison . In Smyrna he came into contactwith a kinsman of Leo, named Bardas, who resided there as

Strategos of the Thrakesian Theme. There can b e little doubtthat this Bardas was the same young man who showed scantcourtesy to the fallen Patriarch Nicephorus, on his way to themonastery of St. T heodore . At Smyrna Bardas fell sick ,and someone, who believed in the divine powers of the famousabbot of Studion, advised him to consul t the prisoner.

Theodore exhorted the nephew of Leo to abjure his uncle’s1 Called at this time the Lake of Lake Anava

,east of Chonae. For

Apollonia (Vit. N i c. Stud ) , after theimportant town at its eastern c orner .

Cp. Pargoire, Sa int TMophane, 70.

Theodore remained for ayearatMetopa,

April 15 , 815-816 spring, ib. 7 1 .

Our data for the loc ation of Bonitaare it was 100miles from the Lyc iancoast (Theodore, Ep. 75, p . 61, ed .

Cozza-Luzi) , near a salt lake in

the Anatolic Theme (ib. Ep. 10, p .10) and Chonae lay on the road fromit to Smyrna . Hence Pargoire, op.

cit. 70-71, places it c lose to Aj i-TuzGol, the lake of bitter waters, ” i . e.

this lake see Ramsay, Phrygia ,i. 230.

(Cp. also Pargoire, in Echos d’

Or ient,vi . 207-212,3 In the Vit. N ic . Stud . it is statedthat Theodore and Nic olas rec eiveda hundred strokes each , for writingc ertain letters. Afterwards they werebeatenwith fresh withies called rhecae.

Moreover, their hands were bound withre es which were drawn very tight.Tlibir imprisonment at Smyrna lasted20 months, so that they left Boni tain May

- June 819 (Pargoire, Saint

The’

ophane,

ss c r . 111 THE RE VI VAL OF ICONOCLASM 73

heresy . The virtue of the saint proved efl‘icac ious ; the youngman recovered ; but the repentance was hollow,

he returnedto his error ; then retribution followed and he died . This isone of the numerous stories invented to glorify the abbot ofStudion,

the bulwark of image-worship.

l

One of the gravest offences of Theodore in the Emperor’seyes was doub tless his at tempt to excite the Pope to in tervenein the controversy. We have two le tters which he , in con

junction with o ther image-worshippers, addressed to PopePaschal I . from Bonita.

2H is secret couriers maintained com

munications with Rome,3 where some important members of

the party had found a refuge,

4and Paschal was induced to

send to Leo an argumen tative letter in defence of images.

5

The rigour of the treatment dealt out to Theodore wasexceptional. Many of the orthodox ecclesiastics who attendedthe Synod of April A.D . 8 1 5 submitted to the resolutions of

that assembly. Those who held out were left at large till theend of the year, but early in A.D. 8 1 6 they were conducted todistant places of exile. This hardship, however, was intendedonly to render them more amenable to the gentler method of

persuasion . After a few days,they were recalled to Con

stantin0ple, kep t in mild confinemen t,and after Easter (April

they were handed over to John the Grammarian , whopresided over the monastery of Saints Sergius and Bacchus.

He undertook to convince the abbots of their theological error,and his efforts were crowned with success in the case of at

least seven . Others resisted the arguments of the seducer ,and among them were Hilarion, the Exarch of the Patriarchalmonasteries

,and Theophanes the Chronographer.

6

1 These details about Theodore ’sbanishment are derived from Theodore's Letters, from Michael ’s Vita

Theodori , and a few from the Vita

2 Theodore, Epp . ii . 12 and 13 .

Paschal was elec ted in Jan . 817 , and

the letters belong probably to 817 and

818 respec tively . John of Eukairia , a

signatory of the first letter, did not

sign the second he had in the mean

time joined the iconoc lasts (ib . ii.3 Dionysios who was in Rome at

the beginning of 817 Euphemian (i b.

ii . and Epiphanes, who was

c aught and imprisoned at Constanti

n0ple (Ep . 277, Cozza-Luzi) .4 Method ius

,abbot of Chénolakkos

(afterwards Patriarch of Constantinople) John

, Bishop of Monemb asia

(Ep. 193. Cozza-Luzi) .5 Part of this epistle is preserved in

a Greek version and has been edited byG . M ercati, N ote di lettera tura bi blica

e cristiana antica z Studi i Testi ,227 sqq. , 1901 . It c ontains some argu

ments which appear to b e new .

6 Our c hief source here is Theosteriktos, Vit. N ic . xxx . sq. Nicetas,abbot of Medikion, was taken to

Masalaion (possibly in Lycaonia, cp.

Ramsay, Asia M inor, where he

74 EAS TERN ROMAN EM P IRE CHAP. 11

Theophanes, whose chronicle was almost our only guidefor the first twelve years of the ninth century

,had lived a

life unusually ascetic even in his own day,in the monastery

of Agros, at Sigriane near Cyzicus.

1He had not been present

at the Synod nor sent into exile,b ut in the spring of A.D.

8 1 6 the Emperor sent him a flattering message, couched insoft words, requesting him to come to pray for us who are

about to march against the Barbarians. Theophanes, whowas suffering from an acute attack “

of kidney disease ,2 obeyedthe command, and was afterwards consigned to the custody of

John . Proving obstinate he was confined in a cell in the

Palace of Eleutherios for nearly two years, and when he wasmortally ill of his malady

,he was removed to the island of

Samothrace where he expired (March 1 2 ,A.D . 8 18 ) about

three weeks after his arrival.3

When we find that Leo’s oppressions have been exaggeratedin particular cases, we shall b e all the more inclined to allowfor exaggeration in general descriptions of his persecutions.We read that some were put to dea th by the sword, otherstied in sacks and sunk like stones in water, and women werestripped naked in the presence of . men and s

'courged.

” 4If

remained for only 5 days. He suc

c umb ed to the arguments of John,but afterwards repented , and was

banished to the island of St. G lyc eria“ in the Gul f,” which B iittner-Wob st

(B .Z. vi . 98 sq. ) identifies (unconvincingly) with N iandro. See also Theodore, Ep. 79, Cozza-Luzi, and Epp. ii.

9 ; Sabas, Vit. Maca r . 154 (Makariosof Pelekete was one of those who didnot yield ) ; and the Vitae of Theophanes. John was assisted in his

work by Joseph,famous as the subj ec t

of the Moechian controversy . Theodore Stud . wrote to Theophanes(while he was in SS. Sergius and

Bacchus) , congratulating h im on his

firmness (Ep. 140, Cozza-Luzi) .‘ 1 Sigriane has been located in the

environs of Kurchunlu,at the foot of

Karadagh, between the mouth of theRhyndakos and Cyzicus. See T . E.

Euangelides ,'

H Maui; rfis -Ecypza vfis i)7 06 M eydhou

’

Aypofi (Athens, 1895 ) 11sqq. Pargoire, op. cit. 112 sqq. The

island ofKalonymos (anc ient Besb ikos ,modern Emir Ali Adasse ) , mentionedin the biographies of Theophanes, whofounded a monastery on it, lies due

north of the estuary of the Rhyndakos .

Sigriane is to b e carefullydistinguishedfrom Sigréne near the river Granikos,with which Ramsay (Asia M inor , 162 )and others have identified it (Pargoire,ib . 45

3 N ic ephorus Blach . Vi t. Theoph .

23 . Theophanes had stone in the

bladder.

3 For"

the day see Anon. B . Vi t.

Theoph . 397 (and Anon. C. Fort he year see Pargoire , op. cit. 73 sqqwho fixes 818 by a proc ess of exc lusion.

Note that Anon. A. (p. 12 ) and Theod.

Prot. Enko'mio n 616, say that Theophanes received 300 strokes before h isremoval from Constantinople if thiswere true, the other biographer wouldnot have failed to mention it .

4 Ignatius, Vi t. N ic. 206. The bestevidenc e for the severity of the persecution is in Theodore Stud .

’

s lettersto Pope Pascha l and the Patriarch o fAlexandria (Epp . ii. 12, He

mentions deaths from sc ourging and

drownings in sacks (610 2 63 ot xa l

o axw évr es éflahaao eufinoav dwpla, Lbs

oa¢és yéyovev (SK 1131! 7 0197 0 11; Oeao auéuwv,

p.

https://www.forgottenbooks.com/join

76 EAS TE RN R OMAN E AIP IRE'

CHAP. 11

penalties. Again,it is quite possible that during the destruo

tion of pictures in the city, which ensued on their condemna

tion by the Synod, serious riots occurred in the streets,and

death penalties may have been awarded to persons who

attemp ted to frustrate the execution of the imperial commands.

We are told that “the sacred representations ” 1 were at the

mercy of anyone who chose to work his wicked will uponthem. Holy vestments, embroidered with sacred figures, weretorn into shreds and cast ignominiously upon the ground ;pictures and illuminated missals were cut up with axes and

burn t in the public squares. Some of the baser sort insultedthe icons by smearing them with cow-dung and foul-smellingointmen ts.

2

1 Ignatius, Vit. N ic. éx'

r vmbna'

r a .

3 l b. Bohfi ir ow Ka i dhmqfiais Ka l andtfoéoa ts Karéxpaw ou.

M ICHAEL II.,THE AMORIAN

(A.D . 820-829)

1 . The Accession of M’

ichael (A .D . The Corona tion

and Marriage of Theophilus (A .D. 821 )

WHILE his accomplices were assassinating the Emperor,

Michael lay in his cell,awaiting the issue of the enterprise

which meant for him death or empire,according as it failed or

prospered. The conspirators, as we have seen,did not bungle

in their work, and when it was accomplished,they hastened

to greet 'Michael as their new master, and to hear him in

triumph to the Imperial throne. W ith his legs still encasedin the iron fetters he sat on his august seat, and all t he

servants and oflicers of the palace congregated to fall at his

feet. Time, perhaps, seemed to fly quickly in the surprise of

his new position,and it was not till midday that the gyves

which so vividly reminded him of the sudden change of his

fortunes were struck off his limbs. The historians tell of a

diffi cul ty-in finding the key of the fet ters,and it was John

Hexabulios, Logothete of the Course, who remembered thatLeo had hidden it in his dress.

l

Abou t noon ,2 without washing his hands or making anyother seemly preparation

,Michael

,attended by his supporters,

proceeded to the Great Church, there to receive the Imperialcrown from the hands of the Patriarch, and to obtain recognition from the

'people. No hint is given as to the attitudeof the Patriarch Theodotos to the conspiracy

,but he seems

1 According to Cont. Th . or broken with a hammerhowever, the key was not forthcom Ghao fi éw wv) .ing, and the fetters were loosened 3 At the seventh hour, Gen. 30.

78 EA S TE RN ROMAN EM P IRE CHAP. 111

to have made no difficulty in performing the ceremony of

coronation for the successful conspirator. The Amorian

soldier received the crown from the prelate’s hands,and the

crowd was ready to acclaim the new Augustus. Those whoheld to image worship did not regret the persecutor of theirfaith

,but thought that he had perished justly ; and perhaps

to most in that superstitious populace the worst feature in thewhole work seemed to b e that his blood had stained a holybuilding.

1 We have already seen how Michael dealt with theEmpress Theodosia and her children .

The new Roman Emperor 2 was a rude provincial,coarse

in manners, ill-educated, and superstitious. But he was

vigorous,ambitious, and prudent, and he had worked his way

up in the army by his own energy and perseverance .

Amorion , the city of his birth , in Upper Phrygia, was at thistime an important place

,as the capital of the Anatolic

province. I t was the goal of many a Saracen 1nvasion. I ts

strong walls had defied the generals of the Caliphs in the

days of the Isaurian Leo ; but it was destined, soon after ithad won the glory of giving a dynasty to the Empire, to b ecaptured by the Unbelievers. This Phrygian town

'

was a

head-quarter for Jews, and for the heretics who were known as

Athingani.3 I t is said that Michael inherited from his parents

Athingan views,4but according to another account he was a

Sabbatian .

5 Whatever b e the truth about this, he was inclinedto tolera te heresies, of wh ich he must have seen much at his

native town in the days of his youth . He was also favourably disposed to the Jews ; but the statement that his grandfather was a converted Jew does not rest on very goodauthority.

6 It is certain that his parents were of humblerank, and that his youth , spent among heretics, Hebrews, andhalf-Hellenized Phrygians, was subject to influences whichwere very different from the Greek polish of the capital . One

so trained must have felt himself strange among the men of

old nobility,of Hellenic education , and ecclesiastical ortho

1 Such was the thought of the 5 Niceta s, Vit. Ign. 216. The

Continuer of Theophanes, 42 . Sabbatians were a fourth-c entury OH3 H is age on his acc ession is not shoot from the Novatia‘

ns ; they heldrecorded

,b ut he was c ertainly wel l that Easter should b e c elebrated on

over forty . the same day and in the same manner3 See above, p. 40. as the Jewish feast .4 Cont. Th . 42 .

3 Michael Syr. 72.

SECT . 1 M I CHAE L I I . 79

doxy 1 with whom he had to deal in Constantinople . He did

not disguise his contempt for Hellenic culture,2 and he is

handed down to history as an ignorant churl. Such a man

was a good aim for the ridicule of witty Byzantines , and it isrecorded that many lampoons were published on the crownedboor.

3

The low-born Phrygian who founded a new dynasty in theninth century reminds us of the low-born Dardanian who

founded a new dynasty exactly three hundred years before.

The first Justin , like the second Michael, was ignorant of

letters. I t was told of Justin that he had a mechanicalcontrivance for making his signature , and of Michael it waspopularly reported that another could read through a bookmore quickly than he could Spell out the six letters of h is

name.

4 They were both soldiers and had worked their wayup in the service, and they both held the same post at the

time of their elevation . Justin was the commander of the

Excub itors when he was called upon to succeed Anastasius,even as Michael when he stepped in to the place of Leo. ButMichael could not say like Justin that his hands were pure of

blood . The parallel may be carried still further. The soldierof Ulpiana ,

like the soldier of Amorion,reigned for about nine

years, and each had a successor who was a remarkable contrastto himself. After the rude Justin , came his learned and

intellectual nephew Justinian ; after the rude Michael,his

polished son Theophilus.

Michael shared the superstitions which were not confinedto his own class. He was given to consulting soothsayersand diviners ; and, if report spoke true , his career was directedby prophecies and omens. I t is said that his first marriagewas brough t about through the utterances of a soothsayer .

He had been an officer in the army of the Anatolic Theme, indays before he had entered the service of Bardanes. The

general of that Theme,whose name is not recorded

, was as

ready as most of his contemporaries to believe in prognosti

cation, and when one of the Athingan sect who professed to1 Op. Finlay

,ii. pp. 128, 129 . is described as not so cruel as Leo

,but

2 Cont. Th . 49‘

Ehhnmxhur d. mivra. ‘

ycw'

rpl xaptf‘

énevos Ka i oxedbv

r a laevow dia r r éwv,Where He llenic is 3”avfipwrrelcp “WW TPW’UV

Ka i dia cr a v duaaa fdy evos.no t used in the bad sense ofpagan .

4 Cont. Th . 49 , c learly taken from3 I I) . In the Acta David is , 230, b e one of the popular l ampoons .

80 EAS TE RN RO/WAN EM P IRE CHAP. 111

tell fortunes, declared to him that Michael and another offi cerof his staff were marked out for Imperial rank in the future

,

he lost no time . in taking measures to unite them with hisfamily. He prepared a feast, and chose them out of all the

officers to b e his guests, to their own astonishment. But a

greater surprise awaited them,for when they were heated with

wine, he offered them his daughters in marriage. At thisunexpected condescension, the young men, of whom one at

least was of humble birth , were stupefi ed and speechless.

They drew back at first froman honour of which they deemedthemselves unworthy ; but the superstitious general overcametheir scruples, and the marriages took place. Thus it came aboutthat Michael won Thecla,1 who became the mother of the

Emperor Theophilus. The other son-in-law,whoever he may

have been, was not so fortunate ; in his case the soothsayerwas conspicuously at fault.2

0

Theophilus, for whom Leo V. had probably stood sponsor,

3

was adult when his father came to the throne, and on the

following Whitsunday (May 1 2 A .D. 82 1 ) Michael, accordingto the usual practice, secured the succession by elevating himto the rank of Basileus and Augustus.

4The ceremony of

his marriage was celebrated on‘

the same occasion.

5 Having1 Her name is known from Con

stantine, Cer. 645, and Michael Syr.

72. Simeon and the Vita Theodorae

state that Theophilus was the son of

Michael ’s second wife, Euphrosyne .

3 The story is told by Gen. 31

( z oont. Th.

3 Gen. 12.

4 The true date of the elevation of

Theophilus and his marriage has beenascertained by Brooks (B .Z. 10, 540

The will of Justinian, Duke of

Venice, equates indic tion 7 (A .D . 828

829 ) _

with the ninth year of M ichaeland the eighteenth (mistake for eighth )of Theophilus . This is compatiblewith his coronation inA .D . 821 or 822 .

Now there are no co ins of Michael II.a lone (see Wroth , ii. and thisfac t, c ombined with the probabilitythat the Emperor would not de laylong to crown his son, justifies us indec iding for 821 . The day of the

c eremony is recorded by Simeon.

5 Simeon (Theod. Mel. or é¢e¢6é 6 e06cbpav éu ei

’

m‘

rnpfq: 7 00

Er eqbo'wov, UT €¢9€lS xal (i f/T bs am adrfi

91rd'

Av1'wvlov na rptdpxov Ka i 7 43 7 00

ydnou m l 1 43 7 739 fiao chela s o r é¢e¢ r fidy la neurnxoo rfi. (Cp. vers. S la/v. 93,and Add . Georg . 790 the text of LeoGr. is imperfec t . ) See Brooks, 0p. cit.

542 , who rightly says that this is an

authentic notic e which must be separated from the legend which precedesit. It is not c lear whether all thesec eremonies were performed on thesame day. The crowning of Theophilus with the d iadem (c r é/ma. or

steam) must have come first, and

was performed in St. SOphia ; the

c eremony is desc ribed in Constantine ,Ger . 1. 38. We must not press thenotice so as to imply that M ichael wasabsent himsel f and deputed the Patriarch to crown h is son. Except in theEmperor ’s absenc e

, the Patriarchhanded the crown to him

, and helac ed it on his colleague’s head .

he marriage c eremony was alwaysperformed in the Church ofSt. Stephenin Daphne, and is described Cer. i .

39 (the nuptial crown is or ecpd na ,

as distinguished from the Imperial

ss c r . 1 THE M ARR IA GE OF THE OPH IL US 81

received the Imperial crown from his father’s hands in St.

Sophia, he was wedded by the Patriarch,in the Church of

St. Stephen in the Palace, to Theodora,a Paphlagonian lady

,

whose father and uncle were offi cers in the army.

1The

ceremony was followed by her coronation as Augusta.

It is probable that the provincial Theodora,of an obscure

but well-to-do family, was discovered by means of the bride-showcus tom which in the eighth and ninth centuries was habituallyemployed for the purpose of selecting brides for Imperialheirs. Messengers were sent into the provinces to search formaidens who seemed by their exceptional physical attractionsand their mental quali ties worthy of sharing the throne of

an Emperor. They were guided in their selection by certainfixed standards ; they rejected all candidates who did not

conform ,in stature and in the dimensions of their heads and

feet, to prescribed measures of beauty.

2It was thus that

Maria, discovered in a small town in Paphlagonia,came to be

the consort of Constantine VI .,

3and we saw how a bride-show

was held for the wedding of Stauracius.

4In later times

Michael I II . and Leo VI . would win their brides in the samefashion ; 5 and it is not improbable that Irene of Athensowed her marriage with Leo IV. to this custom .

The bride-show of Theophilus has been embroidered withlegendary details, and it has been misdated, but there is no

reason for doubting that it was actually held. The storyrepresents Theophilus as still unmarried when he became sole

Emperor after his father’s death . H is stepmother Euphrosyne

o’

réppa ) . The c oronation of the unc le, the general Manuel, was an

Augusta was c elebrated in the same

plac e (ib . i . The proc edure wherethe marriage and c oronation of an

Augusta were c ombined is describedib. i . 41 . For the succession of

Antonius to the Patriarc hate, see

below ,p . 1 15 .

1 Her father was Marinos , a drungarios, ifnot a turmarch . He belongedto the town of Eb issa (Cont. Th .

In the same pa ssage the fac t thatTheodora had been crowned “ longago ,

”7 61 11 1 (in, i . e. be fore her husband ’

s

ac c ession to the autoc racy, is recorded .

For the family relations of Theodorasee below, Chapter V. p . 156, Genea

logical Table. She was of Armeniandesc ent, a t leas t on one side, for her

Armenian (Co nt. Th.

3 Vita Phi lareti , ed . Vasil’

ev, in

I zn. Epl. v . 76. The Im erial agentsmeasured Maria

’

s height, er Xa vpdr ov,i . e. her head and fac e, and her foot(1 09 1 0669 7 6 r idd en) .3 I 6. 74 sqq.

4 Above,p. 15 .

5 M ichae l III . : Vi ta Irenes, 603.

Leo VI. : Vita Theopha nus , ed. Kurtz(Zapiski

'

imp. Ah. N auk. viii° ser.

iii . 2 p. The custom, b utperhaps in a modified form, made its

way into France : Lewis the Pious

chose his wife Judith , inspectis plerisque nobi lium fi liabus (Ann. r . Fr .

150, A .D .

82 EAS TE RN ROM AN EM P IRE CHAP. 111

assembled the maidens, who had been gathered from all the

provinces,in the Pearl-chamber in the Palace, and gave the

Emperor a golden apple to bestow upon her who pleased himbest .1 Theophilus halted before Kasia ,

a lady of strikingbeauty and literary attainments, and addressed to her a cynicalremark, apparently couched in metrical form,

2to which she

had a ready answer in the same style.

TheophilusA woman was the fount and source

Of all man’s tribulation.

Kasia

And from a woman sprang the course

Of man’s regeneration.

The boldness of the retort did not please the Emperor, and

he gave the golden apple to Theodora.

I t was in the spring of A.D . 8 2 1,and not nine years later,

that Theophilus made his choice,and it was his mother,

Thecla,if she was still alive, and not Euphrosyne, who

presided over the bride-show.

8 Some may think that thegolden apple, the motif of the judgment of Paris, must b erejected as a legendary trait in the story ; yet it seemspossible that the apple had been delibera tely borrowed fromthe G reek

'

myth as a symbol by which the Emperor intimatedhis choice and was a regular feature of the Byzantine brideshows. Nor does there seem any reason to doubt that thepoetess Kasia was one of the chosen maidens ; and the passagebetween her and the Emperor is

,if not true , happily invented

so far as her extant epigrams reveal her character.

4Dis

1 The story in its genuine form is

told by Simeon (Add . Georg . Itis c ompletely altered and corrupted inVi ta Theodorae

,4 (see below ) . The

Pearl-c hamber (,uap‘yaplr ov rplxhw os) isan anachronism. It was one of the

new buildings of Theophilus himse l f(see below, p. The bride-show of

Leo VI . was held 51! “rm flamh xqfi

r antelcp Tfis 1repq8hé1r‘

r ov Max/0. 15pm (VitaTheOphanus, loc .

3 With slight change the dialoguein the chronic le falls into the pol itical metre,” which I have reproducedin English

9 . ( 45 6161 yvvaucos < elo>epp15n rd

M ilka .

K. dhhd Ka i 51a yvuambs rd. e lrr oua.

ww dg‘

et .

(text : my . 1 6. I pointed thisout in G ibbon, v. 199 note, and Engl.H ist. Rev. xiii. p . 340

3 Eudoc ia, his mother (not Basil ) ,manages the bride-show of Leo VI .

(Vita Theophanus , loc. cit. )4 Her strong opinions came out in

her epigrams she did not suffer foolsgladly see the verses on the ndpos inKrumbaoher, Kasia ,

p . 362, cp. p. 365 .

Three hymns of Kasia are printed in

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84 EAS TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE CHAP. 111

2 . The Civil War (A.D. 8 2 1 -8 23 )

Of the three actors in the historical drama which was

said to have been shadowed forth by the soothsayer of

Philomelion,one has passed finally from the scene. The last

act is to take the form of a conflict between the two survivors,Michael of Amorion and Thomas of Gaziura. This conflict isgenerally known as the rebellion of Thomas

, but it assumedthe dimensions and the dignity of a civil war. Two rivalsfought for a crown

,which one of them had seized, but could

not yet b e said to have firmly grasped. Michael had beenregularly elected, acclaimed, and crowned in the capital, andhe had the advantage of possessing the Imperial city. H is

'

adversary had the support of most of the As iatic provinces ;he was only a rebel because he failed.

We have seen how Thomas clung to his master and patronBardanes whom others had deserted (A.D. When thecause of Bardanes was lost, he probably saved himself byfleeing to Syria and taking up his abode among the Saracens,l

with whom he had lived before. For in the reign of Irenehe had entered the service of a patrician

,

2and,

having beendiscovered in an attempt to commit adul tery with his

master’s wife , he was constrained to seek a refuge in the

dominions of the Caliph , where he seems to have lived fora considerable time.

c eased to attend to the conversation.

Theophilus expressed astonishment athis rudeness, and the poet said to theinterpreter, “ Tell thy master that Iam so captivated by the charms of thisqueen that I am prevented fromlistening. Say that I never saw in

my life a handsomer woman.

" “ He

then began to describe one by one all

her charms, and to paint his amazement at her inc omparable beauty, andc onc luded by saying that she had

captivated h im with her black eyes(Makkari

,ii.

1 There is an explic it statement inthe Acta Davidia (a well - informedsource ) , 232 having served Bardanes,he fled, on ac count of misdeeds , tothe Sarac ens and lay quiet duringthe reigns of N ic ephorus, Staurac ius,Michael I. , and a great part of Leo

’

s

H is second sojourn there lasted for

reign (this is incorrec t) . M ichael II .,

inEp. ad L ud . 417 , says that-he abodeamong the unbel ievers until the reignof Leo

,and during that time became

a Mohammadan in order to gain influence with the Saracens.

3 For a d iscussion of the difli culties,see Bury, i . 55 sqq. , where it isshown that the patric ian was not

Bardanes, as Genesios allegesM ichael (Ep. ad L ad , i b . ) does not

name the atrician. The fac t seems to

b e that T omas first fl ed c . A .D . 788,and only returned in A . D . 803 to assistBardanes so that hemight b e roughlydescribed as having lived with the

Sarac ens for twenty-fi ve years (Gen.

This I now believe to b e the trueexplanation of the twenty-fi ve years ,and not that which I suggested loc.

ss cr . 11 THE CI VIL WAR 85

about ten years (A.D . 803 W e saw how he received'

a

military command from his old fellow-ofli cer,Leo the Armenian

,

and he rose in arms shortly before that Emperor’s death .

1

I f he was tempted to rise against Leo, much more was b etemp ted to dispute the crown with Michael

,with whom he

seems to have had a rivalry of old standing.

2Thomas was

much the elder of the two ; at the time of his rising he wasan old man. One of his legs was maimed ; but his age and

lameness did not impair his activity. The lame man was

personally more popular than the lisper ; for, while Michael’

s

manners were coarse and brusque,Thomas was courteous and

urbane.

3H is Slavonic origin hardly counted against him ;"

men were by this time becoming fami liar with RomaeizedSlavs.

But Thomas did not come forward as himself ; and thisis a strange feature of the rebellion which it is diffi cult tounderstand . He did not offer himself to the inhabitants of

Asia Minor as Thomas of Ga ziura,but he pretended that he

was really one who was generally supposed to b e dead,a

crowned Augustus, no other than Constantine the Sixth , sonof Irene . That unfortunate Emperor, blinded by the ordersof his mother

,had died

,if not before her dethronement, at all

events in the first years of N icephorus.

5The operation of

blinding had not been performed in public, and a pretendermight construct a tale that another had been substituted

,

and that the true Constantine had escaped . But it is hard tosee how the fraud could have been successful even for a timein the case of Thomas. He might easily enough have palmedhimself off among barbarian neighbours as the deposedEmperor. Or if he had produced an obscure stranger and

given out that this was Constan tine who for more than twentyyears had lurked in some safe h iding-place, we could understand that the fiction might have imposed on the Themes of

Asia . But we cannot easily conceive how one who had beenrecently before the eye of the world as Thomas, Commander

1 See above, p . 46 and p . 48. fi lled the Patriarchal .

chair seventy2 Gen. 32 dvéxaflev ‘

ydp dkhfihocs years bask— N i c etas,m the reign of

dvr cwer ovOé‘rws di lo '

ravr o.

C°n5133 11t1 113 V

3 Cont Th 53

5 Before the year A .D . 806, as i s

proved by Theodore Stud . Epp . 1. 314 But observe the GI xa l 070 191w (and cp. Gen. 35 ) see Brooks, B .Z. ix.

yéva of Genesios, 32 . A Slav had 654 sqq.

86 EAS TERN R OMAN EM P IRE CHAP. 111

of the Federa tes, and whose earlier career must have beenmore or less known by his con temporaries, could suddenlypersuade people that all this time he was not himself. One

almost suspects that some link in the chain of events is lostwhich might have explained the feasibility of the deceit . If

Thomas had withdrawn for some years to Syria,he migh t

have returned in the new character of an Augustus who wassupposed to b e dead. And indeed in one account of the

rebellion it is implied that he started from Syria, perhaps withsome Saracen support at his back .

1

The pretender was not content with being Constantine ,son of I rene ; he resolved

,like Constantine the Great, to have

a son named Constan tius. Accordingly he adopted a man of

mongrel race,whose true name is unknown, and called him

Constantius. Our record describes this adopted son in termsof the utmost contempt, -as a base and ugly mannikin .

2

But he must have had some ability,for his father trusted

him with the command of armies.

I t is impossible to distinguish with certain ty the earlystages of the insurrection of Thomas, or to determine how farit had spread at the time ofMichael’s accession . He establishedhis power by winning the district of Obaldia, in eastern Pontus.

He also secured some strong places in the Armeniac Theme, inwhich Gaziura, his native town, was situated

,but the soldiers

of this Theme did not espouse his cause. It was to the

eastern provinces that he chiefly looked for support at first,but his power presently extended to the west. The falseConstantine and his son could soon reckon the greater part ofAsia Minor

,from the borders of Armenia to the shores of the

Aegean,as their dominion . The Paulician heretics, who were

persecuted by Leo,

flocked to their standard . They in terceptedthe taxes which should have been conveyed to Constantinopleand used the money for winning adherents to their cause.

1 Gen. 36 ; Cont. Th . 5 1 Acta Da 'v.

232 . There is a confusion in thistrad ition between the beginning of the

Harun, who treated him with honouras an Emperor’s son

, to give h im an

army to overthrow the Emperorrebellion and the allianc e of Thomaswith the Saracens in A .D . 821 .

According to Michael Syr. 37, Thomas,

whose father ’

s name was Mdsmar, waswith the Sarac ens before the death of

Harun,and pretended to b e the so nof

Constantine VI . He tried to persuade

(Nic ephorus) . Mamun, however, gave

h im an army soit pour s'

emparerde l ’empire des Romaine et le lui

livrer (ensuite) soit pour les troublerpar la guerre. Cp. Bar-Heb raeus

,

150.

3 1h.

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88 EAS TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE CHAP. 111

agreed not only to surrender certain border territories whichare not specified

,but to become a tributary of the Caliph .

1

After the conclusion of this treaty, which turned a foe

into a friend, we expect to find the Emperor Constantinehastening back to recover the throne of the Isaurians. But

before he left Syria he took a strange step. W ith the

consent or at the instance of his new allies he proceeded to

Antioch,in order to b e crowned by the Patriarch Job as

Basileus of the Romans. The coronation of a RomanEmperor in Antioch in the ninth century was a singularevent . We cannot imagine that Thomas was accompaniedthither by his army ; b ut doubtless the Greek Christians of

the place flocked to see the unaccustomed sight, and when the

Patriarch Job placed the crown on the head of the Basileusthey may have joined his attendants in acclaiming him. We

have to go back to the fifth century for a like scene. I t was

in Syrian Antioch that Leontius, the tyrant who rose againstZeno

,was crowned and proclaimed Augustus. The scale and

gravity of the rebellion of the Isaurian Leontius render it notunfit to be compared with the rebellion of the later pretender,who also professed to b e of Isaurian stock.

But when we consider the circumstances more closely thecoronation assumes a puzzling aspect . If Thomas had beensimply Thomas

, we can understand that he might havegrasped at a chance

,which was rare for a rebel in his day,

to b e crowned by a Patriarch out of Constantinople, eventhough that Patriarch was not a Roman subject. But

Thomas, according to the story, gave out that he was an

Emperor already. He had borrowed the name and iden tityof the Emperor Constantine VI . ; he had therefore, accordingto his own claim

,been crowned Augustus by the Patriarch

of Constantinople forty years before . What then is the

meaning of his coronation at Antioch ? One would thinkthat such a ceremony would weaken rather than strengthenhis position . It might b e interpreted as a tacit confessionthat there was some flaw in the title of the re-arisen Con

1 Cont. Th . 54 imaxuoinevos r d not mention this, but it may explain'

Pw,ua lwv r e r podofiva t 8pm. «at rhv adr d

’

w

a ér a'

i s' inro xeipas 7 01730 11 4. dpxrju. The

last clause must b e interpreted to

mean that Thomas undertook to pay atribute to the Caliph . Genesios does

j ect the Empire to the Sarac ens.

(see below ) the c oronation at Antioch .

The author of the Acta Davidis says(232) that Thomas promised to sub

Thisdoubtless was generally believed .

SECT . 11 THE CI VIL WAR 89

stantine. I t would have been requisite for an Emperor whohad been first crowned at Antioch to repeat the ceremonywhen he had established himself on the Bosphorus ; but itis strange that one who had declared that he had beenformally consecrated at Constantinople by the chief Patriarchshould come to Antioch to receive an irregular consecrationfrom a lesser prelate. It does not appear that the tyranthad abandoned his claim to b e another than himself, and

,

having won his first followers by an imposture, now threwoff the cloak and came forward as Thomas of Gaziura . It

may b e suggested that the coronation was not contrived bythe wish of the pretender, but by the policy of Mamun. The

reception of the emblem of sovranty at the hands of a

Patriarch,who was the subject of the Caliph

,may have

been intended as a symbolical acknowledgment of the

Caliph ’s overlordship and a pledge of his future submissionas a tributary.

1

The prospect of the tyrants looked brighter than everwhen they returned to the lands of the Empire. M en of all

sorts and races and regions had flocked to their standardsSlavs, Persians, Armenians, Iberians, and many from the

regions of the Caucasus and the eastern shores of the Euxine .

2

The total number of the forces is estimated at eighty thousand .

Reports meanwhile reached Constantinople of the gathering of

this large host . But Michael took it for granted that rumouroutran the truth , and deemed it enough to send into the fielda small army

,totally insufficient to cope with the foe. The

1 The difli culty about the coronation tions Saracens, Persians , Iberians ,at Antioc h has not been noticed, so

far as I know, by any historian. If

Thomas had pretended to b e a son of

Constantine (as M ichael Syr. alleges,see above

,p . 86

,n. all would b e

c lear. It is curious that Michael Syr.

(75 ) states that inA .D . 831-832 a Roman

pretending to b e of Imperial lineage,came to Mamun in Cilic ia and askedh im to help h im to the throne Mamuncaused him to b e crowned by the

Patriarch Job ; the impo stor a fterwards became a Mohammadan. Whenthe news reached Constantinople, thebishopsmet and excommunicated Job .

The Greek sourc es give no support tothis story .

3 M ichael, The. ad Lud. 417-418,men

Armenians , Ab asgians (Avassis) , and

speaks as if all these had been in therebel army at the very beginning of

the revolt against Leo V. Besidesthese, Genesios (33) mentions Alans ,Ziehe, Colchians , Indians (that is,negroes) , Kab eiroi, Slavs , Huns, Van

dals, and Getae . The Kab eiroi are

probably the Turkish Kabars of the

Khazar Empire (see below, p .

For the Alans (Ossetians), see below,p . 408 sq. The Getae may b e the Gothsof the Crimea

, the Huns may b e Magyars or Inner Bulgarians , or someth ingelse. It is difficult to discover ninthcentury Vandals (Wends do not come

into range) .

90 EAS TE RN ROM AN EM P IRE CHAP . 111

thousands of Michael were swallowed up by the . tens of

thousands of Thomas.

1 As no formidable resistance was offeredto the tyran t ’s progress in Asia Minor

,he prepared to attack

the city itself. For this enterprise, in which so many hadfailed before him,

it was judged indispensable to possess a fleet .The City of the Bosphorus had over and over again defied a

joint attack by land and sea ; it was naturally inferred thatan attack by land alone would have no chances of success.

2

The pretender therefore set himself to gather a fleet,and it

would seem that he had no difficulty in sei zing the fleets of

the Aegean and the Kibyrrhaeot Themes,which together

formed the Thematic or provincial navy.

8Thus all the

warships stationed in the eastern parts of the Empire were inhis hands, except the Imperial fleet itself

,which lay at the

Imperial city. In addition to these, he built new warshipsand new ships of transport. When all was ready, he causedhis naval forces to assemble at Lesbos and await his orders,while he himself advanced to the Hellespont and securedAbydos. And now he met his first reverse. All had yieldedto him as b e swept on through the Asiatic Themes, excep tone place

,whose name our historians do not mention . He

did not think it worth while to delay himself, but he left a

considerable part of his army under the command of Con

stantius,to reduce this stubborn fortress. I t seems probable

too that this dividing of his forces formed part of a furtherdesign . We may guess that while Constantine was to crossby the western gate of the Propontis and advance on the cityfrom the west, Constantius was to approach the eastern straitand attack the city on the south . But if this was the planof operations

,Constantius was not destined to fulfil his part

of it. Olb ianos,the general of the Armeniac Theme, was

biding his time and watching for an opportunity. H is army1 This engagement is recorded only the feeble spirit of the defenders.

by the Continuer, who uses the ex He remarks that currents of the Mar

pressive metaphor 6.30 1 e T l. wor dy aupawan th e ms ; Part of Michael ’sarmy, however, esc aped .

3 It is, however, well remarked byvan M illin en (Wa lls, 179) that in

Byzantine history “ there is only oneinstance of a successful naval assaultupon Constantinople, the gallant c apture of the c ity in 1204 by the Venetians,” and that was largely due to

mora , and “the violent storms to

which the waters around the city areliable

,were natural allies of the

besieged .

3 évrefidev Ka i r oi} Genarucoi) or éhov

y luera c é'

yxpar fis ndu ro ram /( bu

dr aw 1 6 { mo'

Pw)aa lovs i v,

7 e r ef)

fi aa thmofl Khndévros inrorrore'

ir a t (Gen.

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92 EAS TE RN R OMAN EM P IRE CHAP. 111

harbour,further to the west ; 1 and beyond it the harbour of

Kaisarios.

2The entrance to the Golden Horn was blocked

by the Iron Chain, which was stretched across the water froma point near the Gate of Eugenic s to the Castle of Galata.

8

In making these dispositions Michael was perhaps availinghimself of the experience of previous sieges. When the

Saracens attacked the city in the seventh cen tury, ConstantineIV. had disposed a portion Of his naval forces in the harbourof Kaisarios.

4In the second at tac k of the same foe in the

eigh th century, Leo I II . had stretched the Iron Chain , but heseems to have stationed his own ships outside the Horn .

5

The host of Thomas had been increased by new adherentsfrom the European provinces

,and Slavs from Macedonia flocked

to the standard of the Slavonian pretender.

6 But he neededa new general and a new son. To succeed the unlucky leader,whom he had destined to be Constantius the Fourth , he chosea monk, already bearing an Imperial name, and worthy in theopinion Of the tyrant to b e Anastasius the Third ; not worthy,however

,of such an exalted place

,in the Opinion Of our

historians,who describe him as an ugly man

,with a face like

an Ethiopian’s from excessive wine-drinking, and of insanemind .

7 But the monk was not fitted to lead troops to battle,

and for this office Thomas won the services of a banishedgeneral named G regory, who had perhaps better cause thanhimself to hate the name of Michael. G regory P terOtos wasa nephew of Leo the Armenian, and, on the death of his uncle,whom he loved, fear had not held him back from entering thepresence of his successor, where, instead of falling among those

the Hdrpca , 184, 248, says this happened in the reign of Theodosius I . ;b ut the alternative name suggestsrather that he repaired it) . It mayb e notic ed that the harbours in whichPhocas expec ted Herac l ius (A .D . 610)to land were those ofKaisarios, Soph ia,and Hormisdas (John Ant. , in Muller,E IL G . v . 1 .

1 Also called Harbour of Julian and

New Harbour.

3 Van Millingen has shown that itis almost certainly identical with theNeorion of Heptaskalon, and there isarchaeological evidence for plac ing itbetween Kum Kapussi and Yeni Kapu(310

3 From Theoph . 396 we know thatin A .D . 717 it was attached to the

Kaaréhhcov r c’

iw Fahdr ov (as in latertimes) . The southern end was fastened ,in later times, to the Kentenarion

tower c lose to the Porta Eugem i,and

we know that this existed in the ninthc entury (Hdrpza 264, where Con

stantine I . is said to have built thetower) . Cp. van Millingen, 228.

‘1 Theoph . 353.

5 l b . 396.

3 Michael, Ep. ad L ud. 418 : Thrace,Macedonia, Thessalonia

,et circum

iacentibus Sclaviniis .

7 Gen. 39 .

se cr . 1 1 THE CI VIL WAR 93

who grovelled at the Imperial feet, b e overwhelmed him withreproaches for the murderous deed. The Emperor merely said

,

I know the greatness of your sorrow and the ocean Of yourdistress,” but two days later he banished this fearless kinsmanof his predecessor to the island of Skyros.

1Gregory was not

unwil ling to attach himself to the rival of him who had

banished himself and dethroned his uncle, and he was speedilyentrus ted with the command of ten thousand men and sent onto open the assault on the Imperial city.

It was already winter, and the first year of Michael’sreign was drawing to a close, when Gregory took up hisstation on the north-west of the city, in the suburbs outsideBlachernae, while the fleet

,under another unnamed com

mander, reached the same quarter by sailing up the inlet ofthe G olden Horn , having evidently unfastened the Iron Chainwhere it was attached to the Castle of Galata.

2On the

banks of the Barbyses,3a stream which flows into the Horn,

the leaders of the sea forces and the land forces could concerttheir plans together. No action , however, was taken untilConstantius and Anastasius arrived with their mighty host .The leaders seem to have imagined that when this vastarray spread out before the walls of the city

,and their ships

filled the Golden Horn and threatened the harbours on the

Propontis,the inhabitants would b e so utterly dismayed by

the sight Of the overwhelming numbers that they would throwOpen their gates in despair. But it soon became clear thatthe city and its masters were resolved to withstand even sucha vast force ; they trusted in their impregnable walls. I t was

the first business of Thomas, when he saw that a siege wasinevitable, to reduce the suburbs and villages which lay north

1 The details about this Gregory Sweet Waters of Europe . It flows(his k inship with Leo, the cause of

his exile, and hi s name PterOtos) arerec orded in Cont . Th . 57, but not byGenesios .

3 This is an inference, but I thinkevident. Thomas controlled the

northern shore of the Horn. In ex

ac tly the same way the Venetians ,bavin captured th e Galata Tower, remove the chain in A .D . 1203 (Nic etas ,ed. B onn. 7183 G en. 38. The Barbyses (or Bar

b yssos) is now c all ed the Kiat-hanehSu, one of the streams known as the

into the H orn c lose to th e Cosmidion(Church of SS . Cosmas and Damian

,

now the Eyub mosque) , which is not

far to the west of Blachernae. SeevanMillingen, lVa lls, 175-176 . Therewas a bridge across the Barbyses

(Niceph . Patr. ed. de Boor, 14 and

which must have been quited istinc t from the bridge across the

Golden Horn,of which the southern

point was in Aivan Serai ; thoughDucange (Const. Christ. iv. 125 ) andvan M illingen seem to connect thetwo bridges .

94 EAS TE RN R OMAN EM P IRE CHAP. 111

of the city along the shores of the Bosphorus.

1These places

could not resist . The inhabitan ts were doubtless glad to

submit as speedily as possible to any one engaged in besiegingthe city, remembering too well how but a few years ago theyhad been harried by another and more terrible enemy

, the

Bulgarian Krum .

2

The siege began in the month Of December.

3The course

of events from this point to the end of the war may b e

conveniently divided into fi ve stages.

4

1 . Dec ember 821 to February or March 822 .

— Thomasspent some days in disposing his forces and preparing hisengines. He pitched his own tent in the suburbs beyondBlachernae ,

5not far from the noble building which rose

towards heaven like a palace, the church of St. Cosmasand St. Damian , the physicians who take no fee for theirservices to men. Until the reign of Heraclius the northwestern corner of the city between the Palace of Blachernae

and the Golden Horn must have been defended by a fortifi ca

tion of which no traces survive.

6 Heraclius, whether beforeor after the siege of the Avars (A.D. had connected thePalace with the seaward fortifications by a with which isflanked by three admirably built hexagonal towers.

8But the

assaults of the Bulgarians in A .D. 8 13 seem to have provedthat this Single Wall of Blachernae, as it was called

,was

an insufficient defence, and Leo V. , in expectation of a secondBulgarian siege,9 constructed a second outer wall, parallel totha t of Heraclius, and forming with it a sort of citadel whichwas known as the Brachionion.

10

1 Gen. 39 . the Cosmidion. Cp. Ducange, Const.2 Above, p . 46 .

3 The date comes from Michael , Ep .

ad Lud . 418, where we also learn thatthe blockade lasted for the space of a

year .

4 There has been no full and cri tic alrelation of the siege by modern historians. See Lebeau, xiii . 50 sqq. ;

Schlosser, 440 sqq . ; Finlay, ii. 131

(very brief) . Much the best is that ofVasil’ev , Viz . i . Ar . 33 sqq.

5 The suburb between Cosmidion

and Blachernae was known as r d

Hav ov (and is so designated here inCont. Th . from Paulinus (famous

for his love-affair with Athenais, thewife of Theodosius who founded

3 Extending , I c onj ec ture , from the

north-east corner of the Palace to thesea-wal l . Cp. van M illingen, Wa lls

,

120. The outer walls of the Palac eitself formed the fortifi cation as far as

the northern extremity of the Theodosian Wa lls .

7 Pernice (L’

Impera toreEra clio, 141 )has given some reasons for thinkingthat the wall was built after the Avarattack in A .D . 619 . Cp. my note inG ibbon

,v . 92.

3 Van M ill ingen, Wa lls, 164 sqq.

3 See below,p . 359 .

1° VanM illingen, Wa lls, 168 :“ The

Wall of Leo stands 77 feet to the west

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96 EAS TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE CHAP. 111

provided both with “ liquid fi re and with four-legged citytakers,1 from whose lofty storeys flaming missiles might b ehurled upon and over the sea-walls of the city. But the

violent wind rendered it impossible to make an effective use

of these contrivances, and it was soon clear that the attackon the seaside had failed .

Foiled at every point, Thomas was convinced that he hadno chance of succeeding until the severity of winter hadpassed

,and he retired from his position to await the coming

Of spring, whether in the cities of Thrace or on the oppositecoasts of Asia ?

2 . Spring, 82? A .D .— At the coming of spring Thomas

reassembled his land forces and his ships at Constantinopleand prepared for another simultaneous attack on both elements.

Michael meanwhile had made use of the respite from hostilitiesto reinforce h is garrison considerably , and during this secondsiege he was able to do more than defend the walls : he couldventure to sally out against the enemy. I t was also probablyduring the lull in the war that some repairs were made inthe Wall of Leo, recorded by inscriptions which are stillpreserved ?

We are told that when the day dawned on which a grandassault was to b e made on the walls Of Blechern , the Emperorascended the wall himself and addressed the enemy, who werewithin hearing.

4 He urged them to desert the rebel and seek

occurred .

1r erpa ovcehefs éherrbha s.

3 The words of our source (Cont.Th . 61 dhhws dé xal (bpa Optubrepov

édelxuv r bv Kmpbv dr e xetué’

wos ém ‘

yevo

,a tuou xa l r ij s Opdxns rd

‘

m dhhwv 060mOvaxetuépov érrl wapaxetuao lav érpdrrr)Ka i r ij v r oii arpar ofi avaxomafiv) maymerely mean that w inter in Thrac ewas too severe for militar operations,not that Thomas winters elsewhere .

3 Those inscriptions are near the

south end of Leo’

s Wall ; both are

de fec tive. One records the names of

M ichael and Theophilus ; the otherg ives the date A .M . 6330, whichc orresponds to A .D . 822. See van

Millingen, Wa lls, 168. An inscription on one Of the towers of the

Heraclian Wall is in honour of an

Emperor M ichael if th is was MichaelII . (as van M illingen thinks, the

name of Theophilus must also have

Fragmentary inseri tionsof M . and T . have been foun near

the Charisian Gate in the TheodosianWall (i b .

‘1 Cont. Th. 61 r eixos rawBhaxepvd’

w

was to b e the objec t of attack,i . a.

chiefly the Wall of Leo thenM ichae lis said to have spoken i f: 7 06 rev

r a xcfiv ,uereu

'

ipov, but it does not followthat this also was the Wall of Leo .

We may suspec t that Michael stoodon the battlements of the Palace of

Blachernae,nearly opposite the point

where the wall wh ich Manuel Comnenne, in the twelfth c entur builtoutside the Palac e, was pierce by thegate of Gyrolimne . This conj ec ture(which I owe to Mr. van M illingen) issuggested by (1) the fac t that at

Gyrolimne the younger Andronicus,during his rebellion, more than onc e

held parley with his father’sministers

sec r . 11 THE CI VI L WAR 97

pardon and safety in the city. His words were not receivedwith favour, nor did he imagine that they would move thosewhom he addressed . But he achieved the effect which hedesired, though not the effect at which his speech seemed toaim. The foe concluded that the besieged must needs b e ingreat straits

,when the Emperor held such parley from the

walls. W ith confident spirits and in careless array theyadvanced to the assault

,supposing that they would encounter

but a weak resistance. Suddenly, to their amazemen t and

consternation , many gates opened, and soldiers,rushing forth

from the city, were upon them before they had time to

apprehend what had happened . The men Of Michael won a

brilliant victory,and Thomas was forced to abandon the

assault on Blachernae. A battle by sea seems to have beenfought on the same day,

and it also resulted in disaster forthe besiegers. The details are not recorded , but the marinesOf Thomas

,seized by some unaccountable panic

,retreated to

the shore and absolutely refused to fight.Time wore on

,and the taking of the city seemed no nearer.

One Of the generals in the leaguer concluded that there waslittle chance of success

,and weary of the delay he determined

to change sides. This was Gregory, the exile of Skyros,and

nephew Of Leo the Armenian . H is resolve was doubtlessquickened by the fact that his wife and children were in thepower of Michael ; 1 he reckoned that their safety would b eassured if he deserted Thomas. Accordingly, at the head of

his regiment, he left the camp and entrusted a Studi te monkwith the task of bearing the news to the Emperor ? But the

approaches to the city were so strictly guarded by the

blockaders that the messenger was unable to deliver his

message, and Michael remained in ignorance of the new

accession to his cause . As it turned out,however

,the act of

G regory proved of little profit to any one except,perhaps

,to

him,whom it was intended to injure . Thomas saw that the

(2) the hill opposite this gate must From the same source we learn thatinevitably have been oc cupied by Gregor

iwas given to deep potations

troops of Thomas,and in 1203 the 6 seems to have been a man

Crusaders on th is h il l were nearly who ac ted generally from impulsewithin speaking distance of the more than from refl exion.

garrison on the wall . Cp. van3 This , too , we learn from Cont. Th . ,

M illingen, ib . 126-127 . not from Genesios.

1 Cont. Th . 63 gives us this fact .

98 EA S TE RN R OM AN EM P I RE CHAP. 111

traitor must b e crushed immediately , for it would be a seriousdisadvantage to have an enemy in his rear. Accordingly

,he

marched against him with a band of chosen soldiers ; hisarmy being so large that he could easily divert a portionwithout raising the blockade. The followers of G regory weredefeated, we know not where nor how ; and Gregory himself

,

a fugitive from the field,was pursued and slain . There is a

certain propriety in the part which this soldier plays in thelast act of the drama

,in which Leo, Michael, and Thomas

were the chief performers. Leo had passed away before thatlast act ; but his nephew ,

as it were, takes his place, and

oscillates between his rivals,is banished by Michael and slain

by Thomas.

3 . Summer and Autumn A .D . 822 .

— The false Constantine,

if he still sustained that pretence, made the most of his easyvictory over the renegade. He proclaimed that he had con

quered by land and sea, and sent letters to G reece and the

islands of the Aegean, bearing this false news.

1His purpose

was to reinforce his navy, which hitherto had accomplishednothing worthy of its size

,by fresh ships from these regions.

Nor was he ~disappointed. I t was clearly thought in Greece,

where the population was devoted to image-worship , that thepretender was carrying all before him, that the capture or

surrender of the city was merely a matter of days, or at mostmonths

,and that Michael’s days were numbered. A large

fleet was sen t,with all good-will

,to hasten the success of one

who professed to b e an image-worshipper ? N0 less thanthree hundred and fifty ships (it is alleged) arrived in the

Propontis. Under given topographical conditions, when the

same object is in view,history is apt to repeat itself, and we

find Thomas mooring these reinforcements in the harbour of

Hebdomon and on the adjacent beach ,3 exactly as the Saracensharbour of Hebdomon was east of thealace (and just to the east of the b ar

2 11.s (13

6

thsees her

qd“the

.

0ld hour was the Kyklob ion) . It is clear,

OPPOSI 10“ 0 e oppress provmc es therefore, that B . Ainfiv z the harbouragainst

.

the despotic c entralisation inof Hebdomon b ut it could not have

the 03 P113 1' held all the ships,and so some of them

1ypdupam r er haam-‘uow,

Gen. 41 .

3rfi rd

‘

m Kahovuéuwv v ldwv dxrfi,i bid . rq

’

) rd’

w B . Nab /1, Cont. Th . 64.

From a passage in John of Antioch itis c lear that Byrides was a place on

the coast between Hebdomon (Makrikeui) and the Golden Gate. The

were moored to the east along the

shore. Hopf (119 ) curiously says thatThomas took “Berida

” by storm.

On the 1rlva$ of the Hell. Syllogos

(see Biblio aphy) Byrides is markednear Selym ria .

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100 E AS TE RN ROMAN EMP IRE CHAP. m

4 . Intervention of the Bulgarians, Spring, A .D . 823 .— I t

was from the kingdom beyond Mount Haemus that Michaelreceived an opportune aid which proved the turning-point inthe civil war. The Bulgarians had been at peace with the

Empire, since Leo and king Omurtag, not long after the deathof Krum ,

had concluded a treaty for thirty years.

1Communi

cations now passed between Constantinople and Pliska,but it

is uncertain who took the first step, and What was the natureof the negotiations. The simplest and earliest chronicle of

the siege represents Michael as requesting Omurtag to takethe field against Thomas, and Omurtag readily responding tothe request .2 But an entirely different version is adopted inrecords which are otherwise unfavourable to Michael.3

According to this accoun t, the proposal of alliance came fromthe Bulgarian king, and the Emperor declined the

'

offerbecause he was reluctant to permit Christian blood to b e shedby the swords of the heathen . He tendered his sincerethanks to Omurtag, but alleged that the presence of a

Bulgarian army in Thrace,even though acting in his own

cause,would b e a virtual viola tion of the Thirty Years’

Peace.

4Omurtag , however, took the matter into his own

hands, and, unable to resist the Opportunity of plunder and

pillage,assisted Michael in Michael’s own despite. I t was

obviously to the interest of the Emperor that this versionshould obtain credit, as it relieved him from the odium of

inviting pagans to destroy Christians and exposing Romanterritory to the devastation of barbarians. We must leave itundecided whether it was Michael who requested

,or Omurtag

who offered help , but we cannot seriously doubt that the helpwas accorded with the full knowledge and at the desire of the

besieged Emperor. It may well b e that he declined to

conclude any formal alliance with the Bulgarians,5but merely

gave them assurances that , if they marched against Thomasand paid themselves by booty, he would hold them innocentof violating the peace . The negotiations must have been1 See below p . 360.

4 See Gen. i b. drrohoyefra t My2 George Mon. P. 796 y afldw a) ; 6 xpfiua c r ou

‘

s‘ é 7rl r oaofi

'

rou xpfSuov

fi amkeds M txabh“r ods Bovk‘

ydpovs els“1

,11

?s”vi/«Maxla v from

"r poaexahéaa

‘

r o.

ad) £60 c ” 7r “9 rwv a ramw‘

rwv no I“?rd. w h o

‘

s 665mm. Ka rahuew .Th l s l s accepted by H IrSCh ’ 134'

5 Gen. 41 atanpeofi eéer a t r pos flamhéa3 Gen. 41-42 Cont. Th . 65 . m l avupaxei

‘

v alr e’

i r a c.

ss c r . 11 THE CIVIL WAR 101

conducted with great secrecy,

and the accoun t whichrepresented Michael as unreservedly rejecting the profferedsuccour gained wide credence

,

1 though his enemies assigned tohis refusal a less honourable motive than the desire of sparingChristian blood

,and suggested that his avarice withheld him

from paying the Bulgarians the money which they demandedfor their servi ces ?

Omurtag then descended from Mount Haemus and

marched by the great high road,by Hadrianople and

Arcadiopolis,to deliver Constantinople from the Roman

leaguer, even as another Bulgarian monarch had come down ,more than a hundred years before, in the days of Leo I II . , to

deliver it from the Saracens.

3 When Thomas learned thatthe weight of Bulgaria was thrown into the balance and thata formidable host was advancing against him

,he decided to

abandon the siege and confront the new foe.

4It was a

joyful day for the siege-worn citizens and soldiers, when theysaw the camp of the besiegers broken up and the great armymarching away from their gates. Only the remnant of the

rebel navy still lay in the G olden Horn , as Thomas did not

require it for his immediate work . The Bulgarians had

already passed Arcadiopolis and reached the plain of Kéduk tos,near the coast between Heraclea and Selymbria .

5 Here theyawaited the approac h of Thomas, and in the battle whichensued defeated him utterly. The victors soon retired

,laden

with booty ; having thus worked much profit both to themselves

that he did enlist them in his forces1 We must suppose that M ichaeldeliberately c irculated it. It is characteristic that he does not mentionor even hint at the Bulgarian episodein his letter to the Emperor Lewis .

He wished the Franks to suppose thatthe subjuga tion of Thomas was due to

his unaided efforts, and it would havebeen humiliating to c onfess to the

rival Emperor that the Bulgarians hadinvaded the Empire even in his owncause .

2 Cont. Th . 652.

3 Tervel (A .D .

4 M ichael Syr . (37 ) says thatMichaelemployed Saracen c aptives who werein the city to fight for him, promisingthem freedom (a promise which he

did not keep) , and with their helprouted Thomas . It is quite possible

during the siege.

5 Gen. 42,Kard rov Kndouxr ov

Kahoéw ou p ov. (For the date of

the battle of Keduktos see Append ixFor the loca tion of Keduktos

(A -

quaeductus) , the important pas sageis N icephorus Bryenn. 135 (ed. Bonn)= Anna Comnena I . 18-19 (ed. Reifl

'

er

sc heid) describing the battle betweenAlexius Comnenus and Bryennios év

r efs Karo. r oi) Knfioéxr ov r eéiocs, near

the fort of Kalavrye and the riverHalmyros . The Halmyros seems to

b e the stream to the west of Erekli(Herac lea) , and the name of Kalavrye

(Pakafipla in Attaleiates, 289 ed . Bonn)is preserved in Gelivré near Selymbria(Tomaschek, Zur Kunde der H .

-h.

Cp. Jireéek, Heerstrasse, 101 .

EAS TERN R OM AN EMP IRE CHAP. 111

and to their ally, for whom the way was now smoothed to thegoal of final victory. They had destroyed the greater par t ofthe rebel army on the field of Kéduktos, and Michael wasequal to dealing with the remnan t himself.

5 . Siege of Arcadiopolis and end of the Civil War,823

A .D .

— When the Bulgarians retreated,Thomas

, still hopeful,collected the sca ttered troops who had been routed on the dayof Kéduktos, and marching north-eastward pitched his campin the marshy plain of D iabasis

,watered by the streams of the

Melas and Athyras which discharge into the lagoon of BuyakChekmeje, about twenty miles west of Constantinople. Thisdistrict was well provided with pasturage for horses, and wellsituated for obtaining supplies ; moreover, it was within suchdi stance from the capital that Thomas could harry the

neighbouring villages.

lThe month of M ay, if it had not

already begun , was near at hand,when Michael went forth to

decide the issue of the long struggle . He was accompaniedby his faithful generals Katakylas and Olbianos, each at the

head of troops of his own Theme . I t is not recorded whetherthe younger Emperor marched wi th his father or was leftbehind to guard the city. But the city might justly feelsecure now ; for the marines whom Thomas had left in the

Golden Horn espoused the cause of Michael, as soon as theylearned the news of Keduktos

?

Thomas, who felt confident of success, decided to entraphis foes by the stratagem of a feigned fligh t . But his

followers did not share his spirit .3 They were cast down bythe recent defeat ; they were thoroughly weary of an enterprise which had lasted so much longer than they had dreamt

1 Gen. (42 ) ind icates the c harac terof the plac e . Its distanc e from Constantinople is vaguely suggested inCont. Th . 66 e r adiovs drréxou r fis

‘

nékews {Ka t/0155,

and xdxel‘

flev rd ;

wpovopuis 1rou’

bv 1rdrra. pév 7rp6 rnsr ékews 31“?t Kétf /LOV, b ut Thomas didnot c ome within sight of the c ity .

Diab asis has been identified by Jirecek(i b . with the plains of Choirob akchoi, desc ribed by Kinnamos (7374 ed . Bonn) and N icetas (85 86 ed .

Bonn). The Me las (Kara eu ) andAthyras flow from the hil l of Kushkaya near the Anastasian Wal l andnear here Tomaschek (op . cit. 304)

would place the fortress Aé'yyoc, whichcommanded the plain (according to

Kinnamos) , identify ing it with Cantacuzene

’

s Aéy ovs, i . 297 ed . Bonn.

( I n hus in Idrisi ’s geography) .North of the lagoon there i s an ex

tensive marsh, through which there IS

a solid stone dyke o f Roman work ;this was doubtless called the Crossing,Diabasis.

2 That the naval armament joinedM ichael after the Bulgarian vic tory isstated in Cont. Th . G enesios is lessprec ise .

3 The spirit of the army is describedin Cont. Th . 67 .

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104 EA S TE RN ROMAN EM P IRE CHAP . 111

line, cutting off Constantinople from Western Thrace. But

the subjuga tion of the last refuges of the lost cause was merelya matter of months. I t would not have been more than a

matter of days, if certain considerations had not hindered theEmperor from using engines of siege against the towns whichstill defied him. But two lines of policy concurred in decidinghim to choose the slower method of blockade.

In the first place he wished to spare, so far as possible,the lives of Christians, and

,if the towns were taken by

violence,bloodshed would b e unavoidable. That this con

sideration really influenced Michael is owned by historianswho were not well disposed towards him, but who in thisrespect bear out a statement which he made himself in his

letter to Lewis the Pious.

lHe informed that monarch that

he retreated after the victory of D iabasis,in order to spare

Christian blood.

”Such a motive does not imply that he

was personally a humane man ; other acts show that he couldb e stark and ruthless. His humanity in this case ratherillustrates the general feeling that prevailed against the

horrors of civil war . I t was Michael’s policy to affect a tenderregard for the lives of his Christian subjects

,and to contrast

his own conduct with that of his rival,who had brought so

many miseries on the Christian Empire. We have alreadyseen how important this consideration was for the purpose of

conciliating public opinion, in the pains which were taken torepresent the Bulgarian intervention as a spontaneous act

of Omur tag, undesired and deprecated by Michael.But there was likewise another reason which conspired

to decide Michael that it was wiser not to storm a cityof Thrace. I t was the interest and policy of a RomanEmperor to cherish in the minds of neighbouring peoples,especially of Bulgarians and Slavs, the wholesome idea thatfortified Roman cities were impregnable 2 The failure of

Krum’

s attack on Constantinople, the more recent failure of

the vast force of Thomas,were calculated to do much to

confirm such a belief. And Michael had no mind to weakenthis impression by showing the barbarians that Roman citiesmigh t yield to the force of skilfully directed engines. In

1 di1 m ,a éu r éu éu¢ 1§htov dr o616pdov<wu r bhenov, Cont. Th . 68. M ichael, Ep .

ad L ud . 418.

2 Cont. Th. 68.

sac r . 11 THE CI VIL WAR 105

fact,Michael seized .the occasion to show the Bulgarians tha t

b e regarded Arcadiopolis as too strong to b e taken by assault .In following these two principles of policy, Michael

placed himself in the light of a pa trio t,in conspicuous contrast

to his beaten rival,who had been the author of the Civil

War,and had used all his efforts to teach barbarians how the

Imperial city itself migh t b e taken by an enemy. The

garrison of Arcadiopolis held out for fi ve months,1 but Thomaswas obliged to send out of the town all the women and

children,and the men who were incapable of bearing arms,

in order to save h is supplies. By the month of October , thegarrison was reduced to such straits that they were obligedto feed on the putrid corpses of their horses which had perishedof hunger ? ‘ Part of the garrison now left the town , somewith the knowledge of Thomas

,others as deserters to Michael.

The latter, desperate with hunger, let themselves down byropes, or threw themselves from the walls at the risk of

breaking their limbs. The messengers of Thomas stole out

of the gates and escaped to Bizye, where the younger tyrantAnastasius had shut himself up,

in order to concert with the“son

”some plan for the rescue of the

“ father.

”Then

Michael held a colloquy with the garrison that was left inArcadiopolis

,and promised to all a free pardon , if they would

surrender their master into his hands. The followers who

had been so long faithful to their leader thought that thetime had come when they might set their lives before loyaltyto a desperate cause. They accep ted the Imperial clemencyand delivered Thomas to the triumphant Emperor.

The punishment that awaited the great tyrant who wasso near to winning the throne was not less terrible than thatto which Michael himself had been sentenced by Leo, theArmenian . All the distress which the Emperor had undergone for the space of three years was now to be visited on his

head. The pretender, who had reduced his conqueror to direextremities and had wasted three years of his reign, couldhope for no easy death . The quarrel between Michael and

Thomas was an old one ; it dated from the days when theyhad both been offi cers under the general Bardanes. The

time had now come for settling acc ounts, and the reckoning1 M ichael, Ep. ad Lad . 419 .

2 Gen. 44.

106 EA S TE RN ROMAN EM P IRE CHAP . 111

against the debtor was heavy indeed. The long war had

inflicted immeasurable injury on the lands of the Empire,and it would b e hard to estimate how much Thrace alone hadsuffered . The private ambition of the old Slav of G aziura

,

the impostor who had deceived his followers,for a time at

least, that he was a legitimate Emperor, was answerable forall this ruin and misery. When he was led in chains to thepresence of his hated rival, Michael, not disguising his joy,set his foot upon the neck of the prostrate foe,1 and pro

nounced his doom . His hands and feet were to be cut ofl°,

and his body was to be pierced on a stake. The miserableman when he was led to punishment, cried aloud for mercy :Pity me

,O thou who art the true Emperor !” 2 Hope may

have been awakened in his heart for a moment , hope at leastof some allevia tion of the doom, when his judge deigned to

ask him a question . I t was one of those dangerous questionswhich tempt a man in the desperate position of Thomas tobear false witness if he has no true facts to reveal. Michaelasked whether any of his own officers or ministers had heldtreacherous dealings with the rebel. But if the rebel hadany true or false revelations to make, he was not destined toutter them

,and if he conceived hopes of life or of a milder

death,they were speedily extinguished. At this juncture

John Hexabulios, the Logothete of the Course, intervenedand gave the Emperor wise counsel. The part played inhistory by this Patrician was that of a monitor. W e saw

him warning Michael Rangabe against Leo ; we saw him

taking counsel with Leo touching the designs of Michael theLisper ; and now we see him giving advice to Michael. H is

counsel was, not to hear Thomas, inasmuch as it was improperand absurd to believe the evidence of foes against friends.

The sentence was carried out,3 probably before the walls

of Arcadiopolis, and doubtless in the Emperor’

s presence ; and

the great rebel perished in tortures, “ like a beast .” 4 A like

1 George Mon. 797 mm). rhu dpxa lav Genesios does not notice the ass, whichai fla av. We remember how Justinian often played a part in such sc enes.

II. set his feet on the necks of Leontius 3 Theand Tiberius .

punishment is described by2 In Cont. Th . it is said that Michael himself in his letter to Lewis

he was exh ibited on an ass érrl duou r e

Oearplg‘

et r am,r ofiro ém rpa

'

ycp4 (50 1 e r e {Gov avadavar ofiu, Cont.

é ofivr a,éhéno év h e 6 Bamkefi . Th . 70.

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108 EA S TE RN ROM AN EM P IRE C HAP . 111

G azarenos of Kolomea held Saniana, an important fortress on

the Halys.

1 Michael sent a golden bull 2 to these chiefs,announcing the death of Thomas and offering to give them a

free pardon and to confer on them the rank of Magister, ifthey submitted. But they were wild folk

,and they preferred

the rewards of brigandage to honours at the Imperial Court .The messenger ofMichael, however, accomplished by guile whathe failed to accomplish openly. He seduced some of the

garrisons of both towns,and persuaded them to close the gates

upon their cap tains while they were abroad on their lawlessraids. The work of tampering w ith the men of Choereas and

Gazarenos demanded subtlety and caution,but the imperial

messenger was equal to the emergency. The manner in whichhe won the ear of an oekonomos or steward of a church or

monastery in Saniana, without arousing suspicion,is recorded.

He found a peasant, by name Gyb erion, who had a talent formusic and used to spend his leisure hours in practising rusticsongs. The envoy from the Court cultivated the friendshipof this man and composed a song for him,

which ran thus :

Hearken,Sir Steward

, to Gyb eris !

G ive me but Saniana town,

New-Caesarea shalt thou w inAnd eke a bishop

’s gown.

3

When these lines had been repeatedly sung by the man withinthe hearing of the oekonomos or of his friends, the meaning of

the words was grasped and the hint taken . Shut out of theircloud-capped towns 4

the two rebels,Choereas and Gazarenos

took the road for Syria,hoping to find a refuge there, like

their dead leader Thomas. But before they could reach thefrontier they were captured and hanged.

1 Saniena has been identifi ed by dxovae,xfipt olxovétte,

Ramsay (Asia M inor , 218 sqq. ) with rbv I‘

vfi épw ,1 ! « cu Myer

Cheshnir Keupreu, on the east side of at» 11 01 66 9 rhu z ameuau,the B elys, south east of Ancyra, ,

wqrpmroMrnv 0'

s r olaw,

a point at which the military road Neoxaw dpetdv

from Dorylaeum forked,one branch

going eastward, the other south-east If thl s 13 right, the 11119 3 are eight

ward , If he is right, its military im syllabled trochaic s wi th acc ent on theportance (implied , 1 think , in Cont. penultima . For Neocaesarea in PontusThem. 28) is c lear.

=Niksar, cp. Anderson,Studia Pon

2xpuaosoem ou

,Cont. Th . 72 .

twa, 1 56 sqq.

3 Krumb acher has restored the 4 1b . 73 tr epveqsaw 1 015e 1ro7ux

verses as fol lows,G .B .L . 793 ib

SECT . THE CI VIL WAR 109

The drama is now over ; all the prophecies of the soothsayer of Philomelion have come true. The star of the Armenianand the star of the Slavonian have paled and vanished beforethe more puissant star of the man of Amorion ; both Leo and

Thomas have been done to death by Michael. He now wearsthe Imperial crown , without a rival ; he has no more to fearor hope from unfulfilled soothsay.

We may now turn from the personal interest in the storyto the more general aspects of this great civil war

,which

caused abundant misery and mischief. The historians describehow it filled the world with all manner of evils

,and

diminished the population ; fathers armed themselves againsttheir sons, brothers against the sons of their mothers

,friends

against their dearest friends.

” 1 I t was as if the cataracts of

the N ile had burst, deluging the land not with water but withblood ? The immediate author of these calamities was Thomas,and there is no doubt that his motive was simply personalambition . The old man with the lame leg was not fightingfor a principle, b e was fighting for a diadem . But neverthelesshe could not have done what he did if there had not been at

work motives of a larger and more public scope,urging men

to take up arms. I t must not b e forgotten that he originallyrevolted against Leo, and that his war with Michael was

merely a continuation of that revolt. Now there were two

classes of subjects in the Empire, who had good cause to b ediscontented with the policy of Leo

,the image-worshippers

and the Paulicians. The policy of Thomas, which he skilfullypursued, was to unite these discordant elements

,orthodoxy

and heresy, under a common standard . His pretence to b e

Constantine VI . may have won the confidence of some imageworshippers,3 but he was possibly more successful in conciliatingPaulicians and other heretics.

I t is more important to observe that the rebellion probablyinitiated or promoted considerable soc ial changes in the

1 Cont. Th. 49 . won no sympath from the image2 l b . 53 . worshippers of onstantinople, and3 He seems to have professed image his memory was exec rated by such a

worship himsel f (Michael, Vit. Theod . bigoted iconolater as George Mon.

Stud . 320 éhéyer o iepc’i s eZ/céua s drro Cp. be low, p. 116 . Ignatius

6éxe6 0a i r e xa l r poaxw el‘

u) and the the deacon (b iographer of the Patriarchprecautions of M ichael, lest Theodore Nicephorus) wrote iambic verses on

Stud . and his party should embrac e Thomas (rd Kara ewt au) , Suidas sxv.

his cause, bear this out. But Thomas’

v dr ¢os.

110 EAS TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE 111

Asiatic provinces . The system of immense estates owned byrich proprietors and cultivated by peasan ts in a condition of

serfdom,which had prevailed in the age of Justinian

,had

been largely superseded by the opposite system of smallholdings

,which the policy of the Isaurian Emperors seems

to have encouraged. But by the tenth cen tury,vast pro

perties and peasant serfs have reappeared,and the process

by which this second transformation was accomplished mustb e a ttributed to the ninth . The civil war could not fail toruin numberless small farmers who in prosperous times couldbarely pay their way, and the fisca l burdens rendered it

impossible for them to recuperate their fortunes,unless they

were aided by the Sta te. But it was easier and more con

ducive to the immediate profit of the treasury to allow theseinsolvent lands to pass into the possession of rich neighbours

,

who in some cases might b e monastic communities. I t is

probable that many farms and homesteads were abandoned bytheir masters. A modern historian, who had a quick eye for

economic changes, judged that the rebellion of Thomas was

no inconsiderable cause of the accumulation of property inimmense estates

,which began to depopulate the country and

prepare it for the reception of a new race of inhabitants.

” 1

If the government of Michael I I . had been wise,it would

have intervened, at all costs, to save the small proprietors.

Future Emperors might thus have been spared a bafflingeconomic problem and a grave political danger.

3 . The Ecclesiastical P olicy of M ichael

I t was probably during or just after the war withThomas that Thecla, the mother of Theophilus, died. At all

events we find Michael soon after the end of the war makingpreparations for a second marriage

,notwithstanding the deep

grief which he had displayed at the death of his first wife .

A second marriage of any kind was deprecated by the strictlyorthodox

,and some thought that at this juncture, when the

Empire was involved in so many misfortunes,the Emperor

showed little concern to appease an offended Deity. But the

Senators were urgent with him that he should marry .

“I t is

1 Finlay, ii . 133.

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112 EAS TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE C HAP. 111

policy. He decided to maintain the iconoclastic reform of Leo,

which harmonized with his own personal convictions ; b ut atthe same time to desist from any further persecution of the

image -worshippers. W e can easily understand that the

circumstances of his accession dictated a policy which should,

so far as possible, disarm the opposition of a large and in

fluential section of his subjects. Accordingly,he delivered

from prison and allowed to return from exile,all those who

had been punished by Lee for their defiance of his authority.

1

The most eminent of the sufferers, Theodore of Studien , lefthis prison cell in Smyrna, hoping that the change of government would mean the restoration of icons and the reinstallationof N icephorus as Patriarch . He wrote a grateful and con

gratulatory letter to the Emperor,exhorting him to bestow

peace and unity on the Church by reconciliation with the see

of Rome.

2At the same time, he attempted to bring Court

influence to bear on Michael, and we possess his letters to

several prominent ministers, whom he exhorts to work in thecause of image-worship, while he malignantly exults over thefate of Leo the Armenian ? Theodore had been joined bymany members of his party on his journey to the neighbourhood of Constantinople, and when he reached Chalcedon

,he

hastened to visit the ex-Patriarch who was living in his own

monastery of St. Theodore, on the Asiatic shore of the

Bosphorus.

4 Here and in the monastery of Crescentius, where

which agitated a church to many of

whose doc trines he was at heart adverse ” b ut this indifference ” wasrelative it would b e misleading todescribe h im as an

“ indifferentist . ”His own iconoc lastic c onvictions are

expressed c learly in his Letter to

Lewis (420 On his ac tual policy,all writers agree it is briefly summedup in the A cta B aw

’

d ia 230 : xar éxw

é’m aros 66‘ re doxofiu aq ; norelrw.

1 In the Epist. syn. ad Theoph . 377Michael is desc ribed as rev 1rpa6r ar ov

Ka i yahnuérar ov flaorhéa , who xpw r o

mpfirws said to those who were inchains

, Come forth .

”

2 Theodore, Epp. ii . 74.

3 l b. 11. 75 , 76, 80, 81 , 82 . Theseand the letter to the Emperor wereprobably written at Pteleae, whereTheodore stayed for some time, before

proceeding to Prusa and Chalcedon(M ichael , Vi t. Theed . c . Onleaving Smyrna, Theodore proc eededto Pteleae

, by way of Xerolopha andAdxxov

,Lurdr a

,unknown places (i b.

c . The position of Pteleae,on the

river Onopniktes (i b. c . is un

known,but i t is probably the same as

Pteleae on the Hellespont (for whichsee Ramsay, _

A3ia M inor, In

that case, Theodore must have followedthe coast road from Smyrna.

4 Grossu (145 ) is wrong in sayingthat Theodore crossed the Bosphorusand visited Nicephorus in the monastery of Agathos . This monasterymay have been on the European sideof the Bosphorus, but N icephorus wasin the mona stery of St. Theodore(Ignatius, Vit. N iceph . whichwas on the Asiatic side (Pargoire,B oradion

,476

ssc r . 111 E CCL E SIAS TI CAL P OL I C Y OF M I CHAE L I I . 113

Theodore took up his abode somewhere on the Asiatic shore of

the Prepontis,lthe image-worshippers deliberated how they

should proceed.Their first step seems to have been the composition of a

let ter 2 which Nicephorus addressed to the Emperor, admonishinghim of his religious duties, and holding up as a warning thefate of his impious predecessor. In this document the argumen ts in favour of images were once more rehearsed . But

Michael was deaf to these appeals.

.

H is policy was to allowpeople to believe what they liked in private, but not to permitimage-worship in public. When he rec eived the letter of

N icephorus he is reputed to have expressed admiration of its

abili ty and to have said to its bearers words to this effectThose who have gone before us will have to answer for theirdoctrines to God ; but we intend to keep the Church in thesame way in which we found her walking . Therefore we rule

and confirm that no one shall venture to open his moutheither for or against images. But let the Synod of Teresine b eput out of mind and memory

,and likewise that of Constantine

the elder (the Fifth) , and that which was lately held in Leo’

s

reign ; and let complete silence in regard to images b e theorder of the day. But as for him who is so zealous to speakand write on these matters, if he wishes to govern the Churchon this basis

,

3 preserving silence concerning the existence and

worship of images, b id him come here.

”

But this attempt to close the controversy was vain ; theinjunction of silence would not b e obeyed

,and its enforce

ment could only lead to a new persecution . The Emperor1 Michael , Vit. Theed . c . 59, names

the monastery , and seems to imply itwas on the Gul f of N icomedia. But

in Vit. N i col. Stud . 900, the place of

Theodore ’s abode at this time is

desc ribed as a r apaxohm os r brros rnsHpoécms, which would naturally mean

on the b ay ofMudania .

2 Ignatius, Vit. N iceph . 209 , whereMichael ’s reply r pes r ef/s r e 7 pdmtaataxomo'anéuovs is given. George Mon. ,

without mentioning Nic ephorus or h isletter, c ites M ichael ’s reply (fromIgnatius) , referring to it as a publicharangue, érrl ham

"

) dunw opfio a sThe texts of Simeon have érri a ekevr lovinstead of érrl kaofi (Leo Gr . 211 ;Vers. Sla v. 92, na selendii ) . There

has, I think , been a confusion here

between M ichael’s reply to the Patriarch and his subsequent reply to theaudienc e of ecclesiastic s whom he

received, doubtless at a silention in

the resenc e of the Senate . We do

not now whether Nicephorus wrotehis letter before or after the appearanceof Theodore on the scene. Grossu

(144 sqq. ) is right, I think, in his

general rec ons truc tion of the order ofevents, but it cannot b e c onsideredabso lutely certain.

3 From these words , I think we

may infer that the Patriarchate wasalready vacant through the death of

Theodotos .

EAS TERN R OMAN EM P IRE C HAP. 111114

presently deemed it expedient to essay a reconciliation , bymeans of a conference between leading representatives of bothparties

,and he requested the ex-Patriarch and his friends

to meet together and consider this proposal.1 The imageworshippers decided to decline to meet heretics for the purposeof discus sion

,and Theodore, who was empowered to reply to

the Emperor on behalf of the bishops and abbots, wrote that ,while in all other matters they were entirely at their sovran’

s

disposition,they could not comply with this command,2 and

suggested that the only solution of the diffi culty was to appealto Rome

, the head of all the Churches .

I t was apparently after this refusal 3 that, through theintervention of one of his ministers, Michael received in

audience Theodore and his friends.

4 Having permitted themto expound their views on image-worship, he replied brieflyand decisively : “ Your words are good and excellent. But

,

as I have never yet till this hour worshipped an image in mylife, I have determined to leave the Church as I found it.

To you,however, I allow the liberty of adhering with

impunity to what you allege to b e the orthodox faith ; livewhere you choose, only it must b e outside the city, and you

need not apprehend that any danger will befall you from mygovernment .

I t is probable that these negotiations were carried on

while the Patriarchal chair was vacant. Theodotos di ed earlyin the year, and while the image-worshippers endeavoured toprocure the restoration of Nicephorus on their own terms

,the

Emperor hoped that the ex-Patriarch might b e induced to

yield. The audience convinced him that further attempts tocome to an understanding would b e useless, and b e caused the

1 Theodore, Epp . i i . 86 .

2 They based their refusal on an

apostol ic command,so. of Paul in

T itus iii. 9-10.

3 So Schneider,89 ; Grosen, 147.

C . Thomas plac es the audienc e almostimmediately after Theodore ’s returnfrom exile

,and before the letter of

Nic ephorus The d iffi culty as

to the order arises from the fac t thatthe three negotiations the letterof Nic ephorus, (2 ) the proposal for a

c onferenc e, (3) the aud ience— are re

c orded in three sources,each ofwhich

mentions only the one transac tion.

We can, therefore, only apply con

siderations of probability.

4 M ichael, i b. c . 60 (cp. Vita N icol.

Stud . The Patriarch was not

present (ib . ; and Theodore, Epp. ii .

129 , p . 1417 ; from which passage itappears that at this aud ience the

Emperor again proposed a conferencebetween representatives of the two

doc trines, and offered to leave the

dec ision to c erta in persons who professed to b e image

-worsh ippers— frofir ou

d ei’

uov 7 63V 61306 1! duocppovwv

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116 E AS TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE CHAP. 111

envoy ; but it was intolerable that one of his own subjectsshould b e the spokesman of Rome . Methodius was treatedwith rigour as a treasonable in triguer ; he was scourged and

then imprisoned in a tomb in the little island of St. Andrew,

which lies off the north side of the promontory of Akritas(Tuzla—Burnu) , in the Gulf of Nicomedia .

1H is confinement

lasted for more than eight years ?

After the outbreak of the civil war Michael took the precaution of commanding Theodore and his faction to move intothe city, fearing that they might support his opponent

,who

was said to favour images. The measure was unnecessary,for

the iconolaters of the better class seem to have had no

sympathy with the cause of Thomas, and the ecclesiasticalquestion did not prove a serious factor in the struggle ?

On the termination of the war,the Emperor made a new

effort to heal the division in the Church . He againproposed a conference between the leading exponents of

the rival doctrines, b ut the proposal was again rejected,

on the ground that the question could b e se ttled only inone of two ways— either by an ecumenical council

,which

required the concurrence of the Pepe and the four Patriarchs

,or by a local council, which would only have legal

authority if the legitimate Patriarch Nicephorus were firstrestored.

4

1 Vi t. M eth . 1 5 . For the islandsee Pargoire, B ieria ,

28.

2 Vit. Moth . 1 § 6, says nine years .

As he was imprisoned in spring 821,and released (i b. ) by M ichael just beforehis death (Oct . eight and a halfwould b e more accurate .

3 M ichael,Vit. Theed . c . 61. Vit.

N icol . Stud . 900. Grossu (149 ) andothers think that Theodore , while hewas in the c ity, was probably re

installed at Studien. I doubt this .

During the latter part of the war

(Grossu omits to notice) he was in thePrince

’

s Island,as we learn from a

letter written there , Epp . ii. 127, p .1412 . (Nic ephorus, it would seem

,

was allowed to remain in h is monasteryon the Bosphorus . ) From Epp . ii. 129 ,p . 1416, we learn that Theodore hadno sympathy with the rebel ¢ovlaxos

~

érrclw Kparnfig duc a lws drror lo ec 1rpos r ef}

véuov rhv dyrwnxofie av non/flu.

4 The source is Theodore’s letter to

L eo, the Sakellarios (whom M ichael

had charged w ith the negotiation) , rej ecting the proposition on behal f of hispart (Epp. ii . The writer refersto t e audience which the Emperorhad accorded to him and his friendsin 821 as 1rpe rpu

'

bv ér d’

w. Th is enablesus to assign the date to the firstmonthsof 824. At the same time Theodoreaddressed a letter direc tly to theEmperors M ichael and Theophilus(ii. setting forth the case for

pic tures . At the end of the war

Theodore retired (along with his

disc i le Nicolaus) to the monastery ofSt. Tliyphon, c lose to the promontory

of'

Akritas, in the Gulf of Nicomedia

(Michael , Vit. Theed . , ib. Vit. N icol.Stud. where he lived till hisdeath, Nov. 11

, 826 (Vit. N icol.

902 ; Naukratios,Encyclica , 1845 ;

Michael, Vi t. Theod . c . He was

buried in Princ e'

s Island, but the

remains were a fterwards removed to

sac r . 111 E CCLE S IA S TI CAL P OL I C Y OF M I CHAE L I I . 1 17

The Emperor was convinced that the obs tinacy of the

image-worshippers rested largely on their hopes that the

Roman See would intervene,and that if he could induce the

Pope to assume a cold attitude to their solicita tions the

opposition would soon expire . In order to influence the

Pepe he sough t the assistance of the Western Emperor,Lewis,

to whom he indited a long let ter, which contains an in

teresting description of the abuses to which the venera tion of

images had led1 “ Lights were set in fron t of them and

incense was burned,and they were held in the same honour

as the life-giving Cross . They were prayed to,and their aid

was besought . Some used even to cover them with clothsand make them the baptismal sponsors for their children .

Some priests scraped the pain t from pictures and mixed it inthe bread and wine which they give to communican ts ; othersplaced the body of the Lord in the hands of images

,from

which the communicants received it. The Emperors Leo V.

and his son caused a local synod to b e held,

2and such

practices were condemned. It was ordained that pictureswhich were hung low in churches should b e removed, thatthose which were high should b e left for the instruction of

persons who are unable to read, but that no candles should

be lit or incense burned before them . Some rejected the

council and fled to Old Rome, where they calumniated the

Church .

”The Emperors proceed to profess their belief in

the Six Ecumenical Councils, and to assure King Lewisthat they venerate the glorious and holy relics of the Saints.

They ask him to speed the envoys to the Pope, to whomthey are bearers of a letter and gifts for the Church of

St. Peter.

The four envoys 3 who were sent on this mission metwith a favourable reception from the Emperor Lewis at

Studien in 844 (Michael, ib . c .

During his last years h e co'

ntinued hisepistolary ac tivity in the cause of

orthodoxy, and many people came to

see and consult him (ib . c .

1 M ich . Ep. ad L ud . 420.

dated April 10, A.D . 824 .

2 “ Propterea statuerunt orthodoxi

imperatores et doc tissimi sac erdoteslocale adunare c onc ilium .

”This state

ment, which of course refers to the

synod of A .D . 815, seems to have led to

It is

the false idea of some historians thatM ichael held a counc i l in 821 . He

simply adhered to the ac ts of 815 .

3 Theodore, a strategos of protoSpathar rank ; Nic etas, bishop of

Myra ; Theodore , oekonomos of St.

Soph ia Leo , an Imperial candidatus .

The Patriarch Fortunatus of Grade

(who had fled to Constantinople in

821) ac companied them (Ann. r . F. ,

sub

118 EA S TE RN ROM AN E M P IRE C HAP. 111

Rouen, and were sent on to Rome, where Eugenius had

succeeded Paschal in St Peter’s chair.

1 I t is not recordedhow they fared at Rome

,but Lewis lost no time in making

an attempt to bring about a European settlement of the

iconoclastic controversy. The Frankish Church did not agreewith the extreme views of the G reek iconoclasts, nor yet withthe doctrine of image-worship which had been formulated bythe Council of Nicaea and approved by the Popes ; and it

appeared to Lewis a good Opportunity to press for thatintermediate solution Of the question which had beenapproved at the Council Of Frankfurt (A.D. The

sense Of this solution was to forbid the veneration of images,

but to allow them to be set up in churches as ornaments and

memorials. The first step was to persuade the Pepe, and for

this purpose Lewis, who, like his father, was accustomed tosummon councils on his own authority

, respectfully askedEugenius to permit him to convoke the Frankish bishops tocollect the Opinions of the Fathers on the question at issue .

Eugenius could not refuse,and the synod met in Paris in

November 825 . The report of the bishops agreed with thedecision of Frankfurt ; they condemned the worship of images,tracing its history back to the Greek philosopher Epicurus ;they censured Pope Hadr ian for approving the doctrine of the

N icene Council ; b ut, on the other hand, they condemnedthe iconoclasts for insisting on the banishment of images fromchurches ? Lewis despatched two

_

learned bishops to Rome ,bearing extracts from the report of the synod

,

3b ut the story

Of the nego tiations comes here to a sudden end. We hear of

no further direct communications between Rome and Con

stantinople, but we may reasonably suspect that a Papalembassy to Lewis (A.D . and two embassies whichpassed between the Eastern and Western Emperors in the

following years,4 were concerned with the question Of religiouspictures.

Till his death , from disease of the kidneys, in October

1 Paschal seems to have died some 3 Sickel, A cta Lud . 235, 236, pp .

time in spring 824 cp. Simson,I/ud 154 sq.

wig, i. 212, n. 1 .

4 Ann. r . R,sub 828. See

2 For all this, see Simson, ib. 248 below, p . 330.

sqq. , where the sources are given.

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THEOPHILUS

(A.D. 829-842)

1 . The Administra tion of Theophilus

FOR eight years Theophilus had been an exemplary cO-regent.Though he was a man Of energetic character and active brain

,

he appears never to have put himself forward,1and if he

exerted influence upon h is father’s policy, such influence wascarefully hidden behind the throne. Perhaps Michael com

pelled him to remain in the background. In any case, hisposition

,for a man Of his stamp

,was an education in politics ;

it afforded him facilities for observing weak points in an

administration for which he was not responsible, and for studying the conditions of the Empire which he would one dayhave to govern . He had a strong sense of the Obligations ofthe Imperial Office, and he possessed the capacities which hissubjects considered desirable in their monarch . He had the

military training which enabled him to lead an army into thefield ; he had a passion for justice ; he was well educated, and,like the typical Byzantine sovran

,interested in theology.

H is private life was so exemplary that even the malevolenceOf the chroniclers, who detested him as a heretic

,coul d only

rake up one story against his morals ? He kept a brilliantCourt, and took care that his palace, to which he added new

1 He emerges only on two occasions behaved with a pretty maid of his

in our mea e chronic les as help wife . When Theodora discovered hising in the efenc e of the c ity against c onduct and showed her c hagrin, heThomas, and (2 ) as responsible for swore a tremendous oath that he hadthe death of Euthymios of Sardis never done such a thing before and

(but for this see below, p . would never repeat the offence (Cent.2 The scandal was that he mis Th .

SECT . I THE ADM IN I S TRA TI ON OF THE OP H IL US

and splendid buildings, should not b e outshone by the marvelsOf Baghdad .

We might expect to find the reign of Theophilus remembered in Byzantine chronicle as a dazzling passage in the

history of the Empire, like the caliphate of Harun al-Rashidin the annals Of I slam . But the writers who have recordedhis acts convey the impression that he was an unlucky and

ineffective monarch ? In his eastern warfare against theSaracens his fortune was chequered, and he sustained one

crushing humiliation ; in the West,he was unable to check

the Mohammadan advance. H is ecclesiastical policy,which

he inherited from his predecessors, and pursued with vigourand conviction

,was undone after his death . But though he

fought for a losing cause in religion,and wrought no great

mili tary exploits, and did not possess the highest gifts Of

statesmanship, it is cer tain that his reputation among hiscontemporaries was far higher than a superficial examinationof the chronicles would lead the reader to suspect. He has

fared like Leo V. He was execrated in later times as an unre

lenting iconoclast,and a conspiracy Of silence and depreciation

has depressed his fame. But it was perhaps not so much hisheresy as his Offence in belonging to the Amorian dynastythat was fatal to his memory. Our records were compiledunder the Basilian dynasty, which had established

.

itself on

the throne by murder ; and misrepresentation of the Amoriansis a distinctive propensity in these partial chronicles. Yet, if

we read between the lines,we can easily detect that there was

another tradition , and that Theophilus had impressed the

popular imagination as a just 2 and brilliant sovran, somewhatas Harun impressed the East . This tradition is reflected inanecdotes

,Of which it would b e futile to appraise the proper

tions of truth and myth,— anecdotes wh ich the Basilian

1 C esp. Cont. Th . 139 (Ovar vxfis) .2 T e hostile chronic lers admit his

love of justic e, and Nicetas (VitaIgnatii , 216) describes him as

“not

otherwise b ad (apart from his heresy)and as Oma i oxpurfa s drr exbuevos. Gelzer(A briss, in Krumb acher, G .B .L . 967 )judges Theophilus severely : Ein

GrOssenwahn nach dem Vorb ildeorienta lischer Sultans , ein Allwis

senheitsdiinkel der selb standig mili

tarische, kirchliche wie Verwaltungsfragen allein entscheidet

,und eine

vollendete Verstandnislosigkeit fur

die Zeichen der Zeit sind die Ei en

tiimlichkeiten dieses stark ii sr

schatztcn, im Grunde keineswegsbedeutenden Regenten. H is ecclesie stical policy was a failure, but otherwise I fail to see the grounds for th isverdict.

EAS TE RN R OMAN EM P IRE C HAP. i v

historiographers found too interesting to omit, but told in a

somewhat grudging way because they were supposed to b e to

the credit Of the Emperor .

The motive Of these stories is the Emperor’s desire to

administer justice rigorously without respect of persons. He

used to ride once a week through the city to perform his

devotions in the church Of the Virgin at Blachernae,and on

the way he was ready to listen to the petitions of any Of his

subjects who wished to claim his protection. One day he

was accosted by a widow who complained that she was

wronged by the brother of the Empress, Petronas, who heldthe post Of Drungary of the Watch . It was ill egal to buildat Constantinople any structure which intercepted the view or

the light Of a neighbour’s house ; but Petronas was enlarginghis own residence at Blachernae

,with insolent disregard

for the law ,in such a way as to darken the house of the

widow. Theophilus promptly sent Eustathios the quaestor,

and other Offi cers, to test the accuracy of her statement,and

on their report that it was true,the Emperor caused his

brother-in-law to b e stripped and flogged in the public street.The Obnoxious buildings were levelled to the ground, and theruins

,apparently, bestowed upon the complainant.1 Another

time,on his weekly ride, he was surprised by a man who

accosted him and said, The horse on which your Majesty isriding belongs to me. Calling the Count of the Stable, whowas in attendance, the Emperor inquired

,

“Whose is thishorse ? ” I t was sent to your Majesty by the Count of

Opsikion, was the reply. The Count of the Opsikian Theme ,who happened to b e in the city at the time, was summonedand confronted next day with the claimant , a soldier Of his

own army,who charged him with having appropriated the

animal without giving any consideration either in money or

military promotion . The lame excuses Of the Count did not

serve ; he was chastised with stripes,and the horse Offered to

its righ tful owner . This man,however, preferred to receive

2 pounds Of gold 6, 8s. ) and military promotion he proved

a coward and was slain in battle with his back to the enemy ?

Another anecdote is told of the Emperor’s indignation on

1 Simeon,Add . Georg. 793 .

2 l b . 803. The story is told otherwise in Cont. Th . 93 .

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124 EA S TE RN R OMAN EM P IRE CHAP . iv

ment was not distinguished by novel legislation or anyradical reform . H is laws have disappeared and left no visibletraces— like almost all the Imperial legisla tion between thereigns Of Leo I II . and Basil I ? Of one important enactmentwe are informed. The law did not allow marriage exceptbetween orthodox Christians ? But there was a large influx

,

during his reign,of orientals who were in rebellion against

the Caliph ,8 and Theophilus, to encourage the movement,

passed a law permitting alliance between MohammadanPersians and Romans.

4This measure accorded with his

reputation for being a friend of foreigners ?

One of the first measures of the reign was an ac t of policy,

performed in the name Of justice . According to one account 6

the people had gathered in the Hippodrome to witness horseraces, and at the end Of the performance the Emperor assembledthe Senate in the Kathisma, from which b e witnessed the

games, and ordered Leo Chamaidrakon,the Keeper of the

Private Wardrobe, to produce the chandelier which had beenbroken when Leo V. was cut down by his murderers in the

chapel of the Palace. Pointing to this,Theophilus asked

,

What is the desert of him who enters the temple Of the Lordand slays the Lord ’s anointed The Senate replied, Death

,

and the Emperor immediately commanded the Prefect Of the

City tO seize the men who had slain Leo and decapitate themin the Hippodrome before the assembled people. The astonished

shorn a t once.

1 A law concerning the fashion of

wearing tb c ha ir is attributed to himin Cont. Th. 107 .

'H is own hair wasthin

,and he decreed (éeéamaev and

y bnov éi éder o) that no Roman shoulda llow h is hair to fal l below the

neck,

alleging the v irtuous fashionof the anc ient Romans . Such an

edic t is grossly improbable . We maysuspec t that he introduc ed a regula

tion of the kind in regard to soldiersand some light is thrown on the

matter by an anecdote (recorded aboutA .D . 845-847 ) in Acta 42 Mart. Amor .

242 5 . Kallistos , a count Of the

Schools captain of a c ompany inthe ScholarianGuards) , presented himself to the Emperor w ith long untidyhair and heard (a bxpnpd T LVL xbug Ka i

d¢1koxdh<p ya a ear) . Theophilus verynatura lly administered a. severe rebuketo the Officer , and ordered him to b e

This inc ident, whichis undoubtedly genuine, may haveac tually prompted the regulation.

2 Marriages with heretics were forbidden : Acta Cone. Tru llani , c . 72 .

Cp. Zacharia v. L . Gr .- r6m. R .

61 sq.

3 See below, Chap . VIII. p . 252 .

‘1 Cont. Th . 112.

5rdir mbrrore flae ihéwv,

Acta 42 Ma rt. Amer . 27 where he issaid to have been fond of negroes

(Alfiiorres) , of whom he formed a

military bandon. This passage also

refers to marriages of foreigners withRoman women a vuayn

‘

yepxcbs e'

x

61a¢6pwv 7 hwe'

e'

c31/ Or r whele rnv

e vuaoplav 00: K il l (“

eb‘yvve fia i r a i’

s

Ov'yarpde t rdiv 1roNr cSv 1rpes as Ka i

de rweir évwv [311107 11639 e'

vvrdfa sduérpetbe r d

’

Pw,u.a lwv a tom.

6 Simeon, Add . Georg. 791.

ss c r . 1 THE ADM IN IS TRA TI ON OF THE OPH IL US

victims of such belated justice naturally exclaimed, If we had

not assisted your father,0 Emperor

, you would not now b e

on the throne .

”There are other versions of the circumstances,

and it is possible that the assassins were condemned at a formal

silention in the M agnaura? It would b e useless to judge this

punishment by any ethical standard . Michael I I . had not

only a guilty knowledge of the conspiracy, but had urged the

conspirators to hasten their work . The passion Of a

doctrinaire for justice will not explain his son’s act in callinghis father’s accomplices to a tardy account ; nor is there the

least probability in the motive which some image-worshippersassigned

,that respect for the memory of Lee as a great

iconoclast inspired him to wreak vengeance on the murderers ?

The truth,no doubt

,is that both Michael I I . and Theophilus

were acutely conscious tha t the deed which had raised themto power cast an ugly shadow over their throne ; and it is

noteworthy that in the letter which they addressed to the

Emperor Lewis they stigmatize the conspirators as wickedmen ? Michael

,we may be assured, showed them no favour,

but he could not bring himself to punish the men whom he

had himself encouraged to commit the crime. The conscienceof Theophilus was clear, and he could definitely dissociate theAmorian house from the murder by a public act of retribu

tion. I t may well be that (as one tradi tion affirms 4) Michael ,when death was approaching, urged his son to this step . In any

case,it seems certain that the purpose of Theophilus was to

remedy a weakness in his poli tical position , and that he was

taking account of public Opinion .

The Augusta Euphrosyne, last Imperial descendant Of theIsaurian house

,retired to a monastery soon after her stepson ’

s

accession to the supreme power. Michael is rela ted to havebound the Senate by a pledge that they would defend the

rights of his second wife and her children after his death ?

If this is true,it meant that if she had a son his position

shoul d b e secured as co-regent Of his stepbrother. She had no

children, and found perhaps little a t traction in the prospect of1 Gen. 51 . Add . Georg . 789 , that Theophilus2 Add . Georg .

,ib. reigned along with Euphrosyne is a

3 Ep. ad L ud . 418,“a quibusdam c oro llary from the error that she was

improb is.

”his mother

,and brought about his

‘1 Gen. 5 1 . marriage with Theodora a fter hi s5 Cent. Th . 78 . The statement in father’

s death .

EAS TERN R OM AN EM P IRE CHAP. 1v

residing in the Palace and witnessing Court functions in whichTheodora would now be the most important fi gure . There isno reason to suppose that she retired under compulsion ?

The first fi ve children born to Theophilus during his

father’s lifetime were daughters, but just before or soon afterhis accession Theodora gave birth to a son, who was namedConstantine and crowned as Augustus. Constantine

,however

,

did not survive infancy,2 and the Emperor had to take thoughtfor making some provision for the succession . He selected as

a son-in-law AlexiosMusele,3who belonged to the family Of the

Krénitai, of Armenian descent, and betrothed him to h is eldestdaugh ter

,Maria (0. A.D. 83 Al exios (who had been created a

patrician and distinguished by the new title of anthypatos,4

and then elevated to the higher rank Of magister) received thedignity of Caesar, which gave him a presumptive expectationof a still higher title . The marriage was celebrated aboutA.D . 83 6 , but Maria died soon afterwards and

,against the

Emperor’s wishes, his son-in-law insisted on retiring to a

monastery. There was a story that the suspicions of

Theophilus had been aroused by jealous tongues against theloyalty Of Alexios, who had been sent to figh t with the

Saracens in Sicily. It is impossible to say how much truthmay underlie this report, nor can we b e sure whether the

Caesar withdrew from the world before or after the birth Of a

son to Theophilus (in A .D . an event which would in anycase have disappointed his hopes Of the succession ?

1 On the retirement of Euphrosyne, Melioranski, ib .

see M elioranski, Viz . Vrem. 8 , 32-33 .

The statements ofSimeon (Add . Georg .

790) and Cont. Th . 86 c ontradict eachother ac cording to the latter she was

(laudably) expel led from the Palac eby Theophilus (accepted as true byH irsch , I think Me lioranski is

right in following the former (Viz .

Vrem. 8, 32 b ut his Observationsabout the chronology do not hold .

Cont. Th . is undoubtedly ri ht instating that Eu hrosyne with rew to

the c loister in w ich she had formerlybeen a nun (in the island of Prink iposee above, p . 111 ) she had noth ing todo with the monastery of Gastria, towhich Simeon sends her (Add . Georg.

790 ; cp. Vit. Theodora e Aug. p.G astria belonged to Theoktiste, the

mother -in -law of Theoph ilus . Sec

2 H e robab ly died 0. A .D . 835 . Forthe evi ence for Constantine

,for the

argument tha t Maria was the eldestdaughter, for the chronology, and forthe coins

,see Appendix VI .

3 Mushegh , in Armenian ; cp. St.

Martin apud Lebeau,xiii . 118, who

th inks he was desc ended from the

Mamigonians . H is namesake, who

he ld high posts under Irene and Constantine VI .

, may have been his

father.

4 See Bury,Imp . Administra tion,

5 Op. Appendix VI. ad fi n. Theophilus gave Alexios threemonasteries,one Of them at Chryso olis . But

Alexios wished to foun a c loisterhimself ; and taking a walk northward from Chrysopolis along the shore,

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128 EAS TE RN ROMAN EM P IRE CHAP . Iv

with variegated hangings 1 and purple and silver ornamen ts.

The long Middle Street, through which the triumphal trainwould pass, from the Golden Gate Of victory to the place of

the Augusteon,was strewn with flowers. The prisoners, the

trophies and the spoils Of war preceded the Emperor, who rode

on a white horse caparisoned with jewelled harness ; a tiarawas on his head ; he wore a sceptre in his hand

, and a goldembroidered tunic framed his breastplate ? Beside him

, on

another white steed similarly equipped, rode the Caesar

Alexios, wearing a corslet , sleeves, and gaiters Of gold,a helmet

and gold headband, and poising a golden spear. At a shortdistance from the triumphal gate the Emperor dismountedand made three obeisances to the east

,and

, when he crossedthe threshold Of the city, the Praepositus, the Magister

,and

the Prefect, now relieved of their extraordinary au thority,

presented him with a crown Of gold , which he carried on his

right arm. The demes then solemnly acclaimed h im as victor,and the procession advanced . When it reached the milestoneat the gates of the Augusteon,

the senators dismounted,except

those who, having taken part in the campaign,were their

armour,and

,passing through the gates, walked in front Of the

sovran to the Well of St. Sophia. Here the Emperor himselfdismounted, entered the church , and

,after a brief devotion ,

crossed the Augusteon on foot to the Bronze Gate of the

Palace, where a pulpit had been set, flanked by a throne of

gold,and a golden organ which was known as the Prime

Miracle ? Between these stood a large cross of gold. WhenTheophilus had seated himself and made the sign Of the cross,the demes cried, There is one Holy.

”The city community "

then Offered him a pair of golden armlets, and wearing thesehe acknowledged the gift by a speech ,5 in which he describedhis military successes. Amid new acclamations he remountedhis horse, and riding through the Passages Of Achilles and

past the Baths Of Zeuxippus, entered the Hippodrome and

reached the Palace at the door Of the Skyla. On the next1oxapaudw ia .

‘1re

o

rroMr evua , the whole b ed of

2 em h épi xo v (cp. Ducange, s. v .

the Ci ti zens Of the capi tal , Of W 0 111

the prefec t of the c ity was theThe tumc was boabfi orpvs

dogs this mean that the design repre“ father. He and 11 13

2 were the nohtrdpxa t .sented roses and bunches of grapes 5 Delivered evidently from the pul

3r pwr bfla vua .

ss cr . 1 THE ADM IN IS TRA TI ON OF THE OP H IL US

day, at a reception in the Palace, many honours and dignitieswere conferred, and horse-races were held in the Hippodrome,where the captives and the trophies were exhibited to the

people.

2 . Buildings of Theophilus

The reign Of Theophilus was an epoch in the history of

the Great Palace. He enlarged it by a group Of handsomeand curious buildings, on which immense sums must havebeen expended

,and we may b e sure that this architectural

enterprise was stimulated, if not suggested, by the reportswhich reached his ears of the magnificent palaces which the

Caliphs had built for themselves at Baghdad ? H is own

pride and the prestige Of the Empire demanded that the

residence of the Basileus shoul d not b e eclipsed by the

splendour of the Caliph ’s abode.

At the beginning Of the ninth century the G reat Palace 2

consisted of two groups of buildings— the original Palace,

including the Daphne, which Constantine the G reat had builtadjacent to the Hippodrome and to the Augusteon,

and at

some distance to the south-east the Chrysotriklinos (with itsdependencies) , which had been erected by Justin I I . and had

superseded the Daphne as the centre of Court life and

ceremonial. I t is probable that the space between the OlderPalace and the Chrysotriklinos was open ground , free frombuildings, perhaps laid out in gardens and terraced (for the

ground falls southward) . There was no architectural connexionbetween the two Palaces, but Justinian I I . at the end Of the

seventh century had connected the Chrysotriklinos with theHippodrome by means of two long halls which Opened in toone another— the Lausiakos and the Triklinos called after hisname. These halls were probably perpendi cular to the

Hippodrome, and formed a line of building which closed inthe principal grounds of the Palace on the southern side ?

1 See below , Chap . VIII . 2 . of Japan at Kyoto, described by F .

2 Pa lace suggests to us a single block Brink ley,Japan, itsH istory, Arts,and

of building, and is so far misleading, L iterature, vol. 1. 198-199

though it can hardly b e avoided . The 3 The eas tern door Of the LausiakosByzantine residence resembled the fac ed the western portico of the

oriental palac es which consisted of Chrysotriklinos its western doormany detached halls and buildings in opened into the Triklinos of Justinian,

large grounds. Compare, for ins tanc e, on the west of which was the Skylathe residenc e of the Heian Emperors which Opened into the Hippodrome .

K

EA S TE RN ROM AN EM P IRE CHAP. 1v

It is probable that the residence of Constantine here someresemblance in design and style to the house of Dioc letian at

Spalato and other mansions Of the period ? The descriptionsOf the octagonal Chrysotriklinos show that it was built underthe influence Of the new style of ecclesiastical architecturewhich was characteristic Of the age Of Justinian . The chiefgroup of buildings which Theophilus added in troduced a new

style and marked a third epoch in the architectural history Of

the Great Palace . Our evidence makes it clear that theywere situated between the Constantinian Palace on the northwest and the Chrysotriklinos on the south -east ?

These edifices were grouped round the Trikonchos or

Triple Shell, the most original in its design and probablythat on which Theophilus prided himself most. It took its '

name from the shell-like apses,which projected on three sides,

the larger on the east, supported on four porphyry 3 pillars, theothers (to south and north) on two. This triconch plan waslong known at Constan tinople, whither it had been importedfrom Syria ; it was distinctively orien tal. On the west side a

silver door,

flanked by two side doors of burnished bronze,Opened into a hall which had the shape of a half moon and

was hence called the Sigma . The roof rested on fifteencolumns of many-tinted marble ? But these halls were onlythe upper s toreys of the Trikonchos and the Sigma . The

ground-floor Of the Trikonchos6 had

,like the room above it,

three apses, but differently oriented . The northern side Of

this hall was known as the Mysterion or Place of Whispers,See my Gr ea t Pa lace in B .Z. xx . tailed description of the buildings.

where I have shown thatLab arte

’

s assum tion that the Lausiakoswas perpen icular to the Triklinosof Justinian is not justified and has

entailed many errors . It has beenadopted by Paspates and Eb ersolt andhas not been rej ec ted by Bieliaev .

That the line of these buildings wasperpendicular to the H ippodrome can

not b e stric tly proved . It is bound upwith the assumption that the eastwest orientation of the Chrysotriklinos

was perpendicular to the axis of the

Hippodrome.

1 See Eb ersolt, L e Grand Pa lais,

160 sqq. ,whose plan of the Con

stantinian palace, however, c annot b emaintained cp. my critic isms

, op. oi l .2 Cent. Th . 139 sqq. gives the de

Their situation is determined by combining the implic ations in this accountwith data in the c eremonial descriptions in C’er . I have shown (op . cit. )that the Trikonchos was north of theChrysotriklinos (not west as it is plac edby Lab arte, Ebersolt,3 SO-called “

Roman stone,really

Egyptian (Cont. Th . 327 ) red

porphyry with white spots (AnnaComnena, vii. 2, ed. Reifferscheid , i .p. Cp. Eb ersolt, 111 .

4 From Dokimion in Phrygia, nearSynnada . The stone in these quarriespresents shades of violet and white,yellow

,and the more fami l iar bree

c iated white and rose-red”

(Lethabyand Swainson, Sanc ta Sophia ,

5 Known as the Tetraseron.

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132 EAS TE RN R OMAN EM P IRE CHAP . 1v

summer ; its por ticoes faced east and south , and the walls and

roof displayed the same kind of decoration as the Pearl. To

the north of this whole group,and fronting the west

,

lrose the

Karianos,a house which the Emperor destined as a residence

for his daughters , taking its name from a flight of steps Of

Carian marble, which seemed to flow down from the en trancelike a broad white river.

In another quarter (perhaps to the south of the Lausiakos)the Emperor laid out gardens “

and constructed shelters or

sunneries,”if this word may b e permitted as a literal

rendering Of helialca . Here he built the Kamilas, an apartmen t 2 whose roof glittered with gold, supported by six

columns Of the green marble Of Thessaly. The walls weredecorated with a dado of marble incrustation below,

and

above with mosaics representing on a gold.ground people

gathering fruit. On a lower floor 3 was a chamber whichthe studious Emperor Constantine VI I . afterwards turnedin to a library

,and a breakfast-room

,with walls Of splendid

marble and floor adorned with mosaics. Near at hand two

other houses,

similar yet different, attested the taste Of

Theophilus for rich schemes of decoration . One Of thesewas remarkable for the mosaic walls in which green treesstood out against a golden sky. The lower chamber of the

other was called the M usikos,from the harmonious blending

of the colours of the marble plaques with which the wallswere covered— Egyptian porphyry, wh ite Carian, and the

green riverstone of Thessaly, — while the variegated floorproduced the effect of a flowering meadow ?

If the influence Of the luxurious art Of the East is

apparent in these halls and pavilions which Theophilusadded to his chief residence, a new palace which his architectPatrikes built on the Bithynian coast was avowedly modelledon the palaces Of Baghdad. I t was not far from the famous

1 The Karianos faced the Church ofthe Lord (Cont. Th . which wasin the extreme north of th e palacegrounds, near to the south-east c ornerof the Augusteon and to the gatelead ing into the grounds Of the

Magnaura .

2 The Kamilas and the two adjacenthouses are described as cubicula (Cont.Th .

2use br arov, not the ground -floor,

b ut the entresol (as Eb ersolt renders,From here one had, through a

Khovfllov, railing or balustrade (cancelli , cp. Ducange , s . v . Khoflos) , a viewof the Chrysotriklinos.

‘1 The Musikos had only two walls,east and north on the other sides itwas c olumned and Open (Cont. Th .

It was thus a héliakou.

ssc r . 11 B UIL D IN G S OF THE OP H IL US

palace Of H ieria,built by Justinian . The Asiatic suburbs of

Constan tinople not only included Chrysopolis and Chalcedon ,but extended south-eastward along the charming shore whichlooks to the Prince’s Islands, as far as Kartalimen. Proceedingin this direction from Chalcedon , one came fi rst to the peninsul aOf Hieria (Phanaraki) , where Justinian had chosen the site Of

his suburban residence. Passing by Rufi nianae (Jadi-Bostan) ,one reached Satyres

,once noted for a temple , soon to b e

famous for a monastery. The spot chosen by Theophilus forhis new palace was at Bryas

,which lay between Satyres and

Kartalimen (Kartal) , and probably corresponds to the modernvillage Of Mal-tepe? The palace Of Bryas resembled thoseof Baghdad in shape and in the schemes Of decora tion ? The

only deviations from the plan of the original were additionsrequired in the residence Of a Christian ruler, a chapel of theVirgin adjoining the Imperial bedroom

,and in the court a

church Of the triconch shape dedicated to Michael the archangel and two female saints. The buildings stood in a parkirrigated by watercourses.

Arabian splendour in his material surroundings meantmodernity for Theophilus,3 and his love Of novel curiositieswas shown in the mechanical contrivances which he installedin the audience chamber of the palace of M agnaura

?A

golden plane-tree overshadowed the throne ; birds sat on its

branches and on the throne itself. Golden griflins couchedat the sides, golden lions at the foot ; and there was a gold

1 For these identifications, and theBithynian see Pargoire

’

s

admirable B ieria . Cp. also his

R ufi nianes, 467 ; he would seek thesite of the palac e in ruins to the easto f the h i l l of Drake s-tepe.

2 £11 exfiuaa i Ka i. woixchfa, Cont. Th .

98 , cp. Simeon (Add . Georg. ) 798.

The later sourc e says that John the

Synkellos brought the plans fromBaghdad and superintended the con

struc tion ; there is nothing of thisin Simeon

,b ut it is poss ible that

John v isited Baghdad (see below, pThe ruins of an Old temple near

the neighbouring Satyros suppliedsome of the building materia l for thepalac e of Bryas . The dec lension Of

this name is both p ov and Bpuavr os.

Some modern writers erroneously suppose that the nominative is Bpoos.

3 It is to b e notic ed that b e renewedall the Imperial wardrobe (Simeon,

‘1 The tr iklinos, or main hall,of the

Magnaura (bu i lt by Constantine) wasin form a basilica w ith two aisles, andprobably an apse in the east end ,

where the e levated throne stoodrailed off from the rest Of the bu ilding . See Eb ersolt, 70. There werechambers off the main hall , espec iallythe nuptial chamber (Of apse—shape :

xbyxnr ef; r a e r ofi ), used on the oc casionof an Imperi al wedding . The situation Of the M agnaura was east Of theAugustson on the north-west it wasc lose to St. SO hia on the south-westthere was a esc ent , and a gate ledinto the grounds of the Great Palac e ,c lose to the Church of the Lord and

the Consistorion.

EA S TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE C HAP . 1v

organ in the room .

l When a foreign ambassador was introduced to the Emperor’s presence, he was amazed and perhapsalarmed at seeing the animals rise up and hearing the lionsrear and the birds burst into melodious song. At the soundof the organ these noises ceased

,but when the audience was

over and the ambassador was withdrawing, the mechanismwas again set in motion ?

One of the most remarkable sights in the throne room of

the M agnaura was the P entapyrgion, or cabinet of Five Towers,a piece of furni ture which was constructed by Theophilus ?

Four towers were grouped round a central and doubtlesshigher tower ; each tower had several

,probably four

,storeys 4

and in the chambers, which were visible to the eye, wereexhibited various precious Objects, mostly Of sacred interest .At the celebration Of an Imperial marriage

,it was the usage

to deposit the nuptial wreaths in the Pentapyrgion. On

Special occasions,for instance at the Easter festival, it was

removed from the M agnaura to adorn the Chrysotriklinos.

5

If the Emperor’s love of magnificence and taste for art

impelled him to spend immense sums on his palaces, he didnot neglect works Of public utility. One Of the most importantduties of the government was to maintain the fortifications of

the city in repair. Theophilus did not add new defences,like Heracli us and Leo

,but no Emperor did more than he to

strengthen and improve the existing walls . The experiencesof the siege conducted by Thomas seem to have shown thatthe sea-walls were not high enough to b e impregnable ? I t

was decided to raise them in height,and this work

,though

commenced by his father on the side of the Golden Horn,

7

was mainly the work of Theophilus.

1 Two gold organs were made forTheophilus, but only one of themseems to have been kept in the

Magnaura. Simeon (Add . Georg ) , 793.

2 Constantine, C’er . 568-569 ; Vi la

Bas . 257 = Cont. Th . 173 . For suchc ontrivances at Baghdad see Gibbon,

vi. 126.

3 Simeon, ib. (cp. Pseudo-Simeon,it was made by a goldsmith

related to the Patriarch Antonius . If

not of solid gold , it was doubtlessrichly decorated with gold . The same

Numerous inscriptions

artist made the golden organs and the

golden tree4 Compartments, uearoxdpb i a . See

C’er . 582, cp. 586-587 .

5 Constantine, Ger . 580, cp. 70.

5 Gen. 75 r d’

w r erxé’

w xflauahé’

w

t50 e rea l r efs 7rol\e,u. locs éur efib’ev (3p.

napexbvrwv re ebenlflar ov.

7 This follows from two inscriptionsof “ M ichael and Theoph ilus," now

lost ; see van Millingen, Wa lls, 185.

Other inscriptions existed inscribedTheophilus and Michael ," and therefore dating from the years 839-842.

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EAS TE RN ROM AN EM P IRE CHAP. IV

not summon a new council, and perhaps he did not issue anynew edict ; but he endeavoured

,by severe measures

, to ensurethe permanence of the iconoclastic principles which had beenestablished under Leo the Armenian . The lack Of contemporary evidence renders it difficult to determine the scope and

extent of the persecution of Theophilus but a careful examination of such evidence as exists shows that modern historianshave exaggerated its compass, if not its severity ? SO far

as we can see,his repressive measures were twofold. He

endeavoured to check the propagation of the false doctrine bypunishing some leading monks who were actively preachingit ; and he sought to abolish religious pictures from ConstantinOple by forbidding them to be painted at all ?

Of the cases of corporal chastisement inflicted on ecclesiasticsfor pertinacity in the cause Of image-worship

,the most famous

and genuine is the punishment Of the two Palestinian brothers,Theodore and Theophanes

,

3who had already endured persecution

under Leo V. On Leo’

s death they returned to Constantinopleand did their utmost in the cause of pictures, Theodore by hisbooks and Theophanes by his hymns. But Michael II . treatedthem like other leaders of the cause ; he did not permit themto remain in the city ? Under Theophilus they were im

prisoned and scourged, then exiled to Apha sia, one Of the

1 The contemporary chroniclerGeorge gives no fac ts, but indulgesin vapid abuse. Simeon relates thetreatment Of the brothers Theodore

in his account of the affair ofTheodoreand Theo hanes, for which we have a

fi rst-b an source in Theodore ’s own

letter. Simeon made use of thisand Theophanes, but otherwise onlysays that Theoph ilus pulled downpic tures , and banished and tormentedmonks (Add . Georg. Genesios

(74-75 ) is amazingly brief : the

Emperor disturbed the sea of piety ;(1 ) he imprisoned M ichael, synkellos

of Jerusalem,with many monks ; (2)

branded Theodore and Theophanes ;3 ) was assisted by John the Patriarch .

The lurid description of the persecu

tion,which has generally been adopted,is supplied by the biographer of

Theophilus, Cont. Th . e. 10 sqq. ,who

begins by stating that Th . soughtto outdo his predec essors as a per

secutor. The whole account is too

rhetoric al to b e taken for sober history,and it is in marked contrast withthat Of Genesios, who was not disposedto spare the iconoclasts. (We can

,

indeed, prove the writer’s inaccuracy

source honestly ; in Cont. Th. thereare marked discrepanc ies. ) Various

tortures and cruelties are ascribed ingeneral terms to Th . in A cta 42

Mart. Amer. (1‘24, a document

written not very long after his death ) .2 This seems to b e a genuine tradition, preserved in Cont. Th . (Vit.Theoph. ) c c . 10 and 13 . See below.

3 For the following ac count the

source is the Vita Theodori Grapti

(see Bibliography) . See also Vit.

M ich . Sync , and Vailhé , Sa int M ichel

lo Syncelle.

‘1 0p. cit. 201, where it is said thatJohn (a fterwards Patriarch ) shutthem up in prison, and having arguedwith them unsuc cess fully, exiled them.

This is probably untrue. They livedin the monastery of Sosthenes (whichsurvives in the name Stenia), on the

European bank of the Bosphorus.

I CON OCLASM UNDER THE OP H IL USSECT . I I I

Proconnesian islands ? Theophilus was anxious to win themover ; the severe treatment which he dea lt out to themproves the influence they exerted ; they had, in fact , succeededTheodore of Studion as the principal champions of icons. The

Emperor hoped that after the experience of a protracted exileand imprisonment they would yield to his threats ; theiropposition seemed to him perhaps the chief obstacle to the

unity of the Church . So they were brought to Constantinopleand the story of their maltreatment may b e told in theirown words ?

The Imperial officer arrived at the isle Of Aphusia and hurried us

away to the City, affirming that he knew not the purpose Of the command,

only that he had been sent to execute it very urgently . We arrived inthe City on the 8 th of July . Our conductor reported our arrival to the

Emperor, and was ordered to shut us up in the Praetorian prison. Six

days later (on the 14th) we were summoned to the Imperial presence.

Conducted by the Prefect of the City,we reached the door Of the

Chrysotriklinos, and saw the Emperor w ith a terribly stern countenanceand a number of people standing round. It was the tenth hour .

2 The

Prefect retired and left us in the presence Of the Emperor, who, whenw e had made obeisance

,roughly ordered us to approach . He asked us

Where were ye born 7 We replied, In the land of Moab .” Whycame ye here ?

” We did not answer,and he ordered our faces to b e

beaten. After many sore blows, we b ecame diz zy and fell, and if I had

not grasped the tunic of the man who smote me,I should have fallen on

the Emperor’

s footstool . Holding by his dress I stood unmoved till theEmperor said “Enough and repeated his former question. When w e

still said nothing he addressed the Prefect [who appears to have returned]in great w rath, Take them and engrave on their faces these verses, andthen hand them over to two Saracens to conduct them to their own

c ountry .

”One stood near— his name was Christodulos— who held in his

hand the iamb ic verses which he had composed . The Emperor badehim read them aloud

,adding, “ If they are not good, never mind.

”He

said this because he knew how they would b e ridiculed by us, since weare experts in poetical matters . The man who read them said

,Sir these

fellows are not worthy that the verses should b e better.

”

They were then taken back to the Praetorium ,and then

once more to the Palace,

4 where they received a flogging in the

1 See above, p. 41 .

2 In their letter to John of Cyzicus,quoted in op. cit. 204 sqq.

3 Three O’

c lock in the afternoon.

‘1 Before they were admitted to thepresenc e they were kept in the

Thermastra. The writers on the

Palac e (Lab arte, Bieliaev,Ebersolt,

etc . ) are, I believe, wrong in theirc onc eption of the Thermastra . The

evidenc e points , as I have tried toshow , to its being north Of the

Lausiakos and forming the groundfloor of the Eidikon. The sc ene of

the scourging is represented in a

miniature in the Madrid MS. Of

EAS TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE CHAP . rv

Imperial presence . But another chance was gran ted to them.

Four days later they were ,informed by the Prefect that if they

would communica te once with the iconoclasts it would b e

sufficient to save them from punishment ; I,

”he said

,will

accompany you to the Church .

” When they refused,they

were laid upon benches, and their faces were tat tooed— it was

a long process— with the vi tuperative verses. Some admirationis due to the dexterity and delicacy of touch of the tormen torwho succeeded in branding twelve iambic lines on a humanface. The other part of the sentence was not carried out.

The brethren were not reconducted to their own country ;they were imprisoned at Apamea in Bithynia, where Theodoredied.

1Theophanes

,the hymn writer, survived till the next

reign and became bishop of Nicaea .

Of the acts of persecution ascribed to Theophilus, this isthe most authentic. Now there is a circumstance about itwhich may help to explain the Emperor’s exceptional severity,the fact that the two monks who had so vehemently agitatedagainst his policy were strangers from Palestine . We can

easily unders tand that the Emperor’s resentment would havebeen especially aroused against interlopers who had comefrom abroad to make trouble in his dominion . And there are

two other facts which are probably not unconnected. The

oriental Patriarchs (of Alexandria, Antioch , and Jerusalem)had addressed to Theophilus a synodic letter ” in favour of

the worship of images,

2a manifesto which must have been

highly displeasing to him and to the Patriarch John . Further,it is recorded

,and there is no reason to doub t , that Theophilus

Skylitzes, reproduc ed in Beylié,L

’

Ha bitation byzantine, p . 122 . The

place of the punishment was the midgarden, ,

ueoroxfim ou, of the Lausiakos

,

doubtless the same as the y eaoxfimou

graphy ) was supposed by Comb efi sto b e a joint composition of the

three eastern Patriarchs . This is

very unl ikely , b ut the author mayhave belonged to one of the eastern

near the east end of the Justinianos,

mentioned in Constantine, Car. 585.

1 Dec . 27 , 841. Vit. Theodor i , 210 ;cp. Simeon, Add . Georg. 808 Meno log.

Basi l . M igne, 117, 229 . An anecdotein Cont. Th . makes him surviveTheophilus (so Vi t. M ich. Sync . 252 ;N a rr . de TheOph . a bsol. and in

the same passage Theophanes is falselydescribed as bishop of Smyrna .

2 The Epistola synodica Orienta liumad Theophi lum imp . (see Biblio

dioc eses (cp. c . though it wouldb e rash to argue (with Schwarzlose ,

from a certain tone of authority,that he was a Patriarch . H e sketchesthe history of the controversy on

images from the beginning to the

death ofMichael II . (committing somechronologic al blunders pointed out bySchwarzlose) , and exhorts Theophilusto follow the example of ions

Emperors like Constantine , heo

dosius, Marc ian,and not that of the

godless iconoc lasts .

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140 EAS TE RN ROM AN EM P IRE CHAP. IV

in a subterranean prison .

1 But he presently released him,and

Methodius,who

,though an inflexible image-worshipper

, was no

fanatic,lived in the Palace on good terms with the Emperor,

who esteemed his learning,and showed him high honour.

2

Of the measures adopted by Theophilus for the suppressionof icon-worship by cutting off the supply of pictures we knownothing on authority that can b e accepted as good. I t is

stated 8 that he forbade religious pictures to b e painted,and

that he cruelly tortured Lazarus, the most eminent painter of

the time.

4There is probably some truth behind both state

ments, and the persecution of monks,with which he is

charged, may be explained by his endeavours to suppress thepainting of pictures. Theophilus did not penalise monks on

account of their profession ; for we know from other factsthat he was not opposed to monasticism. But they were the

religious artists of the age, and we may conjecture that manyof those who incurred his displeasure were painters.

If we review the ecclesiastical policy of Theophilus in the

light of the few facts which are certain and compare it withother persecutions to which Christians have at various timesresorted to force their opinions upon differing souls, it is

obviously absurd to describe it as extraordinarily severe.

The list of cases of cruel maltreatment is short. That manyobscure monks besides underwent distress and privation we

cannot doubt ; but such distress seems to have been due to

a severer enforcement of the same rule which Michael II .

had applied to Theodore of Studion and his friends. Those

1 Vit. Meth . 1,

8 . The sub ter

reneau prison (with two robbers , in theisland of Antigoni : Pseudo -Simeon,

may b e a reduplication of the

confinement in the island o fS . Andreasunder M ichael II . Cp. Pargoire,Sa int Al éthode, in Echos d

’

Orient, vi.

183 sqq.

2 Gen. 76 ; Cont. Th . 116 . Genesios

says that Theophilus was very cur iousabout occult lore (7 d d7roxpv¢d), inwhich Methodius was an adept.3 See above p. 136, n. 2.

Cont. Th . 102 : Lazarus was at

first cajoled,then tortured by scourg

ing ; c ontinuing to paint, his palmswere burnt with red-hot iron na i ls(wéraha 0 16a dr avfipaxwdévra ) , and

h e was imprisoned . Released by theinterc ession of Theodora, he retiredto the c loister of Phob eron, where hepainted a pic ture of John the Baptist(to whom the c lo ister was dedica ted ) ,extant in the tenth century. After thedeath of'l ‘heophilus he painted a Christfor the palace-gate ofChalke. It seems

inc red ible that he could have con

tinued to work after the operation on

his hands. Lazarus is mentioned inL ib . Pant. 11 . 147 , 150, as bearer of a

present which M ichael III. sent to

St . Peter’s at Rome,and is described

as genera Chazarus . The visit toRome is mentioned in Synaxar . Cpl .

233, where he is said to have beensent a second time and to have d iedon the way .

sac r . m I CON OCLASM UNDE R THE OPH IL US

who would not acquiesce in the synod of Leo V . and activelydefied it were compelled to leave the city. The monasteryof Phoberon,

at the north end of the Bosphorus,seems to have

been one of the chief refuges for the exiles.

lThis brings us

to the sec ond characteristic of the persecution of Theoph ilus,its geographical limitation . Following in his father ’s traces,he insisted upon the suppression of pictures only in

Constantinople itself and its immediate neighbourhood .

Iconoclasm was the doctrine of the Emperor and the Patriarch ,but they did not insist upon its consequences beyond the

precincts of the capital. So far as we can see,throughout

the second period of iconoclasm,in G reece and the islands

and on the coasts of Asia Minor , image-worship flourishedwithout let or h indrance

,and the bishops and monks were

unaffected by the decrees of Leo V . This salient fact has notbeen realised by historians

,b ut it se ts the persecution of

Theophilus in a different light. He would not allow picturesin the churches of the capital ; and he drove out all activepicture-worshippers and painters, to indulge themselves intheir heresy elsewhere. I t was probably only in a few

excep tional cases that he resorted to severe punishment.The females of the Emperor’s household were devoted to

images, and the secre t Opinion of Theodora must have beenwell known to Theophilus. The situation occasionedanecdotes turning on the motive that the Empress and her

mother Theodora kept a supply of icons, but kept them wellout of sigh t . The Emperor had a misshapen fool and jester,named Denderis, whose appearance reminded the courtiers of

the Homeric Thersites. 2 Licensed to roam at large throughthe Palace

,he burst one day into Theodora

’

s bedchamber and

found her kissing sacred images.

3 When he curiously asked

1ebx‘

nipcov Hpodpéuov (St . JohnBaptist) 1 6 ohm: xahobuevov 1 06

the miraculous image . Legend as

c rib ed its foundation to Constantine(POBGPOG Kar t). 1 6» Edga r/av wbvr ou (Cont.Th . Themonks of the Ab raamitemonastery (which po ssessed a famous

image of Christ impressed on a

c loth, and a pic ture of the Virgin

asc ribed to St. Luke) were expel led toPhob eron

,and said to have been beaten

to death The monastery of St.Abraamios was outside the c ity‘

,near

the Golden Gate (Leo Diaconus, 47I t was called the Achciropoié los, from

(cp. Ducange, Const. Chr . iv .

b ut it was probably not older thanthe s ixth c entury. Cp. Pargoire , Les

débuts de monachisme a Constantinople (Revue des questions histomiques ,lxv . , 1899 ) 93 sqq.

2 Cont . Th . 91 .

3 The sc ene is represented in the

Madrid Skylitzes, and reproduc ed byBeylié, L

’

Ha bitation byzantine , 120.

EAS TE RN ROM AN EM P IRE C HAP. xv

what they were, she said, “ They are my pretty dolls, and

I love them dearly.

”He then wen t to the Emperor, who

was sitting at dinner. Theophilus asked him where he hadbeen . W ith nurse, said Denderis (so he used to callTheodora) , and I saw her taking such pretty dolls out of a

cushion.

”The Emperor comprehended. In high wrath he

rose at once from table, sough t Theodora, and overwhelmedher with reproaches as an idolatress. But the lady met himwith a ready lie. It is not as you suppose,

”she said ; “ I

and some of my maids were looking in the mirror, and

Denderis took the reflexions for dolls and told you a foolishstory . Theophilus, if not satisfied

,had to accept the ex

planation , and Theodora carefully warned Denderis not to

mention the dolls again . When Theophilus asked him

one day whether nurse had again kissed the pretty dolls,Denderis, placing one hand on his lips and the other on

his posterior parts, said, Hush , Emperor, don’t mention

the dolls.

”

Another similar anecdote is told of the Emperor’s motherin-law

,Theoktiste, who lived in a house of her own

,

2 whereshe was often visited by her youthful granddaughters. She

sought to imbue them with a veneration for pictures and to

counteract the noxious influence of their father’s heresy. She

would produce the sacred forms from the b ox in which she

kept them ,and press them to the faces and lips of the young

1 wapd Thumi l/av.

2 Cont. Th . 90. The house was

known as Gastria . She had boughtit from Nicetas, and afterwards con

verted it into a monastery . It was in

the quarter ofPsamathia, in the southwest of the c ity. Paspates (Bug

‘

. fl ex.

354-357) has identified it with the

the abundanc e of water in the groundsbelow the Sanj akdar mosque favoursthe tradition that there was a flowergarden there, and this would explainthe motive of the Helena legend .

Mr. van M illingen is disposed to

think tha t the identifi c ation of

Paspates may b e right, b ut he sugruinous building Sanj akdarMesj edi (ofwhich he gives a drawing ) , which liesa little to the north of the Armenian

Church of St . G eorge (where St . MaryPeribleptos used to stand ) . Ga stria

is interpreted as flower-pots in the

story told in the Il drpia K1r7\. 215 ,where the foundation of the c loister isascribed to St . Helena

,who is said to

have brought back from Jerusalem the

flowers which grew over the plac ewhere she had discovered the cross,

and planted them in pots (ydo rpa s) onthis spot . Paspates points out that

gests that the extant building was

originally a l ibrary, not a church .

The good Ab be Marin, who ac cepts

without question all the monasticfoundations of Constantinian date

,

th inks there was a monastic foundation at Gastria before Theoktiste.

The evidenc e for Constantinian monasteries has been drastically dealtwith by Pargoire, “ Les Debuts de

monachisme aConstantinople ,” in theRevu e des questions histor iques, lxv . 67sqq.

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EAS TE RN R OMAN EM P IRE CHAP. IV

Exercising a constitutional right of his sovran authority,usually employed in such circumstances

,

1the Emperor had

appoin ted two regen ts to act as his son’s guardians and assistthe Empress, namely, her uncle Manuel, the chief Magister,and Theoktistos, the Logo thete of the Course, who had provedhimself a devoted servan t of the Amorian house. I t is

possible that Theodora’s brother Bardas was a third regen t ,but this canno t b e regarded as probable.

2The position of

Theodora closely resembled that of Irene during the minorityof Constantine. The government was carried on in the jointnames of the mother and the son

,but the actual exercise of

Imperial.

authori ty devolved upon the mo ther provisionally.

Yet there was a difference in the two cases. Leo IV so far

as we know, had not appointed any regents or guardians of his

son to ac t with Irene , so that legally she had the supremepower en tirely in her hands ; whereas Theodora was as unableto act without the concurrence of Manuel and Theoktistos as

they were unable to ac t without her.

It has been commonly thought that Theophilus had

hardly closed his eyes before his wife and her advisers madesuch pious haste to repair his ecclesiastical errors tha t a

council was held and the worship of images restored,almost

as a matter of course,a few weeks after his death . The

person or persons of th is name have devolved on the Prefect , not onholding d ifferent offices under the

Amorians : (1 ) C oryphas, in commandof a fleet, under M ic hael II. (seebelow, Chap . IX. p . (2 ) Ooryphas,one of the c ommanders in an Eg ptian

expedition in A .D . 853 (see below,Chap. IX. p. 292 ) (3 ) Ooryphas, Prefec to f the C ity in A .D . 860 (see below,Chap. XIII. p . (4) Coryphas ,strategos ” of the fleet at the time

o f the death of Michael III. ; see Vat .

MS. of Cont. Georg. in Muralt, p . 752= Pseudo-Simeon

, 687 . The fourth ofthese is undoubtedly N ic etas Ooryphaswhom we meet in Basil

’

s reign as

drungarios of the Imperial fleet. He

may rob ab ly b e the same as the

sec on but is not likely (from con

s iderations of age) to b e the same as

the first. In regard to it is to b e

noted that acc ording to N icetas, Vit.Ign. 232

,N ic etas Ooryphas, drungarios

of the Imperial fleet, oppressed Ignatiusin A .D . 860. Such business would

the admiral, and I c onc lude thatNic etas Ooryphas was prefec t in A . D .

860, and drungarios in A .D . 867 (suchchanges of offic e were common in

Byzantium) , and that the author ofVi t. Ign. knowing him by the laterofiic e

,in which he was most distin

guished, described him erroneously .

Ooryphas the drungarios of the watchmay be identicalwith (1) but I suspectthere is a confusionwith Petronas, whoseems to have held that office at one

time in the reign of Theophilus (seeabove, p .

1 In the same way the EmperorAlexander appointed seven guardians(e

’

1rirp01roc) for his nephew Constantine ,A . D . 913. The boy ’s mother Zoe wasnot included . Cont. Th . 380.

3 It is safest to follow Gen. 77.

Bardas was probably added by Cont.Th . (148) suo Mar ie

,on ac count o f his

prominent position a few years later .

So Uspenski,Oeherki

, 25 .

ss c r . xv RE STORA TION OF I CON WOR SH IP

truth is that more than a year elapsed before the triumphof orthodoxy was secured.

1The first and most pressing

care of the regency was not to compose the ecc lesiasticalschism, but to secure the stability of the Amorian throne ;and the question whe ther iconoclasm should b e abandoneddepended on the view adopted by the regents as to the

effect of a change in religious policy on the fortunes of the

dynasty.

For the change was not a simple matter,nor one that

could b e lightly undertaken . Theodora,notwithstanding her

personal convictions, hesitated to take the decisive step. I t is

a mistake to suppose that she initiated the measures whichled to the restoration of pictures ? She had a profound beliefin her husband’s political sagacity ; she shrank from alteringthe system which he had successfully maintained 3

and therewas the further consideration that, if iconoclasm were con

demmed by the Church as a heresy, her husband’

s name wouldb e anathematized Her scruples were overcome by the

arguments of the regents, who persuaded her that the restora

tion of images would b e the surest means to establish the

safety of the throne.

4But when she yielded to these reasons,

to the pressure of other members of her own family,and

probably to the representations of Methodius,she made it a

condi tion of her consent,that the council which she would

1 The old date was in itself impossible : the change could not havebeen acc omplished in the time . The

right date is furnished b Sabas , Vit.Jeannie. 320, where the event isdefinitely placed a year after the

ac cession of M ichael . This is con

firmed by the date of the death of

Methodius,who was Patriarch for four

years and died June 14, 847 (Vi t.Jeannie . by Simeon Met. 92 the same

date can b e inferred from Theophanes,De ex. S . N iceph . All this wasshown for the first time by de Boer

,

Angrifi'

der Rhos,450-453 the proofs

have been restated by Vasil ’ev, Viz .

i Ara b , Pri l. iii. ; and the fac t is

now universal ly ac cepted by savants,

though many writers still ignorantlyrepeat the old date .

3 Her hes itation comes out c learlyin the tradition and must b e acceptedas a fac t.3 Gen. 806 duos dwjp 7 6 xa l Bamkebs

‘

,ua xapirns o o¢las dpxoévrws e

'

feixe‘

ro Ka i

7 63V 5661/v ab‘rq'

i éhekndet'

Ka i

r ibs 7 l éKeivov dia ‘

r a'

yyd‘

rwv dy ynuovfioar/r es els érépa v dia

‘

yw‘

yhv éxrpa r elmrev4 The c hief mover was, I have no

doubt, Theoktistos . H is name aloneis mentioned by the c ontemporaryGeorge Mon. 811 (cp. Vita Theodorae ,

In Gen. he shares the creditwith Manuel and in Cont. Th .

(148-150) Manuel appears alone as

Theodora ’

s adviser. But the partplayed by Manuel is mixed up witha hagiograph ic al trad ition, redounding to the c redit of the monks of

Studion, whose prayers were said tohave saved him from certain deathby sickness, on c ond ition of his promising to restore image

-worship whenh e recovered . (For the connexion of

Manuel with the Studites , cp. alsoVi ta Nicola i , 916, where N ic olaus issaid to have healed Helena , Manue l ’swife. )

146 EAS TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE CHAP. xv

have to summon should not brand the memory of Theophiluswith the anathema of the Church.

1

Our ignorance of the comparative strength of the two

parties in the capital and in the army renders it impossiblefor us to understand the political calcul ations whichdetermined the Empress and her advisers to act in acc ordancewith her religious convictions. But the sudden assassinationof Theophob os by the command of the dying Emperor is a

significant indication 2 that a real danger menaced the throne,

and that the image -worshippers, led by some ambitiousinsurgen t, would have been ready and perhaps able to overthrow the dynasty.

3 The event seems to corroborate the

justice of their fears. For when they re-established the cultof pictures, iconoclasm died peacefully without any convulsionsor rebellions. The case of Theoktistos may b e adduced to

illustrate the fact that many of those who held high officewere not fanatical partisans. He had been perfectly contentedwith the iconoclastic policy, and was probably a professediconoclast,4 b ut placed in a situation where iconoclasmappeared to b e a peril to the throne, he was ready to throw itover for the sake of political expediency.

Our brief, vague, and con tradictory records supply littlecertain information as to the manner in which the government conducted the preparations for the defeat of iconoclasm .

5

It is evident that astute management was required ; and a

considerable time was demanded for the negotiations and

intrigues needful to facilitate a smooth settlement . We may

1 This is an inevitable inferenc efrom the traditions.

3 Cp. Uspenski, i b. 59 .

3 The story of G enesios thatManuel addressed the assembledpeople in

’

the H ippodrome, and de

mended a dec laration of loyalty to thegovernment

,and that the people— ex

pecting that he would himself usurpthe throne— were surprised and dis

appointed when he cried,

“ Long lifeto M ichael and Theodora, seems tob e also significant .

The interest of the Studites in

Manuel (see above, p. 145, n. 4 )argues that he was at heart an image

worshipper, as the other relatives of

Theodora seem to have been. G en.

(78) says of h im that he wavered (6rdyedou ‘

rw bs r apeuweo bvr os dubxhaaev) ,b ut this seems to imply that he at

first shared the hesitation of theEmpress.

5 We must assume that Theodora,

before a final dec ision was taken,held

a silention at whic h both the Senateand ecclesiastics were present. Sucha meeting is rec orded in Theophanes

,

De ex. S . N iceph . 164,and in Skylitzes

(Cedrenus), ii . 142. The assemblydeclared in favour of restoring images,and ordered that passages should b eselec ted from the writings of the

Fathers to support the doc trine. Theformer sourc e also asserts that Theodora addressed a mani festo to thepeople.

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EAS TERN R OMAN EM P IRE CHAP. xv

in his stead,and the decrees of the Seven th Ecumenical

Council were confirmed. The list of here tic s who had beenanathematized at that Council Was augmented by the namesof the prominent iconoclastic leaders who had since troubledthe Church

,but the name of the Emperor Theophilus was

omit ted. We can easily divine that to spare his memory wasthe most delicate and difficult part of the whole business.

Methodius himself was in temper a man of the same cast as

the Patriarchs Tarasius and Nicephorus ; he understood the

necessities of compromise,b e appreciated the value of

economy, and he was ready to fall in with the wishes of

Theodora. We may suspect that it was largely through hismanagement that the members of the Council agreed

,appar

ently without dissent, to exclude the late Emperor from the

black list ; and it is evident that their promises to acquiescein this course must have been secured before the Council met.According to a story which has lit tle claim to credit , Theodoraaddressed the assembly and pleaded for her husband on the

ground that he had repented of his errors on his death-b ed, andthat she herself had held an icon to his lips before he breathedhis last.1 But it is not improbable that the suggestion of a

death-b ed repentance was circulated unofficially for the purposeof influencing the monks who execrated the memory of the

himself is described . See also ActaDavid is

,248 (where the instrument is

a knife used for paring nails) . In the

contemporary De ex . S . N iceph . of

Theophanes, anothermotive is al legedthe revolution threw John into suchdespondency that he a lmost laid violenthands on h imself. It is impossible toextrac t the truth from these statements but Schlosser and Finlay mayb e right in supposing that John wasreally wounded by soldiers, and thathis enemies invented the fic tion of

self-inflic ted wounds . In any case , so

far as I c an read through the tradition,there is no good ground for Uspenski ’ sconc lusion (op. cit. 39 ) that the pro

cess against John was prior to the

Counc i l . ” Th is view (based on Cont.

also held by Hergenrother (i.294) and Finlay (ii . is opposed tothe other older sourc es (besides thosec ited above ) : Vi ta Meth . (1253 ) and

Vi ta Igna ti i (221 ) cp. Hirsch , 211 .

1 Cont. Th . 152-153. One way of

mitigating the guilt of Theophilus

was to shift the responsibility to the

evil counsels of the Patriarc h John ;see e.g. N ic etas, Vit. Ign. 222 and

216. According to the Acta Daoidis

Theodora had a private interview withMethodius

,Simeon the Stylite saint

of Lesbos, and his brother George, andintimated that some money (suha'

yta ,a douceur) had been left to them bythe Emperor, if theywould rec eive himas orthodox . Simeon c ried

, To per

dition with him and h is money,”but

finally yielded (244 Thi s workcharac teristically represents Simeon

as playing a prominent r61e in the

whole business, as dis nting withJohn in the presenc e of heodora and

M ichael, and as influential in the

election of Methodius. It is alsostated that he was appointed Synkellosof the Patriarch (vebpan T i) : Abyobo

'

rns,On the other hand the b io

grapher of M ichael, synkellos of

.erusalem,c laims that he was made

Synkellos (Vit. M ich . Sync .

sac r . xv RE S TORA TION OF I CON WOR SH IP 149

last imperial iconoclast. I t seems significant tha t the monksof Studion took no promi nen t part in the orthodox reform

,

though they afterwards sought to gain credit for havingindirectly promoted it by instigating Manuel the Magister.

1

We shall hardly do them wrong if we venture to read betweenthe lines, and assume that, while they refrained from openopposition , they disapproved of the methods by which the

welcome change was manoeuvred.

But the flagrant fact that the guil ty iconoclast, who haddestroyed icons and persecuted their votaries, was exceptedfrom condemnation by the synod which abolished his heresy,stimulated the mythopoeic fancy of monks, who invented diversvain tales to accoun t for this inexplicable leniency.

2 The storyof Theodora’

s personal assurances to the synod belongs to thisclass of invention . It was also related that she dreamed thather husband was led in chains before a great man who sat on

a throne in front of an icon of Christ, and that this judge,when she fell weeping and praying at his feet, ordered Theophilus to b e unbound by the angels who guarded him,

for the

sake of her faith .

3According to another myth , the divine pardon

of the culprit was confirmed by a miracle. Methodius wrotedown the names of all the Imperial heretics, including Theophilus, in a book which he deposited on an altar. Waking upfrom a dream in which an angel announced to him that pardonhad been granted, he took the book from the holy table, anddi scovered that where the name of Theophilus had stood, therewas a blank space ?

Of one thing we may b e certain : the Emperor did not

repent . The suggestion of a death-b ed repen tance s was a

falsifica tion of fact,probably circulated deliberately in order

to save his memory, and readily believed because it was

edi fying. I t helped to smooth the way in a difficult situation,by justifying in popular Opinion the course Of expediency or

economy,” which the Church adopted at the dictation of

Theodora .

After the Council had completed its work, the triumph of

1 See above,p

. 145, n. those suspicious phenomena which ,2 Op. U spens i, op. cit. 47 sqq. even when there is no strong interest3 N arr . de Theophi li absol . 32 sq. for alleging it , c annot b e ac cepted

wi thout exceptionally good evidence5 A dea th-bed repentance is one of at first hand .

150 EAS TE RN R OM AN E M P IRE C HA P. xv

orthodoxy was celebrated by a solemn festival service in St.

Sophia, on the first Sunday in Lent (March 1 1,A.D .

The monks from all the surrounding monasteries, and perhapseven hermits from the cells of Athos, flocked into the city

,

1

and we may be sure that sacred icons were hastily hung inthe places from which others had been torn in all the churchesof the capital ? A nocturnal thanksgiving was held in the

church of the Virgin in Blachernae,and on Sunday morning

the Empress, with the child Emperor, the Patriarch and clergy,and all the ministers and senators

,bearing crosses and icons

and candles in their hands, devoutly proceeded to St. Sophia ?

1 Gen. 82 mentions Olympus, Ida,Athos

,and even 7 6 Karat Kuhn/av

o vuwxfipwua, monks from Mt. Kyminasin Mysia. This passage is importantas a chronologic al indic ation for thebeginnings of the religious settlementson Mount Athos, wh ich are describedin K. Lake’s The Ear ly Days ofMonasticism on Mount Athos, 1909 .

He seems to have overlooked thispassage. As he points out, there werethree stages in the development (1 )the hermit period ; (2 ) the loose organizations of the hermits 1n lauras ; (3)the stric t organization in monasteries.

In A .D . 843 we are in the first period,and the first hermit of whom we knowis Peter, whose L ife by a younger c ontemporary, Nicolaus, has been printedby Lake . Peter had been a soldier inthe Scholae, and was c arried captiveto Sama rra (therefore after A .D . 836,see below

,p. 238) by the Saracens,

poss ibly in Mutasim’

s expedition of

A . D . 838 having escaped, he went toRome to b e tonsured, and then to

Athos, where he lived fifty years as a

hermit. The first laura of which weknow seems to have been founded at

the very end of the reign of MichaelIII. (see Lake , p . by Euthymiusof Thessalonica , whose L ife has beenedited from an Athos MS . by L . Petit(Vie et ofi ce dc Sa int-Euthyme ls Jeune,

The earliest monastery in thevic inity was the Kolobu, founded byJohnKolobos in the reign ofBasil I. it

was not on Mount Athos, b ut to thenorth , probably near Eri ssos (Lake,60 sqq. and there were no monasterieson the mountain itsel f ti ll the comingof Athanasius, the friend of the

Emperor Nicephorus 11.— There wasa Mount Kyminas close to Akhyraos

(GeorgeAcrop. i. 27-28. ed.Heisenberg )which corre

sponds to Balikesri in

Mysia, accor ing to Ramsay, Asia

M inor , 154, and Tomaschek, Zur historischen Topographic

fvon K leinasien

im M i ttela lter , 96. But the evidenc eof the Vi ta M icha elis M a leini (ed.

Petit,1903) and the Vita Mariae iun.

(cited by Petit, p. 61 ) seem to make itprobable that Mount Kyminas of the

monks was in eastern B ithynia near

Prusias ad Hypion (Uskub ; cp.

Anderson, Map) , and Petit identifiesit with tlie Dikmen Dagh .

2 New i cons soon adorned the hallsof the Palace . The ic on of Christabove the throne in the Chrysotriklinoswas restored . Fac ing this, above theentranc e

,the Virgin was represented ,

and on e ither side of her M ichael III.and Methodius ; around apostles,martyrs, etc . See Anthol . Pa l. i . 106

(cp. ll. 14, 15

806V Kahofiy ev xpw r o‘

rpixhw ov ve’oy

7 6V 1rplv haxbvr a Khfioews xpvowvxifl ov.

1rp666pos, 1. 10, is the Patriarch as

Eb ersolt has seen (L e Grand Pa la is,Coins of Michael and Theodora

were issued, with the head of Christ onthe reverse . This had been introducedby Justinian II . , and did not reappeartill now . The type xs evidently c opiedfrom coins of Justinian. Wroth

,xl iv.

3 Narr . de Theoph. a bsol . 38. An

official description of the c eremony,

evidently drawn up in the course of

Michael ’s reign (with later add itions atthe end), is preserved in Constantine,Ger . i . 28 . The Patriarch and the

clergy kept vigil in the churc h at

Blachernae, and roceeded in the

morning to St. So

phia, 6161 1 00annoo lou

énfiohov (from e church of the

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kernel of truth in this edifying fiction,but it is impossible to

disentangle it.I t would seem that the great majority of the iconoclastic

bishops and clergy professed repentance of their error and

were allowed to retain their ecclesiastical dignities. HereMethodius, who

.

was a man of moderation and compromise,followed the precedent set by Tarasius at the time of the firstrestoration of image-worship ? But the iconoclastic heresywas by no means immediately extinguished

,though it never

again caused more than administrative trouble. Some of

those who repented lapsed into error, and new names wereadded, twenty-fi ve years later? to the list of the heretics whowere h eld up to public ignominy on the Sunday of Orthodoxy,and stigmatized as Jews or pagans ?

The final installation of icons among the sanctities Of the

Christian faith , the authoritative addition of icon-worship tothe superstitions Of the Church , was a triumph for the religiousSpirit of the G reeks over the doctrine of Eastern heie ticswhose Christianity had a more Semitic flavour. The strugglehad lasted for about a hundred and twenty years

,and in its

latest stage had been virtually confined to Constantinople.

Here the populace seems to have oscillated between the two

extreme views,4 and many of the educated inhabitan ts probablybelonged to that moderate party which approved of images inChurches, but was opposed to their worship. Of the influenceof the iconoclastic movement on Byzantine art something willb e said in another chapter

,but it must be noticed here that

in one point it won an abiding victory. In the‘doctrine laid

down by the Council no distinction was drawn betweensculptured and painted representations ; all icons were legitimized. But whereas, before the controversy began, religiousart had expressed itself in both forms, after the Council ofphorus (Simeon, Cont. Georg . Ortakeui, on the European side of the

ordered a servant to poke out the eyes Bosphorus .

of an icon in the church of that c loister, 1 For the polic of Methodius and

and for this offence rec eived 200 stripes the disapproval w ich it aroused, seeby the command of the Empress (Gen. below, p . 182.

Cont. Th . 15 1 says that he was 2 Condemned by the Counc il of A .D .

banished to his suburban house called 869 (Mansi, xvi .

rd. ‘I’ Lxd (there was another place of 3 éav‘

robs Tfi e'

Iovda iwvxa l’

Ehh juwvthis name near the Forum of Constan fl epldi xadmroflahxonéuois, Uspenski,tine, Cont. Th . Probably Psicha op. cit. 98.

"Em,” is here used for

was at Kleidion, which is the modern pa an.

Defterdan Burnu, a little north of Cp. Bréhier, 40.

ss c r . xv RE S TORA TION OF I CON WOR SH IP

A .D. 843 , sculpture was entirely discarded,and icons came to

mean pictures and pictures only. This was a silent surrender,never explicitly avowed by the orthodox Church, to the

damnable teaching of the iconoclasts ; so that these hereticscan claim to have so far influenced public Opinion as to

induce their victorious adversaries to abandon the cult of

graven images. After all, the victory was a compromise.

M ICHAEL 111

A.D . 842-867

1 . The R egency

MICHAEL I I I . reigned for a quarter of a century, but he nevergoverned. During the greater part of his life he was too

young ; when he reached a riper age he had neither the

capacity nor the desire. H is reign falls into two portions.

In his minority,the Empress Theodora held the reins, guided

by the advice of Theoktistos, the Logothete of the Course, who

proved as devoted to her as he had been to her husband.

During the later years, when Michael nominally exercised thesovranty himself, the real power and the task of conductingthe administration devolved upon her brother Bardas. In

the first period,the governmen t seems to have been competent ,

though we have not sufficient information to estimate it withmuch confidence ; in the second period it was eminentlyefficient.

The Empress Theodora 1occupied the same constitutional

position which the Empress Irene had occupied in the yearsfollowing her husband’s death . She was not Officially the

Autocrat,any more than her daugh ter Theela, who was

associated with her brother and mo ther in the Imperialdignity ; 2 she only acted provisionally as such on behalf of1 At the beginning of the reign cp. above, p . 150, n. 2 .

coins were issued with the head of 2 Acta 42 Mart. Am. 52 (A .D . 845 )Theodora (despoina ) on one side, on the fiao thebovr os rfis

'

Pw,ua lwv dpxfis M txaijh

other the child-Emperor and his eldest v G eodu'

ipa s Ka t Oéxhns. Cp. Wroth ,sister Theela robed as Augusta . A 431 (PI. xlix . 19 ) M ixahx Oeodafipa Ka i

few years later M ichael and Theodora Oéxha éfc 0(eofi ) fi ao rhei‘

s'

Pw,ua lwv on

appear together on the obverse ; on reverse of silver coins.

the reverse i s the head of the Saviour,

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EA S TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE CHAP. v

a patrician,who was elevated to the higher rank of

magister ? On his death Calomaria lived in the Palacewith her sister, and is said to have w orn mean raiment and

performed the charitable duty of paying monthly visits to

the prisons 2 and distributing blessings and alms to the

prisoners.

Michael was in his seventeenth year when his motherdecided to marry him. The customary bride -show was

announced throughout the provinces by a proclamationinviting beautiful candidates for the throne to assemble on

a certain day in the Imperial Palace ? The choice of the

Empress fell on Eudocia, the daughter ofDekapolites (A.D.

We know nothing of this lady or her family ; she seems tohave been a cipher

,and her nul lity may have recommended

her . to Theodora . But in any case the haste of the Empressand Theoktistos to provide Michael with a consort at such an

early age was prompted by their desire to prevent his unionwith another lady. For Michael already had a love affair

with Eudocia . Ingerina, whom Theodora and her ministerregarded as an unsuitable spouse . A chronicler tells us that

1 The text of the passage in Cont.

Th . 175 seems perfectly right as it

stands , but has been misunderstoodboth by the later h istorian Skylitzes(see Cedrenus, ii. 161) and by moderncritic s . The text is 7) 58 Kahoaapla’

Apoa/3hp 7 43 aay io rpcp, r q? ElpvjunsTfis [t omes 1 00 ner d r a fz‘ra r bv warpi

qpxcxbv Opbuov dvn haflouévov <I>wr lov

ddexqfiq'

i. The translation is : “ Calomaria married Arsaber, the brother ofIrene, who was themother of Photius,afterwards Patriarch . There is no

Marinos Theoktiste .

Tarasius.

Sergius=I rene.

~

Arsab er Calomaria . Theodora. Irene.

Photius. Tarasius . Serg1us . Stephen. Bardas.

2 The Cha lke and the Numera in 3 The evidence for this bride-showthe Palaee

,and the Praetorium in the is in the Vi t. Irenes, 603-604. Irene

,

town. She was accompanied by the a Cappadoc ian lady, was one of the

Count of the Wal ls,the Domestic of competitors. Her sister— apparently

the Numeri,

or the Prefec t of the also a candidate— a fterwards marriedCity. Cont. Th . ib . Bardas.

difficulty about this . But becauseTheodora had three sisters, it was

assumed that all three were married ,and that the husbands of all three are

mentioned . Irene was the name of

the th ird sister, and Skylitzes saysthat she (El/175m 68) married Sergius,the brother of Photius . H irschc ritic izes the passage on the same

assumption The relationshipof Photius to Theodora and the textof Cont. Th . will b e made c lear by ad iagram.

they disliked her intensely “on account of her impudence 1

which means that she was a woman of some spirit,and they

feared her as a rival influence . The young sovran was obligedto yield and marry the wife who was not of his own choice,but if he was separa ted from the woman he loved

,it was

only for a short time. Eudocia Ingerina did not disdain tob e his mistress, and his attachment to her seems to havelasted till his dea th .

But the power of Theodora and her favour ite mi nisterwas doomed, and the blow was struck by a member of her

own family (A.D . 85 6 , January to March )? Michael had

reached an age when he began to chafe under the authorityof his mother, whose discipline had probably been strict :; and

his uncle Bardas, who was ambitious and conscious of his own

talents for government, divined that it would now b e possibleto undermine her position and

'

win his nephew’

s confidence .

The most difficult part of his enterprise was to removeTheoktistos, but he had friends among the ministers who

were in close attendance On the Emperor . The Parakee

mOmenos or chief chamberlain , Damianos (a man Of Slavonicrace) , persuaded Michael to summon his uncle to the Palace,and their wily tongues convinced the b oy that his motherin tended to depose him,

with the assistance of Theoktistos, or

at all events— and this was no more than the truth— that hewould have no power so long as Theodora and Theoktistos

cO-operated ? Michael was brought to acquiesce in the viewthat it was necessary to suppress the too powerful minister

,

and violence was the only method . Theophanes,the chief of

the private wardrobe, joined the conspiracy, and Bardas also

won over his sister Calomaria ?Some generals, who had

1 Simeon (Cont. Georg ), 816, th e

source for M ichael’s marriage . The

probable date , A .D . 855 , is inferredfrom the fac t that the marriage pre

c eded the death Of Theoktistos , c om

b ined with M ichael ’s age . The bridalceremony Of an Emperor was performedin the church of St . Stephen in the

Palace ofDaphne. The chronic ler (ib. )notes that the bridal chamber (7 6iraa

‘

rbv) was in the pa lac e ofMagnaura ,and the marriage feast, at wh ich thesenators were present, was held in thehal l of the N ineteen Couches . Thiswas the regular habit, as we learn

from the Offic ial description in Constantine, Ger . 213.

2 For date see Appendix VII .

3 So Simeon (Cont. Georg ) , 821 . Ac

c ording to Gen. 87 , Bardas suggestedto M ichael tha t Theodora intendedto marry hersel f, or to fi nd a husbandfor one of her daughters, and deposeMi chael , w ith the aid of Theoktistos.

4 The part played by Ca lomaria isrecorded by G enesios, whose informa

tion was doubtless derived from hisancestor Constantine the Armenian,who was an eye

-witness of the murder.

For Theophanes ofFarghana see p . 238.

EAS TE RN R OMAN EM P IRE158 CHAP.

been deposed from‘ their commands and owed a grudge to

Theoktistos,1 were engaged to lend active assistance. I t was

arranged that Bardas should station himself in the Lausiakos,and there attack the Logothete

,whose duties frequently obliged

him to pass through that hall in order to reach the apartments of the Empress ? Calomaria concealed herself in an

upper room, where, through a hole,perhaps constructed on

purpose,3 she commanded a view of the Lausiakos,and coul d,

by signalling from a window,inform the Emperor as soon as

Bardas sprang upon his victim .

Theoktistos had obtained at the secretarial offi ce4the

reports which he had to submit to the Empress,and as he

passed through the Lausiakos he observed with displeasureBardas seated at his ease, as if he had a full right to b e there.

Muttering that he would persuade Theodora to expel him fromthe Palace, he proceeded on his way, but in the Horologion , atthe entrance of the Chrysotriklinos, he was stopped by theEmperor and Damianos. Michael

,asserting his authority

perhaps for the first time,angrily ordered him to read the

reports to himself and not to his mother. As the Logothetewas retracing his steps in a downcast mood, Bardas Sprangforward and smote him. The ex-generals hastened to assist,and Theoktistos drew his sword.

5The Emperor

,on receiving

a signal from his aunt, hurried to the scene,6 and by his orders

1 A grudge : this is a fair inference 5 Gen. 88, Bardas threw Theoktistosfrom the fac t that they were selec tedfor the purpose .

2 The apartments of Theodora seemto have been in the Chrysotriklinos.

The eastern door of the Lausiakos

faced the Horologion which was the

portal of the Chrysotriklinos.

3 G en. 87 éé’

inrepr épov r erpnuéuov

ol cncov Orbnr etpau Karaa'nio avr es. We

may imagine this room to have beenin the Eidikon, to which stairs led upfrom the Lausiakos. The Eidikon,which was over the Thermastra, ad .

joined the Lausiakos on the north side.

‘17 a donxpnrei

’

a , Simeon, ib . 821 .

The accounts of the murder in thischronicle and in G enesios are independent and supplement each other.

Simeon gives more details before theassault of Bardas, Genesios a fuller desc ription of the murder and the partplayed by his own grandfather.

down (Kara-rrpnvlga s) , Ka l ebdéws 67 16160r a c only Kovheé ami d?) émbmos, flu mobsdnorpowiyu évau

‘

r lwv é‘yifiuvwoev. Simeon,ib . 822 , says that Bardas began to

strike him on the cheek and pull hishair and Maniakes

, the Drungary of

the Watch cried , “ DO not strike theLogothete. Maniakes was thereforethe surname of Constantine the

Armenian.

5 Gen. 88 Kar aonua lver a t fiao tkebs1rpbs éEéhevow 51a xahknhdrwv

1rv7\&3v Tifi epfov TOD dvaxr os, Ka l e ras

éxei‘

o'

e xrh. This gate, not mentionedelsewhere so far as I know, was probably a door of the Chr sotriklinos

palac e,which , we know, ib erius II .

improved . If Calomaria was, as I

suppose, in the Eidikon building,she c oul d have signalled from a win

dow on its eastern side to the Chrysotriklinos .

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EAS TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE CHAP . v

hands. The murder of Theoktistos cut her to the heart, andthough the Emperor endeavoured to pacify and conciliate her,she remained unrelenting in her bitterness ?

The Senate was convoked, and that body applauded theannouncement that Michael would henceforward govern alone inhis own name ? Bardas was elevated to the rank of magisterand was appointed Domestic of the Schools. It would appearthat for nearly two years Theodora resided in the Palace,powerless but unforgiving, and perhaps waiting for a favourableopportunity to compass the downfall of her brother. I t is

said that her son plagued her,trying perhaps to drive her into

voluntary retirement. At last,whether his mother’s proximity

became intolerable, or she involved herself in intrigues againstBardas

,

3it was decided that she should not only b e expelled

from the Palace but consigned to a nunnery.

‘

The PatriarchIgnatius, who owed his appointment to her, was commandedto tonsure her along with her daughters, but he absolutelydeclined on the sufficient ground that they were unwilling totake the monastic vow. The hair of their heads was shorn byother b ands, and they were all immured in the monastery of

Karianos (autumn A.D .

It was probably soon afterwards that the Empress, thirsting1 Simeon (Cont. Georg ) , 822 -823.

Cont. Th . 171 describes her lamentation and anger as that of a tragedyqueen.

2 Simeon (ib . ) [ropes a ffr oxpar ope?

(the technical phrase) .3 For the chronology see Append ix

VII . The sourc es here causezdiflicultyI have followed Nicetas (Vit. Ign.

who says : rnr anr épa Ka i rds ddehqi c‘

ts

Ka r a‘

ya'

yt‘

ou év r o'

i s Kapi a voi) kayo/.Léuoi s

dr euexdfiva i Keheuet Ka i xapfiva t. Ao

c ording to Simeon (ib . ) the three eldestsisters were expelled from the palaceand plac ed els r c‘t Kaprauofi . Pulcheria,as her mother ’s favourite, was sent tothe c onvent of Gastria ; Theodora re

mained in the palace, but was afterwards also sent to Gastria. Gen. 90

says simply that they were all ex

pelled to Gastria . Cont. Th . 174

states that they were tonsured byPetronas and sent “

to the palace of

Karianos,”but after Theodora's death

the daughters were c onfined in Gastriaand their mother’s corpse was takenthither. This last ac count is not

inconsistent with N ic etas, only the

authorhas confused themonasterywiththe palac e of Karianos (and has beenfollowed in this by Finlay , ii . 173 ,and Hergenr

'

Other, i . The palaceof Karianos was within the prec inc tsof the Great Palac e (see above , p.and as Theophilus built it for hisdau hters , it is very probable that theylive there before they were expelled .

But they could not b e “ driven fromthe Palac e to the palac e of Karianos .

”

rd Kapi avoi} in N ic etas and Simeon is

obviously the Convent of Karianos,

wh ich we can,I think, approximately

locate from the data in the Hdrpta Kr h.

241 . Here build ings a long the GoldenHorn

, from east to west, are described ,thus : (1 ) Churches of SS . Isaiah and

Laurentios, south of the Gate Jub ali

Kapussi (2) house of Dexiokrates,ev idently near the gate of Dexiokrates= Aya Kapu ; (3) rd Kapiavoi} (4)Church of Blachernae. It fol lows thatthe Karianos was in the region betweenAya Kapu and Blachernae . For thisregion cp. vanM illingen, Wa lls

,0. xiv.

ss cr . 1 THE RE GEN CY

for revenge if she did not hope to regain power, entered into a

plot against her brother’s life. The Imperial Protostrator wasthe chief of the conspirators, who planned to . kill Bardas as

he was re turning to the Palace from his suburban house on

the G olden Horn . But the design was discovered, and the

conspirators were beheaded in the Hippodrome ?

2. Bardas and Basil the Macedonian.

Bardas was soon raised to the high dignity of Curopalates?which was only occasionally conferred on a near relative of the

Emperor and gave its recipient,in case the sovran died childless,

a certain claim to the succession . H is position was at the

same time strengthened by the appointments of his two sons toimportant military posts. The Domesticate of the Schools,which he vacated, was given to Antigonus who was only a b oy?while an elder son was invested with the command of severalwestern Themes which were exceptionally united ? But for

Bardas the Offi ce of CurOpalates was only a step to the higherdignity of Caesar, which designated him more clearly as the

future colleague or successor of his nephew,whose marriage

had been fruitless. He was created Caesar on the Sundayafter Easter in April A.D. 8 62 .

5

The government Of the Empire was in the hands of Bardasfor ten years, and the reluctant adm issions of hostile chroniclers 6

show that he was eminently fitted to occupy the throne. A

1 The sourc e is Simeon,i b .

, and we

can hard ly hesitate to acc ept hisstatement as to the implication of

Theodora , to whom he was well disposed . He speaks Of her part in an

apologetic tone, as if she were not

responsible for her ac ts . dfi vuia

,uer ewp e

'

ioa r bv vow Ka t wrb émrhfiEews

A

d¢a cpe€eioa Ka i ro ¢pove2u, dvdgiaéavrns xaraoxevdfet 3011t mm. d da

fiovkevoaévn.

2 It appears from Cont. Th. 176,that he was already Curopalates whenh e took part in the expedition agains tSamosata , the date of which we otherwise know to b e 859 (see below, p .

279 )3 Simeon (Cont. Georg . ) 828. Ac

cording to Cont . Th . 180, Petronassucc eeded him in 863 as Domestic ;b ut if this is true, he was restored to

the command almost immediately, asPetronas died shortly after. Vogt(B asi le I") 18 wrong in supposing thatPetronas succeeded Bardas in thispost .

4 Simeon, ib . The wife of this son

was her father-in-law ’

s mistress . Forother examples of suc h extended c ommands see pp. 10

,222 .

5 The year is given by Gen. 97, the

day by Simeon,i b .

, 824 . No knownfac ts are incompatible with this date(which Hirsch ac cepts) , and we mustdec isively rejec t the hypotheses of

Aristarchos (A .D . Vogt (A .D . 865

or and others .

5 The conc ession of Nicetas (Vit.Ign. 224) is, among others

,espec ially

s ignificant : o r ovda i’

ov Ka i dpao r rjpcovwept r i w rd

’

w’

r ohtrmé’

w r paypdrwv

y er axelpww .

'

EAS TERN ROMAN EM P IRE CHAP . v

brilliant success won (A.D . 8 63) against the Saracens, and theconversion of Bulgaria

,enhanced the prestige of the Empire

abroad ; he commit ted the care of the Church to the mostbrilliant Patriarch who ever occupied the ecclesiastical throneof Constantinople ; he followed the example of Theophilus inhis personal attention to the administration of justice 1

and he

devoted himself especially to the improvement of education andthe advancement of learning. The military and diplomatictransactions of this fortunate decade, its impor tance for theecclesiastical independence of the Eastern Empire

,and its

significance in the history Of culture , are .dealt with in otherchapters.

Michael himself was conten t to leave the management ofthe state in his uncle’s capable hands. He occasionally tookpart in military expeditions, more for the sake of occupation,

we may suspect, than from a sense Of duty . He was a man of

pleasure, he only cared for amusement, he had neither the

brains nor the taste for admini stration . H is passion for horseraces reminds us of N ero and Commodus ; he used himself todrive a chariot in the private hippodrome of the Palace of

St. Mamas ? His frivolity and extravagance,his impiety and

scurrility, are held up to derision and execration by an imperialwriter who was probably his own grandson but was bitterlyhostile to his memory.

Little confidence can b e placed in the anecdotes related bythe Emperor Constantine Porphyrogennetos and his literarysatellites, b ut there is no doubt that they exhibit, in howeverexaggerated a shape

,the character and reputation of Michael .

W e may not b e prepared, for instance, to believe that the fi resignals of Asia Minor were discontinued, because on one

occasion he was interrupted in the hippodrome by an in

opportune message ; 3 but the motive Of the story reflects hisgenuine impatience Of public busipess. The most famous or

infamous performance of Michael was his travesty of the

mysteries and ministers of the Church . One of his coarseboon-companions, a buffoon known as the “ Pig,

”was arrayed

1 Cp. C’ont. Th . 193.

— c onfi ned to invited members of the2 Gen. 112, Cont. Th . 197. It does Court. H igh offic ials took part in

not appear that he ever drove in the these amateur performances (Cont. Th .

Great H ippodrome himself. At St.

Mamas the spec tacle would b e private 3 Cont. Th . 197 .

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EAS TE RN R OMAN EM P IRE C HAP . v

The Imperial pleasures were costly, and Michael’

s criminalgenerosity to his worthless companions dissipated large treasures.

He made it a practice to stand sponsor at the baptisms of

children of his jockeys,and on such occasions he would bestow

upon the father a present varying from £ 1 29 6 to £ 2 1 60,

occasionally even as much as £ 4320— sums which then re

presented a considerably higher value than to-day?

Not onlywas no saving effected during the eleven years in which hewas master of the Empire

,b ut he wasted the funds which had

been saved by his father and by his mother,and towards the

end of,

his reign he was in such straits for ready money thathe laid hands upon some of the famous works of art withwhich Theophilus had adorned the Palace. The golden planetree, in which the mechanical birds twittered

,the two golden

lions, the two griffi ns hammered out Of solid gold, and the

organ of solid gold, all weighing not less than 200 pounds,were melted down ; b ut before they were minted, Michaelperished ? It seems probable that it was in the last year or

two of his reign that his extravagance became excessive and

ruinous . For there is no sign that the Empire was in financialdifficulties during the government of Bardas, who seems tohave been able to restrain his nephew within certain bounds.

The weak point of the position of the Caesar lay in the

circumstance that he had to share his influence over the

Emperor with boon companions ; for there was always the

danger that a wily schemer, concealing ambition under the

mask of frivolity, might successfully use the Opportunities of

intimate intercourse to discredit him and undermine his power.

The fact that b e retained for ten years the unshaken , almostchildish confidence of his nephew is a striking proof of his

1 The sums mentioned are 30, 40,50, 100 litrai, Cont. Th . 172. See

further, Chapter VII . p . 220.

2 There is an inconsistency herebetween the Vi ta Basi lii and the Vi taM ichaelis in Cont. Th .

,but it is not

so serious as H irsch th inksAcc ording to the former source (257)M ichael melted down the plane-tree,l ions, etc . and the gold onthe Imperialand senatorial state-robes ; acc ordingto the latter (173) the plane-tree, etc . ,

were melted, b ut the robes were foundstill untouched on M ichael ’s death

(mur als refers to c rowds) . Hirsch didnot observe this distinc tion, and

thought that the contradic tion was

c omplete . Basil rescued the robes,but c oined the melted gold , and calledthe nomisma of this c oinage a senzaton.

The name, I suppose, was given b ecause the lions, plane-tree, etc . ,

wereév r q? «may (Constantine, Ger .

The Vi ta B as . was a sourc e of the

Vita M ich here the author of the

latter seems to c orrec t an inac curacyof Constantine VII. , the author of theformer.

ss c r . 11 BARDAS AND BASIL THE M A CE D ON IAN

talent and tact ; and when at last he was overthrown , hissupplanter was one of the two ablest men who arose in the

Eastern Empire during the ninth century .

Basil the Macedonian,who now comes on the stage, is the

typical adventurer who rises from the lowliest circumstancesto the highest fortune. H is career

,wonderful in itself

, was

made still more wonderful by mythopoeic fancy,which con

verted the able and unscrupulous upstart into a hero guidedby Heaven . He was born about A.D . of poor Armenianparents, whose family had settled in the neighbourhood of

Hadrianople. H is Armenian descent is established beyonddoubt,2 and the legend that he was a Slav has no better a

foundation than the fiction which claimed Slavonic parentagefor the Emperor Justinian ? But his family was obscure ; and

the illustrious lineage which his descendants claimed, connecting him through his grandfather with the Arsacids and by hisgrandmother with Constantine the Great and Alexander, wasan audacious and ingenious invention of the Patriarch Photius ?

In his babyhood he was carried into captivity, along with hisparents, by the Bulgarian Krum,

and he spent his youth in the

region beyond the Danube which was known as Macedonia.

1 In the reignZof Mi chael I . (811Cont. Georg. 817 . Pankalo was

his

)

mo

ther

’

s name (Constantine, Ger .

6482 It is now general ly admitted the

most dec isive evidence is a passage inthe Vita Euthymii , ed . de Boor, p. 2 .

The whole question has recently beend iscussed ful ly by Vasil ’ev (P raisIchozhd enie, etc . ,

see Bibliography ) .3 The sole foundation of the Slavonictheory is the fac t that Arabic writersdesignate him as a Slav . But this isexplained by the Arabic view thatMac edonia was Slavonic ; “ Slav ” issimply the equivalent of “ Mace

donian (cp. Vasil’

ev, op . cit.‘1 Vita Igna tii , 283 . This case of

a fic titious genealogy is interesting .

Photius after his deposition cast aboutfor ways of ingratiating himself withBasil , and c onc eived the idea of pro

v iding this son o f nobody with an

il lustrious lineage . He invented a

line of desc endants from Tiridates,king of Armenia, stopping at Basil

’

s

father . He wrote this out in unc ia lc harac ters (7 pdunaow on

old parchment, and added a prophecy

” 5

that Basil ’s father would beget a son

named Beklas,whose description nu

mistakably pointed to Basil , and whowould have a long and happy reign.

Photius gave this document to a con

federate , one of the palace c lergy , whodeposited it in the palac e library andthen seized an Opportunity of showingit to the Emperor as an anc ient bookfull of secret lore, which no one but

Photius could interpret . Photius wassummoned . His explanation easilyim osed on the Emperor ’s simplic ityan vanity . How c ould Basil resistthe interpretation of B eklas as a

mysterious acrostich c ontaining the

initial letters of the name of himse l f,his wife, and h is four sons (B -asil

,

E-udoc ia, K-onstantine, L-eo, A-lex

ander, S -teph en) ? The genealogy wasac c epted by Basil ’s house ; it is xc

c orded in G en. and Co nt. Th .

5 See below, p . 370. When Simeon

speaks ofHadrianople as in Macedonia ,it is only to explainBasil’s designationas the Macedonian. It is in passageswhere Basil is in question that thegeographical term Mac edonia was extended to include Thrace.

EAS TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE166 CHAP . v

We may conjecture that b e derived his designation as Basilthe Macedonian from his long sojourn in this district

,for

Macedonian can hardly refer to his birthplace, which wasin Thrace. He was twenty-fi ve years Old when the captivessucceeded (as is related in another Chapter 1) in escaping fromthe power of the Bulgarians and returning to their homes.

Basil Obtained some small post in the service of a strategos,2

but seeing no hope of rising in the provinces he decided to

seek his fortune in Constantinople. H is arrival in the cityhas been wrought by the storyteller into the typical form of

romance. On a Sunday, near the hour of sunset, he reachedthe Golden Gate

,a poor unknown adventurer, with staff and

scrip, and he lay down to sleep in the vestibule of the adjacentchurch of St. D iomede ? During the night

,Nicolas

,who was

in charge of the church , was awakened by a mysterious voice,saying, “Arise and bring the Basileus into the sanctuary.

”

He got up and looking out saw nothing but a poorman asleep.

He lay down again , and the same thing was repeated . The

third time,he was poked in the side by a sword and the voice

said, Go out and bring in the man you see lying outside thegate. He obeyed, and on the morrow he took Basil to the bath ,gave him a change of garments

,and adopted him as a brother ?

So much is probable that Basil found shelter in St.

Diomede, and that through Nicolas he was enabled to placehis foot on the first rung of the ladder of fortune. The

monk had a brother who was a physician in the service of

Theophilus Paideuomenos, or,as he was usually called,

Theophilitzes, a rich courtier and a relative Of the EmpressTheodora. The physician, who saw Basil at St. Diomede, andadmired his enormous physical strength ,

recommended him to

1 See p. 371 .

2 Tzantzes, Strat. of the Theme of

Macedonia , Simeon, i b . 819 .

with a portion of the name of Diomedwere employed .

"Simeon rightly de

signates N icolas as caretaker, r pm:3 A parochial church situated b etween the Golden Gate and the sea

,

at Yedikule. Some remains havebeen found which are supposed to

mark its site. See van M illingen,

Wa lls, 265 :“ The excavations made

in laying out the public garden besidethe c ity walls west of the GasWorks atYedi Koule, brought to light sub

struc tures of an anc ient edific e, in theconstruc tion of which bricks stampedwith the monogram of Basil I . and

noudpios (= 1rapauovdpcos, sexton) , andcarefully ex lains that the church wasthen paroo ial (m omma) . Genesiosmiscalls him xafin

‘

yooaevos. St.Diomedewas converted into amonastery

,almost

certainly by Basil,but as in many

other cases the foundation was attrl

buted to Constantine (cp. Pargoire,Rev.

des questions histor iques, lxv. 734 érrolnoev ddeh¢onolnow , Simeon, ib.

820. Simeon tells the whole storymore dramatically than Genesios.

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EAS TERN R OMAN EM P IRE CHAP . v

unable to manage it, and Michael was in despair ,when his

relative Theophilitzes suggested that his own groom,Basil,

migh t b e able to master it. Basil knew how to charm horses,and when he held its bridle with one hand and placed theother on its car

, the animal instantly became amenable. The

Emperor, delighted with this achievement and admiring hisphysical strength, took him into his own service and assignedhim a post under the Hetaeriarch or captain of the foreignguards of the Palace . H is rise was rapid . He was investedwith the dignity of a strator

,

1and soon afterwards he received

the important office of Protostrator, whose duties involvedfrequent attendance upon the Emperor (A.D. 85 8-8 5 9

SO far the wily Armenian adventurer,whose mental powers

were little suspected,had owed his success to fortune and his

physical prowess,but now he was in a position to Observe the

intrigues Of the Court and to turn them to his own advantage .

Damianos, the High Chamberlain , who had assisted Bardas inthe palace revolution which had overthrown Theodora, becamehostile to the Caesar

,and attempted to discredit him with the

Emperor. The crisis came when,as Bardas, arrayed in the

Caesar’

s purple skaramangion and accompanied by the mag

nates Of the Court, was passing in solemn procession throughthe Horologion

,Damianos refrained from r ising from his seat

and paying the customary token of respect ? Bardas,over

whelmed with wrath and chagrin at this insult, hurriedinto the Chrysotriklinos and complained to the Emperor, whoimmediately ordered Damianos to b e arrested and tonsured.

does not mention) . Acc ording to this began to spread through the city .

account, Antigonus, Domestic of the

Schools, gave a banquet in the Palacein honour of his father the Caesar .

Bardas brou ht with him senatorialmagnates an some Bulgarian envoyswho ha pened to b e in the c ity .

Theoph i itzes was one of the guests .

The Bulgarians bragged about a

c ountrymanwho was in their suite andwas an invincible wrestler. Theophilitzes said to Bardas

,

“ I have a man

who will wrestle with that Bulgarian.

”

Thematch wasmade, and (Constantinethe Armenian having sprinkled the

bran —this deta il is taken fromG enesios ) Basil threw the Bulgarian,squeezing him like a wisp of hay.

From that day the fame of Basil

Though based doubtless on a trueinc ident (remembered by Constantinethe Armenian), the story in eitherversion breaks down chronological ly.

For Basil was transferred to the

Emperor’s service not later than 858,and at that time Bardas was stillDomestic of the Schools andAntigonusa small b oy .

1 Cont. Th. 231.

2 This promotion was c onnectedwith the conspiracy against Bardas inwhich Theodora was conc erned . The

protostrator, who was involved in it ,was executed, and Basil replaced him(Cont. Georg. 823 Hence mydate

,see above, p 160-1 .

3 Simeon,i b, 82

seer . 11 BARDAS AND BAS IL THE MA CED ON IAN

But the triumph Of Bardas was to turn to his hurt. Basilwas appointed to fi ll the confidential post of High Chamberlain 1 (with the rank of patrician ) , though it was usuallyconfined to eunuchs, and Basil the Armenian was to prove a

more formidable adversary than Damianos the Slav ?

The confidential intimacy which existed between Michaeland his Chamberlain was shown by the curious matrimonialarrangemen t which the Emperor brought to pass. Basil wasalready married

,but Michael caused him to divorce his wife?

and married him to his own early love,Eudocia Ingerina.

But this was Only an official arrangement ; Eudocia remainedthe Emperor’s mistress. A mistress, however, was also

provided for Basil, of distinguished rank though not of

tender years. It appears that Theodora and her daughtershad been permitted to leave their monastery and re turn tosecular life,4 and Theela ,

who seems to have been ill-qualifi edfor the vows of a nun

,consented to become the paramour of

her brother’s favourite. Thus three ladies, Eudocia Ingerina,Eudocia the Augus ta, and Theela the Augusta,

fulfilled betweenthem the four posts of wives and mistresses to the Emperor andhis Chamberlain . Before Michael’s death, Eudocia Ingerina

bore two sons, and though Basil was obliged to acknowledgethem, it was suspected or taken for granted that Michael wastheir father ? The second son afterwards succeeded Basil on

the Imperial throne, as Leo VI . ; and if Eudocia was faithfulto Michael, the dynasty known as the Macedonian was reallydescended from the Amorians. The Macedonian Emperors tookpains to conceal this blot or ambiguity in their origin ; their1 Parakoim6menos .

2 The date is not recorded,but it

seems probable that it was not verylong before the fall of Bardas .

3 Maria ; she was sent back to

Mac edonia ”

(i . a. probably Thrac e)well provided for.

‘1 For the evidenc e, see H irsch , 66,and below,

p . 177 . Theela became the

mistress of John Neatokométés a fterBasil

’

s accession. When Basil learnedth is, he ordered the latter to b e beatenand tonsured Theela was also beaten,and her property c onfiscated . Simeon,

i b . 842. She died bedridden (KNVO

werfis) in her house at Blachernae,Cont. Th . 147 . If she became Basil

’

s

mistress in 865-866, she might have

been then about 43 years old .

5 Simeon (Cont. Georg. 835, and

844) states that M ichael was the

father, as if it were a well-known fac t,

and w ithout reserve. In the case of

such an arrangement a trois, it is, of

course, impossible for us, knowing so

little as we do, to acc ept as provensuch statements about paternity.

Eudoc ia may have deceived her loverwith her husband and as Basil seems

to have been fond of Constantine and

to have had little affec tion for Leo

(whom he imprisoned shortly beforethe end of his reign) , we might b e ledto suspec t that the eldest born of

Eudoc ia was his own son, and L eo

M ichael’s.

EAS TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE CHAP . v

animosity to the Amorian sovrans whose blood was perhapsin their veins

,and their excessive cult of the memory of Basil

,

were alike due to the suspicion of the sinister accident in theirlineage.

Such proofs of affection could not fail to arouse the

suspicion and jealousy of Bardas,if he had

,till then , never

considered Basil as a possible rival . But he probably underestimated the craft of the man who had mounted so highchiefly by his physical qualities. Basil attempted to persuadethe Emperor that Bardas was planning to depose him fromthe throne. But such insinuations had no effect . Michael ,notwithstanding his frivolity, was not without common sense .

He knew that the Empire must be governed , and believedthat no one could govern it so well as his uncle

,in whom he

reposed entire confidence . Basil was the companion of his

pleasures, and he declined to listen to his suggestions touchingmatters of state. Basil then resorted to a cunning device.

He cultivated a close friendship with Symb atios— an Armenianlike himself— the Logothete Of the Course and son-in-law of

Bardas. He excited this ambitious minister’s hope of becomingCaesar in place of his father-in-law

,and they concocted the

story of a plot 1 which Symbatios revealed to Michael. Sucha disclosure coming from a minister, himself closely related toBardas

,was very different from the irresponsible gossip of the

Chamberlain,and Michael, seriously alarmed, entered into a

plan for destroying his uncle.

At this time — it was the spring of A.D. 8 66 — pre

parations were being made for an expedition against theSaracens Of Crete

,in which both the Emperor and the Caesar

were to take part ? Bardas was wide-awake. He was warned1 I follow mainly Simeon (ib.

which is obviously the most impartialsourc e . N icetas, Vit. Ign. 255,describes the plot as only a pretext .

2 The ofi c ia l account was thatBardas pre ared the expedition,

in

order to fi n an opportunity of killingM ichael (Simeon

,ih. Simeon

represents Michael and Basil planningthe expedition for the urpose of

kill ing Bardas (as it would)

have beendifficult to dispatch him in the c ity ) .Genesios is evidently right in the

simple statement (103) that M ichaeland Bardas organized an expedition.

Originally, it had been arranged without any arr ierepense

’

e on either sidethen the c onspirators dec ided to availthemselves of the Opportunity whichit might furnish . Bardas

,warned

that a design was afoot against him,

and that Basil was the arch plotter,

drew back , and it was nec essary toreassure him. The chroniclers tellstories of various prophecies and signswarning him of his fate . His friendLeo the Philosopher is said to havetried to dissuade him from going. His

s ister Theodora sent him a dress tooshort for him, with a partridge worked

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EAS TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE CHAP . v

Logothete, said, Put on your gold peach-coloured cloak and

appear to your foes, — they will flee before you.

” Bardasmounted his horse (April 2 1 ) and rode with a brilliantcompany to the Emperor’s pavilion. Basil, in his capacityof High Chamberlain , came out

,did obeisance to the Caesar,

and led him‘

by the hand to the Emperor ’s presence. Bardas,sitting down beside the Emperor

,suggested that, as the troops

were assembled and all was ready, they should immediatelyembark. Suddenly looking round, he saw Basil makingthreatening signs with his hand . Basil then lunged at him

with his sword, and the other conspirators rushed in and

hewed him in pieces. Their violent onrush frightened and

endangered the Emperor,who mutely watched

,but Constantine

the Armenian protected him from injury ?

The rOle of Constantine, who still held the post Of

Drungary Of the Watch,is that of a preventer of mischief,

when he appears on the stage at critical moments only to

pass again into Obscurity. He attempted to save Theoktistosfrom his murderers ; and now after the second tragedy, it isthrough his efforts that the camp is not disordered by a

sanguinary struggle between the partisans of Bardas and the

homicides ?

The Emperor immediately wrote a letter to the PatriarchPhotius informing him that the Caesar had been convictedOf high treason and done to death . We possess the Patriarch ’sreply ? It is couched in the conventional style Of adulationrepulsive to our taste but then rigorously required by Courtetiquette. Having congratulated the Emperor on his escapefrom the plots of the ambitious man who dared to raise

his hand against his benefactor, Photius deplores that heéOpzdu/Bevou) . Constantine Porphyrogennetos has et another version, perha s devised y himse lf. He is more

su tle. Instead of cutting the knot,

1 This inc ident c omes, of course,

from G enesios . In the rest I havefollowed the ac count of Simeon.

Genesios entirely suppresses the partplayed by Basil (just hinting, 10711,that his interests were involved ) .Ac cording to him, when Bardas wassitting w ith M ichael, Symb atios camein and read the reports (which theLogothete regularly presented) . As

he went out he made the sign of the

c ross as a signal to the conspiratorswho were in hiding. Gen. adds thatthe c orpse was barbarously mutilated(rd robrov a ldo

’

ia xovr qfi dcapr rjoavr es

like Genesios, he assigns a part in themurder to h is grandfather, but so as

to minimise his responsibility . Ao

cording to this account, Michael isthe organizer of the plot ; he gives a

sign to Symb atios to introduce the

assassins they hesitate, and M ichael ,fearing for his own safety , orders Basilto instigate them (Vita Bas. c .

2 Gen. 107.

3 Ep. 221.

was sent'

without time for repentance to the tribunal in

another world . The Patriarch owed his position to Bardas,and if he knew his weaknesses, must have appreciated his

merits. We can detect in the phraseology of his epistle,

and especially in one ambiguous sentence,the mixture of his

feelings. The virtue and clemency of your Majesty forbidme to suspect that the letter was fabrica ted or that the

circumstances of the fall of Bardas were otherwise than italleges— circumstances by which he (Bardas) is crowned and

others will suffer.

” 1These words in timate suspicion as

clearly as it could decently b e intimated in such a case .

It was impossible not to accept the sovran ’s assurance of

the Caesar’

s guilt,if it were indeed his own assurance

, yet

Photius allows it to b e seen that he suspects that the Imperialletter was dictated by Basil and that there was foul play .

But perhaps the most interesting passage in this compositionof Photius— in which we c an feel his deep agitation underthe rhetorical figures of his style— is his brief characterizationof the Caesar as one who was to many a terror, to many a

warning, to many a cause of pity,but to more a riddle.

” 2

Photius concluded h is letter with an urgent prayer thatthe Emperor should instantly return to the capital

,professing

that this was the unanimous desire of the Senate and the

citizens ; and shortly afterwards he dispatched another briefbut importunate request to the same effect ? It is absurd tosuppose that this solicitude was unreal, or dictated by motivesof vulgar flattery. We cannot doubt the genuine concern of

the Patriarch ; but in our ignorance of the details of the

situation we can only conjecture that he and his friendsentertained the fear that Michael might share the fate of his

uncle. The intrigues of Basil were, of course,known well

to all who were ini tiated in Court affairs ; and modern partisanwriters of the Roman Church , who detest Photius and all

his works? do not pause to consider, when they scornfullyanimadvert upon these time-serving letters, that to have

1 61’

(Bu éxei‘

vos név o'

r écper a i dM or4 Jager, i b. 115 . HergenrO

’

ther,i.

Keg/cum . The paraphrase of the 589 . Valettas, in his apology forAbbé Jager (Hist. de Photius, 116) Photius (note to Ep. 221, p . saysentirely omits this . that Ph . calls Basil éu r em Anornu,

etc . ,in Ep. 190 but Basil

, Prefect of2 211311 3 11312 1“ by Jager, 12° 117 °

the City, to whom this letter is ad3 Ep. 222 . dressed

,is a different person.

EAS TERN R OMAN EM P IRE CHAP. v

addressed to Michael holy words of condemnation or reproofwould have been to fling away every chance of rescuing himfrom the influence of his High Chamberlain . We know not

whether the Emperor was influenced by the pressing messagesof the Patriarch , but at all events the Cretan expedition wasabandoned

,and he returned with Basil to Constantinople.

3 . The Elevation of Basil and the Murder of Michael

The High Chamberlain promptly reaped the due rewardof his craft and audacity. He was adopted as a son by the

childless Emperor, and invested with the order of Magister ?

A few weeks later, Michael suddenly decided to elevate himto the throne. We can easily understand that this stepseemed the easiest way out of his perplexities to the Emperor,who felt himself utterly lost when Bardas was removed fromthe helm. Basil, fi rm and self-confi dent, was a tower of

strength , and at this moment he could exert unlimited influenceover the weak mind of his master. The Court and the citywere kept in the dark till the last moment. On the eve of

Pentecost, the Chief of the Private Wardrobe waited on the

Patriarch and informed him that on the morrow he wouldb e required to take part in the inauguration of Basil as

Basileus and Augustus.

On Whitsunday (May it was Observed with surprisethat two Imperial seats were placed side by side in St. Sophia .

In the procession from the Palace, Basil walked behind the

Emperor, in the usual guise of the High Chamberlain ; butMichael on entering the church did not remove the crownfrom his head as was usual. He ascended the ambo 2

wearing the diadem,Basil stood on a lower step, and below

him Leo Kastor, a secretary, with a document in his hand,while the Praepositus, the demarchs, and the demes stoodaround. Leo then read out an Imperial declaration : The

Caesar Bardas plotted against me to slay me,and for this reason

induced me to leave the city. If I had not been informed of

the plot by Symbatios and Basil, I should not have been alivenow . The Caesar died through his own guilt. It is my will1 Cont. Th . 238. Descr . Ambonis, 60 sqq. (ed. Bonn

,

2 There were two flights of steps up p .

to the ambo, described by Paul Silent

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E AS TERN R OMAN EM P IRE“

CHAP. v

ended his days as a beggar. A month later Symb atios, whohad fled across Asia Minor

,was caught in an inn in Keltzéné ?

H is right hand was cut off and he was blinded of one eye ,2and

placed outside the palace of Lausos in Middle Street, to b eg

like his comrade. At the end of three days, the two ofi’

enders

were restored to their abodes, where they were kept under arrest.,

The joint reign of Michael and Basil lasted for less thana year and a half. Michael continued to pursue his amusements, but we may suspect that in this latest period of his

life his frivolous character underwent a change. He becamemore reckless in his extravagance, more immoderate in his

cups? and cruel in his acts. The horror of his uncle’s murdermay have cast its shadow,

and Basil, for Whom he had not the

same respect , was unable to exert the same kind of ascendencyas Bardas. W e cannot suppose that all the essential facts ofthe situation are disclosed to us in the meagre reports of our

chronicles. The following incident can only have marked thebeginning of the final stage of intensely strained relations ?

Michael held a horse-race in the Palace of St Mamas. He

drove himself as a Blue charioteer, Constantine the Armeniandrove as a White, other courtiers as G reen and Red. The

Emperor won the race, and in the evening he dined withBasil and Eudoc ia Ingerina, and was complimented by the

patrician Basiliskianos 5 on his admirable driving. Michael,delighted by his flattery, ordered him to stand up, to take the

1 Simeon,ib . 834. Keltzéné is the

c lassical Akiliséné, called Ekeleséné

by Proc opius (B .P . i. 17 )Mansi, xi. 613 ; Kehrr fi vfi, N ova

Ta ctica ,ed. Gelzer, 78. It lies on the

left bank of the Eu hrates, north of

Sophene, east of Dar analis its chieftown was Erez , now Erzinjan,

northeast of Ani (Theodosiopolis) . For a

geographical description see Adonts,Armeniia v epokhu Iustiniana ,

48,

52 sqq. Ac cording to Cont. Th . 240,Symb atios occupied the fort r fys

nkar eia s rrérpa s ; we do not knowwhere this was. Simeon, ib .

,states

that when Symb atios arrived in the

capital, Péganés was brought to meethim

,holding a clay c enser in his hand

with sulphur to fumigate him,— a

mysterious performanc e.

2 Acc ording to Cont. Th . 241, of

both eyes, and acc ord ing to thissource the nose of Péganes was slit.

3 In late writers, the Emperor is

designated as Michael the Drunkard(aedvorfis) , Glycas, ed. Bonn, 541 ,546. Cp. Gen. 113 and

Cont. Th . 251-252.

‘1 Our only useful source here is

Simeon. Gen. and Cont. Th . slurover the murder of Michael, andexonerate Basil . According to Gen.

113, Basil’

s friends advised him to

slay M ichael, but he dec lined , and

they d id the deed themselves.5 In Cont. Th . 250, h e is called

Basilikinos, where we learn that hewas a brother of Constantine Kapnogenes who was afterwards Prefec tof the City, and that he was one of

Michael ’s fellows in his religious mummeries . According to this sourc e

(Constantine Michael arrayedhim in full Imperia l dress and introduc ed him to the Senate with somedoggrel verses.

51m . 111 THE E LE VA TION OF BAS IL

red boots from his own feet and put them on. Basiliskianos

hesi tated and looked at Basil , who signed to him not to obey.

The Emperor furiously commanded him to do as he was bidden ,and turning on Basil cried wi th an oath

,The boots become

him better than you. I made you Emperor, and have I not

the power to create another Emperor if I will ? Eudociain tears, remonstrated : The Imperial dignity is great

,and

we,unworthy as we are

,have been honoured with it. It is

not right that it should b e brought into contempt .” Michaelreplied

,Do not fear ; I am perfectly serious ; I am ready to

make Basiliskianos Emperor. This incident seriously alarmedBasil . Some time later when Michael was hunting

,a monk

met him and gave him a paper which purposed to reveal a

plot of Basil against his life . He then began to harbourdesigns against his colleague ? He had small chance againstsuch an an tagonist.Basil struck the blow on Sept . 24 ,

A .D. 8 67? Michael

had bidden h im and Eudocia to dinner in the Palace of St.

Mamas. When Michael had drunk deeply, Basil made an

excuse to leave the room ,and entering the Imperial b ed

chamber tampered with the bolts of the door so that it coul dnot b e locked. He then returned to the table, and when theEmperor became drunk as usual, he conducted him to h is b ed

and kissing his hand went out. The Keeper of the PrivateWardrobe

,who was accustomed to sleep in the Emperor’s room

,

was absen t on a commission? and Basili skianos had beencommanded to take his place.

1 Cont. Th. 249 (cp. 209 ) assertsan ac tual attempt on Basil

’

s life inthe hunting-fi eld.

2 l b . 210.

3 The Empress Theodora (who was

now at liberty, see above, p . 169 ) hadinvited her son to dinner in the

house of Anthemios, and M ichael hadordered Rentakios, Keeper of the

Wardrobe, to kill some game to sendto his mother. H irsch (66) has misapprehended this, for he says, Theodora gieb t ja im Palaste des Anthemiosj enes Gastmahl

,nac h welchemM ichael

ermordet wird .

”It is c lear that

Theo dora ’

s dinner was to b e held on a

subsequent day ; it is mentioned bySimeon only to account for the absence

Michael sank on his b ed in

of the Protovestiarios. M ichael wasmurdered in the Palac e of St. Mamas .

That Theodora had been restored toliberty, though not to power, by A . D .

866, is illustrated by the letter whichPope Nicolas addressed to her (Nov.

But we can fix the resumptionof her honours as Augusta to an

earlier date, A .D . 863, for in triumphaldxr a in Constantine, Ger . 332

,wh ich

belong as I have shown to that year,

“ the honourable Augustae are

c elebrated ; see below,p . 284, n. 4.

The house of Anthemios (r d’

Ay 0ep. lov)means perhaps not a palac e, ” b ut

(as Pargoire thinks, q adian, 474)the monastery founded by her son-in

law Alexios in the suburban quarterofAnthemios (see above, p.

EAS TERN ~R OMAN EM P IRE

the deep sleep of intoxication , and the chamberlain on duty,discovering that the door could not b e bolted, divined thedanger, but could not waken the Emperor.

Basil had engaged the help of eight friends, some of whomhad taken part in his first crime, the murder of Bardas ?

Accompanied by these, Basil opened the door of the bed-chamber,and was confronted by the chamberlain , who opposed his

entrance. One of the conspirators diving under Basil’s arm

rushed to the b ed,but the chamberlain sprang after him and

gripped him. Another then wounded Basiliskianos and

hurled him on the floor,while a third

,John Chaldos (who

had been prominent among the slayers of Bardas) , hewed at

the sleeping Emperor with his sword, and cut off both hishands. Basil seems to have stood at the door, while the otheraccomplices kept guard outside. John Chaldos thought thathe had done enough ; he left the room,

and the conspiratorsconsulted whether their vi ctim should be despatched outright.One Of them 2 took it upon himself to return to the b ed whereMichael was moaning out piteous imprecations against Basil

,

and ripped up his body.

Through the darkness of a stormy night the assassins rowedacross the G olden Horn

,landing near the house of a

Persian named Eulogios, who joined them. By breakingthrough an enclosure 3 they reached a gate of the G reat Palace.

Eulogios called out to his fellow-countryman Artavasdos, the

Hetaeriarch ,in the Persian tongue, Open to the Emperor, for

Michael has perished by the sword. Artavasdos rushed to thePapias

,took the keys from him by force, and Opened the gate.

In the morning, Eudocia Ingerina was conducted in statefrom St. Mamas to the Great Palace, to take, as reigning

1 Those who shared in both crimeswereJohnChaldos,Peterthe Bulgarian,

Asylaion, Maurianos,Constantine Toxaras

,Symb atios, c ousin of Asylaion.

The other two were Bardas (father of

Symbatios) and Jakovitzes, a Persian.

Several of them probably belonged tothe Hetaireia or foreign guard, thec aptain of which , Artavasdos, mayhave been initiated in the plot.2 Asylaion.

3 From the house of Eulogios theyreached the palace of Marina . 117161566‘

7'

7u nep¢¢pdooovoa ro reixos Ital

«par rjoas Bao iha os 6190 7 63V aer’

a br oii

61'e Kai Aaxr loa s Ka réaée ripe nhdxa Ka i

elofihdov péxpc r r’

js mihm r oii nahar lov

(Simeon, i b. ro r eixos seems to

b e the wall of the Palace, round whichat this point there was a brick en

c losure. The palace of Marina was on

the sea side of the Great Palace (sinceit was in theFirst Region, cp. Ducange,Const. Chr . ii. p . but we do not

know whether it was north of the

Bucoleon, and therefore we have no

means of c onjec turing at what gateBasil found Artavasdos.

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CHAPTER VI

PHOTIUS AND IGNATIUS

UNDER the rule of the iconoclasts, the differences which dividedthe orthodox had been suffered to slumber ; b ut the defeatof the common enemy was the signal for the renewal of a

conflict which had disturbed the peace of the Church underIrene and N icephorus. The two parties

,which had suspended

their feud, now again stood face to face.

The fundamental principle of the State Church founded byConstantine was the supremacy of the Emperor ; the Patriarchand the whole hierarchy were subject to h im ; he not onlyprotected, he governed the Church . The smooth working ofthis system demanded from churchmen a spirit of compromiseand economy.

”It migh t Often b e difficult for a Patriarch to

decide at what point his religious duty forbade him to complywith the Emperor’s will and it is evident that Patriarchs

,like

Tarasius and Nicephorus, who had served the State in secularposts, were more likely to work discreetly and harmoniouslyunder the given conditions than men who had been broughtup in cloisters. W e saw how the monks of Studion organizedan opposition to these Patriarchs, whom they denounced forsacrificing canonical rules to expediency. The abbot Theodoredesired to subvert the established system . He held that theEmperor was merely the protector of the Church , and thatthe Church was independent. He affi rmed, moreover, thesupremacy of the Roman See in terms which no Emperor and

few , if any,Patriarchs would have endorsed. But by their

theory, which they boldly put into practice, the Studites wereundermining Patriarchal and episcopal authority. Theyasserted the right of monks to pass an independent judgment

180

CHAP. v1 P H OTI US AND [ GNA TI US 181

on the administration of their bishop,and

,in case his

actions did not meet with their approval, to refuse to com

municate with him. A movement of independence or in

subordination, which was likely to generate schisms, wasinitiated, and the activity and influence of Theodore musthave disseminated his views far beyond the limits of his own

community.

Thus there arose two antagonistic sections, of which one

approved more or less the doctrines of Theodore of Studion,

while the other upheld Patriarchal authority and regardedNicephorus as an ideal Patriarch . One insisted on the strictestobservation of ecclesiastical canons and denounced the suddenelevations of Nicephorus and Tarasius from the condi tion of

laymen to the episcopal offi ce ; the other condoned suchirregularities which special circumstances commended to the

Imperial wisdom. One declined to allow any relaxation of

canonical rules in favour of the Emperor ; the other was

prepared to permit him considerable limits of dispensation .

There were, in fact, two opposite Opinions as to the spirit andmethod of ecclesiastical administration, corresponding to twodifferent types of ecclesiastic. Both sides included monks ;and it would not b e true to say that the monks generallyrallied to the section of the Studites. There were manyabbots and many hermits who

.

disliked the Studite ideal of a

rigorous, disciplinary regulation of monastic life, and manywho

,like Theophanes of Sigriane, were satisfied with the

State Church and had no sympathy with the aggressive policyof Theodore and h is fellows.

Methodius had always been an ecclesiastic, and the Studitescould not reproach him for any irregularity in his consecrationas bishop. He had been a martyr in the cause of imageworship

,and he had effectively assisted in its triumph . But

his promotion to the Patriarchate was not pleasing to the

Studite monks. H is sympathies were with the other party,and he was prepared to carry on the tradition of Tarasius and

Nicephorus. We can well understand that his intimacy withthe Emperor Theophilus, with whom he agreed to differ on the

iconoclastic question,was far from commending him to the

stricter brethren . The Studites were prepared to b e critical,and from the very beginning his administration was the subject

EAS TE RN R OMA/V EM P IRE C HAP. VI

of adverse comment or censure.

1He desired to conciliate them,

and the bones of their revered abbot Theodore were brought,

back for interment at Studion,with great solemnity. But the

satisfaction of the monks at this public honour to their abbotwas mitigated, if it was not cancelled, hy ' the translation

,at

the same time, of the remains of Nicephorus to the Church of

the Apostles.

2They ’

recalled his uncanonical consecration , theyrecalled his condonation of “

adultery. But if he could notconciliate them

, the Patriarch was determined to crush theirrebellious spirit. He called upon them to anathematize all

that Theodore had written against Tarasius and Nicephorus,and he urged that Theodore had himself practically revokedhis own strong language

,had been reconciled with Nicephorus ,

and in fact changed his opinion . But the Studites obstinatelyrefused

,and Methodius asserted his Pa triarchal authority.

You are monks,he said

,and you have no right to question

the conduct of your bishops ; you must submit to them.

” 3 He

pronounced against the rebellious brethren not the simpleana thema

,but the curse

,the katathema ,

of the Church. The

struggle seems to have ended with concessions on the part of

the Patriarch .

4

The difficulties which troubled the short administration of

Methodius 5 possess a significant bearing on the more serious

ec clesiastical strife which marked the reign of his successor,

and which led, indirectly, to the great schism between the

Eastern and the Western Churches. The two Opposing partiesof Ignatius and Photius represent the same parties which distracted the Patriarchate ofMethodius, and the struggle is thus a

1 Methodius was blamed especiallyfor too indulgent treatment of re

pentant iconoc lasts, and for ordainingnew bishops and priests without a

sufficient investigation of their qualifi c ations . For the disputes see Vita

Joannicm, c . 51 , 52, 57, and VitaM ethodii

,257-260. They are discussed

by Uspenski, Ocherki , 83 sqq. ; Lebedev,I storz

’

z'

a, 17-19 vHergenrOther, i. 352

sqq. b ut best by Dob schii tz,M'

eth . a .

die Stud .

2 See Theophanes, De exsilio N ice

phort Methodius, Ad Studitas , 1293

98 (and the Synodica in Pitra, Ja r.

ecc . Gr . 2, Dob schii tz, 42 sqq.

3 Narratio de Tar . et N iceph. 1853.

4 Dobschutz, 47 .

5 His d ifficulties are illustrated bya despondent letter which he wroteto the Patriarch of Jerusalem (seeB ibliography ) . He expresses his disappointment at the unbecoming and

insolent conduc t of the . repentantic onoclastic c lergy . His Patriarchatewas also troubled by the heresy of

Zelix,or Lizikos, an Imperial secretary

(Gen. 85 ; Vita Method. who con

sidered Jesus Christ to b e a creaturerefused the title of Theotokos

to the Virg in, and rej ec ted the vivifi c ous cross. These dangerous opinionswere suppressed , and Zélix and his

followers reconc iled to orthodoxy .

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EAS TE RN ROMAN EM P IRE CHAP . VI

the Emperor Leo V. ,to whom the family of Ignatius owed its

downfall,had been cast into a monastery in the island of Pro te ;

they renounced the errors of their father, and won a highreputation for virtue and piety. When the Patriarchal thronebecame vacant

,these monks Of Imperial parentage, Basil and

Gregory,the sons Of Leo

,and Ignatius, the son of Michael,

were proposed for election .

1Ignatius was preferred, perhaps

because it was felt that notwithstanding their own merits theshadow of their father’s heresy rested upon the sons Of Leo ;

and he was consecrated on July 4 ,A.D.

Ignatius had spent his life in pious devotion and monasticorganization . Tonsured at the age of thirteen or fourteen, hehad made no progress in secular learning, which he distrus tedand disliked . He was not a man of the world like Methodiushe had the rigid notions which were bred in cloistral life and

were calculated to lead himself and the Church into difficultieswhen they were pursued in the Patriarchal palace . It is

probable that he was too much engaged in his own work to

have taken any part in the disputes which troubled Methodius,and Theodora may have hoped that he would succeed in con

ciliating the opposing parties.

3 But he was by nature an

anti-Methodian,and he showed this on the very day Of his

consecration .

Gregory Asb estas, the archbishop of Syracuse, happenedto b e in Constantinople at the time. A Sicilian , he was a

friend of the Sicilian Methodius, on whom he composed a

panegyric, and he was a man Of some learning.

.

There was acharge against him Of some ecclesiastical irregularity,4 and itwas probably in connexion with this that he had come to thecapital. He had taken his place among the bishops whoattended in St. Sophia

,bearing tapers, to acclaim the Patriarch ,

and Ignatius ordered h im to withdraw, on the ground that hisepiscopal status was in abeyance until the charge which lay

1 Gen. 99 .

2 M ethodius died June 14, 847

(Vi ta Jeannie. by Simeon Met. 92 ;M enol. Ba s. , sub dz

‘

e, p. 500, where heis said to have been Patriarch for fouryears three months) .3 It is said that Ignatius was re

commended to the Empress by thehermit Joannikios (Vi ta Ignati i ,As Joannikios had been a strong sup

porter Of Methodius, it is probablethat Ignatius had taken no part inthe opposition to Methodius.

4 Accord ing to Pseudo-Simeon, 671,he had irregularly consecrated Zacharias— a priest whom Methodius hadsent to Rome — bishop (Of Tauro

meniurn) . This author erroneouslystates that Gregory was deposed byMethodius .

185CHAP. v 1 PH OTI US AND [ GNA TI US

against him had been decided. This public slight enragedG regory

, who dashed his candle to the ground and loudlydeclared that not a shepherd but a wolf had intruded into theChurch . The new Patriarch cer tainly displayed neither the

wisdom of a serpent nor the harmlessness of a dove, and his

own adherents admit that he was generally blamed.

1He had

thus at the very outset taken pains to Offend an able and

eminent prelate of the party which had supported Methodius,and the action was interpreted as a declaration of war. The

result was a schism . Gregory had many sympathizers ; somebishops had marked their disapprobation of the action of

Ignatius by leaving the church in his company .

2A schism

atic group was formed which refused to acknowledge the newPatriarch -a group which expressed the general tendencies of

the M ethodian par ty and avowed an unreserved admiration forMethodius. But it was only a small group. The hierarchyin general supported Ignatius

,as it had supported Methodius ;

for Ignatius was supported by Theodora .

3Nevertheless the

followers of G regory, though comparatively few ,were influential.

They alleged against the Patriarch that he was a detractor fromthe merits and memory of his predecessor, and that he was

unduly rigorous and narrow in his application of the canons.

Ignatius summoned G regory to answer the charge which stillhung over his head ; Gregory declined, and, along with othersof his party, was condemned by a synod .

‘1He appealed against

this judgment to Pope Leo IV. , who asked the Patriarch to

send him a copy of the Acts. Ignatius did not comply,and

Leo’

s successor, Benedict I II .,declined to confirm the deposition

of Gregory,and contented himself with suspending him until

he had inspected the documents f’1 Vita Ign. 232 of; Kahc

'

bs‘ My , (6: 7 6

Ooxofiv T ofs r ohkoi‘

s.

we must accept the continuity of theparty with th is limitation.

4 Stylianos, 1h) . 428 ; Mansi, xiv.

2 I I) . E

specially Peter, bishop of

Sardis, an Eulampios, bishop ofApamea.

3 Lebedev seems, in his exposition

of the c ontinuity of the two parties ,to have missed the importance ofTheodora ’

s attitude . On their own

princ iples, the Methodians were boundto support the new Patr iarch , so longas he was orthodox and was upheldby the Emperor. The greater numb er probably adhered to Ignatius, and

1029-32. The synod was held not

later than 854, for L eo IV. died in 855 .

5 Stylianos, loo. ctt. N ic olaus, Ep.

9. For the fragment of a letter of

Leo IV. to Ignatius , c om laining thatthe Patriarch had deposed

)

c erta inmen

w ithout his knowledge or consent,see Ewald , Die Papstbriefe der brittischen Sammlung ,” in N ew s Archie,v . 379 The persons in ues

tion are undoubted ly Gregory an his

fellows.

CHAP .

-

vrEAS TERN ROMAN EM P IRE

The schism of G regory might b e allowed to rest in the

Obscurity of ecclesiastical records if it had not won distinctionand importance by the adhesion of the most remarkable man

of the age. Photius was probably born about the beginningof the ninth century. H is father, Sergius,1 was a brother of

the Patriarch Tarasius,

2and through his mother he was

connected with the family of the Empress Theodora.

3 H is

parents suffered exile for their devotion to image-worshipunder the iconoclastic sovrans

,

4and it was probably in the

first years of Theodora’s reign that Photius entered upon hiscareer as a public teacher of philosophy. He had an

attractive personality,he was a stimulating teacher, and he

soon found a band of disciples who hung upon his words.

His encyclopaedic learning, in which he not only excelledall the men of his own time but was unequalled by any Greekof the Middle Ages, will call for notice inanother chapter.

H is family connexions as well as his talents opened a careerin the Imperial service ; a nd he was ultimately appointed tothe high post of Protoasecretis, or First Secretary, with the rankof a protOSpathar.

5It was probably during his tenure of this

important post that he was sent as ambassador to the East ,perhaps to Baghdad itself

,perhaps only to some of the

provincial emirs.

6 Whatever his services as an envoy may

have been, he established personal relations Of friendship withMohammadan magnates.

7

Photius had a high respect for Gregory Asb estas, and

identified himself closely with the group which opposed

1 Pseudo-Simeon, 668 . His brothers 800. See Papadopulos-Kerameus, 6

were named Sergius and Tarasius.

2 Photius, Ep. 113 06701: npér epou ;Ep . 2 7 0Vnyér epov 7ra

'

rp60a ou.

3 See above, p . 156.

4 Photius, Ep. 113, Ep. 234 (ad

Tarasium fratrem ), Ep. 2 (Inthronist.

ad episc . orient ) , p . 145 . Cp. A cta

Cone. viii . 460 7 0157 0 1) xa l narhpKa l phrnp iz1e e tio' efi efa s ddhofivr es

éua r éfiavov . These passages showthat they died in exile. Photiushimself was anathematized by the

same ic onoclastic synod whichanathematized his father (Ep.

and this was probably the synod of

A . D . 815 . If so we cannot place theb irth Of Photius much later than

r arptdpxns(Pdrrtos tbs r arhp dy tos 1 135

“

p . 658 in B .Z. viii .HergenrOther

’

s date for his birth is827 (i. 3155 The date is unknown. Hergen

rother says “,probably under Theoktis

tus”

(i . HergenrOther has the

curious idea that protospatham’

os

means captain of the Imperial b Oguard

6 See the Dedication of the

B tbltotheca , wpeafi eéew thud: é7r’

’

Ao'avplovs a ipefi év'

r as'

.

7 Op. Mansi, xvii . 484. Nicolaus

Mystic us, Ep. 2:(M igne, wr itingto the Emir of Crete , says thatPhotius was a friend of the Emir

’

s

father (p.

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EAS TERN R OMAN EMP IRE CHAP. vr

a serious ecclesiastical controversy. If Ignatius had behavedwith discretion and reconciled himself to a régime whichpersonally he disliked

,it is not probable that the sympathies

of Bardas with the Photian party would have induced him to

take any measure against the Patriarch .

Ignatius found in the private morals of the powerfulminister a weak spot for attack . According to the rumourof the town , Bardas was in love with his daughter-in-law ,

and had for her sake abandoned his wife.

1Acting on this

gossip, the Patriarch admonished Bardas, who declined to takeany notice of his rebukes and exhortations ? We may suspectthat he refused to admit that the accusation was true— it

would perhaps have been difficult to prove— and recommendedIgnatius to mind his own business. But Ignatius was

determined to show that he was the shepherd of his flock,and that he was no respecter of persons. On the feast of

Epiphany (Jan. A .D. 85 8) he refused the communion to the

sinner. It is said that Bardas, furious at this public insult,drew his sword ; but he managed to control his anger and

vowed vengeance on the bold priest.The ecclesiastical historians speak with warm approbation

of this action of the Patriarch . The same prelate, who

adopted such a strong measure to punish the vices of Bardas,

3

had no scruples, afterwards, in communicating with the

Emperor Basil,who had ascended to power by two successive

murders. And the ecclesiastical historians seem to regardthe Patriarch ’s action

,in ignoring Basil’s crimes and virtually

taking advantage of them to reascend the Patriarchal throne,

as perfectly irreproachable. The historian who is not an

ecclesiastic may b e allowed to express his respectful interestin the ethical standards which are implied.

About eight months later the Emperor Michael decidedto tonsure his mother and sisters and immure them in the

monastery of Karianos. He requested the Patriarch to performthe ceremony of the tonsure, and we have already seen that1 Simeon (Cont. Georg. ) 826 ; Anas (Many emery. Cp. Lebedev, Iatom

’

ia,

tasius,Praefl ; Gen. 99 ; Vita Ign. 23-24 .

224 .

3 The expressions which B ergen2 L ibella s Igna tw , 296 ; Vita Ign. ,

tb. rother (369 ) applies to Bardas “ein

(I) : dud r ada r! 1“?i WONV neprflopfindfivat‘

wolliistiger Hofl ing," “ der machtige

Ka i Oi’

mdxpl. 7 63V WOXXGV pévou m l Wiistling,"

are extraordinarily ih

,uéxprs (161 017 7 00 dpxrepéws Thu r ampart felic itous .

CHAP. v 1 P H OTI US AND I GNA TI US 189

Ignatius refused on the ground that the ladies themselveswere unwilling.

1 Bardas persuaded the Emperor that hisdi sobedience, in conjunction with his unconcealed sympathywith the Empress, was a sign of treasonable purposes

,and a

pretended discovery was made that he was in collusion withan epileptic impostor, named Gebeon,

who professed to b e theson of the Empress Theodora by a former marriage. Geb eon

had come from Dyrrhachium to Constantinople , where he

seduced some foolish people ; he was arrested and cruellyexecuted in one of the Prince’s Islands ? On the same day thePatriarch was seized as an accomplice, and removed

,without a

trial, to the island Of Tereb inthos (Nov.

It is evident that there were no proofs against Ignatius,and that the charge of treason was merely a device of

the government for the immediate purpose Of removing him.

For in the subsequent transactions this charge seems to

have been silently dropped ; and if there had been anyplausible grounds, there would have been some sort of formaltrial. Moreover

,it would appear that before his arrest it was

intimated to the Patriarch that he could avoid all trouble byabdication ,

and he would have been tempted to yield if hisbishops had not assur ed him that they would loyally standby him.

3 Before his arrest he issued a solemn injunctionthat no service should b e performed in St. Sophia without hisconsent ? A modern ecclesiastical historian

,who has no high

opinion of Ignatius, cites this action as a proof that he wasready to prefer his own personal interests to the good of the

Church .

5

In the place of his banishment Ignatius was visitedrepeatedly by bishops and Imperial ministers pressing on him

the expediency of voluntary abdica tion . As he refused to

listen to arguments,threats were tried, but with no result.6

The Emperor and Bardas therefore decided to procure the

election of a new Patriarch, though the chair was not de ta re1 L ibellas Igna tit, 296. Anastasius 2 Vita Ign. , ih. Bardas called

(Praef. 2 ) and the Vtta Ign. (224) add Ignatius Gebob asileutos .

that he alleged the oath which he had 3 De Staurapatts, 441 .

taken,at h is elevation, that he wou ld Anastasius, P raef . ,

tb.

never engage in a plot against M ichael 5 Lebedev, op. cit. 25.

and Theodora (rfis fi am kela s may ). 6 Vtta Ign. 226. Physical violenc eSuch an oath was apparently required was not employed at this stage (as thefrom every Patriarch (secundum narrative in the Vi ta shows) Hergen

morem, Anastas. ) rother is wrong here (373

EAS TERN ROM AN EM P IRE C HAP . vi

vacant, inasmuch as Ignatius had neither resigned nor beencanonically deposed. Such a procedure was not an innovation ; there were several precedents ? The choice of the

government and the ecclesiastical party which was opposed toIgnatius fell upon Photius . He was not only a g

frata persona

at Court ; but his extraordinary gifts, his eminent reputation ,along with his unimpeachable orthodoxy, were calculated toshed prestige on the Patriarchal chair, and to reconcile the

public to a policy which seemed open to the reproaches of

violence and injustice. Many Of the bishops who had vowedto support the cause of Ignatius were won over by Bardas

,and

Photius accepted the high offi ce , which , according to his

enemies, had long been the goal of his ambition , and which ,according to his own avowal, he would have been only too

glad to decline ? He was tonsured on December 20 on the

four following days he was successively ordained lec tor, sub

deacon,deacon , and priest, and on Christmas Day consecrated

bishop, by his friend G regory Asb estas.

8 For this rapid and

irregular elevation to the highest dignity of the Church,

which was one Of the principal objections urged againstPhotius

, the recent precedents Of his uncle Tarasius and

Nicephorus, as well as others, could be alleged. The ambiguousposition of Gregory, who had been deposed by a synod andsuspended by a Pope

,furnished another handle against the

new Patriarch . But all the bishops who were present inConstantinople, except fi ve

,acknowledged him

,

4and the fi ve

dissentients were persuaded to acquiesce when he gave them a

written undertaking that he would honour Ignatius as a fatherand ac t according to his wishes.

5 But two months later1 E g.Arsac ius, Atticus, Macedonius

II. , etc . Cp. Hergenrother, i . 377.

2 He dwells on his reluc tance to

ac cept the post in some of his letterscp. Ep. 159 ad Bardam.

3 Vtta'

l gn. 232 .

4 From Metrophanes, E10. 416, it

would appear that the formality of

elec tion by the bishops was not Oh

served that, after the consec ration of

Photius, the bishops met and nominated three .c andidates

,Of Whom

Photius was not one ; b ut that all

exc ept fi ve then went over to the

Photian side.

5 L ibella s Ign. 300 ; ,

Vita Ign. 233.

Metrophanes (lac . who was one Ofthe fi ve, says]: Whenwe saw that themass of the bishops had been seduc edwe thought it right to acknowledgehim in writing (OL’ lOcoxelpov Opohw las)as a son of our Churc h and in communion with its High Priest (Ignatius),in order that even here we might notb e found in disagreement withhis willfor he (Ignat ius ) had direc ted us to

elec t a Patriarch from our Church inChrist. So when Photius signed inour presenc e a promise that he wouldhold the Patriarch free from blameand neither speak against him nor

permit others to do ao, , we accepted

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EAS TE RN R OMAN EM P IRE C HAP. vx

barbarously punished. The writers of the Ignatian partyaccuse Photius of having prompted these acts of tyranny

, but

letters Of Photius himself to Bardas, bitterly protesting againstthe cruelties, show that he did not approve this policy of

violence,1 which indeed only served to increase his own

unpopularity. The populace of the city seems to have beenin favour of Ignatius, who had also sympathizers among theImperial ministers, such as Constantine the Drungarios of the

Watch . The monks, from whose rank he had risen,generally

supported him ; the Studi tes refused to communicate with thenew Patriarch , and their abbot Nicolas left Constantinople ?

Photius,as is shown by his correspondence, took great pains

to win the goodwill of individual monks and others by flatteryand delicate attentions ?

The announcement of the enthronement of a new Patriarch ,which it was the custom to send to the other four PatriarchalSees— Rome

,Alexandria, Antioch , and Jerusalem— had been

postponed, evidently in the hope that Ignatius would b e

induced to abdicate. When more than a year had passed and

this hope was not fulfilled, the formal announcement could nolonger b e deferred. An inthronistic letter was addressed to

the Eastern Patriarchs,4 and an embassy was sent to Romebearing letters to the Pope from Michael and Photius. The

chair Of St. Peter was now filled by Nicolas I . ,who stands out

among the Pontiffs between Gregory I . and G regory VI I . as

having done more than any other to raise the Papal power tothe place which it was to hold in the days of Innocent I I I ?

Tereb inthos, like the other islands in dom on the accession of Basil. In the

the nei hb ourhood Of the capital , wasexpose to the Russian invasion of

this year (see below , p. The

enemy despoiled the monastery of

Ignatius, seized and slew twenty-twoof his household (Vita Ign. 233

Ignatius himsel f (L ibella s Ign. , ad

i/nit. ) mentions his sufferings fromcold , insuffic ient clothing, hunger,stripes, chains.

1 See Photius, Fm. 159.

2 N icolas of Crete had succ eededNaukratios as abbot in 848. He re

mained seven years in exile, first atPraenete in B ithynia, then in th e

Chersonese, whence (865 -866) he wasbrought in chains to Constantinopleand incarcerated in his ownmonasteryfor two years. He Obtained his free

meantime a suc cession Of unwelc omeabbots had been imposed on Studion.

See Vita N icola i S tud . 909 sqq.

3 See the correspondence of Photius.

The materia l is c ollec ted in B ergenrother, i . 396 sqq. One abbot at leastleft hismonastery to avoid the conflic t.Cp. Vita Euthym. j un. 179 .

4 The Patriarchate of Antioch wasat this moment vacant

,and the c om

munication is addressed to theoekonomos and synkellos 2, ed.

Its tenor correspon s to theletter to the Pope.

5 He was elec ted in April 858.

Regino, Chron., s.a . 868, says Of

him regib us ac tyrannis imperavitc isque ac si dominus orbis terrarumauc toritate praefuit .

”

PH OTI US AND I GNA TI US 193C HAP. V I

A man of deeds rather than of words,as one of his admirers

says,he was inspired with the idea of the universal authority

of the Roman See. The internal troubles in the Carolingianrealm enabled him to assert successfully the Papal pretensionsin the West ; the schism at Constan tinople gave him a

welcome Opportunity of pressing his claims upon the East .But in Pho tius he found an antagonist

,not only incomparably

more learned than himself, but equally determined , energetic,and resourceful

The letter Of Photius to the Pope was a masterpiece of

diplomacy ? He enlarged on his reluctance to undertake theburdens of the episcopal offi ce, which was pressed upon himby the Emperor and the clergy with such insistency that hehad no alternative but to accept it. He then in accordancewi th the usual custom in such inthronistic letters— made a

precise statement of the articles of his religion and declaredhis fi rm belief in the seven Ecumenical Councils. He concludedby asking the Pope, not for any support or assistance

,but

simply for his prayers. He abstained from saying anythingagainst his predecessor . But the letter which was sent in the

Emperor’s name 2 gave a garbled account Of the vacation of the

Patriarchal throne,and requested the Pope to send legates to

attend a synod which should decide some questions relating tothe iconoclastic heresy. Neither the Patriarch nor the Emperorinvited the Pope even to express an opinion on recent events,but N icolas resolved to seize the occasion and assert a jurisdiction which

,if it had been accepted, would have annulled

the independence of the Church of Constantinople. He

despatched two bishops, with instructions to investigate the

facts in connexion with the deposition of Ignatius, and to

make a report ? He committed to them let ters (dated1 Ep. 1 .

2 Thi s letter is not preserved,b ut

w e know its tenor from the reply ofNicolas. It was said of Ignatius thathe had withdrawn from the duties ofhis Offi ce voluntarily and had beendeposed by a counc il , and it was

suggested that he had neglected(sprever it) his flock and contemned thedecrees of Popes Leo and Benedic t(Nic ol . Ep. The letters were presented by an embassy consisting of

Arsab er, an Imperia l spatharios, and

three bishops , who bore g ifts from the

Emperor a gold paten wi th prec iousstones (a lbi s, prasinis et hyacinthinis) ;a gold cha lice from which gems hungby golden threads ; a gold shield inlaid with gems ; a go ld-embroideredrobe with trees, roses

,and sacred

sc enes,etc . (Vita N icola i P apac ,

The envoys reached Rome in summer860 and were received in audience inS . Maria Maggiore.

3 The legates were Rodoaldus of

Porto and Zacharias of Anagni . The

O

EAS TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE CHAP . v1

September 25 , 8 60) to the Emperor and to Photius. Theseletters have considerable in terest as a specimen of Papaldiplomacy. The communication to the Emperor opens withthe assertion of the primacy of the Roman See and of the

principle that no ecclesiastical diffi culty should b e decided inChristendom 1 without the consent of the Roman Pontiff ; itgoes on to point out that this principle has been vi olated bythe deposition of Ignatius, and that the Offi ce has beenaggrava ted by the election of a layman— an election whichour holy Roman Church ” has always prohibited. On thesegrounds the Pope announces that he cannot give his apostolicconsent to the consecration of Photius until his messengershave reported the facts of the case and have examinedIgnatius. He then proceeds to reply to that part of the

Emperor’s letter wh ich concerned the question Of imageworship . The document concludes with the suggestion thatMichael should show his devotion to the interests of the

Church by restoring to the Roman See the vicariate of

Thessalonica and the patrimonies of Calabria and Sicily, whichhad been withdrawn from the jurisdiction of the Pope byLeo II I . The short letter to Photius censures the temerityOf his elevation and declines to acknowledge his consecration ,unless the Papal messengers, when they return from Con

stantinople, report favourably on his actions and devotion tothe Church?

The diplomatic intent of these letters could hardly b e misapprehended by a novice. The innocent suggestion (putforward as if it had no connexion with the other mattersunder discussion) that Illyricum and Calabria should b e

transferred from the See of Constantinople to that of Romewould never have been made if N icolas had not thought thatthere was a reasonable chance of securing this accession to thePope, in his letter to M ichael, ex

pressly reserves the dec ision to himself(“ac deinde cum nostro praesulatui

signifi catum fuerit,quid de eo agendumsit apostolica sanc tions diffiniamusThe legates had only ful l powers inregard to the question of image

worship.1 N icol . Ep. 2

, p. 162 : qualiter

nullius insurgentis delib erationis terminus daretur .

”

to the Emperor in the Roman archives .

He complains afterwards that in the

Greek translation which was read at

the Counc il of 861 it was falsified byinterpolations and misrepresentationsof the sense . He speaks of suc h falsifi cations as charac teristically Greek(“apud Graecos familiaris est ista

temeritas,

”Ep. b ut inadequate

knowledge of the language must havebeen a cause ofmany mistakes.

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EAS TERN R OM AN EM P IRE CHAP . vr

who attended. The Emperor was present , and Ignatiusunwillingly appeared. Seventy-two witnesses, including bothhighly-placed ministers and men of humble rank

,came forward

to prove that Ignatius had been appoin ted to the Patriarchate,

not by free election , but by the personal act of Theodora ?

W e are in the dark as to the precise circumstances of the

elevation of Ignatius. There is no doubt tha t he was chosenby Theodora

,but it is almost incredible that the usual form

of election was not Observed,and if it was Observed

, to

condemn his elevation was to condemn the elevation of everyPatriarch of Constan tinople as uncanonical. For virtuallyevery Patriarch was appointed by the Imperial will ? In anycase at this synod— if we can trust the accounts of the

supporters Of Ignatius— the government exercised considerablepressure. The assembly , including the represen tatives of

Rome, whether they were convinced or not,confirmed the

deposition of Ignatius, and declared him unworthy. The

authority of Photius was thus established by the formal act

Of a large council,subscribed by the legates of the Roman see ?

Second (1rpu'Jrn Ka i Oevrépa ) , of wh ichperhaps the most probable explanationis that suggested by HergenrOther

(i . that it resumed and confirmedthe ac ts of the synod Of 859 held inthe same church .

1 We must suppose that he had

been condemned on the same groundin A .D . 859 at the local counc il ; butthis charge does not seem to havebeen mentioned in M ichael ’s letter tothe Pope, who indeed points this out inhis letter Of A . D . 862 (Ep. 5 ) omni

b us accusationib us remotis unum

Opponentes tantummodo quod potentiasacculari sedem pervaserit . Seventytwo witnesses (for the number cp.

Hergenrother , i . 426, n. inc ludingmen of all ranks— senators, art isans,fi sh -merchants— were produc ed to givesworn evidenc e that Ignatius had beenuncanonical ly appointed . Cp. Vit.

Ign. 237 . The acts of the Counc ilwere burnt at th e Counc il Of A .D . 869

and our knowledge Of its proceed ingsis derived chiefly from the L ibella s

Ign. and the Vi t. Ign. There were 318bishops, etc . , present, the same numberas at the Counc il of Nic aea , as the

Photians noted with satisfac tion :

Lebedev (op. ci t. 53) thinks that this

was a coinc idence . Ignatius had beenbrought back to Constantinople sometime before

,and was permitted to

reside in th e Palace of Posis whichhad belonged to his mother, the

Empress Proc opia . He unwillinglyresigned himsel f to appear before thesynod , where he refused to recognizethe authority of the Papal legates .

2 Pope N icolas observes this (loc .

ci t.3 Seventeen canons, passed by this

Counc il , remained in forc e, and are

preserved (Mansi, xvi . 535

Canons 16 and 17, forbidd ing for thefuture the c onsecration o f b ishops inthe c ircumstances in which Photiushad been consecrated , and the suddenelevation ofa layman to the episc opate,were c alculated to conc iliate the canonical scruples of the Pope . Canons

13-15 were aimed against schismatic sand intended to strengthen the handsof Photius . Most Of the other rulesdeal t with monastic reform,

and byone of them prohibi tingmembersfrom leav ing their C loisters at theirown caprice, it is thought that Photiushoped to prevent the Ignatians fromtravelling to Rome . Cp. Lebedev, op.

cit. 63.

197CHAP . v1 PH OTI US AND I GNA TI US

The legates had exceeded their instructions ? When theyreturned to Rome in the autumn , their action was repudiatedby the Pope, who asserted that they had only been directed toreport on the whole mat ter to him,

and had received no powerto judge the question themselves. There is no doubt thatthey had betrayed the interests of their master and sufferedthemselves to b e guided entirely by the court Of Byzan tium .

An Imperial secretary soon arrived at Rome, bearing a copyof the Acts of the Council with letters from the Emperor and

the Patriarch ?The letter of Pho tius could hardly fail to

cause deep displeasure to the Roman bishop . I t was perfectlysmooth, courteous, and conciliatory in tone, b ut it was the

letter of an equal to an equal,and

,although the question of

Roman jurisdiction was not touched on,it was easy to read

between the lines tha t the writer had the will and the courageto assert the independence of the see of Constantinople . As

for the ecclesiastical provinces of I llyricum and Calabria,he

hypocritically threw upon the government the entire responsib ility for not restoring them to Rome, and implied tha t hehimself would have been willing to sacrifice them ?

The Imperial secretary remained in Rome for somemonths

,

4 hoping that Nicolas would b e persuaded to sanctionall that his legates had done in his name . B ut the Pope wasnow resolved to embrace the cause of Ignatius and to

denounce Pho tius. He addressed an encyclical let ter to thethree Patriarchs of the East

,informing them that Ignatius

had been illegally deposed,and that a most wicked man (homo

1 This is proved by the Pope ’

s

letter which they carried to M ichael ,and it is useless for Lebedev (op. ci t.

54 ) to contest it .

2 It may b e noticed here that aoc ord ing to Vi t. Ign. 241, some time

a fter the Council , new attempts weremade to extort an abdication from Igmatins by ill - treatment. H e was

beaten, starved for two weeks, withno dress but a shir t

,in the Imperial

mortuary chapel (Herfion) of the HolyApostles , where he was stretched uponthe sarc ophagus of Consta ntine V.

,

with heavy stones attached to his

ankles . These tortures were inflic tedby Theodore M6ros, John Gorgonites,and N ikolaos Skutelops. When he

was perfec tly exhausted , one of them,

holding his hand , trac ed his s ignatureon a paper on which Photius afterwards wrote a dec laration of abdication. The other sourc es wh ichmentionthis

,are derived from Vit. Ign. Her

genrOther is wrong in supposing thatthe ac count in Gen. 100 is independent ; see H irsch , 159 . Photius ,however

,seems to have made no use

of this document. Th e sufferings re

c orded and probably exaggerated inthe-Vita may b e briefly referred to at

the end Of the L i bella s I gn. (év an d

71d oth er Koha afléw a fiuépat s don or

,

fi vn'

vov, dxdfiw ‘

r ov OLQMGZVQL éfi iaaav) ,but nothing is said of the signature.

3 Ep. 3 .

4 Till March 862, the date of the

replies o f the Pope (W . 5 and

EA S TE RN R OMAN EM P IRE CHAP . v1

scelestissimus) had occupied his church ; declaring that theRoman see will never consent to this injustice ; and orderingthem,

by hi s apostolica] authority, to work for the expulsionof Photius and the restoration of Ignatius ? At the sametime he indited epistles to the Emperor and to Pho tius

,

asserting with stronger emphasis than before the authority of

Rome as head and mistress of the churches? and declining tocondemn Ignatius or to recognize Photius.

The ambassadors of the Pope,during their visit to

Constantinople, had heard only one side. The authorities hadtaken care to prevent them from communicating with Ignatiusor any of the Ignatian party, and they also attempted to

hinder any one from repairing to Rome in the interests of the

Ignatian cause. Theognostos, however, who was an ardentpartisan of the deposed Patriarch? succeeded in reaching Romein disguise, and he carried with him a petition setting forththe history of the deposition of Ignatius and the sufferingswhich he endured

,and imploring the Pope, who was humbly

addressed as“the Patriarch of all the thrones,

”to take pity

and arise as a powerful champion against injustice ?

1 The. 4, 168.

2 The words in which he assertsthat the laws and decrees Of the

Roman see must not b e set aside bysubjec t churches, on the plea of

different customs, are strong :“ Et

ideo consequens est ut quod ab huius

Sedis rectorib us plena auctoritate

sanc itur, nullius c onsuetudinis praepediente oc casions , proprias tantumsequendo voluntates, removeatur, sedfi rmius atque inconcusse teneatur.

Ep. 6 , 174.

2 He was an archimandrite of the

Roman Church , abbot Of the monas

tery of Page, skeuophylax of St .Sophia, and Exarch of the monasteriesof Constantinople . See the title Of

the L i bellas Ign.

The L i bella s, statin the case Of

Ignatius, was wr itten bygl‘heognostos,b ut in the name of Ignatius, withwhom were assoc iated fi fteen metropolitan bishops, and an

“ infinitenumber of priests, monks, etc . Per

haps, as HergenrOther suggests (i .it was the knowledge of this

despatc h to Rome that prompted thegovernment to make another attemptto forc e Ignatius, this time by reading

aloud his sentenc e in the ambo of St.

Sophia . Soldiers surrounded his houseon the eve of VVhitsunda May 25 ,862 but Ignatius escaped:disguisedas a porter

,and wandered for some

months from island to island in the

Propontis, eluding the pursuers whowere set on his track . In August andSeptember Constantinople was shakenby terrible earthquakes for forty days,and the calamit was asc ribed bysuperstition to the unjust treatmentof Ignatius . To c alm the public , theEm

(peror

,caused'

a declaration to b e

ma e that Ignatius would b e allowedto remain unmolested in his c loister.

Ignatius revealed himself to Petronas ,the brother of Bardas

,who gave h im

as a safe-c onduc t an enkolpion (probably a jewelled c ross) which the

Emperor wore on his breast. He thenhad an interview with Bardas and

was dismissed to h is monastery . See

Vi ta Ign. 241 sqq. The earthquakereferred to is probably the same as

that described in Cont. Th . 196-197 .

It did great damage in the southwestern part Of the c ity (Hexakionion) .The earthquake in Vita Ign. 249

seems to b e d ifferent.

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EAS TERN R OMAN EM P IRE CHAP . VI

The quarrel between Rome and Constantinople was soonaugmen ted by the contest be tween the two sees for the con trolof the infant church Of Bulgaria,

1and Photius judged that

the time was ripe for a decisive blow . He held a local synodfor the condemnation of various heresies which La tin clergyhad criminally introduced into Bulgaria ? These servan tsof Antichrist, worthy of a thousand deaths, permitted the

use of milk and cheese in the Len ten fast ; they sowed theseed of the Manichaean doctrine by their aversion to priestswho are legally married ; they had the audacity to pour anewthe chrism Of confirmation on persons who had already beenanointed by priests

,as if a priest were not as competent to

confirm as to baptize. But above all they were guilty of

teaching the blasphemous and atheistic doctrine that the

Holy Ghost proceeds not only from the Father, but also fromthe Son.

The eloquent Patriarch can hardly find words adequateto characterize the enormity of these false doc trines, in the

encyclical letter 3 which he addressed to the three EasternPatriarchs, inviting them to a ttend a general council at

ConstantinOple, for the purpose of rooting out such abominableerrors. Other questions too, Photius intimated, would comebefore the council. For he had received from I taly an officialcommunication full of grave complaints of the tyrannyexercised by the Roman bishop in the west.

The document to which Photius refers seems to haveemanated from the archbishops Of KOln and Trier, who wereat this time leading an anti-papal movement. The occasionof this division in the western Church was the love of kingLothar I I. Of Lothringia for his mistress Waldrade

?To

marry her he had repudiated his queen , and his action was

approved by a synod at Metz, guided .by the influence of the

two archbishops. But the Pope embraced the cause of the

queen,and in a synod in the Lateran (October annulled

phemiis, tota iniurns plena. One of 2 Ep. 4 .

M ichael 's demands was that the Pope 4 For this affair and its consequenc esshould hand over to him the Ignatians see H ergenrOther, i. 540 sqq. Hefele

,

who were at Rome. iv . 240 sqq. The documents will b e1 See Chap . XII. found in Mansi, xv . 611 sqq. , 645 sqq. ,

2 Photius,Ep. 4

,27, p . 176. to which must b e added the Vita

HergenrOther assigns the synod to N icola i , and the chronic les of ReginoLent, 867 (i. and Hincmar (Ann. B ert )

201CHAP . vi P H OTI US AND I GNA TI US

the acts of Me tz , and deposed the archbishops Of Koln and

Trier. These prela tes received at first support from the

Emperor Lewis but that vacillating monarch soon madepeace with the POpe , and the archbishops presumed to

organi ze a general movement of me tropolitan bishops againstthe . claims of the Roman see. They dis tributed to the bishopsof the wes t a circular Protest

,denouncing the tyranny,

arrogance , and cunning of Nicholas, who would “make himselfthe Emperor of the whole world .

” 1They sen t a copy to the

Pa triarch of Constantinople , imploring him to come to theirhelp and deliverance ?

This movemen t in the western church was well calculatedto confirm Photius and the Imperial government in the justiceOf their own cause, and it led the Patriarch to a far-reachingscheme which it required some time to mature. It is certainthat during the years A .D . 8 65 -8 67 , there were secre t negotiationsbetween Constan tinople and the Emperor Lewis. I t is im

probable that any formal embassies were interchanged. But

by unofficial means— perhaps by communications betweenPhotius and the Empress Engelberta— an understanding wasreached that if the Pope were excommunicated by the

eastern Patriarchs, Lewis might be induced to drive him fromRome as a heretical usurper, and that the court of Con

stantinople would officially recognize the Imperial dignityand title of the western Emperor ?

Constantinople carried out her portion Of the programme.

The Council met in A.D . 8 67 (perhaps the late summer)? and

the Emperor Michael presided? The Pope was condemnedand anathema pronounced against h im for the hereticaldoctrines and practices which were admitted by the RomanChurch , and for his illegitimate in terference in the affairs of

the Church Of Constantinople . The acts of the Synod were

1 Dominus Nicolaus qui dic itur

Papa et qui se Apostolum interAposto los adnumerat totiusque mundiimperatorem se fac it. ” The text isgiven Ann . B ert . 68 sqq.

2 Photius.0p. citga vuomm’

; 1 i sém o r ohbmobs finds drawe¢o£r77xev, ib. pf?) r aptdei

’

u

a i’

rrous oflr ws olxrpc’

bs dwohhvuévous KTA.

3 Prev ious negotiations , though notmentioned in the sourc es

,are pre

supposed by the ac tual acc lamation Of

Lewis and his w ife .

‘1 The date is inferred from the fac tthat Zacharias, b ishop of Chalcedon,

who was deputed to c arry the acts ofthe Counc i l to Italy, was sti ll on his

journey in September, after Michael ’sdeath , and was recalled (Vi ta Ign.

HergenrOther , i . 349 .

5 And probably Basil with him,as

HergenrOther i h. admits . Metrophanes,op. cit. 417 .

EAS TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE CHAP. vi

afterwards burned,1 and we know of it only from the briefnotices of the enemies of Photius. They insinuate tha t thesignature of Michael had been appended when he was drunk ;that the signature of his colleague Basil, had been forged ; thatthe subscriptions of almost all those who were present, numbering about a thousand

,were fabricated ? These allegations are

highly improbable,and the writers themselves are inconsistent

in what they allege. I t is Obvious that if the Emperors haddisapproved of the purpose of the Council, the Council couldnever have met ; and it is equally clear that if the overwhelmingmajority of the Council, including the Emperors, had dis

approved of the decrees, the decrees could not have been

passed. But there seems to have been some chicanery. At

the Eighth Ecumenical Council, the metropolitan bishops whosesignatures appeared

,were asked whether they had subscribed,

and they said,God forbid, we did not subscribe .

” 3Are we

to suppose that they consented to the acts and afterwardsrefused to append their names ?

The scandal about the legates of the Eastern Patriarchsis hardly less Obscure. I t is stated that Photius picked up

in the streets three evil men whom he foisted upon the synodas the representatives of the Patriarchs ? They pretended tob e Pe ter, Basil, and Leontios. But the true Peter, Basil, andLeontios appeared at the Eighth Ecumenical Council, wherethey asserted that they had not been named as legates by thePa triarchs, that they knew nothing about the Synod

,had not

attended it,and had not signed its acts ? It is impossible to

1 By the explic it and emphatic in twenty-one really signed , but this canstruc tions Of Pope Hadrian.

2 Vi ta H adriani I I . 811, and Anas

tasius,Praef. HergenrOther, i. 652,

admits that there is great exag st ationin these Latin sourc es . In t e Vita

Hadr . , it is said that the s ignatureswere fabricated by hired persons

,who

used fi ne and c oarse pens to vary thehandwriting . In regard to the signature of Basil, the Pope was -Offi c iallyinformed that it was spurious (ceaseséy ypa cpfiva c) : cap. 4 of his Roman

Synod, in Ac t vii. of the Eighth

Counc il,Mansi, xvi. 380.

3 Ac t viii. oi bu oy e‘

ypauuévm év

Btflhlq.’ un'

rpor ohi’

r a t (which mustmean

, exc lusive of the Photians) .Anastasius says (loo. that only

hard ly b e true, and the same wr itergives the total number of signaturesas

“about 1000 which is absurd .

NO Ecumenic al Counc il had nearly somany members, and why (as Lebedevasks) should Photius have taken the

trouble to forge so many ?4 See the 6th Canon of the Eighth

Counc il, Mansi, xvi . 401 r ovnpous

Twa s dudpa s aim) rdwhew¢6pwv d‘

yvu'

bv.

5 See their examination by the

Counc il, Act viii. pp . 384 sqq. ,also

of Leontios , G eorge, and Sergius, Act

ix. p. 397. Peter, etc . who are

brought before the Council are de

scribed as 1 009 wevaor or ornpnrds o0s 6<I>drrtos r pooehdfi e

‘

ro KaraT OO Nmokdou.

But if we are to make any sense of

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EAS TERN R OM AN EM P IRE CHAP . v1

forming projec ts which rendered the alienation from Romeundesirable ; but his principal and immediate purpose was

assuredly to restore ecclesiastical peace and tranquillity inhis own realm,

and to inaugurate his reign by an act of pie tyand orthodoxy which would go far in the eyes of the inhabitan ts of Constan tinople to atone for the questionable methodsby which he had won the autocratic power .

Nothing proves more convincingly than Basil’s promptreversal of his predecessor ’s ecclesiastical policy, that thispolicy was generally unpopular. Unless he had been sure

that the restitution Of Ignatius would b e welcomed by an

important section of his subjects at Constantinople,it is

incredible, in view of the circumstances of his accession, thatit would have been his first importan t act. Photius had hisband of devoted followers, but they seem to have been a smallminority ; and there are other indications that public opinionwas not in h is favour. The severe measures to which the

government had resorted against Ignatius and his supporterswould hardly have been adopted if the weight of public opinionhad leaned decisively on the side of Photius. There was,

however, some embarrassment for Basil, who only a few

mon ths before had co-Operated in the council which excom

municated the Pope, and there was embarrassment for manyothers who shared the responsibili ty, in turning about and

repudiating their acts. The natural instinct was to throwall the blame upon Photius ; Basil

’

s signature was offi ciallydeclared to b e spurious ; and most of those, who had takenpart willingly or unwillingly in the condemnation of the Pope,were eager to repudia te their consent to that audacioustransaction .

The proceedings of the Eighth Council, which procureda temporary triumph for Rome, the second patriarchate of

Photius,and his second dethronement , lie outside the limits

of this volume. He died in exile,1 almost a cen tenarian .

Immediately after h is death he was recognized as a FatherOf the Church , and anathema was pronounced on all thatCouncils or Popes had uttered against him. The rift

'

b etween

1A . D . 897. See Papadopulos in Viz . Vrern. 3

,Feb . 6 is dis

Kerameus 6 1ra‘

rp. Qufir tos, 647 sqq tinguished by the yummy r oi} 61!

In the Synax . ecc . Cpl . p . 448 (date wa rpbs nadir Ka l dpxterr. Krrbhews

midd le of tenth c entury, see Bieliaev ,<bwr lov.

C HAP. vr P H OTI US AND I GNA TI US 205

Rome and Constantinople, which Photius had widened and

deepened, was gradually enl arged,and after the final rent

(in the middle of the eleventh century) , which no subsequentattemp ts at union could repair, the reputation of Photiusbecame brighter than ever, and his council of 86 1 , whichthe Pope had stigmatized as a pirate synod

,was boldly

described by Balsamou as ecumenical. It was recognizedthat Photius was the first grea t champion of the independence of the see of Constantinople, and of the nationaldevelopment of the Greek Church , against the interferenceof Rome. He formulated the points of difference betweenthe two Churches which were to furnish the pretext for the

schism ; he first brought into the foreground, as an essentialpoint Of doctrine

,the mystery of the procession of the Holy

Ghost ?

The members of the . Latin and the G reek Churches are

compelled, at the risk of incurring the penalties of a damnableheresy, to affirm or to deny tha t the Holy Ghost proceeds fromthe Son as well as from the Father . The historian

,who is

not concerned, even if he were qualified , to examine the mutualrelations which exist among the august persons of the Trinity

,

will yet note with some interest that on this question the

G reeks adhered to the offi cial doctrine of the Church so far

as it had been expressed by the authority of EcumenicalCouncils. The theologians of the Second Council at Con

stantinople (A.D. 38 1 ) had dis tinctly declared the processionfrom the Father, and against this pronouncement it could onlyb e argued that they had not denied the procession from the

Son. I t was not till A .D 5 8 9 that a council in Spain addedthe words and the Son to the creed of Nicaea, and thisaddition was quickly adopted in Gaul. I t corresponded to

the private Opinions of most western theologians, includingAugus tine and Pope Leo I . But the G reek Fa thers generallyheld another doctrine, wh ich the layman may find it difficult

1 H is chie f work on th e subj ec t,

On the Mystagogia Of the Ho lySpirit ,” was not written till 885 -886 .

In it he seems to have taken acc ountof the most important contemporaryvind ication of the Latin doc trine,written (probably after 867 ) by BishopRatramnus Of Corbie (Contra Grae

corum opposita , etc . , in Migne, P .L .

121, 228 for which see Draseke’

s

artic le, Ratramnus und Photios , in

18,396 sqq. where it is

suggested that though Photius did

not read the treatise itself, its pointswere c ommunicated to him by Greekfriends .

EAS TERN R OMAN EM P IRE CHAP. V I

to distinguish . They maintained that the Third person proceeded not from, but through the Second . In the ninthcentury

, the Popes, though they repudiated the oppositedogma, hesitated to introduce the Spanish interpolation intothe Creed, and perhaps it was not adopted till the beginningof the eleventh . The Reformed Churches have accep ted the

formula of the Creed,as it was revised in Spain

,though they

acknowledge only the authority of the first four EcumenicalCouncils. It can hardly make much difference to the massof believers ; since we may venture to suspect that the

majority of those who profess a fi rm belief in the doubleprocession attach as little significance to the formula whichthey pronounce as if they declared their faith in a fourthdimension of space .

The beginnings of the antagonism and mutual dislikebetween the G reeks and Latins, which are so conspicuous at

a later stage of history, may b e detected in the Ignatian con

troversy. In the correspondence between Pope and Emperor,

we can discern the Latin distrust of the G reeks, the G reekcontempt for the Latins. The Emperor

,probably prompted

by Photius,describes Latin as a

“ barbarous and Scythian ”

language ? He has quite forgotten that it was the tongueof Constantine and Jus tinian , and the Pope has to

'

remind himthat his own title is “ Emperor of the Romans ” and that inthe ceremonies of his own court Latin words are daily pronounced. But this childish and ignorant attack on the

language of Roman law shows how the wind was blowing,and it well illustrates how the Byzantines, in the intense con

vic tion Of the superiority Of their own civilization— for whichindeed they had many excellent reasons— already consideredthe Latin-speaking peoples as belonging to the barbarianworld . It was not to b e expected that the Greeks, animatedby this Spirit, would accept such claims of ecclesiasticalsupremacy as were put forward by Nicolas, or that the Churchof Constantinople would permit or invite a Pope’s interference, except as a temporary expedient. Photius arousedinto consciousness the G reek feeling of nationality, whichthroughout the Middle Ages drew strength and nourishmentfrom bitter antagonism to Roman Christianity, and the modern

1 See Nic ol. Ep. 8.

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EA S TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE CHAP. v i

Tarasius, it is urged by N icolas that Pope Hadrian protestedagainst his elevation , in a message addressed to the SeventhEcumenical Council. But the Council had not hesitated toaccept Tarasius

,and it did not concern the Church of Con

stantinople, what the Bishop of Rome, apart from the Council,

chose to think or say about the matter. In regard to

N icephorus, the Pope said nothing because he had nothing tosay. Nicephorus was in communion with Rome ; the Popesof his day raised no protest against his elevation . W e haveseen that if the first overtures of Nicolas to Constantinoplehad met with a differen t reception

, the canonical molehillswould never have been metamorphosed into mountains. The

real value of the Obj ections may b e measured by the fact thatwhen Photius reascended the patriarchal throne after the

death of his rival,he was recognized by Pope John I II .

The death of Ignatius had indeed removed one obstacle, butnevertheless on the showing of Nicolas he was not a bishopat all. P Ope John recognized him simply because it suited thepapal policy at the moment.

In the stormy ecclesiastical history of our period the

monks had played a conspicuous part, first as champions of

the worship of icons and then of the cause of Ignatius,who

was himself a typical monk. In the earlier controversies overthe mystery of the incarnation, gangs of monks had been the

authors of scandal in those turbulent assemblies at Ephesus,

of which one is extolled as an Ecumenical Council and the

other branded as a synod of brigands ; at Constantinople,

they led an insurrection which shook the throne of Anastasius.

The Emperor Constan tine V. recognized that the monks werehis most influential and implacable opponents and declaredwar upon monasticism. But monasticism was an instinct toodeeply rooted in Byzantine society to b e suppressed or ex

terminated the monastic order rested on as fi rm foundations,secured by public opinion

,as the Church itself. The reaction

under Irene revived and confirmed the power of the cloister ;and at the same time the Studite movemen t Of reform

,under

the guidance of Plato and Theodore, exerted a certaininfluence beyond the walls of Studion and tended to augmentthe prestige of the monastic life, though it was far from beinggenerally accepted. The programme of the abbot Theodore

CHAP. vi PH OTI US AND I GNA TI US 209

to render the authority of the Church independent Of the

au tocrat was a revolutionary project which had no body of

public Opinion behind it and led to no consequences. The

iconoclastic Emperors did their will, and the restoration of

image-worsh ip,while it was a triumph for the monks, was

not a victory of the Church over the State. But within the

State-Church monasticism flourished with as little check as it

could have done if the Church had been an independentinstitution

,and produced its full crop of economic evi ls.

Hundreds Of monasteries, some indeed with but few tenants,existed in Constan tinople and its immediate neighbourhood inthe ninth century, and the number was being continuallyincreased by new foundations. For it was a cherishedambition of ordinary men of means to found a monastery, andthey had only to obtain the licence Of a bishop , who con

secre ted the site by plan ting a cross,1 and to furnish the

capital for the upkeep of the buildings and the main tenanceof three monks. I t was a regul ar custom for high dignitaries,who had spent their lives in the service of the State, to retirein old age to cloisters which they had built themselves ? It

is too li ttle to say that this was an ideal of respectability ;it was also probably for the Byzantine man a realization of

happiness in the present, enhanced as it was by the prospectof bliss in the future. But the State paid heavily for theindulgence of its members in the life of the cloister and

the cell.1 the signific ant r obs drro

,ua

'

yicr‘

rpwv2 H istory furnishes numerous par t om at oes in Philotheos, 17615 .

ticular instanc es, but I may notic e

OHAP TER VII

FINANCIAL AND M ILITARY ADM INISTRATION

1 . Finance

THE Imperial revenue in the Middle Ages proceeded from the

same principal sources as in the earlier ages of the Empire :taxa tion and the profits on the Imperial estates. The

machinery for collecting the revenue had perhaps been littlealtered, but the central ministries which controlled the

machinery had been considerably changed. The variousfinancial and cognate departments which had been subject tothe authority of the two great financial ministers and the

Praetorian Prefec ts,under the system introduced by Constantine,are now distributed among eight mutually independentministries ?

The Logothete or Accountant of the G eneral Treasury, or,as he was briefly called

,the Genera l L ogothete, had inherited

the most important du ties of the Coun t of the SacredLargesses. He ordered and con trolled the collection of all

the taxes. He was the head of the army of surveyors,

controllers, and collectors Of the land and hearth taxes? and

of the host of commerciarii or Officers of the customs.

The M ilitary L ogothete administered the treasury whichdefrayed the pay of the soldiers and other military expenses,which used to b e furnished from the chests of the PraetorianPrefects.

3The Wardrobe

4and the Special Treasury

5 were1 See Bury

,Imperia l Administra

4fi eo

'

n dptov (to b e d istinguishedtire System, 78 sqq. from the Private Wardrobe, OZKa aKOV

2 g t 6 t d'

bfi GO

'

T . ,which was under the Proto

"mrm “Mm“ 7rp ” op“ vestiarios, an eunuch ) . 1h. 95 .

87, 5re elOucév. Its master was c al led

3 l b . 90. 6 erri r ofi eZO’

LKoii. 98.

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into their accounts, and was doubtless responsible for all

disbursements from the Sakellion?

Bullion, furnished by the State mines, came to the G eneralLogothete, who must have sen t it to the Wardrobe to b e

coined,while other bullion might b e deposited before min tage

in the Special Treasury . From the Wardrobe the coins wouldpass to the Sakellion.

The two principal direct taxes, on which the Imperialfinance rested

,were the land-tax and the hearth-tax . These

had always been the two pillars of the treasury, for the hearthtax was only a modification of the Old capitation

,being levied,

not on the free man and woman, but on the household ? The

population of cities,including the capital, did not pay the

hearth -tax,at least in the eastern provinces. The leaseholders

on the Imperial estates were not exempted from the land-tax ,

which all landed proprietors and tenants paid ; and the householders Of Constantinople and the other cities were burdenedby an analogous charge on sites

,which was known as the

urban tribute.

” 3The uni form hearth rate was probably

combined in the same schedules with the other tax and

collected by the same offi cials ? Other sources of income werethe toll on receipts (an income-tax of the most odious form,

which Irene was praised for abolishing) , death duties, judicialfines

,and

,above all

,the duties levied on imports

,which must

have amounted to a substantial sum.

The unpopular fiscal measures of the Emperor Nicephorus,which are briefly recapitulated by a hostile monk

,afford us

a vague glimpse into the obscure financial conditions of the

Empire. H is Official experience as General Logothete had

enabled him to acquire an expert knowledge Of financialdetails which few sovrans possessed, and he was convincedthat the resources Of the State were suffering and its strengthendangered by the policy of laxity and indulgence which hadbeen

‘

adopted by Irene. In the first year Of his reign therewas a severe taxation , which may have driven many to

embrace the cause of the rebel Bardanes ? W e may

1 l b. 82 . it probable that the nohtrucol ¢6por2 Zachari'a'. v . L . Zur Kenntniss des represent the capitatio terrena applied

r em. Steuerwesens, 9-13 . to towns .

5 Monnier,Etudes de droit bye.

4 Zacharia v . L . ib . 12.

xviii. 485, and xix . 75, 98, has made 5 See Cont. Th . 8 (TOr e= July

sac r . I FINAN CE 213

probably conjecture that his severity consisted in restoringwholly or partly the taxes which his predecessor had

recently abolished. We may b e disposed to believe that heacquiesced in the di sappearance of the tax on rec eipts

,for

if he had revived it, his enemies, who complained of all his

financial measures,would hardly have failed to include in their

indictmen t the revival of a burden so justly odious . But wemay

reasonably assume that he restored the custom duties, wh ichwere levied at the toll-houses of Abydos and Hieron, to theirformer figure

,and that he imposed anew upon Constantinople

the urban tribute,which Irene had inequitably remitted.

But seven years later,in A .D. 809 , in view perhaps Of the

imminent struggle with the Bulgarians,he prepared a for

midab le array Of new measures to replenish the sinkingcontents of the treasury?

I . In all cases where taxes had been reduced in amount,

they were raised again to the original sum . I t is possibletha t this applied to reductions which had been allowed duringthe prec eding twenty years ?

I I . The kapnikon or hearth-tax,which had replaced the Old

capitation-tax,was a fixed annual charge of two miliarisia

But monastic and religious institutions,orphanages,

hospitals, homes for the aged,although legally liable

,had been

exempted from payment for many years with the connivance ofthe government . We cannot hesitate to ascribe this inequitable favour to the policy of the pious Empress Irene. It was

monstrous that the tenants on the monastic lands should b e freefrom the burden which was imposed on all other farms and

estates. Religious ins titutions multiplied rapidly ; privatepersons were constantly founding new monasteries ; and therewas a prospect that every year the proceeds Of the hearth-taxwoul d suffer further diminution . Nicephorus was fully justifiedin insisting that this exemption, unauthorised by law , shouldcease,4 and in forcing the institutions which had not contri

1 Theoph . A .M . 6302= A . D . 809-810. mi ssions of A .D . 801 were not reversedSee Finlay, 98 Paparrhegopulos , til l now .

'

I0'

r op{a r ot) é’dvovs, ed . 2,iii. 3 See Cont. Th . 54.

565 sqq. ; b ut especially Monnier, op.

4 Both Fi nlay and Monnier approveci t. xix . 67 sqq. the measure. Theophanes spec ially

2 This was the limit in the case of mentions Imperial monasteri es, b utsome other measur es ; see below. it applied a fortiori to others

, as

Monnier, i b. 69 , thinks that the re Monnier observes .

EAS TE RN R OM AN E M P IRE214 CHAP. VI I

buted their due share to the maintenance of the State to paythe arrears of the tax since the year of his own accession .

III . The land-tax ,which continued to b e the most importan t

source of revenue, was the most troublesome to adjust and tocontrol. Nicephorus ordered that a new survey should b emade, and that the tax shoul d b e raised in amount by the

charge Of a shilling on the receipt which the tax-collectordelivered ? In the case of large estates there was no difficultyin collecting the duties ; the whole property ? was liable for a

fixed sum,and if some tenan ts were too poor to pay, it did

not mat ter to the fi sc . But great estates (which were to

increase in number and exten t in the course of the ninth and

tenth centuries) seem at this time not to have been numerous ;small proprietorship prevailed . The system which the government employed to secure the treasury against loss when a

farmer failed or could not make his land yield the necessarymargin of profit did not work satisfactorily. The farms of a

commune were grouped together for this purpose,and if one

farmer was insolven t, the amount for which he was liable wasdistributed as an extra-charge (epibole) among the othermembers of the group . For poorer members this impositionwas a considerable hardship, and the circumstance thatNicephorus deemed it expedient to modify the system seemsto show that there were many cases of small proprietorsreduced to penury. So far as we can interpret our briefrecord of his measure, he sought to devolve the responsibilityfor the taxes of the poor upon their richer neighbours. The

fiscal debt of a defaulting farm no longer fell upon a wholegroup

,but upon some neighbouring proprietor, and this liability

was termed Allelengyon or Mutual Security ?1 Theoph . 486 érrorrr eiieada f. ndvra s

(this would b e carried out by the

é1rorrm t of th e General Logothete ) Ka idrafi rfldt

’

eadat Ta 7 015e 1 0m(whichmeans, as Monnier rightly says, a

raising of the amount ) , r apéxour a s

Ka l xapn armcfiv é‘uexa c’

wa Kepa'

r lwv B'

.

The last clause explains dvafi rfldg‘ewa t ;

just as (ih. ) wapéxov-r a s Ka i K

‘

rk. ex

plains éEort '

eoGa c. The context showsthat the tax was only on the fiscalacquittances, not, as Finlay sa 3

,

“on

ub lic documents .

”Both e and

onnier think that c’ wc‘r rep. 13'

means

two keratia in the nomisma, that is

one-twelfth , b ut obviously o’

wd means

here eac h taxpayer (cp. ib. dud youtcrudrwv) . The charge was simply twokeratia miliarision), whatever theamount of the payment. If we re

member that the kapnikon was a uni

form charge Of only four keratia, we

can fi nd no d ifficulty in the smallnessof the new tax .

2 All the holdings of which the

possessio consisted were termed for

fisc al purposes 6u66ouha .

3 Theoph . ih. r pooér aée a rpar eueada tr obs wrwxoz

‘

zs Ka l éforrhlf'

eoda t 1rapc‘

L TGW

Ouoxu’

ipwu, napéxovras Ka i dra Oxrw

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2 16 EAS TE RN R OMAN EM P IRE CHAP. vn

recorded as a hardship that he sold Imperial lands on the

coasts of Asia Minor, at a fixed price, to unwilling purchasers,who, accustomed to sea-faring and trade, knew little or nothingabout agriculture. Here again we must remember that thecase is presented by an enemy

, and that we are ignorant ofall the circumstances Of the alleged coercion .

IV. In his diligent quest of ways and means, the suddenacquisition of wealth, wh ich we might now classify under thetitle of unearned increment

,did not escape the notice of

N icephorus as a suitable object of taxation . He imposedheavy charges upon those who could b e proved to havesuddenly risen from poverty to affluence through no work or

merit of their own. He treated them as treasure-finders,and

thus brought them under the law of Justinian by whichtreasure-trove was confiscated ? The worst of this measurewas that it Opened a fruitful field to the activity of informers .

V. Death duties were another source of revenue whichclaimed the Emperor ’s attention . The tax of 5 per cent oninheritances which had been instituted by the founder Of the

Empire seems to have been abolished by Justinian ; 2 but a

duty Of the same kind had been reimposed , and was extendedto successions in the direct line ,

which had formerly beenexempted . The lax government of Irene had allowed the taxto b e evaded

,by some at least of those who inherited property

from their fathers or grandfathers ; 3 and when Nicephorus

ordered that it should b e exacted from all who had so

inherited during the last twenty years, many poor men werein consternation .

VI . It is remarkable that a statesman possessing the

financial experience of Nicephorus should have shared the

ancient prejudice against usury so far as to forbid the lendingof money at interest altogether. The deliverance of societyfrom the evils attendant upon merciless usury was dearlypurchased by the injury which was inflicted upon industryand trade. The en terprise Of merchants who required capitalwas paralyzed

,and Nicephorus was forced to come to their

1 Theoph . 4879 . The measure was i) r ar épwv in the passage of Th eo

retrospec tive for twenty years . phanes . The words c learly imply2 that Nic ephorus was only enforc ingC'I ' 6’ 23’ 3? Monnl er, XIX ' 83 '

the ayment of an Old tax, which2 Monnier

, ih. ,has pointed out that had een probably first imposed by

the stress lies on the words ex 7rd1r1rwu the Heraclians or Isaurians.

217SECT . I FINAN CE

rescue. He aided them in a way which was highly advantageousto the treasury. He advanced loans of twelve pounds of goldabout exacting the high interest of 1 6% per cent

?

The government was not bound by the prohibition Of privateusury

,which it is possible that the successor of N icephorus

prudently abolished ?

VI I . The custom duties, which were levied at Abydos and

had been remit ted by Irene in her unscrupulous desire to

conciliate the favour of Constan tinople, had been immediatelyre-enacted by her successor. Household slaves of a superiorkind were among the most valuable chat tels which reachedthe capital by the route of the Hellespont, and the treasuryprofited by the cooks and pages and dancers who were soldto minister to the comfort and elegance of the rich familiesof Byzan tium . But there was also a demand for thesearticles of luxury among the inhabitants Of the Aegean coastsand islands, who coul d purchase them without paying theheavy charges that were exacted in the custom-houses of

Abydos ? Nicephorus abolished this immunity by imposinga tax of two gold pieces (24 shillings) a head on all suchslaves who were s old to the west of the Hellespont .

The chronicler Theophanes,whose hostile pen has recorded

these fisca l measures, completes h is picture Of the Emperor’soppressions by alleging that he used to pry in to men

’

s privateaffairs

,employing spies to watch their domestic life and

encouraging ill-disposed servants to slander or betray theirmasters. H is cruelties to the rich

,the middle class, and the

poor in the Imperial city were beyond description .

”In the

1 Modern c ommentators seem to

have missed the po int of this measure .

Monnier implies that all vauxhnpoc

were forc ed to borrow the sum of

twe lve pounds from the treasurywhether they wanted it or not . Th isis incredible . The coercion c onsistedin c ompel ling them, if they wanted aloan, to borrow a fixed sum from the

State and from no other lender otherlenders were exc luded by the law forbidding private usury .

2 SO Monnier, xix . 89 , conj ec tures .

Usury was again forbidden by Basil,b ut Leo VI . (Nov. 83) permitted it,with the restric tion that interestshould not exceed per cent.

2 Some duty must have been“ paid

to the kommerkia r ioi in the ports,b ut it was a small one . Slaves whowere used for rough and rura l workwere probably , as Monni er observes,ch iefly imported from the Euxineregions , by the Bosphorus. The dutyon them, which would b e paid at

H ieron, was doubtless trifling . Jus

tinian established the toll -house at

Abydos. r apapthaé dfivOmOs or simplydfivdtxés (dfiudtrmés) c ame to b e a

general term for hmevdpxns‘

. See M .

G oudas in Rufavr ls i . 468 sqq.

who c ites seals of Kovy epmdpw l. Ka i

dBvOmol Of Thessalonica . éEaBuOtf’

w,

to pass Abydos, was used for sailinginto the Aegean ; see Simeon, Cont.

Georg. ed. Mur. 6385 .

218 EAS TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE CHAP. VI I

last two years of his reign,he excited the murmurs of the

inhabitants by a strict enforcement of the market dues on

the sales of animals and vegetables, by quartering soldiers inmonasteries and episcopal mansions

,by selling for the public

benefit gold and silver plate which had been dedicated inchurches, by confi scating the property of wealthy patricians ?

He raised the taxes paid by churches and monasteries,and he

commanded officials,who had long evaded the taxation to

which they were liable as citizens, to discharge the arrears

which they had failed to pay during his own reign ? Thislast order, striking the high functionaries of the Court

,seemed

so dangerous to Theodosius Salibaras, a patrician who had

considerable influence with the Emperor, tha t he ventured toremonstrate . My lord, he said

,

“all are crying out at us,

and in the hour of temp ta tion all will rejoice at our fall.”

Nieephorus is said to have made the curious reply : If God

has hardened my heart like Pharaoh ’s,what good can my

subjects look for ? DO not expect from Nicephorus save onlythe things which thou seest.”

The laxity and indulgence which had been permit ted inthe financial administration of the previous reign renderedthe severity of Nicephorus particularly unwelcome and un

popular. The most influential classes were hit by his strictinsistence on the claims Of the treasury. The monks

,who

suspected him of he terodoxy and received no favours at his

hands, cried out against him as an Oppressor. Some of his

measures may have been unwise or unduly oppressive— we

have not the means of criticizing them ; but in his generalpolicy he was simply discharging his du ty, an unpopular duty

,

to the State.

Throughout the succeeding reigns we obtain no such glimpsein to the details or vicissitudes Of Imperial finance. If therewas a temporary reaction under Michael I . against the severi

ties of Nicephorus, the following Emperors must have drawnthe reins of their financial administration sufficiently tight.After the civil war, indeed, Michael I I . rewarded the provinceswhich had been faithful to his cause by a temporary remissionof half the hearth -tax. The facts seem to show that theAmorian rulers were remarkably capable and successful in their

1 TheOph . 488-489 .

2 In May A .D . 811

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rests, is such an arbitrary hypothesis that we must seek someother means Of forming a rough evaluation . We are toldthat in the twelfth century the island of Corcyra yielded 1 500pounds of gold or to the Imperial treasury ? The

total area of the Imperial territory in the reign of Theophilus(counting Sicily as lost, and not including Calabria

, Dalmatia,

Cyprus, or Cherson ) was about kilometres ? The

area of Corcyra is 7 70, so that if its contribution to the

treasury was as large in the ninth as in the twelfth century,

and was proportional to its size,the amoun t of the whole

revenue would b e about But the population of

the islands was undoubtedly denser than in most regions of

the mainland, and it is probably an insuffi cient set-off to haveleft out of accoun t Calabria and some other outlying Imperialpossessions, and to have made no allowance for the vastamount contributed by Constantinople. Yet this line of

calculation suggests at least that the Imperial revenue may

have exceeded thirty millions and was nearly half as largeagain as the revenue of the Caliphs ?

If we accept as a minimum figure for therevenue arising from taxation of all kinds, we must add a

considerable sum for the profits arising from the ImperialEstates in As ia Minor. Disregarding this source of income,which we have no data for estimating, we must rememberthat the weight of gold which if sent to the mint tod ay wouldb e coined into twenty-fi ve million sovereigns representedat Byzan tium a far higher purchasing power . It is now

generally assumed that the value of money was fi ve times as

great,and this is probably not an exaggeration ? On this

hypothesis the Imperial revenue from “ taxation would correspond in real value to

It is impossible to conjecture how the expenditure was1 John of Brompton, Chronicon, p .

1219 (Twysden’

s H ist. Angl. scriptores X . vol . i . , states that theisland of Cunfu (Corfu) yieldedquintallos auri purissimi quindecim

annuatim ; et pondus quintalli est

pondus centum lib rarum auri”

(A .D .

2 I have based this on the figuresgiven by Beloch in his Bev

'

olkerungder griechisch-r b

‘

mischen Welt2 See below p . 236. The statement

of Nic ephorus Gregores, viii. 6, p. 317

(ed. Bonn) , that in A .D . 1321 the

revenue was increased by spec ial efforts(of the r ehéiva t and to the

sum Of one million nomismatac annot b e utilized . The

conditions ofthe timewere exec tional.I do not understand why Zac ari

'

a v.Lingenthal (Zur Kenntniss

,14) refers

this statement to the land-tax only.

4 See Paparrhegopulos , loc. cit.

Diehl,loc . cit. Andreades, 7 .

ss cr . I FINAN CE 21

apportioned. Probably a sum of more than was

annually spent on the maintenance of the military establishment

,not including the cost of campaigns. The navy

,the

civil service in all its branches, religious foundations, doles tocharitable institutions, liberal presents frequently given to

foreign potentates for political purposes,represented large

claims on the treasury,while the upkeep of a luxurious Court ,

and the obligatory gifts on stated occasions to crowdsof officials

,consumed no small portion Of the Emperor’s

income. Theophilus must have laid out more than a milliona year on his buildings ? It is only for the army and navythat we possess some figures

,but these . are too uncertain and

partial to enable us to rec onstruct a military budget.Perhaps the most striking evidence of the financial

prosperity of the Empire is the international circulation of its

gold currency. In the period of 800 years from Diocletian toAlexius Comnenus the Roman governmen t never found itselfcompelled to declare bankruptcy or stop paymen ts. Neitherthe ancient nor the modern world can offer a complete parallelto this phenomenon . This prodigious stability of Romanfinancial policy therefore secured the “ byzant its universalcurrency. On account of its full weight it passed with all

the neighbouring nations as a valid medium of exchange. Byher money Byzantium controlled both the civilised and the

barbarian worlds.

” 2

2 . M ilitary and Naval Organization

I . Under the Amorian dynasty considerable administrative changes were made in the organization of the militaryprovinces into which the Empire was divided

,in order to

meet new condi tions. In the Isaurian period there were fi vegreat Themes in Asia Minor, governed by strategoi, in the

following order of dignity and importance : the Anatolic, theArmeniac

, the Thrakesian,the Opsikian,

and the Bukellarian.

This system of the Five Themes,”

as they were called,lasted till the reign of Michael I I . ,

if not till that of

1 The c ost Of St. Sophia is said to cannot have c ost less . H is reign

have been gold litrai lasted a little more than twelve years .

Th e buildings of Theo 2 Gelzer, Byz . Ku lturgesch. 78 .

philus, inc luding the Palac e of Bryas,

222 EAS TE RN ROM AN EM P IRE CHAP. VI I

Theophilus ? But it is probable that before that time the

penetra tion of theMoslems in the frontier regions had rendered itnecessary to delimit from the Anatolic and Arm eniac provincesdistricts which were known as kleisurarchies

,

2and were under

minor commanders, kleisurarchs, who could take measures fordefending the country independently of the strategoi. In

this way the kleisurarchy of Seleucia,west Of Cilicia, was

cut off from the Anatolic Theme, and that of Charsianon fromthe Armeniac

? Southern Cappadocia, which was constan tlyexposed to Saracen invasion through the Cilician gates

,was also

formed into a frontier province ? We have no record of the

times at which these changes were made,b ut we may suspect

that they were of older date than the reign of Theophilus.

This energetic Emperor made considerable innovations inthe thematic system throughout the Empire

,and this side of

h is administration has not been observed or appreciated. In

Asia Minor he created two new Themes, Paphlagonia and

Chaldia ? Paphlagonia seems to have been c ut Off from the

Bukellarian province ; probably it had a separate exis tencealready, as a katepanate, for the governor of the new Theme

,

while he was a strategos,bore the special title of ka tepano,

which looks like the continuation of an Older arrangement ?

1 Cont. Th . 6 TOP 1réu'

re Oeud‘

rwv r d’

m

Kara r ip duar oh'

hu, A .D . 803 and

Theodore Stud . Epp. ii . 64, p. 1284érrl ‘yapv r . 9 .

‘r édec‘r a t , A .D . 819 (b 0th

these passages record the temporaryc ommission of these Themes to a

superior uouoarpctr rryos ; cp. above,

p . As it is tolerably c ertairithat no add itionalThemeswere createdin the last year of Leo or during therevo lt of Thomas , it follows that A . D .

824 is a higher limit for the creationOf the two or three new Themes whichexisted in A .D . 838. Other c onsiderat ions make it probable that Theophiluswas the innovator .

2 The kleisura i Of Asia M inor werethe passes Of the Taurus, and, whenthe Saracens had won positions north ofthe Eastern Taurus, also Of the Antitaurus .

2 The existence of the kleisurarchiesof Charsianon and Seleucia at the

beginning Of the reign Of M ichael III .

is proved by Ibn Khurdadhb ah , 78.

The former appears duly in the

Taktikon Uspenski , 123 ; the omission

of Seleuc ia is probably due to corruption.

4 This also is omitted in our text ofTakt. Usp. , doubtless a scribe ’s error .

It appears as a kleisurarchy in Ibn

Fakih ’

s list : Brooks. A ra bic L ists, 75

(Koron was the seat Of the governor) .5 Ta lct. Usp. l 11-113 enumerates seven

Asiatic strategoi , inc ludin those ofPaphlagonia and Obaldia . This agreeswith Ibn Fak ih

,ib. 73-76 ; and is borne

out by Euodios (Acta 42 Mart. Amor.

who,re ferring to A. D . 838,mentions

“the Seven Themes . The author of

the Vita Theodora e imp. (9 ) speaks oforparm'olOxr cb at Amorion in that year .

This (whether anachronism or not )cannot b e pressed. Cp. N ikitln 3 noteon Euodios (p . He is wrong insupposing (p . 246, n. ) that Cappadoc iawas a Theme at this time, though hemight have quoted Cont. Th . 120

orpa‘

r . Ka rma , which, in View of the

other ev idence, must b e explained as

an anachronism.

5 Constantine,De adm. imp . 178 ;

Cer . 788. The simplest explanation

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224 EAS TERN R OM AN EM P IRE CHAP. VI I

Prefect of Illyricum ,an anomalous survival from the old

system of Constantine ? It was doubtless the Slavonic revoltin the reign of Nicephorus I . that led to the reorganization of

the Helladic province, and the constitution of the Peloponnesusas a distinct Theme,2 so that Hellas henceforward meantNorthern Greece. The Mohammadan descent upon Cretedoubtless led to the appointment of a strategos instead of an

archon Of Crete? and the Bulgarian wars to the suppressionof the Praetorian prefect by a strategos of Thessalonica ?

The

Theme of Kephalonia (with the Ionian Islands) seems to haveexisted at the beginning of the ninth century ; 5 but the

Saracen menace to the Hadriatic and the western coasts Of

Greece may account for the foundation of the Theme of

Dyrrhachium, a city which probably enjoyed,like the com

munities of the Dalmatian coast, a certain degree of local independence ? If so, we may compare the policy Of Theophilusin instituting the strategos of the Klimata with control overthe magistrates of Cherson .

7

I t is to b e noted that the Theme of Thrace did not

include the region in the immediate neighbourhood of

Constantinople, cut off by the Long Wall Of Anastasius,who

had made special provisions for the governmen t of thisregion . In the ninth century it was still a separate circumscription

,probably under the military command of the

Count of the Walls,

8and Arabic writers designate it by the

curious name Talaya or Tafla?

A table will exhibit the general result Of all these changes

AsIATIO THEMESl . Anatolic. 2 . Armeniac. 3 . Thrakesian.

4 . Opsikian. 5 . Bukellarian.

6 . Cappadocia. 7 Paphlagonia. 8 . Ob aldia .

9 . Koloneia.

Stra tégiai

K leisurarchiai 10. Charsianon. l 1 . Seleucia.

1 Theodore Stud . Ihrp. i. 3, p . 917 5 I b . 115 ; cp. 124 01 dpxovr es T OO

(rm? bwdpxov) . This evidenc e is over Avppaxlov.

looked by Gelzer, Themenverfassung, 7 See below,p . 417 .

38 sqq .

5 See Bury,op. cit. 67-68.

2 First mentioned in Scr. Incert .

2 Talaya seems to b e the b estattested336 (A .D . form (Brooks, op. cit. 69, Gelzer

,2 See below, p . 289 . 86 sqq. ,

operates with Tafla and thinks4 Taht. Usp. 115 . the district was called r d¢pos. The5 See below, p . 324. Takt. Usp. 113 . solution has not yet been discovered .

SECT . I I M IL I TAR Y OR GAN IZA TI ON 225

NAVAL THEMESl . Kibyrrhaiot. 2 . Aigaion Pelagos.

EUROPEAN (AND OTHER) THEMES1 . Macedonia. 2 . Thrace.

3 . Hellas . 4. Peloponnesus.

6 . Dyrrhachium.

Stra té’

gwi5 . Thessalonica.

7 . Kephaloni a. 8 . Sicily. 9 . Klimata.

10. Calabria.

1 1. Dalmatia. 1 2 . Cyprus.

II . There were considerable differences in the ranks and

salaries of the s trategoi . In the first place,it is to b e noticed

tha t the governors of the Asiatic provinces, the admirals of

the naval Themes, and the strategoi of Thrace and Macedoniawere paid by the treasury, while the governors of the EuropeanThemes paid themselves a fixed amoun t from the custom dueslevied in their own provinces ? Hence for administrativepurposes Thrace and Macedonia are generally included amongthe Asiatic Themes. The rank Of patrician was bestowed as

a rule upon the Anatolic, Armeniac , and Thrakesian strategoi,

and these three r eceived a salary of 40 lb s. of goldThe pay of the other strategoi and kleisurarchs ranged from3 6 to 1 2 lb s,

2 but their stipends were somewhat reduced inthe course of the ninth century . We can easily calculate thatthe total cost of paying the governors of the eastern provinces(including Macedonia and Thrace) did not fall shor t of

1 Constantine, Cer . 697, referringto the re ignof Leo VI . There is everyreason to suppose that the system was

Older.2 Ibn Khurdadhb ah , 85.

“ The payof the offic ers is at the maximum40 lb s ; it desc ends to 36, 24, 12, 6

and even to 1 lb .

”Th e salari es which

obtained under Leo VI . (Cer. ,i b . )

enab le us to apply this information.

There w e have 5 c lasses 40 lb s

Anatol Arm .,Thrakes. (2 ) 30 lb s

Opsik ., Bukell . Maced . (3 ) 20 lb s

Capp . , Chars Paphl . , Thrac e, Kol .(4) 10 lb s . : Kib . , Samos , Aig . Pel .

(5 ) 5 lb s . : 4 kleisurarch ies. It is

c lear that in the interval betweenTheophilus and L eo VI . the salaries ,with the exception of the highest, had

been lowered (Cer ., If we apply

the figures given by Ibn Khurdadhb ahto the corres onding c ategories in

the table of hemes under M ichaelIII . (36 lb s . 4s . 24 lb s .

: 163 . 12 lb s .= £ 518 z 83 .

6 lb s . we get for the totalamount paid to the military commanders 16s . But it mustb e remembered that the reduc tion of

salaries may have been made underM ichael III . , or even before the deathof Theophilus, and may have beenconnec ted wi th the increase in the

number of the Themes. It seems,for

instanc e , probable that when Koloneiabecame a stratégie the salary mayhave been fixed at 20 lb s . But the dataare suffic ient for a rough estimate .

Q

226 EAS TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE CHAP. V I I

In these provinces there is reason to suppose that thenumber of troops, who were chiefly cavalry, was aboutThey were largely settled on military lands, and their pay wassmall. The recrui t, who began service at a very early age,

received one nomisma (1 2s ) in his first year, two in his

second,and so on

,till the maximum of twelve or

in some cases of eighteen was reached ?

The army of the Theme was divided generally into two ,

sometimes three, turms or brigades ; the turm into drungoi or

battalions ; and the battalion into banda or companies. The

corresponding commanders were entitled turmarchs,drungaries,

and counts. The number of men in the company, the sizes of

the ba ttalion and the brigade, varied widely in the differentThemes. The original norm seems to have been a bandon of

200 men and a drungos of 5 banda . I t is very doubtfulwhether this uniform scheme still prevailed in the reign of

Theophilus. It is certain that at a somewhat later periodthe bandon varied in size up to the maximum of 400

,and the

drungos oscillated between the limits of 1000 and 3000 men.

Originally the turm was composed Of 5 drungoi (5 000 men) ,but this rule was also changed. The number of drungoi in

1 Ibn Kudama, 197 sqq. , gives the

total for the Asiatic provinces as

but the sum of his items doesnot c orrespond. The number of troopsin Paphlagonia is omitted , and Gelzeris probably right in supplying 4000(op. cit. He is also right inobserving that the figure 4000 assignedto the Armeniacs must b e wrong, butI c annot agree with his emendation,

For the number of the

Thrakesians 6000 must also b e in

correc t ; they c annot have been lessnumerous than the Bukellarians, whowere 8000. I would therefore write8000 for the Thrakesians , and 8000 for

the Armeniaca (not too few for thisTheme reduced by the separation of

Chaldia and Charsianon) . With thesec orrections we get the required sum

The same author gives 5000for Thrace, to which we must addanother 5000 for Macedonia (b ut thesenumbers may b e under the mark ) .Ibn Khurdadhb ah (84) asserts thatthe whole army numberedmen

,and a patric ian (t. e. a strategos)

commanded The ac tual organ

ization never c orresponded to thisscheme, and it has no historical value .

Thefigures may indeed roughlyc orres ond to the ac tual total

,if we

inclu e the Ta ata and all the forc esin Hel las and t e W estern provinces .

2 Ibn Khurdadhb ah makes two

contradictory statements about the

pay : (1) it varies between 18 and 12dinars a year and (2 ) beardlessyouths are recruited , they receive 1

dinar the first year, 2 the second,and

so on till their twelfth year of servic e,when they earn the full pay o f 12

dinars . Perhaps the explanation is

that the first passage on] takesaccount Of the ful l pay. his mayhave varied in different Themes ; or

higher pay than 12 dinars may havebeen that of the Tagmatic troops, or

Of the dekarchs (corporals). In anycase Gelzer is wrong in his estimate of

the pay He commits the error

of tak ing the d inar to b e equivalentto a franc (or rather 91 pfennige ) .But the dinar represents the Greeknomisma . The dirham (drachma )corresponds to a franc .

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EAS TE RN R OMAN EM P IRE228 CHAP. VI I

Macedonia,and Bithynia. The question of their numbers is

perplexing. We are variously told that in the ninth centurythey were each 6000 or 4000 strong, but in the ten th the

numbers seem to have been considerably less, the strength of

the principal Tagma, the Scholarians, amounting to no morethan 1 500 men. If we accept one of the larger figures forthe reign Of Theophilus, we must suppose that under one Of

his successors these troops were reduced in number ?

The D omestic of the Schools preceded in rank all o thermilitary commanders except the strategos of the AnatolicTheme, and the importance of the post is shown by thecircumstance that it was filled by such men as Manuel andBardas. In later times it became still more important ; inthe tenth century, when a military expedition against theSaracens was not led by the Emperor in person , the Domesticof the Schools was ex ofi cio the Commander- in-Chief ? The

D rungary of theWatch and his troops were distinguished fromthe o ther Tagmata by the duties they performed as sentinelsin campaigns which were led by the Emperor in person . The

Drungary was responsible for the safety of the camp,and

carried the orders Of the Emperor to the generals.

Besides the Thematic and the Tagmatic troops, therewere the Numeri

,a regiment Of infantry commanded by a

Domestic 3and the forces which were under the charge of the

Coun t or Domestic of the Walls, whose duty seems to havebeen the defence of the Long W all of Anastasius ? Thesetroops played little part in history. More important was theImperial Guard or Hetaireia,

5 which , recruited from barbarians,formed the garrison of the Palace

,and attended the Emperor

on campaigns.

1 See Constantine, Cer . 666 . Cp.

Bury, op. cit. 54, where, however, thereduc tion of the Excub itors and H ikanatoi is probably exaggerated , as the

numbers given in Cer . seem to refer tothe c ontingents stationed in Asia, andnot to inc lude those in Thrac e and

5 Probably organized in the c ourse

of the ninth century,cp. Bury

,op. cit.

107 . They were under the c ommandof Hetaeriarchs, and assoc iated withthem were smal l c orps of Khazars andPharganoi . These guards were so wel l

Macedonia .

2 Hence the Domestic of the Schoolsdeveloped into the Domestic of the

East.3 They numbered 4000, according

to Kudama . Cp. Bury, op. cit. 65 .

4 See above, p . 224.

remunerated that they had to purchasetheir posts for considerable sums, on

which their salaries re resented an

annuity varying from a out 2% to 4

per c ent (Constantine, Cer. 692

For exam le, a Khazar who received

£ 7 : 4s . ad paid for enrolment£ 302 : 8s . This system applied to

most of the Palace Offic es.

SECT . I I M IL I TAR Y OR GAN IZA TION 229

The care which was spent on providing for the health andcomfort of the soldiers is illustrated by the baths at Dorylaion,

the first of the great mil itary stations in Asia Minor. Thisba thing establishment impressed the imagination of orientalvisitors, and it is thus described by an Arabic writer 1

Dorylaion possesses warm springs Of fresh water,over which the

Emperors have constructed vaul ted buildings for bathing. T here are

seven basins, each Of which can accommodate a thousand men. The waterreaches the breast of a man of average height, and the overflow is

discharged into a small lake.

In military campaigns, careful provision was made for thewounded. There was a Special corps of Officers called deputa toi ,

2

whose duty was to rescue wounded soldiers and take them to

the rear, to b e tended by the medical staff. They carriedflasks of water

,and had two ladders attached to the saddles of

their horses on the left side, so that, having moun ted a fallensoldi er with the help Of one ladder, the deputatos could himselfmount instantly by the other and ride Off.

I t is interesting to observe that not only did the generalsand superior officers make speeches to the soldiers, in old

Hellenic fashion, before a battle. b ut there was a band of

professional orators, called canta tores, whose duty was to stimu

late the men by their eloquence during the action. Some of

the combatants themselves, if they had the capacity, might bechosen for this purpose. A writer on the art of war suggeststhe appropriate chords which the cantatores might touch , andif we may infer their actual practice, the leading nOte was

religious. We are figh ting in God’s cause ; the issue lieswi th him

,and he will not favour the enemy because of their

unbelief.”

I I I . Naval necessities imposed an increase of expenditurefor the defence Of the Empire in the ninth century ? The

navy,which had been efficiently organized under the Herac lian

dynasty and had performed memorable services against theattacks of the Omayyad Caliphs, had been degraded in importance and suffered to decline by the policy of the Isaurianmonarchs. W e may criticize their neglect of the naval arm

,

1 Ibn Khurdadhbah, 81 . scribe’s error b ut a popular c orrup2 Deputati . The word sometimes tion. Leo, Tac t. 12, 5 1, 53.

appears as Oec r ordr oc. This is not a2 See Bury, Nava l P olicy.

230 EAS TERN R OM AN EM P IRE CHAP . VI I

but we must remember that it was justified by immediateimpunity

,for it was correlated with the simultaneous decline

in the naval power of the Saracens. The Abbasids who transferred the cen tre of the Caliphate from Syria to Mesopotamiaundertook no serious maritime enterprises. The dangers of the

future lay in the west and not in the east,— in the ambitions

of the Mohammadan rulers of Africa and Spain, whose onlyway of aggression was by sea. Sicily was in peril throughoutthe eigh th century, and Constan tine V. was forced to reorganizeher fleet 1

accidents and internal divisions among the Saracenshelped to save her till the reign of Michael I I . We Shall seein another chapter how the M ohammadans then Obtained a

permanent footing in the island,the beginning Of its complete

conquest,

and how they occupied Crete. These eventsnecessitated a new maritime policy. To save Sicily

,to recover

Cre te, were not the only problems. The Imperial possessionsin South I taly were endangered ; Dalmatia, the Ionian islands,and the coasts of Greece were exposed to the African fleets.

I t was a mat ter of the first importance to preserve the controlof the Hadriatic . The reorganization of the marine establishment was begun by the Amorian dynasty

,though its

effects were not fully realized till a later period.

The naval forces of the Empire consisted of the Imperialfleet

,

2 which was stationed at Constantinople and commandedby the Drungary of the Navy? and the Provincial fleets 4 of theKibyrrhaeot Theme, the Aegean,5 Hellas, Peloponnesus, and

Kephalonia .

6 The Imperial fleet must now have been increasedin strength

,and the most prominent admiral of the age,

Coryphas,may have done much to reorganize it. An armament

Of three hundred warships was sent against Egypt in A.D. 8 5 3 ,

and the size of this force may b e held to mark the progresswhich had been made.

7 Not long after the death of MichaelIII . four hundred vessels were Operating off the coast of

Apulia ?

W e have some figures which may give us a general idea1 Amari, Storia ,

i . 175 n.

5 The naval Theme Of Samos seemsto have been of later date than the2 hTb fiao

’

rh xow braovAmori an erIOd.

.

3 6 bpov‘

y‘

ydptos 7 09 7 5 017140” FOI‘ 5 Paph agonia had also a smallhim and 1118 staff, see Bury, Imp. flotilla .

Adm. System,108 sqq. 7 See below

,p. 292.

4(i Oeua

‘

rmbs o r bhos. 5 Bury, N ava l Policy, 33 .

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THE SARACEN WARS

1 . The Empire of the Abbasids

IN the days Of Nicephorus and Charles the Great, the Caliphatewas at the heigh t of its power and grandeur ; a quarter of a

century later the decline of Abbasid rule, a process which waseked out through several centuries

,had already begun . An

accomplished student of Mohammadan history 1 has found,even

in the reigns of Harun and his son Mamun,the last great

Caliphs, signs and premonitions of decay ; in their charactersand tempers he discovers traits of the degeneracy which wasto b e fully revealed in their weak and corrup t successors.

Without presuming to decide whether Harun should b e calleda degenerate because to a nature unscrupulously cruel heunited susceptibility so sensitive to music and so prone to

melancholy that he burst into tears on hearing the strains Of

a boatman ’s song wafted over the waters of the Tigris, we can

see in his reign and that of his son the immense difficulties ofgovernmen t which confronted the rulers of the Mohammadanworld

,the strength of the elements of division and disruption

,

and the need of sovrans of singular ability and strenuous life,if the fabric of the Empire was to b e held together.

The realm of the Abbasids, in its early period,presents

some interesting points of comparison with the contemporaryRoman Empire. The victoryof the Abbasids and their establishmen t on the throne of the Caliphs had been mainly due to

Persian support ; the change of dynasty marked the triumphof Persian over Arabian influence. We may fairly comparethis change with that which attended the elevation of the

1 Von Kremer.

232

SECT . I THE EM P IRE OF THE ABBASID S 233

Isaurian dynasty to the throne of the Caesars. The balancewas shifted in favour of the eastern regions of the Empire ,and influences emanating from the moun tains of Asia Minorstrove to gain the upper hand over the prevailing influence Of

the G reeks. I f the struggle between the two spirits expresseditself here in the form of the iconoclastic controversy, theanti-Arabian reaction in the Caliphate was similarly markedby a religious movemen t , which is called heretical because itwas unsuccessful, and has a certain resemblance to iconoclasmin so far as it was an attempt of reason to assert itself, withincertain limits, against authority and tradition . While the

Omayyad Caliphs were still ruling in Damascus, there weresome though tful Mohammedans who were not prepared to

accept without reflexion the doctrines which orthodoxy imposedand it is not improbable tha t such men were stimul ated intheological speculation by friendly disputes and discussionswith their Christian fellow-subjects.

1The sect of the M utaza

lites proclaimed the freedom Of the will, which the orthodoxMohammadan regards as inconsisten t with the omnipotence of

Allah , and they adopted the dangerous method of allegoricalinterpretation of the Koran . Their doctrines were largelyaccepted by the Shiites, and they had to endure some persecution under the Caliphs of Damascus. The first Abbasid rulersSecre tly sympa thized with the Mutazalites, but orthodoxy wasstill too strong to enable them to do more than tolerate it.

Mamun was the first who ven tured to profess the heresy, andin A .D. 8 27 he issued an edict proc laiming that the Koran wascreated This was the cardinal point at issue. The Mutaza

li tes pointed out that if, as the orthodox maintained,the

Koran existed from all eternity, it followed that there . were twoco-existing and equally eternal Beings, Allah and the Koran .

The doctrine of the eternal existence of the Koran correspondsto the Christian doc trine of the inspira tion of the Bible

,and in

denying it the Caliph and his fellow-heretics seemed to undermine the authority of the Sacred Book . There were somewho had even the good sense to assert that a be tter book thanthe Koran might conceivably b e written ? The in tellec tualattitude of the M utazalites is also apparen t in their rejection

1 Op. Kremer, Cu lturgeschichte, ii . 399 sq.

2 Wei] , i i . 264.

234 EAS TE RN ROMAN EM P IRE C HAP . VI I I

0

Of the doctrine,which the orthodox cherished, tha t in the

next world God would reveal himself to the faithful in a visibleshape. Mamun may have hoped to bring about a generalreform of Islam,

but his enlightened views,which his two

successors,M utasim andWathik,also professed and endeavoured

to enforce, probably made few converts. These Caliphs, likethe iconoclastic Emperors, resorted to persecution , the logicalconsequence of a system in which theological doctrine can b e

defined by a sovran’s edict. When Wathik died, in consequenceof his dissolute life, in A.D. 847 , his successor Mutawakkil

inaugurated a return to the orthodox creed, and executedthose who persisted in denying the eternity of the Koran .

The genuine interest evinced by the Caliphs of this periodin poetry and music

,in literature and science, was the most

pleasing feature Of their rule. It was a coincidence that thebrilliant period of Arabic literature, developing under Persianinfluence

,was contemporary with the revival of learning and

science at Constantinople , of which something will b e said inanother chapter. The debt which Arabic learning owed tothe Greeks was due directly to the intermediate li terature Of

Syria but we must not ignore the general effect of influencesof culture which flowed reciprocally and continually betweenthe Empire and the Caliphate ? Intercourse o ther than warlike between neighbouring realms is usually unnoticed in

medi eval chronicles,and the more frequen t it is

,the more

likely it is to b e ignored. But various circumstances permitus to infer that the two civilizations exerted a mutual influenceon each other ; and the historians record anecdotes which

,

though we hesitate to accept them as literal facts,are yet,

like the anecdotes of Herodotus, good evidence for the socialor historical conditions which they presuppose . I t must notb e thought that the religious bigotry Of the Moslems or the

chronic state of war between the two powers were barriers or

obstacles. At that time the Mohammadan society of the

middle classes,especially in the towns, seems to have been

permeated by a curren t Of intellectual freedom : they werenot afraid to think

,they were broad-minded and humane ?

On the other hand,while the continuous hostilities on the

1 See below, Chapter XIV.

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236 EAS TERN ROM AN EM P IRE CHAP. VII I

to the principle of abstaining from State interference was

made in favour of agriculture : the government considereditself responsible for irrigation and the expenses of main taining in repair the sluices Of the Tigris and Euphrates

,indis

pensable for the fertility Of Mesopotamia,were defrayed

entirely by the public treasury?The small number of the ministries or divans in Baghdad

is significan t of the administrative simplicity of the SaracenState . The most important minister presided over the Officeof the ground-tax,

and next to him was the grand Vezir.

The duty of the Postmaster was to exercise some generalcontrol over the administration ; and his title, though he wasnot responsible for the management of the State Post , suggeststhe methods by which such control was exerted ? The chiefpurpose of the Post, which , like that of the Roman Empire,was exclusively used by officials, was to transmit reports fromthe provinces to the capital. It was carefully organized.

The names of the postal stations, and their distances,were

entered in an Official book at Baghdad, and the Oldest geographical works of the Arabs were based on these official itineraries. The institution served a huge system Of espionage

,

and the local postmasters were the informers, sending reportson the conduct of governors and tax-collectors

,as well as on

the condition of agriculture, to headquarters ?

W e possess far fuller information on the budget of the

Caliphate under the early Abbasids than on the finances of the

later Empire at any period? We can compare the to tal

revenues of the State at various periods in the eighth and

ninth centuries, and we know the amount which each provincecontributed . Under Harun ar-Rashid the whole revenueamounted to more than 5 30 millions of dirhams (about

in addition to large contributions in kind,

whose value in money it is impossible to estimate ? In the

1 KreIner, i b. i . 200-202. Kremer, Cu lturgeschichte, 356 sqq.

2 H e may b e c ompared to the head (3) in the Persian historian Wassaf.

Of the Third Section of the Russian The relations of the three are discussedpolic e . by Kremer

,i b . 12 sqq. (1 ) and (3)

2 Kremer, i b. 192 sqq. , 201-202 . agree accurately as to the gold and4 Kremer, ib . 256 sqq . silver items

,and both state that the

5 For Harun’

s reign we have three gold dinar was then (under Harun)tax rolls : (1 ) in Gahsiyari ’s H istory of equivalent to 22 silver dirhams .

the Vezirs published in Kremer, They are evidently copies of the sameBudget Harun (2 ) in Ibn Khaldun tax list. (1 ) and (2) agree general ly.

THE EM P IRE OF THE AB BASID SSECT . I 237

reign of Mamun (A .D . 8 1 9 -8 20) it was reduced perhaps by200 millions, and about forty years later the source s point toa still lower figure ? In the following century (A.D . 9 1 5

it is recorded that the income of the State,from the taxes

which were paid in gold and silver,amoun ted to no more

than 24 millions of dirhams ? The sources of the revenuewere the taxes on land and property, ships and mines

,mills

and factories,the duties on luxuries

,on salt

,and many other

things. The falling Off during the ninth century may b e

easily accounted for by such general causes as internal troublesand rebellions, constant wars, the dishonesty of provincialgovernors, and the lavish luxury Of the Cour t. The CaliphMamun is said to have spent on the maintenance of his Courtsix thousand dinars daily, which is equivalent nearly to

a year ?

The circumstances of the elevation of the Abbasid houseentailed, as a natural consequence, that the Persians shouldform an important element in the military establishmen ts.

Under the Omayyads the chief recruiting grounds wereBasrah and Kufah

,and the host consisted mainly of Arabians.

In the army of Mansur there were three chief divisions— the

northern Arabs, the southern Arabs, and, thirdly, the men of

Khurasan , a geographical term wh ich then embraced the

mountainous districts of Persia. The third division were theprivileged troops who

,to use the technical Roman term , were

in praesenti and furnished the guards of the Caliph . But in

the reign Of Mutasim, who ascended the throne in A.D . 833 ,

the Persians were dislodged from their place of favour byforeigners . The Turkish bodyguard was formed by slaves

Kremer ca lculated the dinar from Ibn

Khaldun’

s sums as equal to 15 dir

hams . This list belonged to the

period immediately before Harun’

s

accession (7751 We cannot depend on th e totals

Of the ac counts in Kudama and Ibn

Khurdadhb ah , which are our sourc es

for this dec line. For Kudama’

s listis based partly on a l ist of 819-820,and partly on later lists up to 851-852(Kremer

, Culturgeschichte, and

Ibn Khurdadhb ah gives the revenuefrom Khurasan for 836

,b ut his other

figures belong to later years (up to

Further, we do not know how

the relation Of the dinar to the dirhamvaried . The ac tual totals given(supposing the dinar= 15 dirhams )are Kudama, 317 mi llions (over

Ibn Khurdadhb ah,293

mil lions — taking the

d irham as a franc — Ibn Khurdadhb ahw as general po stmaster in the distric tof Gaba]

,and wrote between A .D . 854

and 874. Kudama died in A .D . 948-9 .

2 Kremer, Cu lturgeschichte, i . 281 .

3 The defenc e of the Syrian frontier is sa id to have costdinars sometimes

238 EA S TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE CHAP. V I I I

imported from the lands beyond the Oxus, and so many camefrom Farghana that they were all alike known as Farghanese .

We may suspect that many of these soldiers entered the

Caliph ’s service voluntarily, and it is remarkable that muchabout the same time as the formation Of the Turkishbodyguard of the Caliph we meet the earliest mention Of

Farghanese in the service of the Roman Empire? The

unpopularity Of the insolent Turkish guards among the

inhabitants of Baghdad drove Mutasim in to leaving the capital,and during the secession to Samarra,

which lasted for Sixtyyears, they tyrannized over their masters

,like the Praetorians

Of past and the Janissaries of future history. Yet a fifthclass of troops was added about the same time to the militaryforces of the Caliphate ; it consisted of Egyptian Beduins

,

Berbers, and negroes, and was known as the African corps.

The Saracens adopted the tactical divisions of the Romanarmy ? The regiment of 1000 men,

commanded by a kaid,

was subdivided into hundreds and tens, and there werenormally ten such regiments under the emir

,who corresponded

to the stratégos of a Theme.

2 . Baghdad

The capital city of the Abbasids,3 from which theygoverned or misgoverned W estern Asia, was the second cityin the world. In size and splendour, Baghdad was surpassedonly by Constantinople. There is a certain resemblance betweenthe circumstances in which these two great centres of powerwere founded. Saffah , the first sovran of the new dynasty, hadseen the necessity of translating the seat of government fromSyria to Mesopotamia. A capital on the navigable waters of

the Tigris or the Euphrates would be most favourably situatedfor ocean commerce with the far East ; it would b e at a safedistance from Syria,

where the numerous adherents of the

fallen house Of the Omayyads were a source of danger ; itwould b e near Persia, on whose support the risen house of the

1 Op. Simeon, Cont. Georg. 815 work , Baghd ad during the A bbasid

Oeo¢dvns b éx (Pap-yaw n Ca liphate, where referenc es to the

2 Kremer, i b . 237 . authorities are given throughout, and2 The following description is de the topography is eluc idated by

rived from Le Strange’

s exhaustive numerous plans .

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240 EA S TE RN ROM AN EM P IRE C HAP. V I I I

nature of the ground. The architectural inventiveness of

Mansur and his engineers was hampered by no pre-existingtown ; when they had cleared away a miserable hamlet and

the abodes of infidel monks, they had a ta bula rasa,level and

unencumbered, on which they could work their will, confinedonly by the Isa canal and the Tigris itself. The architectsused the Opportunity and built a wonderful city of a new

type. I t was in the form of a perfect circle,four miles in

circumference, surrounded by three concentric walls con

structed of huge sun-dried bricks In the centre stood thePalace of Mansur, known as the olden Gate , and close to itthe Great Mosque. The whole surrounding area, enclosed bythe inmost wall, was reserved for the offices of governmen t ,the palaces of the Caliph’s children, and the dwellings of his

servants. No one except the Caliph himself was permitted topass into these sacred precincts on horseback . The ringbetween the inner and the middle wall was occupied byhouses and booths. The middle wall was the principaldefence of the town , exceeding the other two in height andthickness. Through its iron gates, so heavy that a companywas required to Open them ,

a rider could enter withoutlowering his lance ; and at each gatehouse a

: gangway was

contrived by which a man on horseback could reach the top

of the wall. From this massive fortifica tion a vacant Spacedivided the outmost wall, whi ch was encompassed by a watermoat . This system of walls was pierced by four series of

equidistant gates — the gates Of Syria Khurasan(N Basrah (S E ) , and Kufah The imposing gatehouses of the middle circle were surmounted by domes. Suchwas the general plan of the round city Of Mansur

, to which hegave the name of Madinat as-Salam

,the City of Peace.

”

But if the name was used officially, it has been as utterlyforgotten by the world as Aelia Capitolina and Theupolis,

which once aspired to replace Jerusalem and An tioch .

The building of the city occupied four years (A.D . 7 62

Mansur also built himself another house, the Kasr-al-Khuld

or Palace of Eternity, outside the walls, between the Khurasan

1 Tabari states the cost of building which is about the equivalent Of

the two outer walls and the palace, (Le Strange,and construc ting the ditch , at a sum

SECT . I I BAGHDAD 241

Gate and the river. It was here that Harun ar-Rashidgenerally lived. South of the city stretched the great com

merc ial suburb of Karkh,

1and the numerous canals which

intersected it must have given it the appearance of a modernDutch town. Here were the merchants and their stores, ascarefully supervised by the government as the traders and

dealers of Constantinople . The craftsmen and tradesmen didnot live scattered promiscuously in the same street

,as in our

cities of to-day every craft and every branch of commercehad its own allotted quarter. I t is said that Mansur

,in

laying out the town of Karkh , whi ch was not included in his

original plan,was inspired by the advice of an envoy of the

Roman Emperor, who was then Constantine V. When the

patrician had been taken to see all the wonders of the new

city , the Caliph asked him what he thought of it. I haveseen splendid buildings, he replied, “ b ut I have also seen,0 Caliph

,that thine enemi es are with thee, within thy city.

He explained this oracular saying by observing that theforeign merchants in the markets within the walls would haveOpportunities of acting as Spies or even as traitors. Mansurreflected on the warning, and removed the market to the

suburbs.

This is not the only anecdote connecting Byzantineenvoys with the foundation of Baghdad . We may not givethese stories credence, but they have a certain value for thehi story of cul ture, because they would not have been inventedif the Saracens had not been rec eptive of Byzantine influences.

I t was said that a Greek patrician advised Mansur on the

choice of his site ; and a visitor who walked through the

western suburb and was shown the great water-mill Of the

patrician might feel convinced that here was an undoubtedproof of the alleged debt to Byzantine civil ization. H is guidewoul d have told him that the name of the buil der of the mill swas Tarath, who had come on behalf Of the Roman Emperorto congratulate the Caliph Mahdi on his accession to the

throne (A.D . Tarath,who was himself fifth in descent

from the Emperor Maruk, offered to buil d a mi ll on one Of the

canals. Five hundred thous and dirhams (about

1 The name still survives in Karchiaka, which the Turks apply to westernBaghdad (Le Strange,

were supplied for the cost, and the pa trician guaranteed tha tthe yearly rents would amount to this sum. When the

forecast was fulfilled, Mahdi gratefully ordered that the rentsshould b e bestowed on the pa trician, and until his death the

amount was transmitted to him year by year to Constantinople .

The story sounds like a pleasing invention , called forth by theneed of explaining the name of the mill ; and it has beensuggested that the name itself was originally derived, notfrom Patrician

, but from Patriarch, and that the mills,Older than the foundation of the city, were called after the

Patriarch of the Nestorians ? The name Tarath, however,is evidently Tarasius

,while in h is Imperial ancestor Maruk

it is easy to recognize the Emperor Maurice ; and it is

to be observed that the age of the fifth generation fromMaurice (who died in A.D . 602) corresponds to the reignof Mansur.

The traffic Of Baghdad was not confined to Karkh ;there were extensive market-places also in the region outsidethe western wall

,and in the north - western suburb of

Harbiyah,beyond the Syrian Gate. The quarters in all

these suburbs which encompassed the city were distinguishedfor the most part by the names Of followers Of Mansur, towhom b e assigned them as fi efs.

Although Baghdad was to live for ever,the Round City

of the founder was destined soon to disappear. The Palace of

the Golden Gate was little used after the death of Mansurhimself

,and four generations later the rest of the court and

government was permanently established on the other side of

the Tigris. At the very beginning, three important suburbsgrew up on the opposite bank of the river

,which was spanned

by three bridges of boats. This region has aptly been describedas a fan-shaped area

, the poin t Of radiation being the extremityof the Main Bridge

,which led to the gate of Khurasan, and

the curve of the fan sweeping round from the Upper Bridgeto the Lower Bridge ? But these quarters of Rusafah, Shammasiyah,

3and Mukharrim were not destined to

,be the later

1 Le Strange , 145 . Batrik z rrarptmos Aramaic word , meaning“ deaconry

should d iffer in the fina l guttural and pointing to Christian origin— was

from b atrik z rrarptdpxns (ib . note) the Christian quarter, known as the2 L e Strange, 169 . Dar ar-Rfim or House of the Romans .

2 In the region ofShammasiyahfi —an Here were

,churches Of the Jac obites

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EAS TERN R OMAN EM P IRE CHAP. VI I I

3 . The Frontier Defences of the Empire and the Ca lipha te

The sway of the Caliph extended from the northern shoresof Africa to the frontiers of India

,but after the year 800 his

lordship over northern Africa was merely nominal,and the

western limits of his realm were virtually marked by Cyprusand Egypt. For Ibrahim

,son of Aghlab , who was appointed

governor of Tunis, announced to the Caliph Harun that hewas prepared to pay a yearly tribute but was determined tokeep the province as a perpetual fi ef for himself and his

descendants. Harun, who was at the moment beset by war

and . revolts elsewhere,was compelled to acquiesce, and the

Aghlab id dynasty was thus founded in Africa . The wholeCaliphate was divided into some fifteen administrative provinces,and the Asiatic provinces alone formed a far larger realm thanthe contemporary Roman Empire.

The circumscriptions of Syria and Armenia were separatedfrom Roman territory by frontier districts, which were occupiedby forts and standing camps. The standing camp, or fustat,was an institution which had been developed under the

Omayyads, and was continued under the early Abbasids. The

ancient towns of Tarsus, Adana, and M opsuestia were littlemore than military establishments of this kind. If we surveythe line Of defences along the Taurus range from the Euphratesto the frontier of Cilicia

,our eye falls first on Melitene

(Malatia) which lies at the meeting of the great highroadsleading from Sebastea (Sivas) and Caesarea to Armenia and

northern Mesopotamia, not far from the loop which the riverdescribes below the point at which its parent streams 1 unitetheir waters. The road from Melitene to Germanicia, acrossthe Taurus, was marked by the fastnesses of Zapetra (at Viranshahr) and Hadath or Adata? both of whi ch were frequentlyattacked by the Romans. Germanicia and Anazarbos werestrongly fortified by the Caliph Harun

,and between these

1 The Euphrates (Kara-su) and M inor he equates Hadath with PavArsanias (Murad-su) . rali

,north of Inekli . The roads

2 For a demonstration of the site of across Commagene to Samosata, fromZapetra (the anc ient Sozo etra), and Zapetra and from Germani c ia , werefor the position of Ha ath (near defended respectively by the forts of

Inekli ) see Anderson, Campa ign of H isn Mansur or Perrhe and Bahasna

Basi l I . ,in Classica l R eview , x . 138-9 (for which cp. Anderson’

s M ap) .(April In h is Map of Asia

SECT . I I I FRON TIE RS OF EM P IRE AND CAL IPHA TE 245

main positions,in the hilly regions of the upper Pyramus,

were the forts of Kanisah and Haruniyah ? This line,from

Melitene (which gave his title to the Emir of the district) toAnazarbos, formed the defence against invasion ofMesopotamia.

The province of Syria was secured by another line, in whichthe chief points were M opsuestia (M assisah) , Adana and

Tarsus . When the coast road, emerging from the SyrianGates, had swept round the b ay of Issus, it turned inland toM opsuestia, and thence ran due westward to Tarsus

,passing

Adana,which it entered by the old bridge of Justinian across

the Sarus. Under Harun, Tarsus was garrisoned by eightthousand soldiers

,and it was fortified by double walls sur

rounded by a moat .

Of the Taurus mountain passes, through which the

Christians and Moslems raided each other’s lands,the two

chief were (1 ) the defi les, known from ancient times as the

Cilician Gates, through which the Saracens,when Tarsus was

their base,carried the Holy War into the central regions of

Asia Minor, and (2 ) the pass which connected Germaniciawith Arab issos.

The pass of the Cilician Gates, famous in ancient as wellas in medieval history, is about seventy miles in length fromthe point where the ascent from the central plateau Of Asia

Minor begins, south of Tyana,to the point where the southern

foothills of Taurus merge in the Cilician plain ? Near the

northern extremity Of the pass,a lofty isolated peak rises to

the height of about a thousand feet, commanding a wide Viewboth of the southern plains of Cappadocia and of the northernslopes of Taurus. On this impregnable height stood the

fortress of Lulom,

3 which,though it could defy armed assaul t,

yet, whether by treachery or long blockades,passed frequently

backwards and forwards from the Saracens to the Romans. I t

was the key of the Cilician pass. Wh ile it was in the handsof the Romans, it was difficult for a Saracen army to invade

1 These have not been identified . pass is derived from Ramsay, Ci licia .

The latter, built by Harun (A.D . 7 99 ) 2 The Arabic authorities call it bothwas a day ’s march to the west of Lulon and al-Safsa f

,

“the willow.

G ermanic ia , and Kanisah -as -Sawda, For the identification see Ramsay , i b.the black church , was about twelve 405 . It is supported by the fact that

miles from Haruniyah . L e Strange , Tabari calls the pass “ the pass of al

Eastern Ca lipha te, pp. 128-9 . Safsaf (A .H .

2 The fol lowing description of the

EAS TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE246 CHAP. VI I I

Cappadocia ; while the Saracens held it, an Imperial armycould not venture to enter the defi les ? The northern road toTyana and the western road to Heraclea meet close to Lulouat the foot of the pass, SO that the fort commanded both theseways.

The road winding firs t eastward and then turning southascends to the oval vale of Podandos, called the

“Camp Of

Cyrus,” because the younger Cyrus encamped here on his

march against his brother ? The path rises from Podandos

through steep and narrow glens to the summit of the pass ;and on the east side

,high up on the mountain

,it was

commanded by a stronghold, built of black stone,known as

the Fortress of the Slavs ? From the summit,marked by a

little plateau which is now called Tekir,

4a descent of about

three miles leads to the rocky defile which was known as the

Cilician Gates and gave its name to the whole pass. I t is a

passage, about a hundred yards long and a few yards wide,5

between rock walls rising perpendicular on either side, and

capable of being held against a large force by a few resolutemen. Above, on the western summit, are the remains of an

Old castle which probably dates from the times when Greeksand Saracens strove for the possession of the mountain frontier.

In the period with which we are concerned Podandos and

the pass itself seem to have been durably held by the Saracens.

Lulou frequently changed hands. When the Romans were inpossession , it served as the extreme station Of the line of

beacons, which could flash to Constantinople, across the

highlands and plains of Asia Minor, the tidings of an

1 Cp. Ramsay , Asia M inor , 354.

2 Ramsay (Ci licia , 386 sqq. ) showsthat Cyrus and Xenophon did not

march through the Cilician Gatesproper . From Podandos (Bozanti )they took a south-easterly path , whichfollowed the course of the Chakut-Su

and was the direc t way to Adana b uta c onsiderably longer route to Tarsus .

2 Hisn as-Sakalibah . The ruins areknown as Anasba Kalahsi they standhigh on Mt. Anasba (Ramsay , i b .

In the reign of Justinian II . there wasa large desertion Of Slavs to the Arabs(Theoph . A.M . and doubtlessthese or similar deserters were plac edas a garrison in this fort. The Greeks

ca l led the fort RodentOs (Constantine,Themes

,19 , where it is mentioned w ith

Lulou and Podandos) . The Butrentumof the Crusaders may b e, as Ramsaysuggests, a c ontamination of P odandosand R odentos.

4 Ramsay points out that this is inmodern warfare strategical ly the mostimportant point of the pass . Inanc ient times the places of most importance, becausemost easilyd efensibleby a small body

,were the Gates south

of the summi t and the narrow glendescending to Podandos, north of thesummit.

5 The Roman road was about 11 feetwide (Ramsay,

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EA S TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE248 C HA P. VI I I

hour of one and then lit his beacon ; and the watchers in thePalace, seeing the light on Mount Auxentios, knew at whathour the first fi re was kindled and therefore what the signalmeant. A signal made at two O

’clock announced thathostilities had begun, and a three o

’clock despatch signified a

conflagration?

In expeditions to Commagene and Mesopotamia, the

Imperial armies generally followed the road from Arab issos

(Yarpuz) which ,crossing the Taurus, descends to G ermanicia .

The troops of the Eastern Asiatic Themes met those whichcame from the west at Caesarea,

and a road crossing the

Antitaurus range by the Kuru-Chai pass 2 took them to Siricaand Arab issos. But at Sirica (perhaps Kemer) they had an

alternative route which was sometimes adopted. Theycould proceed southward by Kokusos (G euksun) and reachGermanicia by the Ayer-Bel pass ?

At the beginning of the ninth century, a great part of

Cappadocia east and south-east Of the upper Halys had becomea fron tier land, in which the Saracens, although they did not

occupy the country, had won possession of important strongholds, almost to the very gates of Caesarea. If they did not

hold already, they were soon to gain the forts in the

Antitaurus region which commanded the roads to Sis,and

Kokusos which lay on one Of the routes to Germanicia ? To

the north,they seem to have dominated the country as far

west as the road from Seb astea to Arab issos. And, south of

the Antitaurus range,Arab issos was the only important place

of which the Empire retained possession ? The fact that the1 Pseudo -Simeon 681 sq. is the

authority for the (bpolxbyta. es to'ouKdurovra .

2 Ramsay, Asia M inor , 271 for

Sirica,274 .

2 Anderson, R oad System whereall the routes over the Taurus are

described . There were two ways fromCaesarea southward to Sis and Ana

zarb os, ib . 29 .

4 The penetration of Cappadoc ia bythe Arabs before 873 can b e partlyinferred from the details of the cam

paigns of Basi l I . , who undertook torive them out of the c ountry. Cp.

Anderson, Campa ign of B asi l I . (ci t.supra ) and Road System,

34 sq. The

position of Amara, where they settled

the Paulicians, is another indication.

It seems probable that they hadachieved this position in Eastern AsiaM inor before the end of the 8thcentury. Ramsay (Asia M inor , 278 )exaggerates when he says that a fter780 “

the Greek arms were probablynever seen again in Eastern Cappadoc ia till Basil ’s expedition inat least, the frequent Roman expeditions to Commagene passed throughsouth-eastern Cappadoc ia .

5 Ramsay (i b. 276 ) infers fromBasil ’s c ampaign in 877 thatArab issoswas then in the hands of the Saracens .

I doubt whether the inference is

justified Basil’

s march to G ermanic ia

by the western pass seems to have

ss c r . Iv SARA CEN WAR S , A .D . 802 -833 249

Charsian province was designated as a Kleisurarchy is a

significant indi cation of the line of the eastern frontier .

I t was the business of the Charsian commander to defendthe hleisurai or passes of the Antitaurus hills.

4 . The W'

arfare in the R eigns of Harun and Mamun

(A.D. 802-833 )

Till the middle of the tenth century when the EmperorN ic ephorus Phocas made a serious effort to drive the Moslemsfrom Syria, the wars between the Empire and Caliphate are

little more than a chronicle of reciprocal incursions whichseldom pene trated very far into the enemy’s country. The

chief events were the capture and recapture of the fortressesin the Taurus and Antitaurus highlands ; occasionally an

expedition on a larger scale succeeded in destroying someimportant town . The record of this monotonous warfare ispreserved more fully in the Arabic than in the G reekchronicles. It woul d b e as useless as it were tedious to

reproduce here the details of these annual campaigns. I t willb e enough to notice the chief vicissitudes, and the moreimportant incidents, in a struggle whose resul ts, when the

Amorian dynasty fell , showed a balance in favour Of the

Saracens.

During the last few years of the reign Of Irene, the

warfare slumbered 1it would seem that She purchased

immunity from invasion by paying a yearly sum to the Caliph .

One of the first decisions of Nicephorus was to refuse to

continue this humiliating tribute, and the Arab historiansquote letters which they allege to have passed between the

Emperor and the Caliph on this occasion? Nicephorus

demanded back the money which had been paid throughfemale weakness.

”The epistle , if it is au then tic , was

been dic tated by other c onsiderations .

In any c ase, Arab issos mus t have beenImperial during most Of the Amorianperiod .

1 Ac cording to M ichael Syr. 12,

however, there were two Saracen in

vasions after the deposition of Con

stantine VI . : in the first, Aetius ga ineda vic tory, in the second the Romans

were defeated .

2 They are given by Tabari (as wellas later writers) . fi anslations in

Gibbon, chap . 52,and Wei]

,ii. 159 .

Brooks regards them as spurious,and

thinks that the story of the peac e withIrene (R ina) , which is not mentionedby Theophanes

,was anArab invention.

It is not mentioned by Michael Syr .,

who,however, states that Nic ephorus

sent a letter to Harun

fury that no one could look at him ; he called for an inkpotand wrote his answer on the back of the Imperial letter .

Harun,Commander of the Faithful

,to

'

the G reek dog. I have readthy letter

,son of an unbelieving mother. Thou shalt not only hear my

answer b ut see it with thine eyes.

The Caliph marched immediately to chastise the insolentRoman, but N icephorus, who,

occupied with the revolt of

Bardanes, was not prepared to meet h im, Offered to pay tribute ,if the army

,which had advanced from the Cilician Gates to

Heraclea, would retire. Harun,satisfied with the booty he

had collected and the damage he had inflicted,agreed to the

proposal ; but when he had reached the Euphrates, the news

arrived tha t the Emperor had broken the compact,

and

notwithstanding the severe cold, for It was already winter,he

retraced his steps and raided the lands of his enemy again .

Each succeeding year during the reign of Harun,and

under his successor till A .D . 8 1 3 ,witnessed the regular incur

sions of the Moslem commanders of the frontier ? We may

notice particularly an expedition led by the Caliph himself,who wore a pointed cap inscribed Raider and pilgrim

,

”in

the summer of A.D . 806 . H is army numberedregular soldiers, with many volunteers, and besides capturinga number Of important forts he took Heraclea and its sub ter

reneau grain stores. He seized Tyana,which lies north of

Lulon on the road to Caesarea, and converted it into a

permanent post of occupation,building a mosque, which the

G reek chronicler designates as the house Of his blasphemy.

The Emperor,who seems to have been unable to send a

sufficien t force to take the field against the invader, at lengthinduced him to withdraw for the sum Of dinars ?

Sarac en eriod , showed himself so

brave an brilliant in war .

”In 807

Nic ephorus fought a pitched battle

1 In A.D . 804 Nicephorus in personOpposed the invaders and was wounded(Tabari , s. a . According to

M ichae l Syr. the Romans in

this year entered Cilicia, pil laged theregions of Mopsuestia, Anazarbos, andTarsus ; see also next note . Thiswriter (who bec omes more valuablefor chrono logy in the reign Of Theophilus ) has a curious estimate of

the military talent Of N icephorus :

No Roman Emperor,throughout the

with the Sarac ens and was routed(Kitab al-’Uyun, Brooks,2 For this campaign we have both

Theophanes and Tabari . They agree

in saying that the tribute was a sortof ransom for Nicephorus, his son, h is

patricians, and the other Romans.

Tabari says that four dinars werefor Nicephorus, two for Stauracius

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252 EA S TERN ROMAN EM P IRE CHAP. V l l l

b ut the Saracens seem to have desisted from their yearlyinvasions, and the Emperors Leo and Michael were less eagerto take advantage of Mamun

’

s diffi culties by aggressions on

their side than glad to enjoy a respite from the eastern war.

1

This long suspension of the Holy War was chequered, indeed,by M amun

’

s actions during the rebellion of Thomas, whichshowed that he cherished designs upon the Empire whichonly necessity held in abeyance. We saw how the Saracenstook advantage of tha t crisis, first invading the Empire, andthen supporting Thomas the Slavonian . The Caliph

,whether

he had made secret conditions with the pretender or not,

undoub tedly hoped to augment his territory in Asia Minor.

If the Caliph had espoused the cause of Thomas, theEmperor had an opportunity of retaliating by supporting therebel Babek. And as a matter of fact

, the renewal of the

war seems to have been caused by the opening of negotiationsbetween Babek and the Emperor Theophilus. I t must havebeen immediately after Theophilus ascended the throne thata considerable number of Hurramite insurgents passed in toRoman territory and offered to serve in the Roman armies.

2

It is probable that the negotiations with Babek were arrangedwith the help of a notable offi cer, of Persian origin, who hadbeen brought up at Constantinople and bore a G reek nameTheophob os.

3Theophilus appointed him commander of the

1 The silenc e of the Greek and that the fugitives were ChristiansArabic chroniclers proves at least who feared Mamun and Babek alike.

that the war was very languidlyprosecuted in the reign of Leo . But

there seem to have been hostilities,for we have a record of an easterncampa ign of that Emperor. See Theodore Stud . Ep. 213 (Cozza-L ), pp.180-1

,ue

'

rd To éxa ‘

rpa'

r eéaac 1 6V fi ao‘

théa ,referring to A .D . 817 . Moreover, inA .D . 816 a campaign was contemplated : seeAnon. A. Vita Theopham

'

s,

2916 Anon. B . Vi ta TheOphanis, 396.

Cp. Pargoire, St. TMopham , 73-81.2 See M ichael Syr. 50 and 73 (whodescribes them as Khordanaye,Hurramites) , and Greek sources c itedin next note. Simeon gives the

number of the“ Persian refugees as

ac cording to Cont. Th . theyhad increased to in A .D . 837 .

That there was an influx in the intervening years is borne out by Tabari, 28(sub A . D . Finlay (ii. 153) thinks

It should b e borne in mind that theseso-called II épora cmust have beenmainlyPersarmenians.

3 The difficulties c onnected withTheophob os have not been fullyc leared up, or even real ised , bymodern historians. He is mentionedonly in the Greek sourc es : G en. 52-57Cont. Th . 110-112 ; Simeon (Add .

Georg. While it is admittedthat the stories to ld of his desc entfrom the Persian kings, and of his

early l ife, are suspic ious from theirgeneral nature and the fac t that thereare conflic ting versions— their legendary charac ter is established by theirinconsistency with c hronology and

other errors (Hirsch , 139 )— it has beengenerally assumed that Theophob osand his father were fol lowers of Babekand c ame to Sinope with the otherfugitives (so e .g. Finlay and Vasil’ev ) .

ss cr . IV SARA CEN WARS , A .D . 802 -833 253

army of eastern fugitives, to whom his descent and knowledgeof their language naturally recommended him. But the

attachment of the soldiers to TheOphobos was possibly basedon a h igher and transcendent claim.

The Hurramites cherished the fi rm belief that a Mahdi orGuide of their own race woul d appear who would guide themto faith in himself, would transmi t his Empire to another, tobe followed by a perpetual line of successors. Such a divineleader had recently arisen amongst them, but he was caughtand executed. l I f Theophob os was recognised as his successor,we shoul d understand both the asc endancy which he exercisedover them,

and the motive of the legends which grew up

about his origin. But the fact which suggests this explan

ation is the belief current among the“ Persians in later

generations that TheOphobos had never tasted death?

The foreigners had come to Sinope, having evidentlyfollowed the coast road by Trapezus, as they could not passthrough the Saracen province of Melitene. Quarters wereassigned to them here and at Amastris, but some years laterthey seiz ed their commander and proclaimed him Emperoragainst his will (A.D. Theophob os, whose services hadbeen rewarded by the rank of patrician and the hand of a

lady who was sister either to Theophilus himself or to

Theodora,3 was a loyal subject, and he managed to send a

If so, Theophob os must have been a Gen. The tale that the Persians

most distinguished and importantfigure in the Babek movement, otherwi se he would hard ly have marriedinto the Emperor’s family ; and we

should expec t to find him ment ionedin our Or iental sources . His Greekname, his orthodoxy, on which the

chroniclers c ompliment him, and the

trust reposed in him by Theophilus ,all suggest that he was a Byzantinesubj ec t and Imperial ofi icer ; and thestories preserve the fac t that he wasborn and educated at Constantinople .

These stories were based on the threec ircumstances that he was a c itiz en of

the Empire, that he belonged to a

“ Persian” family, and that he was

appo inted commander of the B arramites. They let out the c ircumstanc ethat his father (who may have beenthe first of the family to settle in

Byzantium) served in the Imperialarmy 1 02: Karahé'yow,

became aware of his existenc e, byastrology or otherwise

,and wanted to

make him their king, is connec tedwith the part he played in the negotiations with Babek ; it is quite probable that he went as envoy to Babekin Armenia , though in Gen. and Cont.Th . the personal interview is at Sinope .

(The improbable statement that Babekcame h imself to Sinope is rej ec ted byFinlay and Vasil

'

ev . ) Yet this is

hard ly a sufficientmotif for the legendary anecdotes, which would, I think ,b e ac counted for by the conjec turewhich I have ventured to put forwardin the text .

1 M ichae l Syr. 50. For the Hurramites see also Weil

,

ii. 235 .

2 Gen. 60.

3 Simeon (Add . Georg. 793) saysa sister of Theodora ” ; Gen. 55

Cont. Th . 112, says “ the sister of the

254 EA S TE RN R OMAN EM P IRE CHAP. vm

secret message to the Emperor. Theophilus pardoned the

troops,b ut took the precaution of distributing them among

the armies of various Themes, in regiments of 2000,which were

known as the Persian turms.

”

We may pass briefly over the meagre details of the warfareduring the next three years, noticing only the sack of

Zapetra by Theophilus (A .D . his victory in Cilicia(A.D . 83 1) which he celebrated by a triumphal entry intoConstantinople, and the Saracen capture of the impor tantfortress of Lulon.

1But we may linger longer over the over

tures for peace which Theophilus addressed to the Caliph.

Defeated'

in a bat tle,in the autumn of A.D. 83 1 , the

Emperor wished for peace and from his camp he sent an

ecclesiastic with a letter to Mamun . The Caliph receivedhim in his camp,2 but on observing the superscription of the

letter, he returned it to the envoy saying I will not read hisle tter, which he begins with his own name . The ambassadorretraced his steps, and Theophilus was compelled to rewritehis epistle and place the name of the Caliph before his own.

The story may b e an insolent invention of the Saracens,

3but

it is certain that Mamun rejected the offers of Theophiluswho proposed to give him dinars and 7000 captives,if he would restore the fortresses which he had conquered and

conclude a peace for fi ve years. The time of the summercampaign

,however, had dr awn to a close, and Mamun retired

into his own territori es (September) .The capture of Lulon after a long siege was an important

success for the arms of Mamun. The value of this fortress,the key to the northern entrance of the Cilician Gates

,has

Emperor (of whom otherwise we donot hear) . Against Simeon is the

detailed notice of the family of Theodora in Cont. Th . 175, where the wi feof Theophob os is not mentioned .

1 The details are discussed in

Appendix VIII.2 Yakubi, 7 , designates the envoy

as a bishop . See below,AppendixVIII .3 It is possible, however, that the

Caliph was only insisting on a recognised c onvention. In the tenth cen

tury it was the officia l style of the

East Roman Chancery , in letters fromthe Emperor to the Caliph , to g ivethe Caliph ’s name prec edenc e on the

outside of the document, while theEmperor's name came first inside . Ifthis style was usual before the time of

Theophilus, his secretary committeda. breach of etiquette . l he forms ofaddress used in the tenth centurywere : outside

,7 93

“

Me‘

yahowper eardr q)

et’

weveard'r cp Ka i r epcfihér fl p (name )

r pwr oa vufi ovkcp Ka i otardxr opt n ov

Ayapnk d1ro (name) T OU m a'r ov a v

'

r o

Kpd‘

r opos Av‘

yova‘

r ov us‘

ydhov fi amhéwsPwua lwv. Inside : (name ) m ore; év

Xpw fl p 7 43 avr oxpdrwp Afi'

yova‘

r os

Myers Baa thevs'

Pw,ua£wv T ty ,

ueyaho

wper eordr q: k‘

rh . (as on outside) . Constantine, Cer . 686.

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256 EA S TERN ROMAN EM P IRE CHAP. vm

the successes of the three past years, had no wish to bring thewar to a close. H e looked forward, perhaps, to the en tiresubjugation of the Empire .

1But his days were numbered.

In the following summer he crossed the frontier? took somefortresses , and returned to Podandos

,where he was stricken

down by a fatal fever. He died on August 7 , A.D. 833, and

was buried at Tarsus.

5 . The Embassy of John the Grammarian and the Flight

of Manuel

I t was probably in the first months of his reign that theEmperor sent to the Caliph an embassy which made such an

impression on popular imagination that it has assumed a

more or less legendary character. The fact seems to b e, sofar as can b e made out from the perplexing evidence

,that

John the Synkellos, commonly known as the G rammarian,a

savant who, it may well b e, was acquainted with Arabic, wassent to Baghdad, to announce the accession of Theophilus.

3

He carried costly presents for the Caliph , and large sumsof money 4 for the purpose of impressing the Saracens byostentatious liberality. The imagination of the Greeks dweltcomplacently on the picture of an Imperial ambassadorastonishing the Eastern world by his luxury and magnificence,and all kinds of anec dotes concerning John’s doings at

Baghdad were invented . It was said that he scattered goldlike the sand of the sea, and bestowed rich gifts on anyonewho on any pretext visited him in his hostel.

An additional interest was attached to the embassy of

John the grammarian by the link, whether actual or fictitious,

which connected it with the adventures of a famous generalof the time, and this connection led Greek tradition to mi sdate the embassy to a later period in the reign . Manuel

,who

under Leo V. had been strategos of the Armeniac Theme, wasdistinguished for his personal prowess, and under Michael I I .

1 So Yakubi, 9 , who says he pur with new proposals of peace. See

posed to b esie e Amorion,and settle Masud i , Pra ir ies d ’

or, vii . 94 6, ed.

the Arabs of t e desert in the towns Barb ier de Meynard Vasi l cv ,

of the empire .

3 Cont Th . 95 preserves the truth .

2 While he was at Podandos, before This was first pointed out by Brooks .

he c rossed the frontier, an envoy of See Appendix VIII .

Theophilus is said to have arrived 4 Over Cont. Th . 96.

sac r v EM BASS Y OFJOHN THE GRA IVIM AR IAN 257

he had apparently again acted as str'

ategos, perhaps of the

same Theme. He was of Armenian descent,and the Empress

Theodora was h is brother’s daughter.

1 In the Saracen warhis boldness and determination saved the Emperor’s life . I t

was related that Theophilus, in a battle which he fought andlost (A.D . 830) against the forces of Mamun

, was hard pressedand sought safety among the Persian tr00ps 2

'

who formed theintention of handing over his person to the enemy and makingterms for themselves. Manuel, who knew their language

,

became aware of the contemplated treachery,rushed through

their ranks, and seizing the bridle of Theophilus dragged him,

angry and reluctant , from the danger which he did not suspect.The Emperor rewarded his saviour with such lavish marks of

favour that the jealousy of Petronas, the brother of the

Empress, was aroused. Theophilus was informed that Manuelwas aspiring to the throne, and he believed the accusation ,based perhaps on some unguarded words. Made aware of his

danger, Manuel crossed over to Pylae, and making use of the

Imperial post reached the Cilician frontier. He was joyfullywelcomed by the Saracens, and the Caliph, who was win teringin Syria, gladly accepted the services of his enemy ’s ablestgeneral.3 The countrymen of Manuel

,who were vainer of

his reputation for warlike prowess than they were indignantat his desertion to the Unbelievers, relate with complacencythat he performed great services for the Caliph against thesectaries of Babek and the rebellious population of Khurasan .

4

1 For his c areer see Cont. Th. 110

(his Armenian desc ent is also notedin Gen. For his relationship toTheodora, i b. 148, 0620: ar e 7ra

‘

rp6S.

Vasil ’ev (Index, and othersdistinguish two Manuels, but therec an in my opinion b e no questiontha t Manuel , the magister, who

played an important part after the

death of Theo philus,is the same as

the Manuel whom Theophilus createda magister . See Appendix VIII.

2 I have followed the briefer and

more intelligible version of Simeon

(Add . Georg. ed . Mur . ) so

Vasil ’ev, 86 . In Gen. 61 (fo llowedin Cont. Th. the incident is improved with details , and the dangeris heightened the Emperor is rescuednot from the Persians, but from the

Sarac ens themselves.

3 Simeon’

s acc ount of the c ircumstance (Add . Georg. 796) is superiorto Gen. and Cont. Th . The personwho brought the charge aga instManuel was Myron, L ogothete of the

Course , otherwise of no note in his

tory ; but he was the father-in-law of

Petronas,and it might therefore b e

c onj ectured that Petronas was behindth e attempt to ruin his unc le . The

fac t that Petronas was Manuel 'snephew does not militate aga instthis supposition.

4 See Cont. Th. 118 . I infer thatthis piec e was based on a good source ,from the mention of the Hur ramites

(Kopudr oc) . Th is was not a familiarname to the Greeks , and points to

spec ial information. Cp. also G en.

72 .

258 EAS TE RN ROMAN EM P IRE CHAP. vm

But in the meantime it had been proved to the Emperor thatthe charges against his general were untrue

,

1and he was

desirous to procure the return of one whose military talen t hecould ill afford to lose . I t is said that John the G rammarianundertook to obtain a secret interview with Manuel and conveyto him the Emperor’s assurance of pardon

,safety

,and honour,

if he would return to Constantinople ? The ambassadorexecuted this delicate mission successfully ; he carried an

Imperial letter with the golden seal,and the cross which

Theophilus wore on his breast ; 3 and Manuel, reassured bythese pledges, promised, at the first opportunity

, to return tohis own country. He accompanied the Caliph ’s son to invadethe Empire

,and succeeded in escaping somewhere near the

frontier ? Theophilus immediately conferred on him the postof Domestic of the Schools, and raised him from the rank of

a Patrician to that of a Magister.

5

The whole story has a basis in fact. There is no doubtthat Manuel fled to the Saracens, and afterwards returned.

And it is not improbable that John the Grammarian was

instrumental in communicating to him the assurances whichled to h is return . But if we accept the story, as it is told bythe Greek writers, we have to suppose that Manuel desertedfrom the Caliph in A.D.830,

and returned in A.D. 8 32 , and

therefore to date the embassy of John to the winter of

A.D. 83 1-2 . Such a conclusion involves us in severaldifficulties ; and the most probable solution of the problemappears to b e that Manuel fled from the Court not of

Theophilus, but of his father, and returned to Constantinople

1 Their falsehood was exposedby the eunuch . L co , protovestiarios

(Simeon, Add . Georg.

2 Simeon (Add. Georg. 796represents this mission as the primarypurpose of John’

s journey to Syria .

37 6V évvrrbypa¢ov 7057 01: m l 7 6 ¢v)\a

K‘

rbu 7 017 fiamhéws, Simeon ib . ( z ro

xpuaofi obkktou and To 7 06 B. éyxbhm ov

in Cont. Th . 119 [cp. G en. wherean anecdote is told of John’

s visitingManuel in the guise of a raggedpilgrim).

‘1 The versions vary both as to the

place and the circumstances. Simeon

(Add. Georg. says vaguely thatit was near the Anatolic Theme ;

Manuel managed to separate himselfand the Cali h ’

s son (Abbas) in a

hunting expedition from the rest ofthe party, kissed the princ e, andtook an affec ting leave of him.

According to Genesios, when the

Saracens attacked a place calledG eron, he went over to the Christiansand escaped into the town ; Ramsayplaces Geron between Germanic ia andMamb ij (Asia M inor, In Cont.

Th . 120, he is said to have arrangeda plan of escape with the stratégos of

Cappadoc ia . From Yakubi we learnthat in 830 Manuel was with Abbasat Resaina (cp. Appendix VIII.

5 Gen. 68, Cont. Th . 120.

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260 EA S TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE CHAP. vm

claim on the Caliph ’s forces,that it was obviously to -the

interest of Theophilus to make an effort to support it, whenit seemed likely to b e crushed. On grounds of policy

,it must

b e admitted that he was justified in reopening hostilities inA.D. 8 3 In choosing the direction of his attack he was

probably influenced by the hope of coming into touch withthe insurgents of Armenia and Adarb iyan

?

regions of the Upper Euphrates with a large army.

3

He invaded the

He

captured and burned the fortress of Zapetra, putting to

death the male population and carrying off the women and

children . He appeared before Melitene, threatening it withthe fate of Zapetra if it did not surrender. The chief men of

the place,however, induced him to spare it ; they came forth ,

offered him gifts,and restored to liberty Roman prisoners

who were in the town .

besieged and burned Ar samosata.

4

He crossed the Euphrates, and

But of all his achievements, the conquest of Zapetra was regarded by both the

Moslems and the Christians as the principal result of the

campaign .

5

The expedition of Theophilus into western Armeniadeserves particular notice, for, though the G reek writers

1 M ichael Syr. 88 (Ann. Sel. 1148

A .D . 836 Tabari and Yakubierroneously plac e this expedition in thefollowing year. A .D . 837 had alreadybeen adopted by Weil and Vasil ’ev.

2 Michael, ib . , says that he sent intoGreat Armenia, demanding tribute,and threatening to devastate it in

case of refusal. The tribute was paid .

3 Tabari, 29, says, according to some ; while others say thatthe fighting men exceeded

4 Michael, 89. (Yakubi and Baladhuri mention only Zapetra ; TabarimentionsMelitene also . ) Simeon (Add .

Georg. 798, vers. S lav. 96) names rfivr e Zd1re‘rpou [ca l 1 6 Eauoaa

‘

r ov,con

founding Arsamosata with Samosata .

That Arsamosata is meant is shownby Michae l ’s statement that the invaders entered Hanazit

,i . e. Anzitene .

The position of the town is discussedby G elzer in Georgius Cypr ius, 171-172 .

It lay on the road leading eastwardfrom Melitene to Aklat on Lake Vaneast of Kharput and near the left bankof the Murad -Chai (Arsanias ) . It

corresponds to the modern Shimshat.

Melitene was attacked when the

Emperor returned from the excursioninto Armenia . Cont. Th . is here wel linformed Zapetra is mentioned dM a s

r e 6150 r bkets5 Having taken Arsamosata the

Romans passed into Armenia and

ravaged there (M ichael , Thisprobably means Little Sophene, northof Anzitene and the Murad-Chai for

the Armenian historians relate that hetook the fort of Chozan (Stephen of

Taron, 108 Samuel of Ani, Forthe d istric t ofChozen, cp. Constantine,De adm . imp. 226 ; Gelzer, i b. 173 ;Adonts, Armeniia v epokhu I a siiniana

38, where the distinction b etween L ittle Sophene to the northwest, and Great Sophene to the southeast

,of Anzitene, is c learly explained .

Samuel (ib . ) sa 8 that, having takenZa etra , Theop ilus went to Armeniaan took Palin (a fort in Paline, wh ichlies east of Ghozan) , Mezkert (inSophene, on the Murad-Su) , and Ankl(in Dégik= Digisene, which lay b e

tween Sophene and Sophanene ) .

SECT . VI CAM PA I GN OF A .D . 83 7 261

betray no consciousness of this.

side of his policy, there is

some evidence that the situation in the Armenian highlandsand the Caucasian region constantly engaged his attentionand that his endeavours to strengthen the Empire on its

north - eastern frontier met with considerable success. In

A.D . 830 he had sent an expedition under Theophobos and

Bardas against Abasgia, which had proclaimed itself independent of the Empire, but this enterprise ended in failure.

l

He was more fortunate elsewhere. We may surmise that itis to the campaign of A.D . 837 that an Armenian historian ?

refers who narrates that Theophilus went to Pontic Chaldea,captured many Armenian prisoners, took tribute fromTheodosiopolis, and conferred the proconsular patriciate on

Ashot,its ruler.

3I t was probably in connexion wi th thi s

expedition that the Emperor separated eastern Pontus fromthe Armeniac province, and constituted it an independentTheme,4 under a strategos who resided at Trapezus. The

Theme of Chaldia reached southward to the Euphrates,included Keltzene and part of L ittle Sophene, while to the

north-east, on the Boas (Chorok-Su) , it embraced the districtof Sper.

5 It is at least evident that the Imperial conquestsof A.D . 83 7 in L ittle Armenia would have furnished a motivefor the creation of a new military province.

The triumph with which Theophilus celebrated the

devastation which he had wrought within the borders of

his fee was a repetition of the pageants and ceremonial

1 Cont. Th . 137.

2 Stephen of Taron, 107. Cp. Mar

q}1

l

1art, Streifzdge, 421 , who c onnec tsis notice with the d isastrous Abast

gian expedition of 830. But Theo

cp. above, p . 126. Stephen relatesthat in the same year Theophilus invaded Syria , took the town of Urpeli,and vanquished the Arabs at Almulat.Then turning eastward to Armenia he

philus did not acconipany that ex

pedition.

3 “ Ashot the son of Shapuh , pre

sumab ly the na hew of Ashot whofounded Kamak as the historianVardan records . See Marquart, ib.404. Stephen’

s Theodosiopolis mayb e Kamakh (in Daranalis) , not Er

zerum. The dignity bestowed on

Ashot is d escribed as the Consulate,i . e. the Patric iate apuhiupat

”

(ci-ire

br drwv) : thi s may mean the titleHypatos (patric iate being a mistakeof Stephen) or the proc onsular patric iate

,c’

wfi ér a '

r os Ka i wa rptmos, for which

took several fortresses in the region

of Gelam and made the“ Fourth

Armenia a waste deserted by men and

beasts ”4 For the evidenc e, see above, p. 223.

5 Constantine, Themes , 30. He de

scribes the inland parts of Chaldia as

1rpooz'

,u.ta of L ittle Armenia

,and men

tions Keltzene (for which see above,

p . t pl'

rns, Which I suppose tomean Sper or Sber

,and To I

‘

ozfdvou,which I take to b e Chozan in Sophene.

Note that Stephen of Taron,loe. ci t. ,

says that Theophilus left Ashot in thed istric t of Sper.

EA S TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE262 CHAP. V111

which had attended his return , six years before, from the

achievement of similar though less destructive victories.

Troops of children with garlands of flowers went out to

meet the Emperor as he entered the capital.1 In the

Hippodrome he competed himself in the first race ,driving

a white chariot and in the costume of a Blue charioteer and

when he was crowned as winner, the spectators greeted himwith the allusive cry,

“Welcome, incomparable champion 1 2

In the autumn of the same year, Babek was at lastcaptured and executed,3 and the Caliph Mutasim was free 4

to prepare a scheme of revenge for the destruction of Zapetra

and the barbarities which had been committed.

5 He resolvedto deal a crushing blow which would appear as a specialinsult and injury to the present wearer of the Imperial crown .

Amorion was the original home of the family of Theophilus,

6

and he resolved that it should b e blotted out from the numberof inhabited cities. But apart from this consideration , whichmay have stimulated his purpose, the choice of Amorion wasnatural on account of its importance. The Saracens consideredits capture the great step to an advance on Constantinople.

In the seventh cen tury they took it, but only for a momen t ;in the eighth they attempted it three times in vain .

7 In the

year of his death, Mamun is said to have intended to b esiege it.

sAn Arabic chronicler describes it as the eye of

1 Constantine, wept m g. 508. The

triumph is a lso mentioned in one textof the Acta 42 Afart. Amor . (40

2 Simeon (Add . Georg. ) 799 xakc’

bs

fihfi es, der by /(pin qbaxn ovdpn.

3 Michael Syr. 90 ; he fl ed to Ar

meni a, on his way to the Empire, and

was betrayed by “a patrician named

Stephanos ,” in whose house he founda lodging . Cp. Weil . ii. 301 .

4 M ichael , 89 , records some minorhostilities of Mutasim in the winterof 837-838.

5 That these barbarities were chieflyc ommitted by the orientals who hadj oined Theophilus (cp. We i l

, ii . 310)may possibly b e inferred from an in

c idental remark of Michael Syr. 96“ Nasr who had devastated Zapetra,b ut this may relate to an ac t duringNast

’

s earl ier rebellion. Masudi saysthat Theophilus had with him Burjans,Bulgarians, and Slavs From

the same writer we learn that a c er

tain Ibrahim dec laimed a poem beforethe Caliph, exc iting him to revenge.

6 Greek writers say that the reg ionof Zapetra was the home of the an

c estors of the reigning Caliph . Thisis stated in Gen. 64

, Cont. Th . 124 .

Simeon (Add . Georg. 798) ascribesthis honour to Eaaoo

'

ar ou. A workc omposed soon after A .D . 845 (Acta 42Mart. Amer . 40) leaves it open :

weptgba veis Woke“ {V011 K‘

rk. Thereseems to b e no foundation for this ;the motive of the myth was to balanc ethe destruction of the cradle of the

Emperor by that of the cradle of the

Caliph . Cp. Vasil’

ev, 116 . Nikitin(Acta citt. 191) attempts an explanation of the fable. Apart from its

c onnexion with the reigning dynasty,the selection of Amorion c an b e ex

plained by its importanc e.

7 Theo h . 351, 386, 452, 470.

8 See a ove, p. 256.

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264 EA S TE RN R OMAN EM P IRE C HAP . v 111

probably near Zoropassos, where there was a bridge. He

calculated that the enemy would march from the CilicianGates to Ancyra by the most direct road, which from Soandos

to Parnassos followed the course of the river,and he hoped

to attack them on the flank.

1The Caliph ’s western army

advanced northward from Tyana in two divisions, and Ashnas,who was in front, was already near the Halys before the

Emperor’s proximity was suspected . The Caliph ordered a

halt till the position and movements of the Romans should b ediscovered . But in the meantime Theophilus had been informed of the advance of the eastern army, and the newsdisconcerted his plans. He was now obliged to divide his

forces. Taking , probably, the greater portion with him,

2he

marched himself to oppose Afshin,and left the rest, under the

command of a kinsman , to check or harass the progress of the

Caliph . Afshin had already passed Sebastea (Sivas) , and was

in the district of Dazimon, when he was forced to give battleto the Emperor.

3 Dazimon,the modern Tokat, commands the

great eastern road from Constantinople to Sebastea,at the

point where another road runs northward to Neo-Caesarea .

The town lies at the foot of a hill, at one extremity of whichthe ruins of the ancient fortress are still to b e seen .

4 Situatednear the southern bank of the Iris, it marks the eastern end

of a fertile plain stretching to Gaziura (now Turkhal) , whichin the ancien t and middle ages was known as Dazimonitis ;the Turks call it Kaz -Ova. It was probably in this plainthat the Saracens encamped.

5The Emperor, who may have

1 For details of the march of

Mutasim and Ashnas, see Bury,

Mutasim’

s March . Tab ari’

s accountof the campaign is fuller than anyother.

2(Michae l Syr. 95 , who

gives no topographical ind ications) .Afshin is evidently meant by Simeon

’

s

curious Sudeé (Sundei, eers. S lav. 97r outes, Add . Georg. ed.

‘

Mur. 712 ;Eov8éu, Leo Gr.

3 G en. 67 of (the Saracen commanders) xard rowAafcpé va aw fixfinaavarpar or ebeuodyevor. Tab arl 8 date (45 )for the battle, July 22, can hardlyb e right . A longer time must surelyhave elapsed before the beginning of

the siev e of Amorion (Aug . More

over, ’Fabari refutes himself. His date

is “ Thursday, Shaban 25 . But

Shaban 25 = July 22 fel l on Monday.

4 For the plain of Daz imon, whichseems to have been once part of an

Imperial estate, see Anderson, Stud.

J’ont. i. 68 ; for Tokat itself and thefortress , Cumont, ib. ii. 240-243 .

5 Afshin had been reinforc ed by theforces of Armenia led by Bagarat,lord (ishkhan) of Vas urakan, the“ princ e of rinc es . his title wasrendered in reek by dpxwu raw dpxéu

r a w (Constantine, Cer . Genesios

has split him into two persons (67)01131 00 7 0 17 apx. dpx. Ka i 7 017 Bea r apa

xavlr ov (I am not quite sure whetherMarquart fol lows him, op. cit.

Cont. Th . 127 rightly mentions onlyone person. Bagarat was a son of

265sac r . v i CAM PAI GN OF A .D . 83 8

arrived on the scene by way of Zela and Gaziura , halted nearAnzén

,a high hill

,from whose summi t the position of the

enemy could be seen . This hill has not been identified ; wemay perhaps guess, provisionally, that it will be discovered to

the south of the plain of Dazimonitis.

1The fortune of the

ensuing battle at first went well for the Greeks,who defeated

the enemy,on one wing at least, with great loss ;

°

but a heavyshower of rain descended , and the sudden disappearance of the

Emperor,who at the head of 2000 men had ridden round to

reinforce the other wing of his army,gave rise, in the over

hanging gloom,to the rumour that he was slain . The Romans

,

in consternation, turned and fled,and

,when the sun emerged

from the darkness, the Emperor with his band was surroundedby the troops of Afshin. They held the enemy at bay, untilthe . Saracen general brought up siege-catapul ts to bombardthem with stones ; then they fought their way, desperatelyb ut successfully, through the hostile ring ?

The Emperor, with his handful of followers, fled northwestward to Chiliokomon,

the plain of a thousand villages(now Sulu-Ova) ,

3and then , returning to his camp on the

Halys, found to his dismay that his kinsman had allowed, orbeen unable to forbid, many of the troops to disperse to their

Ashot (ob. on whom the Caliphhad conferred the government of

Iberia . Leo V . bestowed on him the

title curopa la tes (frequently conferredon the Iberi an princ es) , and in A .D .

820 he besought Leo ’

s help against arebel. (Cp. Marquart, i b .

Bagarat was also lord of Taron (thedistric t west of Lake Van and northof Arzanene, from whi ch it is separ~

ated by the Antitaurus. Vaspura

kan is east and north-east of Lake

companions because their bow -stringswere wet ; this . in turn, explains theemployment of stone-hurlingmachinesmentioned by Michael. Ac cording toTabari who rofesses to givethe evidenc e of a Christian captivepresent at the battle . the fortune of

the day was retrieved by the Sarac encava lry. It may b e suspected thatthe discomfi ture of the Romans

,

whether by archers or c avalry or both,oc curred on that wing which the

Van) .1 Anzén recurs in a later battle in

the same region ; see below, p . 282,for the topographical data .

2 I have followed the account of

Michael Syr . 95 . Genesios (68) agreesa s to the first suc c ess of the Romans

,

b ut attributes their flight to the

archery of the Turks . He desc ribesthe surround ing of Theophilus, withwhom were Manuel, the Persians, and

the c ommanders of the Tagmatic

troops . He also mentions the rain

and explains that the Turkish archersc ould not shoot at Theophilus and his

Emperor with hi s 2000 rode round toreinforce . Gen. 68-69 (Cont. Th . 128)relates that Theophilus was rescuedby Manuel from the c ontemplatedtreachery of his Persian regiments .

The story is highly suspic ious (cp.

Hirsch, as it was also told , withlittle variation, of a ba ttle in A .D . 830

(above , p. But the li fe of

Theophilus w as c ertainly in danger,as we know from M ichael . Accord ingto Masudi havino lost many of

h is offi c ers, he owed is life to the

protec tion of Nasr.

3 See Cumont, op. cit. 1 44.

266 EA S TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE CHAP . V111

various sta tions. Having punished the commander for his

weakness,and sent orders that the soldiers who had left the

camp should b e beaten with stripes,he dispatched a eunuch 1

to Ancyra, to provide, if there were still time, for the defenceof that city. But it was too late ; for the western army of

the invaders was already there ? Ancyra ought to haveoffered resistance to a foe. Its fortifica tions were probablystrengthened by Nieephorus I

?But the inhabitants,

thoroughly alarmed by the tidings of the victory of Afshin,

deserted the city and fled in to the mountains, where they weresought out by Ashnas and easily defeated. Thus the town fellwithout a blow into the hands of the destroyer.

4The Emperor,

at this crisis, did not disdain to humble himself before the

Caliph . He sent an embassy,imploring peace, and offering to

rebuild the fortress of Zapetra , to release all the captives whowere in his hands

,and to surrender those men who had com

mitted cruel outrages in the Zapetra campaign . The overtureswere rejected, with contempt and taunts, by the Caliph ,5 andTheophilus betook himself to Dorylaion

6to await the fate of

1 Doubtless TheodorosKrateros, one [I read wéuflet,Boeckh wen/Get. H e

of the Amorian martyrs , who, as

Nikitin conjectures , may have beenstrategos of the Bukellarian Theme(Acta 42 Mart. Amor .

2 It had marched northward b the

route west of the B elys (see a ove,

p. M ichae l Syr. 95 records thatMutasim found Nyssa , wh ich lay on

his road,deserted

,and destroyed its

walls .

3 Theoph . 481. In 806 Harun

marched within sight of the c ity (i b.It is generally said that the

walls were restored by M ichael II.(so Vasil

’

ev , But the inscriptions on which th is statement is based

iv. 8794, 8795 , pp. 365-366)have

,I think , been wrongly inter

preted. The second (consisting of

fifteen iambic trimeters) tells how

MichaelM cxahh 6 bea r o

‘ms

M7 01? flao thei‘

zs V[1xnr ]1‘

79 a r e¢n¢6pos

has raised Ancyra from her ruins.

The document beginswévfiez ¢0apei<ra m l < 1ch1>0621m 1rp[bs

1ré6q1

x]ep0'2v é[

wdhat,11 1311 [due'yktpou 7 6311 xaxd

’

w

[éx]

reads exepoy r ats in line 2 , but the

traces do not point to this . ] Now ,as

no destruction of Ancyra is recordedbetween A . D . 805 (the restoration of

Nicephorus) and A .D . 829, Michael II .

c annot he meant. The storm mustrefer to the event of 838, and the

restoration must belong to the reign

of M ichael III. Moreover, in the caseof Michae l II . (exc ept in the fir st fi vemonths of his reign), Theo hiluswould have been assoc iated wit himin such an inscription. The fac t thatM ichael III . is named alone, withoutTheodora, oints to a date after A .D .

856, and t is is c onfirmed by 1rd)\a1.

The other inscription (ten iambic trimeters) , though it does not mentionthe disaster

,is evidently of the same

date, and, as Boeckh thinks, probablyby the same (local) poet. ”

4 A poet,Husain, sang in honour

of Mutasim :“ Of Ancyra thou didst

s are nought, and thou didst demolisht 0 great Amorion.

”Ibn Khur

dadhb ah, 101, 74 ; ,

Vasil’

ev, 129, n. 2.

5 Yakubi,9 ; Gen. 64.

6 Michael Syr. 95 relates that a

report was spread in Cons tantinoplethat the Emperor was slain in the

battle with Afshin, that a plot was

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268 EA S TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE CHAP. V111

before, the Emperor, riding round the city,had observed

that in one place the wall was dilapidated, and had orderedthe commander of the garrison to see that it was repaired.

The officer delayed the execution of the command,until,

hearing that Theophilus was marching from Constantinopleto take the field against the Saracens, he hastily filled up

the breach with stones and made the place, to outward view,

indistinguishable from the rest of the wall. This speciousspot, well known to the inhabitants

,was revealed to the

enemy by a traitor who is said to have been a Mohammadancaptive converted to Christianity.

1The Caliph directed his

engines against the place, and after a bombardment of two

days 2 the wall gave way and a breach was made. Aetius

immediately dispatched a letter to the Emperor,communi

cating to him what had befallen, explaining the hopelessnessof further defence, and announcing that he intended to leavethe city at night and attempt to escape through the enemy’slines. The letter was entrusted to two messengers, one of

whom spoke Arabic fluently. When they crossed the ditch ,they fell into the hands of some Saracen soldiers, and

pretended to b e in the Caliph ’s service . But as they did notknow the names of the generals or the regiments they weresuspected as spies, and sent to the Caliph ’s tent, where theywere searched and the letter was discovered .

The Caliph took every precaution to frustrate the intentions of escape which the intercepted letter disclosed. Tr00psof cavalry sat all night in full armour on their horseswatching the gates. But it was easier to hinder escapethan to take the city. The breadth of the ditch and the

height of the walls rendered it difficul t to operate effectivelywith siege - engines, and the usual devices of raising the

ballistae on platforms and filling up the ditch were triedwithout success. But the breach in the wall was gradually

1 There were two ac ts of treachery treachery , Nikitin (A cta citt. 194)during the siege. This first ac t (not infers that Manikophagos was the

mentioned by Michael Syr. ) is related name of the first traitor. Cont. Th .

by Tabari who is supported in ascribes both ac ts to Boiditzes.

one of the Acta 42 M art. (12 1'

11r6 2 M ichael Syr. 98. There had

rwwv by Cont. Th . already been fighting for three days130, and Simeon, who speaks of two and before this some days musttraitors, Boiditzes and Manikophagos have been occupied by the c onstruc

(Add. Georg. As Boiditzes per tion of the Saracen entrenchment (ib.petrated the later and decisive ac t of

SECT . VI CAM PA I GN OF A .D . 838 269

widening, and the Greek officer to whom that section of the

defence was entrusted despaired of being able to hold out.

The Arabic historian, to whom we owe our informationconcerning the details of the siege

,sta tes— what seems almost

incredible— that Aetius refused to furnish additional forcesfor the defence of the dangerous spot

,on the ground tha t

it was the business of each captain and of no one else to

provide for the safety of his own allo tted section . But he

saw that there was little h ope, and he sent an embassy toM utasim,

offering to capitulate on condi tion that the in

habitants should b e allowed to depart in safety. The envoyswere the bishop of Amorion and three ofli c ers

,of whom one

was the captain of the weak section of the walls. H is namewas Boiditzes.

1The Caliph required unconditional surrender

,

and the ambassadors returned to the city. But Boiditzes

went back to M utasim’

s ten t by himself and offered to be traythe breach . The interview was protracted, and in the

meantime the Saracens gradually advanced towards the wall,till they were close to the breach . The defenders, inobedience to the strict orders of their officer to abstain fromhostili ties till his return , did not shoot or attemp t to opposethem, but only made signs that they shoul d come no farther.

At this juncture, Mutasim and Boiditzes issued from the

pavilion , and at the same moment , at a signal from one of

M utasim’

s officers, the Saracens rushed into Amorion . The

G reek traitor, dismayed at this perfi dious practice, clutchingh is beard, upbraided the Caliph for h is breach of faith

,

but the Caliph reassured him that all he wished would behl s

?

A part of the unfortunateSimeon and Cont. Th . ,

loco. citt. ; Barbour, Euodios (Acta71 Vendu, Tabari, 41, who explainsthe name as meaning a steer Bodin,

M ichael Syr. 98. Genesio s, 65 , doesnot give the name

,b ut says that h e

derived a nickname from an ox, on

ac count of some quarrel between the

Jews and Christians .

2 The Greek sourc es do not explainhow the traitor communicated withthe enemy ; in Tabari he goes alone

to Mutasim. Michael Syr. 98 giveswhat is ev idently the true ac countas to the embassy , but he implies that

population sought refuge in

Boiditzes returned to the c ity by h '

self and signal led from the wal ls to

the besiegers that he had wi thdrawnthe defenders. This is inc omprehensib le, for it was c lear to his fel lowenvoys that he meant treachery, andif he had returned to the Ci ty hewould have beenarrested, unless Ac tinswas in the p lot (which there is no

good ground for suspec ting) . I havetherefore here fo l lowed the narrativeof Tabari. But the deta ils are veryunc ertain. Mutasim gave the traitor

darics (M ichael,

EA S TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE CHAP. V111270

a large church , in which after an obstinate resistance theyperished by fi re ? The walls were rased to the ground and

the place left desolate ; and the Caliph, finding that theEmperor was not preparing to take the field, slowly returnedto his own country, with thousands of captives ? The fateof these Amorians was unhappy. The land was sufferingfrom drought ; the Saracens were unable to procure water,and some of the prisoners, exhausted by thirst, refused to gofarther . These were at once dispatched by the sword ; butas the army advanced, and the need grew more urgent, theCaliph gave orders that only the more distinguished captivesshould b e retained ; the rest were taken aside and slaughtered ?

The siege of Amorion had lasted for nearly two weeks.

4

But for the culpable neglect of the officer responsible for theintegrity of the walls and the treachery which revealed the“

weak spot to the besiegers, the city could probably havedefied all the skill and audacity of the enemy. Its fall seemsto have made a deep impression on both Moslems and

Christians,5 and popular imagination was soon busy with the

treachery which had brought about the catastrophe . The

name of the culprit, Boiditzes, is derived from boidion,an ox ;

and, according to one story, he wrote a letter to the Saracensbidding them direct their attack close to the tower, wherethey saw a marble lion carved on the face and a stone ox

(bo'

idion) above? The ox and the lion may have been there ;

b ut if the ox was a coincidence, the lion furnished a motive to1 M ichael , 99 ; Tabari, 42 ; cp. Aeta judgments of God. Many captives

42 Mart. 44 Skylitzes (Cedr. ) ii. 136.

2 Masudi, 68, says that werekilled in Amorion. If there is anyfoundation for the number it mayrepresent the total of the inhabitants,mi litary and c ivil . Euodios (Acta

citt. 67 ) gives the ridiculous figure of

more than for the soldiersalone ; this would represent nearlythe whole Asiatic army. But the

number was large, for after the

massacres the captives were so numer

ous that at the distribution of the

spoilMutasim slew 4000. See M ichaelSyr . 100. Th is writer relates (99 )that more than a 1000 nuns who

survived the massacre were deliveredto the outrages o f the Turkish and

Moorish slaves,and cur iousl adds :

glory to the incompre ensib le

were sold to slave - dealers , but theparents were not separated from theirchi ldren3 Tabari, mentions Badi-’lJaur as the region where the captiveswere slain. It evidently means the

plain of Pankaleia, the wide desertplain to the east of Amorion (Ramsa

Asia Al inor,

for in one of t e

older Acta 42 Mart. (44) Pankallia

is named as the scene of these events .

4 See above, p. 267 , n. 1 .

5 Op. Michael Syr . 100.

6 Cont. Th . 130 [30131011 duwfiev

Mfiwov 21510061: 66‘ Xéwu (3K pap/14pm) éc/J

lav-arm. Vasil ’ev has an append ix onthe name of the traitor (150 but

does not observe the significanc e o f

this passage.

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272 EAS TE RN ROM AN EM P IRE CHAP . V11

Amorion , established as stars in the holy fi rmament of the

Church ,” 1inspired some of the latest efforts of declining G reek

hymnography ?

The fact that a number of distinguished captives, who hadbeen carried from Amorion to the Tigris, were executed byM utasim

’

s successor admits of no doubt. But it would b erash to consider it merely an act of religious intolerance. W e

may rather suppose it to have been dictated by the motiveof extorting large ransoms for prisoners of distinction. The

Caliphs probably hoped to receive an immense sum for the

release of the Amorian officers, and it was adroit policy toapply pressure by intimating that, unless they were ransomed

,

they could only purchase their lives by infidelity to theirreligion ? The Emperor, immediately after the catastrophe,had indeed made an attempt to redeem the prisoners. He

sent Basil, the governor of the Charsian frontier district,

4

bearing gifts and an apologetic letter to the Caliph,in which

the Emperor regretted the destruction of Zapetra,demanded

the surrender of Aetius, and offered to liberate his Saracencaptives. He also gave Basil a second let ter of menacingtenor

,to b e delivered in case the terms were rejected.

Mutasim,when he had read the first, demanded the surrender

of Manuel the patrician , whose desertion he had not forgiven,

and Nasr the apostate. The envoy replied that this was

impossible, and presented the second missive. M utasim

angrily flung back the gifts.

5

1 I b. 79

dar e‘pes 46117 01

év o'

errrq'

i c repeufi

par t

7 139 élcxh'

qa la s.

2 Krumb acher, Die Erza'

hlungen,

944-952.

3 In support of this View,it may b e

urged that they were detained sevenyears before they were put to death .

Compare the case of the patrician forwhom Michael III. paid a ransom of

1000 captives in A.D . 860. See below,

p. 281 .

4 M ichael Syr. 96 calls Basil the

patric ian ofKarshena . But Charsianon

at this time was only a kleisurarchy

(see above,p. and Basil could

not have had patric ian rank .

5 So Michael, ib. (Bar-Heb raeus,

Genesios , 66, knows nothing of theletters (which , as Vasil

’

ev suggests,may b e an anecdote) , but says thatTheophilus offered him lb s. of

gold The Caliph dis

dained this large sum, remarking thatthe expedition had cost himbut in Cont. Th . 131 his reply isdifferent, and again in Pseudo-Simeon,639 . The figures for the offer ofTheoph ilus d i ffer in different texts.

Cont. Th . and Pseudo-Simeon agreewith Genesios ; Skylitzes (Cedrenus,11. 137 ; eers. Ga bii 22 verso ; cp.

Zoneras, xv. 29, 19 ) says only 2400.

This d iscrepancy is noteworthy (notremarked by Hirsch) ; and the smal lsum

, derived by Skylitzes from some

unknown source, looks as if it mightb e right. The words of G en. 0 131: a

’

éKa ‘

r ovr ddwv are not clear .

SECT . VI I SARA CEN WAR A .D . 839-847 273

7 . The Warfare of A.D. 83 9 -8 67

The disastrous events of the invasion of Mutasim,along

with the steady advance of the African Moslems in the islandof Sicily , not to speak of the constant injuries which the Arabsof Crete inflicted on the Empire, convinced Theophilus thatthe Empire was unable to cope alone with the growingpower of Islam in the Mediterranean , and he decided to

seek the alliance and cc -operation of other powers. He

sen t an embassy,which included a bishop and a patrician ,

to the Western Emperor, Lewis the Pious, asking him to senda powerful armament, perhaps to attack Syria or Egypt, inorder to divert or divide the forces of the Caliph ? The

envoys were welcomed and honourably entertained at Ingelheim(June 1 7 , but the embassy led to no result ? Equallyfruitless was the attempt to induce the ruler of Spain, Abd arRahman I I . , to co-operate with the Empire against his rivalthe Eastern Caliph . Spain was in such a disturbed state at

this time that it was impossible for him to undertake a distantexpedition beyond the seas. H is good-will was unreserved ,and in reply to the Imperial Embassy he sent to Constantinoplehis friend the poet Yahya al-Ghazzal with promises to di spatcha fleet as soon as internal troubles permitted him ? But thosetroubles continued

,and the fleet never sailed.

Meanwhile the fall of Amorion had led to no new

permanent encroachment on Roman territory. The Emir of

Syria raided the Empire more than once with little success?and in A.D . 84 1 the Imperial forces took Adata and Marash ,and occupied part of the territory of Melitene.

5I t was

1 Gen. 72 xu'

ipwv r e xa l wbkewv rwds

Eapaxnmm'

bu 7 63V w aft; Arfi éns Ka i

Kar ahnfaaaea t. If’

A0'la. means

Asia M inor , th is points to Syria . If

L ibya means the rea lm of the Fatimidsand Idrisids , it may point to Egypt .The chief envoy was the patric ianTheodosius Babutz ikos, ac c ording to

Genesios but Prudentius (Ami . B er t.19 ) states that the envoys were Theodosius, bishop ofChalc edon,

and Theophanes

,a spatharios . Theodosius the

patric ian had been sent at an earlier

date to Venice,

and seems to haveproc eeded direc t from there to Iugelheim. Cp. Vasil

’

ev,146.

2 Ann. B er t. , ib.

3 Makkari (i i . 1 15 ) says that Yahyasucceeded in forming an alliance b e

tween the two sovrans .

4 The first raid of Ab u Said,governor of Syria and Mesopotamia ,

was perhaps in the last months of

A . D . 838 ; he was opposed by Nasr,

who lost his life . The next recordedwere in A .D . 840-841 (M ichael Syr . 96

InA .D . 838 839,Mamun’

s nephewAbbas entered into treasonable c ommunication with Theoph i lus. The in

trigue was disc overed , and he perishedby torture and hunger (ib .

5 l b . 102.

EAS TERN,R OMAN EM P IRE CHAP . V111274

perhaps in the previous year that a Roman fleet appeared off

the coast of Syria and pillaged the port of An tioch ? Thesesuccesses inclined Mutasim to b e

,

gracious, when Theophilusagain proposed an exchange of captives, and he displayedinsolent generosity.

“We,”he said, “ cannot compare the

values of Moslems and Christians, for God esteems those morethan these. But if you restore me the Sarac ens without asking for anything in return, we can give you twice as manyRomans and thus surpass you in everything.

”Actins and his

fellows were not included in the exchange, but a truce was

concluded (A.D.

I t was only a truce,for Mutasim cherished the illusory

hope of subjugating the Empire. He revived the ambitiousdesigns of the Omayyad Caliphs, and resolved to attack Constantinople. The naval establishment had been suffered to

decay under the Abbasids, and, as a powerful fleet was ln

dispensable for any enterprise against the city of the

Bosphorus, some years were required for preparation . The

armament was not ready to sail till the year 842, when 400dromonds sailed from the ports of Syria . M utasim, who diedin the same month as Theophilus

,did not live to witness

the disaster which befell his fleet. I t was wrecked on the

dangerous Chelidonian islets off the south-eastern cape of the

coast ; only seven vessels escaped destruction .

3

Mutasim’

s unpopular successor, Wathik, was throughouthis short reign (842-847) so embarrassed by domestic troubles— religious strife

,risings in Damascus and Arabia, discontent

in Baghdad— that he was unable to prosecute the Holy War?

1 Michael Syr. 101. No prec ise dateis iven we have only the limits, 838an 841 .

3 l b. 102.

against them, at Mauropotamon.

Vasil’

ev (155 ) supposes that the KaraSu, a tributary of the Halys, north ofMount Argaios , the M 61 01: of Strabo,

3 George Mon. 801 (copied in Vit.

Theodorae, Schlosser (556 n. )thinks that this was an expedition of

the M oslems of Crete . But in thatcase it would not have been wreckedoff Cape Hiera (Selidan-Burnu) , whichis far away from the course to Con

stantinople. The commanderwas AbuDinar4 There seems to have been only

one campaign, viz . in A .D . 843 or

844 (Simeon, Add . Georg. TheSaracens invaded Cappadocia anddefeated Theoktistos, who was sent

is the Mauropotamos here meant’.The weight, however, ofMS. authorityis in favour of To Ma vporrbr aaov, a

place (of c ourse on a river) , not 6

M avporrbr aaos, a river. Cp. de Boor,i b . n. 1. Theoktistos was also unluckyin an expedition, by sea, against theAb asgians ; the fleet was wrecked .

Cont. Th. 203. From this passage itwould appear that the date was priorto the Cretanexpedition, which Simeon(Cont. Georg. ) 814 puts in spring A.D .

843. Acc . to Cont. Th. there weretwo solar eclipses before the Abasgian

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276 EAS TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE CHAP. V111

Two bridges were thrown across the river, and at the samemoment at which a Christian passed over one

,a Mohammadan

traversed the o ther in the opposite direction . But the un

fortunate Mohammadans were subjected to a religious test .The Caliph had appoin ted a commission to examine the

theological opinions of the captives. Himself an adherent,

like Mamun and Mutasim,of the pseudo-rationalistic school

which denied the eternity of the Koran and the visibleepiphany of Allah in a future life

,he commanded that only

those should b e redeemed who denounced or renounced thesedoctrines. Many refused to sacrifice their convictions, and

the application of the test was probably not very strict. The

exchange was carried out in four days, and more than 4000Saracens were redeemed, including women and children

,as

well as Zimmi , that is, Christian or Jewish subjects of the

Caliph ?

Between the religious bigotry of rulers of Islam likeWathik and M utawakkil and that of Christian sovrans likeTheophilus and Theodora there was little to choose. For

the persecution of the Paul icians, which must b e regardedas one of the greatest political disasters of the ninth century

,

Theophilus as well as Theodora was responsible,though the

crime,or rather the glory, is commonly ascribed entirely to

her. This sect, widely diffused throughout As ia Minor, fromPhrygia and Lycaonia to Armenia,

had lived in peace underthe wise and sympathetic iconoclasts of the eighth century.

They have been described as the left wing of the iconoclasts 2

their doctrines— they rejected images, pictures, crosses, as

idolatrous— had undoubtedly a great influence on the generation of the iconoclastic movement ; it has even been supposed1 Hostil ities were resumed in A .D .

851. In that year, and the two following, Saracen raids are recorded . In

855 the Greeks attacked Anazarbosin northern C ilic ia , and took c aptivethe Zetts or Gipsies who had beensettled there sinc e A . D . 835 . The

Caliph Muawia had settled in Syriathese emigrants from Ind ia . Walidand Yazid II. assigned them settlements at Antioch and Mopsuestia .

In the ninth c entury the Zetts behavedas if they were an independent people ,and were suppressed with difficultyby Uj aif. They were then moved to

Anazarbos . D. MacRitchie’

s Account

of the Gypsies of Ind ia (London, 1886)c ontains a trans lation of an artic le byDe G oej e on the h istory of the G ipsies(publi shed in the M emoirs of the

Amsterdam Academy of Sciences,See also Bataillard, Sur les

origines des Bohemiens ou Tsiganes

(Paris, Vasil'

ev, 177-178.

2 Conyb eare , Key of Truth, evi. ForSerg ius the leader, who was active inpropagating Paulic ianism in the firstquarter o f the ninth c entury, see ih.lxviii. , lxix.

P E RSE CUTION OF PA UL I CIAN Ssecr . V11 277

that Constantine V. was at heart a Paulician? We saw how

they had been favoured by Nic ephorus, and how Michael I .

was stirred up by the ecclesiastics to institute a persecution .

Michael committed the execution of his decree in Phrygia and

Lycaonia to Leo the Armenian,as stratégos of the Ana tolic

Theme ; 2 while the suppression of the heresy in Cappadociaand Pontus was enjoined on two ecclesiastics, the exarch or

visitor of the Patriarchal monasteries in those parts,and the

bishop of Nc c -Caesarea?

The evidence leaves us in doubtwhether Leo

,when he came to the throne

,pursued the policy

of which he had been the instrumen t . D id the reviver of

iconoclasm so far desert the principles of his exemplar,

Constantine V.,as to pursue the Paul icians ? I t is not in

credible that he may have adopted this course, if it were onlyto di ssociate himself from a sec t which the Church maliciouslyor ignorantly branded as Manichaean ; for it is certain thatthe Paulicians were persecuted by Theophilus ? I t was eitherin the reign of Theophilus or during the earlier persecutionthat Karb eas, a Paulician who held an office under the generalof the Anatolic Theme

,led 5000 men of his faith to the

region beyond Cappadocia ,and placed himself under the pro

tection of the Emir of Melitene. H e is said to have beenmoved to this flight by the news that his father had beenhanged ? I t is probable that there were already Paulicians in1 Conyb eare, i b . cxvi. sqq.

2 Theoph . 495 . Photius (0. Man. 0.

24= Peter Sic . 52 ) says that M ichaeland L eo his suc cessor sent to all partsof the Empire and put heretics todeath . This naturally implies thatL eo persecuted as Emperor ; but wec annot b e c ertain, for the statementmay have arisen from the fact thatL eo was assoc iated with Michael ’spersecution.

3 Photius, ib . Parakondakes , the

exarch,was, of course , not the Patri

archa l exarch , b ut a provinc ial inspec tor (cp. Ducange , s . v . é‘fapxos) .Afterwards some Paul ic ian killed him,

and the bishop was slain by the

Kynoc horitae (the position of Kyneschora, a Pauli cian stronghold, is

unknown) .4 We have an inc idental proof ofthis in the Vita Macar ii

, 159 .

Makarios, abbot of Pelekete (cp. above,p . 139, n. thrown into prison by

Theoph ilus,meets there some Pauli

anasts or Mani chaeans condemned todeath . And it is suggested by the evidence relating to Karb eas see nextnote .

5 Cont. Th. 166 . It c an now b e

shown that there is a grave chronologic al error in the acc ount of thiswriter. The flight of Karb eas is

represented as a c onsequenc e of the

persecution ofTheodora . But a document dating from A .D . 845-846 (A cta

fli art. Amer . I‘

29 ) shows that at theend of the reign of Theophilus, or immediately after, Karb eas and his peoplewere already settled in the Eas t underSarac en protec tion. We learn therethat Kallistos, appointed by Theophilus governor of the d istric t of

Koloneia (Kara-hissar), tried to convertsome ofhis offic ers whowere Pauli cians.They betrayed him to the Paulic iansof Karb eas (r oi

’

s 1'

17ré 7 17V éEova la V 7 0 17

rptrdkavosKapfiéa r ehofiat— drroo r dr a ts).

278 EAS TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE : CHAP. V111

the districts north and west of Melitene ; 1 new fugitivescontinually arrived ; and in their three principal cities,Argafi s, Tephrike, and Amara,

2 these martial heretics proved a

formidable enemy to the State of which their hardy valourhad hitherto been a valuable defence.

Seeing that even iconoclasts sought to suppress a religionwith which they had important points in common , the

Paulicians could expect little mercy after the triumph of

image-worship. I t was a foregone conclusion that Theodora,

under the influence of orthodox ecclesiastical advisers,would

pursue her husband’s policy with more insistent zeal,and

endeavour to extirpate the “Manichaean ” abomination . A

flat went forth that the Paulicians should abandon theirerrors or b e abolished from the earth which they defi led. An

expedition was sent under several commanders to carry out

this decree, and a wholesale massacre was enacted ? Victimswere slain by the sword

,crucified, and drowned in thousands 4

those who escaped sought shelter across the frontier. The

property of the Paulicians was appropriated by the State— a

poor compensation for the loss of such a fi rm bulwark as the

persecuted communities had approved themselves.

I t is just after the fall of the Empress Theodora frompower that we find the Paulicians effectively cc -operating withthe enemies of the Empire. Her brother Petronas, wh o wasthen strategos of the Thrakesian Theme

,was entrusted with

the supreme command of the army,5 and in the late summer

and he was presently taken to

Samarra by the Caliph ’s orders and

associated with the Amorians (seeabove) . It follows that the flight ofKarb eas must b e dated in the reign of

Theophilus,or else in the time of

Michael I .—Leo V.

1 Cp. Karapet, Die Paulihianer ,117-118.

2 Argafi s= Argovan, about 20milesnorth of Melitene ; see Anderson,Road -system, 27 . Tephrike is Devrik ,much further north, and about 60miles south-east of Seb astea . (Cp.

Le Strange, Journa l of R . Asia tic

Society, 1896, p. 733 sqq. ) Anderson(i b . 32) has made it probable thatAmara or Abara lay near the modernManj ilik, about 25 miles north of

Gurun, on the road from Seb astea to

Arab issos and Germanicia . See h is

Map of Asia M inor (in which he hasc orrec ted his former identifications of

Euspoina and Lykandos) .3 We have a good sourc e here in

Cont. Th . 165 (cp. Hirsch, but

the chronology is left vague . Our

text seems to be incomplete, for thenames of the commanders are givenmore fully in Skylitzes (Cedrenus) , ii.154 6 7 06

’

Ap'

y15p0v (66 77V Aéwv) Ka i 61 0 17Aobxa (6ovxos Cont. Th . )«a!0Eot6ax1s. The names in bracketsare omitted in Cont Th . , of whichotherwise the text of Skylitzes is nomore than a transcript.4 Cont. Th . ,

a numberwhich, of course, has no value.

3 Cont. Th . 167.

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EAS TERN R OMAN EM P IRE CHAP. V111

brought from the Caliph —silk robes, abou t a thousand bottlesof musk, saffron , and jewels— were presented ? Three in terpreters came forward, and Nasr charged them to add no thingto what he said. The Emperor accepted the gifts, and Nasr

noticed that he did not bestow any of them on the interpreters.

Then he desired that the envoy should approach , graciouslycaressed him,

and gave orders that a lodging should b e foundfor him in or near the Palace ? But the business on whichNasr had come did not progress rapidly. He mentions thata message arrived from the garrison of Lulon

,which consisted

of Mohammadan Slavs,signifying their desire to embrace

Christianity and sending two hostages. I t will b e remembered that this important fortress had been captured byMamun in A.D. and the opportunity for recovering itwas welcome . For four months ? Nasr was detained at

Constantinople. Then new tidings arrived from Lulon,

which prompted Michael to settle the question of the

captives without delay. He had sent a patrician,

5who

promised the garrison a handsome largess 6 but they repentedof their treachery, and handed over both the place and the

patrician to a Saracen captain . The patrician was carriedinto captivity and threatened with death if he did not

renounce his religion . I t would seem that the Emperor wasseriously concerned for his fate

,for

,as soon as the news came,

the exchange of captives was promptly arranged with Nasr.

It was agreed that both sides should surrender all the

prisoners who were in their hands. Nasr and Michael’suncle 7 confirmed the agreement by oath in the Imperialpresence. Then Nasr said : 0 Emperor, your uncle has

sworn . Is the oath binding for you He inclined his headin token of assent. And, adds the envoy

,I did not hear a

single word from his lips from the time of my arrival till mydeparture. The interpreter alone spoke

,and the Emperor

listened and expressed his assent or dissent by motions of his

1 Op. Bar-Hebr. 169.

2 “ Not far from himself. It isnot clear whether this means in the

Palace, not far from theChrysotriklinos,or not far from the Palace.

3 There is no reason for supposing(with Vasil ’ev, that it was in thehands of the Greeks in A . D . 857 .

4 Dec ember 859 to March 860.

3 Tabari, 56, says hewas a logothete

(perhaps Logothete of the Course) .3 A thousand dinars each , according

to Tabari . This can hard ly b e true .

A thousand nomismata for all seems

more probable, b ut we do not knowthe number of the garrison.

7 Evidently Bardas .

ss c r . V11 SARACEN WAR UNDE R M I CHAE L I I I . 281

head. H is uncle managed all his affairs . The Emperorreceived 1000 G reek cap tives in return for 2000 subjects of

the Caliph,but the balance was redressed by the release of the

patrician whom he was so anxious to recover ?

Not many weeks later? commit ting the charge and

defence of his capital to C oryphas, the Prefect? Michaelagain set forth to invade the Caliph’s dominions. But even ,as it would seem

,before he reached the frontier? he was

recalled (in June) by the alarming news that the Russianshad attacked Constantinople. When the danger had passed,he started again for the East, to encoun ter Omar, the Emir of

Melitene, who had in the meantime taken the field. Michael

marched along the great high-road which leads to the UpperEuphrates by Ancyra and Sebastea. Having passed Gaz iura,5

he encamped in the plain of Dazimon, where Afshin had

inflicted on his father an overwhelming defeat ? Here he

awaited the approach of the Emir, who was near at hand,advancing

,as we may with certainty assume, from Seb astea .

An enemy marching by this road, against Amassa,had the

choice of two ways. He might proceed northward to Dazimon1 This is not explained in the

narrative of Nasr, b ut follows from thestatement of Tabari e lsewherethat the Emperor wrote offering 1000

Moslems as a ransom.

2 The exchange was effec ted on thebanks of the Lamos in April to May.

M ichael must have left Constantinopleabout the beginning of June.

3 Simeon (Add . Georg. ) 826. Cp.

above, p . 144. At the time ofM ichae l’sdeath Coryphas seems to have beendrungarios of the Imperial fleet (seethe add it ion to Simeon

’

s text in theVatic an MS . of Cont . Georg. ed.

M uralt, 752= Psendo -Simeon,b ut it does not follow that

,as de

Boe r (Der Angrif der Rhos, 456) assumes

,he held this post in 860. Had

he been drungarios he would have beenabsent with the fleet in the west.

4 He had reached Mauropotamon

(Simeon, vers . S lav. 106, and Co nt.

Georg. ed . Mur. The other published Greek texts have a c orruptreadingwhic h implies that theRussianswere at Mauropotamon : r

'

bv r c’

év dOéwv'

P tbs emit/w eir 0141113111 yeyevnuévovs 1761;Kara rdu [leg. 7 6] M . (Cont. Georg. ed .

B . 826= Leo Gr . 240= Th . Mel .

we must c orrec t to y ey evnuéuov.

Pseudo -Simeon (674 r éu flamXéa 46177 6 M . Kar akafibvra ) had a good text ofthe original before him. Mauropotamon

is the unknown place on some road tothe region of Melitene where Theoktistos was defeated (see above, p .

The true date of the campaign is

determined b that of the Russianepisode (see c Boor, 0p. ci t.

Genesios wrongly implies the date 861(91, two years after the campaign of

Tabari rec ords that in A .D . 860

Omar made a summer raid and took7000 captives and does not

mention a raid of Omar in the following year. Ac c ording to Genesios , theImperia l army numbered in

c lud ing M acedonian and Thrac iantroops

,and that of the Emir

5 This might b e reached fromAncyra by (northern route) EuchaitaAmasea , or (southern) by Tavion,Verinopolis, and Zela. (Euchaita is

E lwen-Chelcb i : Anderson, Stud . P ont.

i .3 He reached Dazimon (Tokat) and

enc amped in the meadow of Kellarion

(Gen.

282 EAS TERN ROMAN EM P IRE CHAP . V III

and then westward by Gaziura ; or he might turn westward at

Verisa (Bolous)1and reach Amasea by Sebastopolis (Sulu-serai)

and Zela . On this occasion the first route was barred by theRoman army, which lay near the strong fortress of Dazimon ,and could not be advantageously attacked on this side. I t

would have been possible for Omar, following the secondroute

,to have reached Gaziura from Zela

,and entered the

plain of Dazimon from the west . But he preferred a boldercourse, which surprised the Greeks, who acknowledged hisstrategic ability. Leaving the Zela road

,a little to the west

of Verisa, he led his forces northward across the hills (Ak

Dagh)? and descending into the Dazimon plain occupied a

favourable position at Chonarion,not far from the Greek camp .

The battle which ensued resulted in a rout of the Imperialarmy, and Michael sought a refuge on the summit of the samesteep hill of Anzen which marked the scene of his father’sdefeat ? Here he was besieged for some hours, but want ofwater and pasture induced the Emir to withdraw his forces.

It is possible that the Victorious general followed up his

success by advancing as far as Sinope ? But three years1 For Verisa= Bolous, see Anderson,

i b. 37-38.

2 If we could identify Kellarin andChonarion

, there would be no diffi cultyin understanding the brief descriptionin Gen. and Cont. Th. of the strategicmovement of Omar. But I submitthat the logical interpretation of theirwords is that onwhich I have ventured .

Gen. 92 6 6é”Anep arpar rrymc

’

bs

r apexfi armé r epou 6te)\01bv rfis dr ayofnms

66017 1rp69 r ip: Zéh oav (which un

questionably means Zela ) Cont. Th.

177-178 dpr t 611”Amp 0. 15mi Kara.

arpa rn'

ydiv woppwr épw rfi s r e'

rptupémys

fisc 66017 i . e. Omar left the high-roadto Zela in order to reach a positionc lose to the Roman army which wasnear Dazimon. The map seems toleave no alternative to the generalc ourse which I have indicated .

3 Op. above, p. 265 . The hill wassix miles from the scene of the battle.

Vasil’

ev has the strange notion (194,n. 2) that v dpwvmay b e a shortenedform of Strabo ’

s Kawov p lou (781,ed. Teubner), wh ich he th inks suitsthe description of Anzén. On etymolo

gic al grounds alone this is unac c eptable but in any case Chonarion is not

Anzén, and is probably on the southside of the Dazimonitis . Hamilton'

s

identification of Kawbu p toy withYildiz Dagh (Researches in Asia Minor ,i. which is east of Verisa , southeast of Tokat, cannot b e maintainedsee Cumont, Stud . Pout. ii. 2312 23.

4 Thenotice ofOmar reachingSinopeis in Simeon (Cont. Georg. ) 824.

Ramsay connec ted it with the expedition of 863 but it is noted by Simeon

as a distinct expedition. The difficultyin connec ting it with the exped itionof 860 lies (1 ) in the words enemies/e

,wb Karakn¢fiels 1

'

11r0 r oii'

Pw,uau<09

arparoi} (words which forbid its con

nec tion with and (2 ) in the fac tthat thewriterrelates subsequently (outof chronological order) Michael ’smarchto Mauropotamon and the Russian

peril Perhaps it is best toassign it to 861 or 862 . In any case

Amisus or Sinope was robab ly the

goal of Omar in 860. T is year wasalso marked b incursions of Karb eas

and of Ali i n Yahya, and by thecapture of a maritime stronghold (theMS. text of Tabari has Antiochia , butprobably Attalia is meant ) . Tabari,56 . See Vasil

'ev

,195, n. 4.

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EA S TE RN ROMAN'

EM P IRE emu». V111

attacked Petronas,who held his ground. Then the generals

of the northern and southern armies closed in,and the Saracen

forces were almost annihilated . Omar himself fell. H is son

escaped across the Halys, but was caught by the turmarch of

Charsianon. The Victory of Poson (such was the name of the

place) ,land the death of one of the ablest Moslem generals

were a compensation for the defeat of Chonarion. Pe tronaswas rewarded by receiving the high post of the Domestic ofthe Schools? and the order of magister ? Strains of triumphat a victory so signal resounded in the Hippodrome, and a

special chant 4 celebrated the death of the Emir on the fieldof battle, a rare occurrence in the annals of the warfare withthe Moslems.

I t would appear that this success was immediatelyfollowed up by an invasion of Northern Mesopotamia. We

know not whether the Greek army was led by Petronas, b utanother Victory was won, somewhere in the neighbourhood of

M artyropolis, and this bat tlefield was likewise marked by thefall of a Saracen commander who, year after year

,had raided

Roman territory— Ali ibn Yahya .

5

These victories are the last events worthy of record 6 inthe Eastern war during the reign of Michael I II . While theyoung Emperor was sole Augustus, and Bardas was the

virtual ruler, the defence of the Empire in the cast was

1 The plac e, which has not beenidentified , was also marked by thestream of Lalakaon and the meadowof Gyrin. Tabari gives the name of

the place as —rz (the first letter isa leph ) , in Marj -Uskuf. In the artic lec ited above I have attempted to showthat the region indicated lay north ofNazianzus and Soandos . The date of

the battle was September 3 . Tabari,62.

2 Petronas had represented (éxr poa cbrrov) his nephew Antigonus, whowas a b oy (see above, Cont. Th .

1803, 18318 . Aec or ing to G enesios,he was made Domestic before the

vic tory3 G en. 97. The statement of “some

(Gas 66 rwes) that Bardas took part inthe battle, and was rewarded by beingc reated Caesar at Eas ter 862, is inconsistent with chronology.

4 This has been preserved (as I

showed , Ceremoa Book, p. 434) in thedxra érrl 115 7 10 1 6.q duetpq. éu irohéucpi7rr 170évr c Ka l dva tpefi évr t (Const. Cer . i.

69, p. It runs “ G lory to Godwho shatters our enemies ! G lory toG od who has destroyed the god less !G lory to God the author of vic tory !G lory to God who crowned thee, 0 lordof the earth Hail, Lord, fel ic ity of theRomans ! Hail, Lord , valour of thyarmy ! Hail , Lord , by whom (Omar)was laid low ! Hail , Lord (Michael ) ,destroyer ! God will keep thee in thepur le , for the honour and raising upof the Romans, along with the honourable Augustae [Eudoc ia Theodora,Theela] in the purple . God wil lhearken to your people

5 Yakubi,11 ; Tabari, 62 : in the

month of Ramadan = 0c tob er 18 to

November 16, 863. Cp. Bar-H ebr. 171 .

3 Saracen raids are noted by Tabariin 864 and 865 .

ss c r . V11 SARA CEN WAR UNDE R M I CHAE L I I I . 285

steadily maintained. Michael had himself marched to the

front , and the Saracens had won no important successeswhi le his uncle was at the helm . I t was probably afterthe death of Bardas that an incident occurred which has

stamped Michael as supremely indifferent to the safety of his

Empire . One evening as he was preparing in his privateh ippodrome in the Palace of St.

-Mamas to display his skillas a charioteer

,before a favoured company

,the spectators

were alarmed and distracted by seeing a blaze illuminated inthe Pharos of the G reat Palace, which announced tidingsflashed from Cappadocia

,that the Saracens were abroad

with in the Roman borders. The spectacle was not discontinned

,but the attention of the onlookers languished

,and the

Emperor, determined that such interruptions should not againoccur

,commanded that the beacon signals in the neighbour

hood of Constan tinople should b e kindled no more ? It mightb e thought that the signal system had been abandoned forsome serious reason , connected perhaps with the loss of Lulon?and that this anec dote, illustrating the Emperor’s frivolity

,

had been invented to account for it. But the very moderationof the story may b e held to show that it had a basis of fact.For it does not suggest that the beacon messages were discontinued ; on the contrary, it expressly states that the

ligh ting of the beacons in or close to Constantinople,that is

at the Pharos and on M t . Aux entios, was forbidden ? ThisImperial order, though dictated by a frivolous motive

,need

not have caused a very serious delay in the arrival of the

news at Constantinople, nor can it b e alleged that Michaelendangered thereby the safety of the provinces.

On the whole, the frontiers between the two powers inAsia Minor had changed little under the rule of the Amorian

dynasty . The Moslems had won a few more fortresses ; and

what was more serious, in Cappadocia east of the Halys theirposition was strengthened by the invaluable support of the

Paulician rebels. The Amorians bequeathed to their successorthe same task which had lain before them and which they had

1 Cont. Th . 197-198.

3 Cont. Th . 198,unlcén r obs 1rl\170

'

w'

1

2 But the loss of Lulon did not (”aur a s aim/obs évep

‘

yei’

v r poa ér a iev.

render the s ignals useless or impossible ._M odern writers have not attended to

M t. Argaios would become the first the limitation r kna rdfovras.station.

286 EA S TE RN ROMAN EM P IRE CHAP . V111

failed to achieve, the expul sion of the enemy from Cappadocia ;b ut the difficul ty of that task was aggravated by the disastrouspolicy of the Paulician persecu tion for which Theophilus and

Theodora were responsible.

In the last years of the reign of Michael the Caliphate wastroubled by domestic anarchy, and offered a good mark for thea ttack of a strenuous foe . The Caliph Mustain writhed underthe yoke of the powerful Turkish party, and he desired toreturn from Samarra to the old capital of Baghdad. But hewas compelled to abdicate in favour of Mutazz

,whom the

Turks set up against him (January The best days of

the Abbasid dynasty were past, and the Caliphate had begunto decline

,just as the Empire was about to enter on a new

period of power and expansion .

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288 EAS TERN R OMAN EM P IRE CHAP. IX

of a powerful Beduin family, settled in the outskirts of Alexandria. Soon they felt strong enough to act for themselves,and under the leadership of Abu Hafs 1 they seized the city(A.D. 8 18

At this time the governor of Egypt had availed himself ofthe revolts with which the Caliph Mamun had to cope in theeastern provinces of his dominion to declare himself independent . The Spanish fugitives held Alexandria for six yearsbefore Mamun had his hands free to deal with Egypt . At

length (A.D. 8 25 ) he sent Abdallah ibn Tahir to compel thesubmission both of the rebellious governor and of the Andalusian intruders. The governor was overthrown by one of his

officers before Abdallah arrived,and the Spaniards readily

submitted to the representative of the Caliph and obtainedpermission to leave Egypt and win a settlement within the

borders of the Empire. In the previous year they had madea descent on the island of Crete, and their ships had returnedladen with captives and booty 2

and they now chose Crete as

their place of permanent habitation . They sailed in fortyships, with Abu Hafs as their leader

,and anchored probably

in the best harbour of the island, in the b ay of Suda ? Abu

Hafs commanded his followers to plunder the island and returnto the port in twelve days, retaining twenty men to guard eachship. It would appear that no serious resistance was offeredby the islanders, who perhaps had little love for the Imperialgovernment, which, besides being Oppressive, had in recent yearsbeen heretical ? It is related that when the Spaniards returned

1 Abu Ha fs Omar ibn Shuaib. Cp.

Dozy,

H istoire des Musulmans

d’

ESpagne, ii. 68-76.

2 Thisdescent is rec orded byGenesioswho dates it as occurring in the

time of the rebellion of Thomas. He

says that the c onquest occurred in thefollowingyear, i .s. A .D . 825 , as w eknow

from the Arabic sources . Thereforethe firs t descent was in A .D . 824. Cp.

Vasil’

ev,47 . Genesios knew nothing

about the Egyptian episode,and sup

posed that Abu Hafs and his

people came d irec tly from Spain. The

ac count in Cont. Th . 73 sqq. is derivedfrom Genesios, b ut the writer ’

s remarkma b e noted that the Saracens ofSpainha c ome in the course of time to b e

calledSpaniards ( Ie r dv01) 7316. Simeon

(Cont. Georg. 789) merely notices thefac t of the c onquest of Crete, which ,along with that of Sic ily, he ascribesto the rebellion of Thomas, with whichM ichael was fully oc cupied . But

Thomas had been suppressed beforethe occupation of Crete or the invasionof Sic ily. Hopf (Gr . Gesch . 121) andAmari (Storia ,

i . 163 ) placed the c on

quest of Crete in 823, Muralt (Chron.

byz . 410) in 824.

3 ThechiefArabic source isHumandi

(11th cent. ) who used an o lder wri ter,Mohammad ibn Huzaw. Conde,Ara bs

in S a in,i. 263 . Genesios plac es the

lan ing at Charax,d istinguishing it

from Chandax I can fi nd no traceof Charax f

4 Vasil'ev, 48.

ss c r . 1 THE SARA CEN CONQUE S T OF CRE TE 289

to the port, they were dismayed to find that their ships haddisappeared. They had been burned by the orders of Abu

Hafs. To their loud and mutinous complaints that they werenow irrevocably severed from their wives and children whomthey had left in Egypt, he replied by bidding them marry thewomen of the island whom they had taken captive. We mayquestion the truth of the story,1 but it seems to point to thefact that there was a considerable fusion by marriage betweenthe invaders and the natives.

The modern capital of Crete was founded by Abu Hafs.

He chose, to be the seat of his dominion , a site on the northernshore of the island, not far from the hill of Knossos, the ancientstronghold of M ines. The new town was central ; it lookedtowards the isles of the Aegean which the conquerors of Cretehoped to plunder ; but it had the disadvantage of having no

harbour or natural shelter for ships. I t was surrounded by a

deep moat (handak) , from which it derived its name Chandaxor Candia. Twenty-nine towns were taken and their inhab itants reduced to slavery. One alone was excepted from thisgeneral fate by a special capitulation, and in it the Christianswere permitted freely to celebrate the rites of their religion ?

The Emperor Michael and his successors did not underestimate the danger with which Crete in the possession of the

Moslems menaced the Empire. Michael appointed Photeinos,the governor of the Anatolic Theme, to b e strategos of Crete,8

and not many months after the Saracen occupation thisgeneral arrived at the island. But he found that his forces

1 The story h

is told in Gen. and Cont.

Th. (same sourc e), and curiously, almostin

“

the same words by Humandi (cp.

H irsch, B yz . Stud . 136 ; Vas il ’ev, 48n. Th is coinc idence has not beenexplained, but points to a common

Cretan sourc e. Amari (Storia , i . 163 )suggested that the foundation of the

sto ry may have been that Abu Hafsburned some ships which were useless.

If we are to hazard guesses, it is possible that one ship c aught fi re acc identally and the conflagration spread(rofi r veuuar os e

‘r axudfovros, Cent. Th .

2 The inhabitants of this town werec alled br okb'yzoc. The word is omittedin the text ofGenesios 47111: b ut Pseudo .

Simeon whose narrative is

founded on Genesios , enables us to

restore it (cp. Latin version) . —Genesios(48) records thatCyril, bishopofGortyn,

was slaughtered , and that h is bloodstill remains liquid and acts as a

miraculous unguent. This probablycomes from lost Ac ta of Cretanmartyrs(I cannot agree that 1111 0169 rw és 4111 01111 ,as H irsch (op. ci t. 137 ) suggests , provesan oral sourc e ; the words may havebeen in the source of Genesios) .

3 Photeinos was great-grandfatherof Zoe, fourth wife of Leo VI . Thathe went as stratégos of Crete, I inferfrom Cont. Th . 773. H is expedition isrecorded only in this source . Its datemust b e early in 826, if not in 825 ;for Photeinos was appointed strategosof Sic ily in 826.

EAS TERN ROM AN EM P IRE290 CHAP. ix

were unequal-

to his task, and at his request Damianos, Countof the Stable , was sent with reinforcemen ts. The Saracensrouted the Greek army, Damianos was wounded, and Photeinosescaped to the little island of Dios which faces Candia. A

second expedition was sent soon afterwards,under Krateros

,

in command of a fleet of seventy ships ? A battle was foughtwhere the troops landed , and the Greeks were victorious, butinstead of following up their success they celebrated it by a

night of carousal, and in their sleep they were a ttacked and

almost annihilated by the enemy. Krateros escaped and waspursued by the Arabs to Cos, where they caugh t him and

hanged him on a cross.

It was not only for the recovery of Crete, but also for theprotection of the islands of the Aegean that the Imperialgovernment was concerned. A third armament which Michaeldespatched under the command of Ooryphas cleared the enemyout of a number of small islands which they had occupied,but it is not recorded that he renewed the attempt to recoverCrete. The Arabs did not confine their attacks to the islandsin the immediate vicinity of Crete ; they extended far and

wide, on both sides of the Aegean, depredations of which onlystray notices have been preserved by chance. We know thatAegina was cruelly and repeatedly devastated ; 2 we knowthat

,some two generations later, Paros was a waste country

,

which attracted only the hunter of the wildgoat.

3 Just afterthe death of the Emperor Michael, an expedition from Cretepillaged the coasts of Caria and Ionia,

and despoiled the

monastery of M t . Latres ? Constantine Kontomytes, the

1 Consisting partly of the Kibyrrhaeot fleet (for Krateros was strategosof the Kibyrrhaeot Theme) and partlyof ships from the other naval themes

(the Aegean and Hellas f) . This welearn from Cont. Th . whosenarrative otherwise coinc ides withthat of Genesios. The date of the

expedition may b e 826 (so Muralt and

Vasil'

ev ) or 827 . From Cent. Th . we

can only infer that it was about thesame time ” as the revolt ofEuphemies,b ut Kara. r bv a br by Kcupbv (8116) is toovague to fix the date more prec isely .

It seems to me that Vasil ’ev goes toofar in postulating 827 or end of 826

for the subsequent enterprise of

Ooryphas, because it is recorded inCont. Th. before the Sic ilian affair.

The writer finishes what he has to sayof Crete before he goes on to Sicily .

We can only date the expedition of

Ooryphas to the three years 827-829 .

For Ooryphas see above, Chap . IV.

p. 144.

2 Vit. Theedera e l ess. 2, op. 26.

Vit. L ucae Jun. (M igne, 111 ,rd: a vvexeis é¢b6ovs 7 63V éx rfis

'

A‘

yap.

3 Nicetas, Vi t. Theoctistae L esb. 8-9 .

I owe the reference to Vasil’ev .

4 On the monasteries of Latros cp.

Delehaye, Ana lecta Bollamd iana , xi.14 sqq.

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292 EAS TERN R OM AN E /lIP IRE C HAP. 1x

general ’s fears for his own influence at the court of Theodora .

They bribed some of his offi cers to spread the rumour, or to

insinuate to Theoktistos, that the Empress had raised one of

his rivals to b e the colleague of herself and her son. The

general, deeply alarmed,hastened to Constan tinople, leaving

his army to do nothing, if not to meet with disaster ?

Ab u Hafs and his successors were Virtually independent ,but they may have found it expedient to acknowledge the

overlordship of the Caliph , and to consider Crete as in somesense affiliated to the province of Egypt. In any case theycontinued to maintain relations with Egypt and to receivesupplies from Alexandria . It was probably in View of thisconnexion that the government of Theodora decided on an ex

pedition beyond the usual range of the warfare of this period ?

Three fleets, numbering in all nearly three hundred ships,

were equipped. The destination of two of these armamentsis unknown ; perhaps they were to operate in the Aegean or

off the coast of Syria ? But the third, consisting of eightyfi ve vessels and carrying 5000 men,

under an admiral whosetrue name is concealed under Ibn Katuna

,

”the corruption

of an Arabic chronicler, sailed to the coast of Egypt and

appeared before Damie t ta (May 22 ,

In the ninth century Damietta was closer to the sea

than the later town which the Sultan Bibers founded in the

thirteenth ? The city lies on the eastern channel of the N ileabout seven miles from the mouth ; and less than a mile to

the east is Lake Menzele, which a narrow belt of sand seversfrom the sea . When the G reek fleet arrived, the garrisonwas absent at Fustat, attending a feast to which it had beensummoned by the governor Anbas, the last ruler of Arabicdescent .1Kar ahure

'

iv 7 611 e rpar bv uaxalpa s

é’p'

you, loc . cit. If it had been ac tuallydestroyed , probably more would havebeen said .

2 The sourc es are Tabari (51-52) andYakubi It is significant for thecharac ter of the Greek chronic les thatthey utterly i n

gore the episode of

Damietta. Ta ari says that therewere 300 ships , 100 under each commander . But Yakubi

, who onlymentions the fleet which attackedDamietta , says that it consisted of

The inhabitants hastily deserted the undefended

85 ships. The two accounts are ia

dependent . We may take it that 300is a round number.

3 Vas il’

ev guesses they went to

Sic ily b ut the natural in

ferenc e from Tabari is that theyoperated in the east. One of themwas commanded b Ooryphas, the

other by M— r—d (Tabari?)

ForOoryphas cp. above, Chap. IV. p .

144.

4 Cp. Vasil’

ev, 171.

sac r . 1 THE SARA CEN CONQUE S T OF CRE TE 293

city, which the Greeks plundered and burned. They capturedsix hundred Arab and Coptic women

,

1and discovered a store

of arms which was destined for the ruler of Crete?

The

spoiling of Damiet ta detained them only two days,and they

sailed eastward to the island of Tinnis ; but fearing sandbanks, they did not pass farther, and proceeded to the fortressof Ushtum, a strongly walled place with iron ga tes Burningthe war-engines which he found there, Ibn Katuna returnedhome from an expedition which fortune had singularlyfavoured ?

If the conquests of Crete and Sicily taught the Romansthe necessity of a strong navy

, the burning of Damiet ta was alesson which was not lost upon the Saracens of Egypt . An

Arabic writer observes that “ from this time they began toshow serious concern for the fleet

,and this became an affair

of the first importance in Egypt. Warships were built , andthe pay of marines was equalized with that of soldiers who

served on land. Only in telligent and experienced men wereadmitted to the service . Thus , as has been remarked? theGreek descent on Damietta led to the establishment of theEgyp tian navy, which , a century later, was so powerful underthe dynasty of the Fatimids.

In the later yea rs of Michael III . the Cretan Arabspursued their quests of plunder and destruction ’

in the

Aegean ? We learn that Lesbos was laid waste, and thatmonks were carried away from their cells in the hills of

A thos.

6The last military effort of Michael and Bardas was

1 Yakubi gives a much larger

number.

2 Abu Hafs (Tabari) . Doubts havebeen felt if he was still alive . G enesios

gives the suc cession of Cretan rulers

(47-48 ) as AbuHafs Saipes, his son ;Babdel, son of S. ; Zerkunes , brothero f B . ; the succ essor of Zerkunes was

Emir in the time of Genesios. He

also implies that Babdel was c on

temporary of Leo VI . , and we knowotherwise (Cent. Th . 299 ) that Saipwas Emir in the reign of Michae l .This evidence seems favourable to

Tabari’

s sta tement that Abu Hafswas al ive in 853. For the Arabic forms

of the names (Shuaib, Abu Abdal lah ,Shirkuh ) see Hopf, Gr . Geach . 123 ;Hirsch , 136, n. 2.

3 Acc ording to Makrizi, the Greeksagain made a succ essful descent on

Damietta with 200 ships in the fo llowing year. Vasil ’ev, Pri l. 124.

4 See V. R. Rozen, Vasilii B olga

roboitsa ,273 -274 , and Vasil

’

ev,173

174, who quote the passage of Makrizi

which I have abbreviated .

5 In A .D . 860 they ravaged the

Cyclades and sailed through the

Hellespont as far as Proc onnesus .

They had 20 camba ria , 7 galleys, andsome sa tyra i . Cont . Th . 196 .

3 Apparently c . A . D. 861-862. See

Vit. Euthym. iun. , 185 sq. Some

years later they descended on the

island of the Neoi, near M t. Athos ;i b . 188 sqq. Cp. Vasil

’

ev, 204.

294 EA S TE RN R OMAN EM P IRE C HAP. i x

to organize a great Cretan expedition,which was to sail from

the shores of the Thrakesian Theme, a central gathering-placefor the various provincial fleets

,and for those regiments of the

Asiatic themes which were to take part in the campaign .

We saw how this enterprise was frustrated by the enemiesof the Caesar. Another generation was to pass before theattemp t to recover Cre te and secure tranquillity for the

Aegean was renewed.

2 . The Invasion of Sicily

In the two great westward expansions of the Semite,in

the two struggles be tween European and Semitic powers forthe waters, islands , and coasts of the Medi terranean

,Sicily

played a conspicuous part, wh ich was determined by her

geographical position . The ancient h istory of the island,

when G reeks and Phoenicians contended for the mastery,

seems to b e repeated 1 when,after a long age of peace under

the mighty rule of Rome , it was the scene of a new armeddebate between G reeks and Arabs. In both cases, the Asia ticstrangers were ultimately driven out

,not by their Greek

rivals,b ut by another people descending from I taly. The

Normans were to expel the Saracens, as the Romans had ex ~

pelled the Phoenicians. The grea t difference was that theworshippers of Baal and Moloch had never won the wholeisland , while the sway of the servants of Allah was to b e

complete,extending from Panormos to Syracuse

,from Messina

to L ilyb aeum.

A fruitful land and a desirable possession in itself,Sicily ’s

central position be tween the two basins of the Mediterraneanrendered it an object of supreme importance to any Easternsea-power which was commercially or politically aggressive ;while for an ambitious ruler in Africa it was the steppingstone to Italy and the gates of the Hadriatic . As soon as

the Saracens created a navy in the ports of Syria and Egyp t,

it was inevitable that Sicily should b e exposed to their attacks,and the date of their first descent is only twenty years afterthe death of Mohammad ? But no serious attempt to win a

1 This was pointed out by Grote, and the motif was developed by Freeman

in his charac teristic manner.

2A .D . 652.

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296 EAS TE RN ROMAN EM P IRE CHAP. 1x

welcomed h im as Roman Emperor and placed a crown on his

head ? He does not appear to have had a following in the

island ; nor is there evidence tha t the inhabitants wereactively disconten ted at this period against the governmentof Constantinople. The rebellion of Thomas the Slavonianmay have awakened hopes in the breasts of some to detachSicily from the Empire? but there is nothing to show thatthere was any widespread disaffection when, in the year 826,an insurrection was organized which was destined to lead tocalamitous consequences.

A certain Euphemies was the leader of this movement .Having distinguished himself by bravery, probably in maritimewarfare, he was appointed to an important command

,when an

incident in his private life furnished an excuse for his disgrace,and this, a reason for his rebellion . Smitten with passion fora maiden who had taken the vows of a nun, he persuaded or

compelled her to marry him ; and the indignant brothers ofHomoniza repaired to Constantinople and preferred a complaintto the Emperor ? Although the example of Michael’s own

marriage with Euphrosyne might have been pleaded in favourof Euphemies? Michael despatched a letter to the new strategosof Sicily, Photeinos, bidding him to investigate the case and

,

if the charge were found to b e true,to cut off the nose of the

culprit who had caused a nun to renounce her vow .

5

Photeinos, whom we have already met as the leader of a

disastrous expedition to Crete,had only recently arrived in

Sicily (perhaps in the spring of A.D. He had alreadyappoin ted Euphemies commander of the fleet, with the oflicial

title of turmarch, and Euphemies had sailed on a plundering

expedition to the coasts of Tripoli or Tunis.

6 He returnedladen with spoil

,but to find that an order had gone out for

his arrest. He decided to defy the authority of the strategos,and

,sailing to the harbour of Syracuse

,he occupied that city.

1 A .D . 781-782 . Theoph . 456 .

4 Cp. Cont. Th . 81 21.2 Amari (ib. 249 sqq. ) thinks thatthere was a rebellion in the early yearsof Michael ; but the evidence 13 ia

suffi c ient . For the sources for the

revolt of Euphemios see Appendix IX.

3 Cent. Th. 82. The woman’

s nameis preserved in Chron. Sa lern ,

p. 498.

For the date of the marriage see

Appendix IX.

5 Kar t) . r 1’

7u r ofi 11611 011 dxplfletav, ih.82 s See Ecloga , 17 , 23 .Epanagoge,40, 59.

5 As it appears from the subsequentnegotiations of Euphemies with theAghlab id Emir that the peace withthe Aghlab ids had not been violated ,it may b e inferred that Euphemiesattacked the territory of the Idrisids .

ss c r . 11 SARA CE N IN VA S I ON OF S I CIL Y 297

H is fleet was devoted to him,and he gained other adherents

to h is cause, including some military commanders who wereturmarchs like himself? - Photeinos marched to drive the

rebel from Syracuse,b ut he suffered a defea t and returned to

Catana. The superior forces of Euphemios and his confederatescompelled him to leave that refuge

,and he was captured and

put to death .

Compromised irretrievably by this flagrant act of rebellion ,Euphemies, even if he had been reluctant

,had no alternative

but to assume the Imperial title and power. He was pro

claimed Emperor, but he was almost immediately deserted byone of his . most powerful supporters. This man

,whom he

invested with the government of a district,is designated by

the Arabic historians as Palata— a corrupt name which may

denote some palatine dignity at the Court of the usurper ?

Palata and his cousin Michael,who was the military com

mander of Panormos, repudiated the cause of Euphemiesand declared for the legitimate Emperor. At the head of a

large army they defeated the tyrant and gained possession of

Syracuse.

Too weak to resist the forces which were arrayed in

support of legitimacy,and knowing that submission would

mean death , Euphemies determined to invoke the aid of the

natural enemy of the Empire . H is resolve brought uponSicily the same consequences which the resolve of Coun tJulian had brought upon Spain . It may b e considered thatit was the inevitable fate of Spain and of Sicily to fall a preyto Saracen invaders from Africa

,b ut it is certain that the

fa te of each was accelerated by the passion and interests of

a single unscrupulous native.

Euphemios crossed over to Africa3 and made overtures toZiadat Allah , the Aghlab id Emir. He asked him to send an

army over to Sicily,and undertook to pay a tribute when his

own power was established in the island . The proposal wasdebated in Council at Kairawan

?The members of the

Council were not of one mind. Those who were opposed togranting the request of Euphemies urged the duty of observing

1 Cent. Th . 82 9 . Saracen fleet sailed to Sic ily in June2 See Appendix IX. 827 .

3 Probably early in A .D . 827,‘

as the 4 Riad an-Nufus , 77 .

298 EAS TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE CHAP. i x

the treaty which the G reeks, so far as was ascertained, had

not violated ? But the influence of the Cadi Asad , whoappealed to texts of the Koran

,Of which he was acknowledged

to b e an authoritative in terpreter,stirred the religious

fanaticism of his hearers and decided them in favour of war.

Ziadat named Asad to the command of the expedition , andhe was allowed to retain the office of Cadi, although the

union of military and judicial functions was irregular ?

The fleet of Euphemies waited in the b ay of Susa till theAfrican armament was ready, and on the 14 th day of June ,A.D . the allied squadrons sailed forth together

,on an

enterprise which was to prove the beginning of a new epochin Sicilian history. The forces of the Moslems are said to

have consisted of ten thousand feet soldiers, seven hundredcavalry

,and seventy or a hundred ships. In three days they

reached Mazara,where they were expected by the partisans

of Euphemies.

“

When Asad disembarked his forces,he

remained inactive for some days. A skirmish between someGreek soldiers who were on the side of Euphemies

,and Arabs

who mistook them for enemies, was an evil omen for the

harmony of this unnatural alliance. I t was desired that thefriends of Euphemies should wear a twig in their headgearto avert the repetition of such a dangerous error ; but Asaddeclared that he did not need the help of his confederate,that Euphemies and his men should take no part in the

military Operations, and that thus fur ther accidents would b eavoided . The intention of the Moslem commander to takethe whole conduct of the campaign in his own hands and to

use the Greek usurper as a puppet,was thus shown with

little disguise.

I t was not long before the general,whom in ignorance of

his true name we are compelled to distinguish as Palata,appeared in the neighbourhood with forces considerablysuperior to those of the invaders. Mazara

,now Mazzara del

Valle, lies at the mouth of a like-named stream,to the south

east of L ilybaeum. South -eastward from Mazara itself, a

1 This argument proves that the ten 3 Nuwairi, 174. w h en in Cambridge

years ’ treaty of A .D . 813 , which ex Chron. 24, must b e a mistake for

pired in A .D . 823, had been renewed low/[cp. Riad an-Nufus and otheror extended . Arabic sourc es agree with Nuwairi as

2 78 . to the month .

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300 EAS TERN ROM AN EM P IRE CHAP . 1x

them to resist the fees whom he had himself invoked againstthem . Seeing that further delay would only serve the G reeks,Asad advanced on Syracuse

,where he was joined by his fleet.

He burned the vessels of the Greeks and closed the greaterand the lesser Harbours with his own ships. The fortifi ca

tions were too strong to be assaulted without siege engines,with which the Arabs were not provided, and Asad coul donly blockade the town

,while he waited for reinforcements

from Africa. He encamped among the quarries, south of

Achradina .

As all the provisions had been conveyed into the city fromthe surrounding country

, the Saracen army suffered from wantof food

,and the discontent waxed so great that a certain Ibn

Kadim advised the general to break up his camp and sail

back to Africa ; “The life of one Musulman,

”he said, “ is

more valuable than all the goods of Christendom .

”Asad

sternly replied,I am not one of those who allow Moslems,

when they go forth to a Holy War,to return home when

they have still such hopes of victory.

”He quenched the

mutiny by threatening to burn the ships and punishing withstripes the audacious Ibn Kadim ? Presently reinforcements,and probably supplies

,arrived from Africa. 2

Meanwhile the Emperor had taken measures to recallSicily to its allegiance . The story was told that when thetidings of the rebellion of Euphemies reached him,

he sum

moned the magister Irenaeus and said, W e may congratul ateourselves

,Magister, on the revolt of Sicily.

”This

,sir,

”

replied Irenaeus,is no matter for congratulation, and turn

ing to one of the magnates who were present , he solemnlyrepeated the lines

Dire woes will fall upon the world, what timeThe Babylonian dragon ’

gins to reign,G reedy of gold and inarticulate.

”3

1 Riad an-Nufus, 78.

2 Also from Spain Ibn Adari,146,

Nuwe iri, 174 . Vasil’

ev believes thatthe Spaniards were really some of the

Cretan Arabs (who were originallyfrom Spa in), arguing the improbabilityof co-operation at this time betweenthe Aghlab ids and Omayyads. SoAmari , Storia

,i. 274, n. 1 . But

surely adventurers may have come

from Spain, without the authority ofthe Omayyad government .

3 Pseudo-Simeon, 622

dpxi; xaxc’

bv ye rfi x00v2(fra y Kardpg'g rfis Ba hd

’

wos 6pdxwv

6150t 0 0“ dp617v xa l ¢0x6xpve os Mow.

We may c onjecture that these versesare an orac le invented in the earli er

ages of the Sassanid wars .

SECT . SARA CEN INVASION OF S I CIL Y 301

The anecdote may be apocryphal, invented in the light ofsubsequent disasters, as a reflexion on the rul er in whose reignsuch grave losses had befallen the Empire. But if Michael

,

who sent fleet after fleet to regain Crete, and was even thenperhaps engaged in organizing a new expedition

,jested at the

news from Sicily, the jest was bitter. The pressing concernfor Crete and the Aegean islands hindered him from sendingany large armament to the west. The naval establishmentwas inadequate to the defence of the Empire ; this had beenthe consequence of its neglect since the days of Leo the

Isaurian . The loss of Cre te and the jeopardy of Sicily wereto bring home to the Imperial government the importanceof sea-power, and the strengthening of the navy was one of

the chief tasks which successors of Michael I I . would b e

forced to take in hand.

Some troops were sent to Sicily, but the Emperor at thiscrisis looked for help from a western dependency

,whose own

interests were undoubtedly involved in not suffering the

Moslem to gain a footing on Sicilian soil. The proximi tyof such a foe to the waters of the Hadriatic sea would b ea constant distress and anxiety to the city of Venice. I t

was therefore a fair and reasonable demand, on the part of theEmperor, that Venice shoul d send a squadron to cope with theinvaders of Sicily, and it is not improbable that she was boundby definite agreement to co-Operate in such a case . The Duke,Justinianus, sent some warships, but it does not appear thatthey achieved much for the relief of the Syracusans.

l

The besiegers had in the meantime entrenched themselves,

surrounding their camp with a ditch , and digging in front of

it holes which served as pitfalls for the cavalry of the

G reeks. The besieged, finding themselves hard pressed,sought

to parley , but their proposals were rejected, and the siegewas protracted through the win ter, till the invaders wereconfronted with a more deadly adversary than the Greeks.

Pestilence broke out in their camp, and Asad, their in

domitable leader, was one of its victims (A. D. The

army itself elected a new commander, a certain Mohammad,

but fortune had deserted the Arabs ; the epidemic ragedamong them as it had raged among the Caithaginians of

1 Dand‘ulus, Chron. 170 (A .D .

302 EA S TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE C HAP. ix

Hamilcar who had sought to master Syracuse twelve hundredyears before. The new reinforcements came from Constantinople, and a second squadron was expected from Venice .

l

The besiegers despaired and decided to return to Africa .

They weighed anchor, b ut found that they were shut in by

the ships of the enemy. They disembarked , set fi re to

their ships, and, laden with many sick, began a weary marchin the di rection of M ineo.

Euphemios served them as a guide. He had not partedfrom h is foreign friends, though he had

,for a time at least

,

secretly worked against them. But now that they werechastened by ill-success and no longer led by the masterfulAsad, he expected to b e able to use them for his own purpose.

The town of Mineo surrendered, and when the army recoveredfrom the effects of the plague, it divided into two parts

, of

which one marched westward and captured Agrigentum. The

other, accompanied by Euphemios, laid siege to the im

pregnable fortress which stands in the very centre of the island,the massive rock of Henna, which was called in the ninthcentury, as it is to-day,

Castrogiovanni.

The garrison of Castrogiovanni opened negotiations withEuphemios, offering to recognise him as Emperor and to castin their lot with him and his Arab confederates. But theseovertures were only an artifice ; the men of Castrogiovanni

were loyal to the Emperor Michael. Euphemios fell into thetrap . At an appointed hour and place , he met a deputationof the townsmen . While some fell down before him

,as their

sovran , and kissed the ground, others at the same momentstabbed him frombehind.

2

W ith the disappearance of Euphemios from the scene, thewarfare in Sicily was simplified to the plain and single issueof a contest between Moslem and Christian for the lordshipof the island. I t was a slow and tedious contest , protrac tedfor two generations ; and although the advance of the Moslems1 Joannes, Chron . Ven. 109

“ iterum (Nuwairi, The Greek story isimperatore efflagitante exerc itum ad different, attributing h is death to theSiciliam preparaverunt ql

ui etiam plot of two brothers and plac ing it atreversus est absque triump o . The Syracuse . But it is not suggested (aslast c lause suggests that the Venetians Vasi l ’ev thinks, p . 71 ) that thesearrived after the raising of the siege brothers were the brothers-in-law of

and did not take part in forcing the Euphemios . Cont. Th . 83 T LVGS

Sarac ens to burn their ships. doehpol.2 Such is the Arabic account

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EAS TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE304 C HAP. IX

were probably taken to show that he would be able to completehis task alone, and then the dea th of Michael intervened .

But if the government reckoned thus,it reckoned without

Africa and Spain . Two hostile fleets sailed to the Sicilianshores. Ziadat Allah sent a new armament 1

,and a Spanish

squadron came to join in the warfare, for the sake of plunder,

not of conquest, under Asbag ibn Wakil.2 The A fricanMoslems, hard pressed at Mineo, proposed common action to

the Spanish adventurers, and the Spaniards agreed on con

dition that Asb ag should b e the commander-in-chief and thatthe Africans should provide horses. But the confederatescarried on their operations separately. Asbag and his men

marched first to Mineo , which , still blockaded by Theodotos,must have been suffering the last distresses of hunger. Theydefeated the besiegers and Theodotos fell in the battle.

3

Asbag burned Mineo, but his career was almost immediatelycut short. A pestilence broke out among his troops while hewas besieging another stronghold,4 and

, like Asad, he fell a

victim to the infection . H is followers returned to Spain .

Meanwhile the Africans had laid siege to Panormos.

This city held out for a year, but it seems to have been an

easier place to besiege than Syracuse or Castrogiovanni. In

the autumn of A.D . 83 1 the commander of the garrisonsurrendered,5 having bargained for the safety of himself, hisfamily, and his property. The inhabitants were treated as

prisoners of war.

6 The bishop of Panormos escaped to

Constan tinople , bearing the news of the calamity.

7 The

anxiety of the Emperor Theophilus to come to terms with the1 Ibn al-Athir, 94 (A .D . He

5 The siege began Aug. 830

adds “ the general number of shipsreached 300. Amari, Storia , i. 288 .

2 The Arabic writers are not c learabout the date . They mention the

arrival of the Andalusians under A .H .

2 14= A .D . 829 March-830 Feb . (IbnAdari, 146, Ibn al-Athir, but fromIbnAdari

’

s narrative we ma probablydate it (with Amari and asil

’

ev ) to

A .H . 215 . On the other hand , thereseems no reason for not acc eptingA .D . 829 as the date of the sendingof the reinforcements from Africa .

3 Jli ly-August : Nuwairi, 175 .

4 G . l ~ wali (IbnAdari, i b. ) PerhapsCalloniana Caltanisetta (Vasil

’

ev,

(Nuwairi, ib . ) the date of the capitulation was Sept. 831. See 1. Ibnal-Athir

, 94, in the month c orre

sponding to Aug . 14-Sept. 12, 831 ;and 2 . Cambridge Chronicle, 24, A. M .

6340, incl . 10, which began Sept . 1,831 . These notic es to ether fix thedate between the l st ang12th of Sept.Cp. Vasil

’

ev, 107.

6 See Joann. Neap. 430 ; De S .

Phi lareto (who was put to death ) inA . S .S . April 8, t. i .7 He was ac companied by Simeon

,

a spatharios (it has been conj ec turedthat he was the governor, cp. Vasil

’

ev,Joann. Neap. 430.

ss c r . n SARA CEN IN VASION OF S I CIL Y 305

Caliph M amun,

l poin ts to his desire to concen tra te the forcesof the Empire on the defence of Sicily. But though he failedto secure peace in the East, we should expect to find that hemade some extraordinary effort on the news of the fall of

Panormos. There is,however, no record of the despatch of any

new armament or relief to the western island at this time.

The winning of such an important basis and navalstation marks the completion of the first stage in the Moslemconquest . If the Operations hitherto had been somewhat of

the nature of an experiment, the African Emir was now con

firmed in his ambitious policy of annexing Sicily,and

Panormos was the nucleus of a new province over which b eappointed Abu Fib r as governor. I t is probable that duringthe next few years progress was made in reducing the westerndistricts of the island, but for nine years no capture of an

important town or fortress marked the advance of the

invaders. Abu Fib r and his successors 2 won some battles,and directed their arms against Castrogiovanni, which on one

occasion almost fell into their hands.

3 Kephaloedion,on the

north coast,now called Cefalu, was a ttacked in A.D. 838 ,

b ut timely help arriving from Constantinople forced the

enemy to raise the siege.

4I t is probable that the success of

the G reeks in stemming the tide of conquest was due to the

ability of the Caesar Alexios Musc le,who was entrusted with

the command of the Sicilian forces .

5 He returned to Con

stantinople (perhaps in A.D . 839 ) accused of ambitious designsagainst the throne, and after his departure the enemy madea notable advance by reducing the fortresses of Corleone,

Platani,

and Caltabellotta— the ancient Sican fortress of

Kamikos (A.D . Two or three years later,Al-Fald

1 See above p . 255 .

2 Fald ibnYakub andAbu ’

l-Aghlab

Ibrahim (A . D .

3A .D . 837 . Vasil 'ev, 113. Some

fortresses were taken (apparently on

the north c oast) in A . D . 836, 837 .

Ibn al-Athir, 95 ; Ibn Adari, 147

(whose M-d-nar is taken by Amari to

represent Tyndaris Amari ad Zoo. and

Storia , i. 305 The Arabs also

operated in the region of Etna in A . D .

836, Ibn al-Athir, i b.

4 Ibn al-Athir, ih.

“ large maritimeforces of the Greeks arrived in Sic ily .

”

5 Simeon (Cont. Georg. 794) o'

rpa-m

Nimv Ka i 600m. T fis EcxeMa s. The

appointment seems to have followedsoon after the marri

age with M aria

(0. A .D . 836, see Appen ix Acc .

to Cont. Th . 108 Alexios was sent toLongob ardia .

6 Kut lun, Ib latanu , H isn al-Ballut(Ibn al-Athir , i b . ) He adds M arw ,

while Nuwairi (175 ) adds M . r. a . and

H . rha . The last is supposed to b eG erac e. M . r. a or Marw has been con

jec tured to b eMarineo, or Calatamauro.

See Vasil’

ev, 149. Amari, Stor ia ,

i . 3 10.

306 EAS TE RN R OMAN EM P IRE CHAP. IX

achieved the second great step in the conquest , the captureof Messina. Aided by Naples

,which had allied itself to the

new power in Sicily, he besieged the town by land and sea ,

and after all his assaults had been repelled, took it by an

artifice . Secretly sending a part of his forces into the

mountains wh ich rise behind the city, he opened a vigorousattack from the sea-side. When all the efforts of the

garrison were concentrated in repelling it, the concealedtroops descended from the hills and scaled the desertedwalls on the landward side. The town was compelled tocapitulate.

l

The invaders had now established themselves in two of

the most important sites in Sicily ; they were dominant inthe west and they held the principal city in the north -east.In a few years the captures of Motyke

2and its neighbour

Ragusa 8 gave them a footing for the conquest of the southeast . An army which the Empress Theodora sent to the

island, where a tempora ry respite from the hostilities of the

Eastern Saracens had been secured, was defeated with greatloss ;

4and soon afterwards the warrior who had subdued

Messina captured Leontini. When Al-Fald laid siege to it,the Greek strategos marched to its relief, having arrangedwith the garrison to light a beacon on a neighbouring hillto prepare them for his approach . Al-Fald discovered thatthis signal had been concerted, and immediately lit a fi re

on three successive days. On the fourth day, when the

relieving army ought to have appeared , the besieged issuedfrom the gates, confident of victory. The enemy

,by a

1 The s iege began in 843 or end of

842 (in A .H . 228 which b e an Oct . 16,842, 1bn al In t e sameyear

M . s .kan was taken : Amari (Stor ia ,

i. 3 14) identifies it with Alimena,north-west of Castrogiovanni.2 Modic a, A . D . 845. Cambridge

Chron. 26, ind . 8 émdaflnaav Ta

Kaar éhh a 1 739 r ovpaxwa ia s «c l 6 d‘

ytos‘

’

Avavla s r fis M ob-ra ms. CanTurakinaia

conceal Trinakia3A .D . 848. Ragusa (T ova!) seems to

b e the ancient Hybla .

Cambridge Chron. ind. 9 (Sept.845-Aug . 846 ) éyéve

‘

ro 6 r bhepos 1 00

Xapg‘

auin ,which Amari and Vasil

’

evexpla in with probabil ity by supposing

that the Greek army was largelycomposed of troops of the Charsianprovince . The army would have beensent soon after the exchange of

captives in A .D . 845 (see above, p .

and the battle may have been foughtearly in 846 It is rob ab lyto b e identified with the batt e whichIbn al-Athir (96) rec ords in A .D .

843-844,for he says that more than

Greeks fell , and ac c . to the Cambridge Chron. 9000 were slain. Ibnal-Athir mentions the place of thebattle as Sh -r-t ; Amari (ad loo. )would identify it with Butera north ofGela . The Sarac en general was

Ab u’

l-Aghlab al-Abbas, afterwardsgovernor.

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308 EAS TE RN R OMAN EM P IRE CHAP . IX

arrived at Syracuse in the late autumn under the commandof Constan tine Kontomytes .

lThe army landed

, but was

utterly defeated by Abbas,who marched from Panormos.

The coming of the G reek fleet incited some of the towns inthe west to rebel against their Arab lords, but they werespeedily subdued, and Abbas won a second victory over the

Greek forces near Cefalu. This was the last effort of the

Amorian dynasty to rescue the island of the west from the

clutch of Islam. Before the dea th of Michael II I . the

invaders had strengthened their power in the south -east bythe captures of Noto 2

and Scicli, and in the north -east theheights of Tauromenium had fallen into their hands.

3

Syracuse was still safe, b ut its fall, which was to completethe conquest of Sicily, was only reserved for the reign of

Michael ’s successor.

4

3 . The Invasion of Southern I taly

As a result of the I talian conquests of Charles the G reat,two sovran powers divided the dominion of Italy betweenthem. The Eastern Empire retained Venice, a large part ofCampania, and the two southern extremities ;

‘

all the rest ofthe peninsula was subject to the new Emperor of the West.But this simple formula is far from expressing the actualsituation . On one hand, the nominal allegiance to

sources d iffer as to this battle, Ibnal-Ath ir and Ibn Adari representingthe Moslems as victorious, while theCambr idge Chronicle says (28) 37nda finaav 7 a Kapdma 1 00AM) . Nuwairi

acknowledges the defeat, but plac esit at Crete .

1 Cambridge Chron. 28 (ind.

60) Karfiheev 6Kovbvnfirrns. TheArabicversion has “

the Fandami landed .

I suspec t that Qandami (Kondyme[tes]) was intended . The lettersfa and qaf differ only by a dot .

Constantine Kontomytes, strategos of

Sicily, is mentioned in Cont. Th .

175 . Vasil’

ev d istinguishes him fromConstantine Kontomytes, who was

strategos of the Thrakesian Theme

under Theophilus (Cont. Th . I

see no reason for not identifying them.

2To New s (between Syracuse and

Motyke ) , north o f the modern Noto . May 878.

Taken in 864 it had to b e retaken in 866(Cambridge Chron. During theseyears (862-867 ) Hafaj a ibn Sufyanwasgovernor. Abbas had died in 861 at

q-r-q

-nah (Ibn al-Athir, 97 Caltagirano ? Vasil

’

ev) , where he was

buried . The Greeks dug up h is

corpse and burned it.

3 Ibn al-Athir, 98 . Amari (Stor ia ,

i. 347 ) th inks it possible that Troina(west of Etna ) ismeant . But Vasi l ’evhas no doubts that Taormina is indicated. Envoys from Taormina met

Hafaj a near Mount Etna and proposed terms. Hafaj a sent his wifeand son to the c ity and a treaty wasconc luded . But the inhabitants brokethe treaty, and the governor sent hisson against it and it was takenSo Ibn al-Athir .

SECT . m SARA CEN IN VA S I ON OF S O UTH I TAL Y 309

Charles which the great Lombard Duchy of Beneventum

pretended to acknowledge, did not affect its autonomy or

hinder its Dukes from pursuing their own independent policyin which the Frankish power did not count ; on the otherhand

, the cities of the Campanian coast, while they respectedthe formal authority of the Emperor at Constantinople,virtually

,like Venice, managed their own affairs

,and were

left to protect their own in terests. The actual power of

Charles did not reach south of the Pontifical State and the

Duchy of Spoleto ; the direct government of Nicephorus

extended only over the southern parts of Calabria and

Apul ia . These relatively inconsiderable Byzantine districtswere now an appendage to Sicily ; they were administeredby an official entitled the Duke of Calabria ; but he was

dependent on the Sicilian strategos. In Calabria— the

ancient Bruttii— the northern boundary of his province wassouth of Cosenza and Bisignano, which were Lombard ; 1 inApulia

,-the chief cities were Otranto 2 and Gallipoli. These

two districts were cut asunder by the Lombards, who were lordsof Tarentum ; so that the communications among the threeterritories which formed the western outpost of the EasternEmpire— Sicily

,Calabria

,and Apulia— were entirely maritime.

In the eighth century the city of Naples was loyallydevoted to Constantinople, and the Emperors not onlyappointed the consular dukes who governed her, but exerciseda real control over her through the strategoi of Sicily. I t

seemed probable that under th is Byzantine influence,Naples

would,like Sicily and Calabria, become Graecised, and her

attitude was signally hostile to Rome. But in the reignof Irene

,a duke named Stephen played a decisive role in

the history of the city and averted such a developmen t .He aimed at loosening , without cutting, the bonds whichattached Naples to Constantinople, and founding a nativedynasty. H is régime is marked by a reaction in favour of

Latin ; he is determined that the Neapolitan clergy shallinherit the traditions of Latin and not of Greek Christendom .

3

And if he is careful to avoid any rupture with the Empire1 The most important places in Lombards. Cod . Carolina s, Ep. 17,

Byzantine Calabria were Reggio, p. 515 Epp . M er . et Kar .

Cotrone, Rossano and Amantea . aevi , i . ed. Gundlach ) .2 Recovered c . A .D . 758 from th e 3 Gay, L

’

I la lie mer . 18-19 .

3 10 EAS TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE CHAP. IX

and to secure the Imperial assent to the succession of his son

Stephen I I ., the head of the Emperor soon disappears fromthe bronze coinage of Naples and is replaced by that of

Januarius, the patron saint of the city.

1This assertion of

independence was followed by years of trouble and strugglesamong competitors for the ducal power, which lasted for a

generation , and once in that period the authority revertedbriefly to representatives of the Imperial government. W earyof anarchy, the Neapolitans invited the Sicilian governor to

nominate a duke, and for three years the city was subject toByzan tine officials. Then (in A.D. 8 2 1 ) the people drove out

the protospatharios Theodore,and elected a descendant of

Stephen .

2But twenty years more elapsed before the period

of anarchy was finally terminated by the strong arm of

Sergius of Cumae, who was elected in A.D. 840.

Gaeta 8and Amalfi belonged nominally to the Duchy of

Naples, and, like Naples,to the Eastern Empire . But they

were virtually independent city states. Gaeta lay isolatedin the north . For Terracina belonged to the Pope, and

M inturnae, as well as Capua,with the mouths of the Liris

and Vulturnus,belonged to the Lombard lords of Beneventum.

The great object of the Lombards was to crush the cities ofthe Campanian coast, and the struggle to hold her own

against their aggression was the principal preoccupation of

Naples at this period. In this strife Naples displayedwonderful resourcefulness, but the Lombards had all the

advan tages. The Duchy of Beneventum comprised Samnium ,

the greater part of Apulia,Lucania

,and the north of Calabria ;

moreover it came down to the coasts of Campania, so thatNaples and Amalfi were isolated between Capua and Salerno.

If the Beneventan power had remained as strong and con

solidated as it had been in the days of Arichis,there can b e

small doubt that Naples and her fellows must have beenabsorbed in the Lombard state. They were delivered fromthe danger by the outbreak of internal struggles in the

Beneventan Duchy.

The Lombards had never had a navy ; but Arichis, the

1 For examples see Capasso, ii. 2, 3 The chiefmagistrate of Gaeta was251-253. entitled hypala s, cp. Capasso, i. 2632 Chron. episc. N eap. (Capasso, (document of A .D .

205 , 207 .

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EA S TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE C HAP . i x

tempted to begin the conquest of southern I taly ; and here,as in the case of Sicily, their appearance on the scene was

provoked by an invitation. Naples, besieged by Sicard , sough taid from the Saracen governor of Panormos. A Saracen fleetwas promptly despatched, and Sicard was compelled to raise

the siege and conclude a treaty.

1The alliance 2 thus begun

between Naples and Panormos was soon followed by activeaggression of the Moslems against the enemy of their Christianallies. Brundusium was the first sacrifice. The Moslemssuddenly surprised it ; Sicard marched to expel them ; butthey dug covered pits in front of the walls, and drawing theLombard cavalry into the snare gained a complete victory.

Sicard prepared for a new attempt,and the Arabs, feeling

that they were not strong enough to hold out,burned the

city and returned to Sicily ?

The assassination of Sicard shortly after this event wasfollowed by a struggle between two rivals, Sikenolf his brotherand Badelchis. The Principality was rent into two parts ;Salernum was ranged against Beneventum ; and the contestlasting for ten years (A.D . 839 -849 ) furnished the Moslemswith most favourable opportunities and facilities for laying thefoundations of a Mohammadan state in southern I taly.

Tarentum fell into their hands,4 and this led to the interposition of the Emperor Theophilus, whose possessions in I talywere now immediately threatened. He did not send forceshimself, but he requested or required his vassal, Venice, todeliver Taren tum. He could indeed appeal to Venetian interests.

The affair of Brundusium may have brought home to Venicethat the danger of Saracen fleets in the Hadriatic waters

,of

Saracen descents on the Hadriatic coasts,could no longer b e

ignored. In response to the pressure of the Emperor,a

Venetian armament of sixty ships sailed to the Gulf of Tarentum(A .D. where it encountered the powerful fleet of the

Arabs who had lately captured the city.

5The Venetians were

1 A .D . 836. Joann. Neap . 431 (Capasso

,i . Text of treaty between

Sicard and Andrew, Duke of Naples :Capasso , ii. 2, 147-156 . Andrew is

entitled magister mi litam in this in.

strument2 An interesting memorial of this

confederacy is a gold coin inscribedwith the name of (Duke ) Andreas,

surrounded by Arabic letters . Vasil’

ev,144, who refers to D . Spinelli, M onete

cnfi che ba tlule da principi longoba i d i ,normanni, osreci , p . xxvi . (Naples ,1844) cp. Capasso, i. 80.

2 Chron. Sa lem . 503 . The date isunc ertain (perhaps 838, Vasil'ev ) .

‘1 Chron. Sa l. 5085 Joann. Ven. 1 14 ; Dand. 0hron. 175 .

ss c r . m SARA CEN IN VASI ON OF SOUTH I TAL Y 313

utterly defeated, and a few months later (April, A.D . the

first expedition of the enemy up the Hadriatic proved thatthe Mohammadan peril was no idle word, b ut might soon reachthe gates of St. Mark ’

s city. The town of Ossero on the isle

of Cherson off the Dalmatian coast, and on the I talian shorethe town of Ancona,

were burned ; and the fleet advanced as

far as the mouth of the Po.

lA year later the Arabs renewed

their depredations in the gulf of Quarnero, and won a completevictory over a Venetian squadron at the island of Sansego ?

The strife of two rivals for the principality of Beneventumfurnished the Moslems with the opportunity of seizing Bari ?

The governor of that city in order to aid his masterRadelchis, had hired a band of Saracens. One dark nightthey fell upon the sleeping town , and,

killing the governor,took it for themselves. The capture of Bari (A.D. 84 1 )

4was

as important a success for the advance of the M ohammadans

in I taly as that of Panormos for the conquest of Sicily. Buttheir aggression in I taly was not as yet organized. I t is

carried out by various bands— African or Spanish,— who ac t

independently and sometimes take opposite side in the

struggles of the Lombard princes. The Saracens of Bari, whohad wrested that place from Radelchis, become his allies ;

5

but the chief of Tarentum supports h is enemy, Sikenolf.Another Saracen leader

,Massar, is employed by Radelchis to

defend Beneventum against Sikenolf’s Lombards of Salerno.

If the civil war in the Lombard Principality was favourableto the designs of the Saracens

,it was advantageous to Naples

and her neighbours. N o sooner did the struggles break out thanAmalfi recovered her independence ; and Naples

,relieved from

the pressure of Lombard aggression was able to change herpolicy and renounce the alliance with the Moslems withwhom she had not scrupled to co-operate. She had helpedthem to take Messina

,but she realised in time that such a

friendship would lead to her own ruin . Duke Sergius saw

clearly that the Saracens, who were occupying the Archipelago1 L occ. citt. Lentz, B .Z. iii. 71, dates 177 Sansego is near Lussin.

these events to A .D . 840 and so Gay . 3 Erchempert, 240 ; Casin.

5 1 .Vasil’

ev adopts 839, and so Kretsch 223 , 225 Amari, Storia . i. 360-1mayr , 93 . Diimmler, S lawen in Da l

4 h'

ma tien, 399 , plac es the capture ofSee SC ipa, Sa lerno, 99 '

Tarentum in 843.

5 They wasted Sikenolf's lands and2 Joann. Ven. ib . Dand . Chron. burned Capua , ib. 99-100.

EA S TE RN R O/ll AN EM P IRE CHAP . Ix

of Ponza and were active on the coast south of Salerno, werean imminent danger to the Campanian cities. Through hisexertions, an alliance was formed by Naples with Surrentum,

Amalfi,and Gaeta to '

assist the aggression of the power whichthey now recognized as a common enemy (A.D . The

confederate fleet won a victory over a Sicilian squadron nearCape Licosa .

2 Rome too seems to have b een aware that theunbelievers might at any moment sail against the great cityof Christendom. Pope G regory IV. had built a fort at Ostiaand strengthened the town by a wall and foss ? Not longafter his death, they took Ostia and Porto and appeared beforethe walls of Rome (August A .D . I t is probable tha ttheir quest was only booty and that they had not come withthe thought of besieging the city. They were driven off bythe Margrave of Spoleto, but not till they had sacked the

churches o f St. Peter and St. Paul outside the walls A largebody encamped before Gaeta (September) ,

5 where a battle wasfought, but the arrival of Caesarius

,son of Duke Sergius, with

a fleet forced them to retreat to Africa ?

Three years later the Romans were disturbed by the

alarming news that the enemy had equipped a great fleet tomake another attack upon their city. Pope Leo IV. concludedan agreement with the league of Gaeta, Amalfi ,

and Naples,for the defence of Rome. The naval forces of the four powersgathered at Ostia, and the leaders of the confederates sworesolemnly in the Lateran palace to be true to the cause. But

their task proved unexpectedly easy, for the forces of the

elements charged themselves with the defence of the city of

the Popes. The hostile fleet arrived and the battle began ,but a storm suddenly arose and scattered the Arab ships. The

I talians had little to do but to pick up captives from the

waters. This success must have contributed much to establishthe power and authority of Duke Sergius at Naples.

In the same year (A.D. 849 ) the domestic dissensions in

1 Capasso, i. 212 : Joann. Neap . 432. rovius , Hist. of R ome, iii. 87 sqq.

2 1b ~ the Sicilian Emir revenged Agnari. Storia ,i . 365 see See also

himsel f by sending an expedition to Bohmer-Muhlb acher, 1309035“ Imper i i ,pil lage the nei

ghbourhood of Naples 1 ~ 419 89

Misenum was estroyed,

5 L ib. Pant. ii. Joann. Neap.3 L ib. Pant. ii. 82. He died in 844. éggj fgg

01 112 332 1° 212 5 022 071“ 02"

1 Op. Ann. B ert. , s. a . 846 . Grego6 Op. Schipa , i b . 104.

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EA S TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE CHAP . IX

As against the Saracens, the interests of the Eastern and theWestern Empires were bound together, and, when Lewis oncemore set himself earnestly to the task of recovering Apulia

,b e

invoked the cc -operation of Constantinople . How he succeeded ,and how his success turned out to the profit of his Greek allies

,

is a story which lies beyond our presen t limits .

the reign of Basil I . But in the

paral le l passage in Genesios (116) thenumber 150 may inc lude their con

quests in Sic ily, and thus is ossib lyright. Genesios says that Gal erianoni s not counted in this enumeration. The

name puzzled historians (cp. Hirsch,b ut I have shown that it was a

stronghold on the Liris,and explains

the modern name o f that river, Garigliano (The Treatise De adm. imp.

CHAPTER X

RELATIONS WITH THE WESTERN EMPIRE. VENICE

WHEN Nicephorus I . ascended the throne,he was confronted

on the western borders of his dominion by the great WesternSta te which was founded by the genius of Charles the Grea t .I t included the whole extent of the mainland of westernEurope

,with the excep tion of Spain and the small territories

in I taly wh ich still belonged to the lord of Constantinople.

I t was far larger in area than the Eastern Empire,and to

Charles it might well have seemed the business of a few shortyears to drive the Byzantine power from Venetia, from the

southern ex tremities of I taly,and from Sicily itself. He had

annexed Istria ; he had threatened Croatia ; and his powerhad advanced in the direction of the Middle Danube. But

his Empire,though to himself and h is friends it might appear

as a resurrection of the mighty empire of Augustus or

Constantine,was not built up by the slow and sure methods

which the Roman republic had employed to extend its sway overthe world. Though it was pillared by the spiritual influenceand prestige of Rome, it was an ill-consolidated fabric whichcould not be strengthened and preserved save by a successionof rulers as highly gifted as Charles himself. A few yearsafter his death the disintegration of his Empire b egan ; it hadbeen a menace

,it never became a serious danger

,to the

monarchs of Constantinople.

A treaty had been concluded between Charles and Irenein A.D . 79 8 , by wh ich the Empress recognised the lordship of

the King in Istria and Beneventum,while he probably acknow

ledged her rights in Croatia .

1 Soon afterwards, induced1 Ann. r . F.

, s . a . See Harnack , D ie B eziehungen, 39 .

317

EAS TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE CHAP. x

perhaps by overtures from,

a disloyal party in the island,

Charles seems to have formed a design upon Sicily,and in

A .D . 800 it was known at Constantinople that he intended toattack the island 1

but his unexpected coronation led him to

abandon his design.

Unexpected ; when the diadem was placed on his head inSt. Peter’s on Christmas Day, and he was acclaimed Imperatorby the Romans, he was not only taken by surprise, but evenvexed ? The Pope

,who performed the coronation

,was merely

in the secret ; he consented to, but he did not initiate, a

scheme,which was far from being obviously conducive to the

interests of pontifi cal policy . I t has been shown 3 that thescheme was conceived and carried through by friends and

counsellors of the king, who were en thusiastic admirers of

their master as a conqueror and a statesman. In poems and

letters, these men— Alcuin , Theodulf, Angilbert, Paulinus,Arnoventilated, as we may say, the Imperial idea,

not formulatingit in direct phrases, but allusively suggesting it. ThusAngilb ert wrote :

Rex Karolus, caput orb is, amor populique decusque,Europae venerandus apex , pater optimus, heros,Augustus.

4

I t was not enough for the authors of the scheme to assure

themselves of the co-operation of Pope Leo, for they weresufficiently versed in the Imperial theory to know that theconstitutional legitimacy of a Roman Emperor depended noton his coronation b ut on his election. It was essential toobserve the constitutional form : the Emperor must b e

acclaimed by the Roman Sena te, and army,

and people.

There was no Senate in the old sense , but the term sena tus

was applied to the Roman nobles,and this sufficed for the

purpose ?

1 The evidence (cp. Harnack , 40) isAnn. r . F.

,s. a . 799 , an envoy of

M ichael,the governor ofSic ily, visited

Charles and was d ismissed with greathonour Theoph . , s . a . 800, Charleswas crowned Ka i fiovhnfiels KaraEmeMau

wapar d’g'

aoflat cr1'

t ,ue

'

r eflhrjfln ; Ann.

r . F., s.a . 811, Leo, a spathar, a Sic ilian,fled to Charles at Rome in 801 , and t e

mained with him till 811 , when peacewas c onc luded between the Empires.

There were soldiers and there was a populace . It

2 Einhard, Vita Karoli , 28.

3 By Kleinclausz,L

’

Empire caro

lingien, 169-192. On the generalaspec t of the event c onsult Bryc e,Holy Roman

4 Poetae L a lini acei Karolini , ed.

Dummler, i. 368, vv. 92-94. Cp.

Alcuin, Ep. 174 (Epp. Kar . aev. pp .

2885 See Kleinc lausz, 196 .

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and indivisible ; two Roman Empires were unimaginable ?

There might b e more than the one Emperor ; but these otherscould only b e legitimate and constitutional if they stood tohim in a collegial relation . If

,then

, the lord of Constantinople,whose Imperial title was above contention, refused to acknowledge the lord of Rome as an Imperial colleague

,the claim of

Charles was logically condemned as illegitimate.

That Charles felt the ambiguity of his position keenly isproved by his acts. To conciliate Constantinople, and obtainrecognition there, became a principal object of his policy. He

began by relinquishing the expedition which he had plannedagainst Sicily. A year later (very early in 802) he receivedat Aachen envoys from Irene . The message which they boreis unknown , but when they re turned home they were aecompanied by ambassadors from Charles

,who were instructed to

lay before the Empress a prOposal of marriage ? It is sa idthat Irene was herself disposed to entertain the offer favourably

,and to acquiesce in the idea of a union between the two

realms, which would have restored the Empire to somethinglike its ancient limits. The scheme was a menace to the

independence of the East, and Irene’s ministers must haveregarded it with profound distrust. They had no mind to

submit to the rule of a G erman,who would inevitably have

attemp ted to impose upon Byzantium one of his sons as

successor. The influence of the patrician Aetius hinderedIrene from assenting? and before the Frankish ambassadorsleft the city they witnessed her fall. This catastrophe putan end to a plan which

,even if it had led to a merely

nominal union of the two States,would have immensely

strengthened the position of Charles by legalising, in a signalway,

his Imperial election . It was, however, a plan whichwas in any case doomed to failure ; the G reeks would neverhave suffered its accomplishment.

Nicephorus, soon after his accession , sent an embassy withsome proposals to Charles. We do not know what the pointsat issue were, but Charles agreed, and at the same time wrote

1 The theory is quite c onsistent 2 Ann . r . F., s. a . 802. Theoph . ,

with the convenient expressionorienta le A . M . 6294.

cl occidenta le imperium,which first 3 Indem Actins die Vermalung

occurs in the letter of Charles to verhinderte, rettete er die SelbstM ichael I. Sec Harnack . 55 . standigkeit des Ostens ” (Harnack ,

CHAP. x CHARLE S THE GREA T AND N I CE PH OR US 321

a letter to the Emperor? This let ter is not preserved, b ut wemay conjecture, with h igh probability, that its purport wasto induce Nicephorus to recognise the Imperial dignity of

the wri ter ? N icephorus did not deign to reply, and peacebetween the two powers was again suspended (A.D .

Active hostilities soon broke out, of which Venetia was the

cause and the scene .

We are accustomed , by a convenient an ticipation,to use

the name Venice or Venetia in speaking of the chief city of

the lagoons long before it was thus restricted. For it was not til lthe thirteenth cen tury that “ Venice came to b e speciallyapplied to the islands of the Rialto , nor was it till the ninthcentury that the R ialto became the political capital. Venetiameant the whole territory of the lagoon state from the Bren tato the Isonzo . Till the middle of the eighth cen tury the

cen tre of government had been Heracliana3on the Piave, which

had taken the place of Oderzo when that city (0. 640) wascaptured by the Lombards. No traces remain to-day of the

place of Herac liana, which sank beneath the marshes, evenas its flourishing neighbour Jesolo, which was also peopled byfugitives from Oderzo and Al tino,

has been covered over bythe sands. In A .D . 742— an epoch in the history of Venicethe direct government of the Venetian province by Masters of

Soldiers was exchanged for the governmen t of locally electedD ukes, and at the same time the seat of office was transferredfrom Herac liana to the island of Malamocco. The noblefamilies of Herac liana and Jesolo followed the governor

,in

such numbers tha t Malamocco could not hold them,and the

overflow streamed into the islands known as Rivus Al tusthe Rialto . The first consequence of this movement was thefoundation of a bishopric in the northern island

,the see of

Olivolo,which has been signalized as the first ac t in the

foundation of the city of Venice.

4

But Malamocco,the sea t of governmen t and the residence of

the prominent fami lies,was not the centre of commerce or the

1 See letter of Charles to Nicephorus fi dence from the whole context of

inm . Kar . a w. 547 ; Ann. r . F. , events (cp. Harnacks. a . 803. In Ann. Sithienses (M I LE , 3 The same as ClVlt Nova, Tftfi t'rdSc“ P’ 37

3,11 13 3 3 58 119 11. that Nbfia , in Const . De adm. imp. 125 .peac e was made per c onsc ripti onem

pac ti.” 4 Kretschmayr, Geschichte von Vene

2 W e can deduc e this with con dig , 52 .

322 EA S TE RN R OMAN EM P IRE CHAP . x

sea t of ecclesiastical power. The northern lagoon-city of Grado,originally built as a port for Aqui leia, was the residence of the

Patriarch, and doub tless surpassed in the luxuries of civiliza

tion,as it certainly excelled in artistic splendour

,the secular

capitals Heracliana and Malamocco. For the superabund

ance of wealth at this time was in the coffers of the Church ?

The centre of trade was Torcello, well protected in the

northern corner of the lagoons, and it did not surrender tothe Rialto its position as the great Venetian market—place tillthe ten th or eleven th cen tury. The home products which theVenetians exported consisted chiefly in salt and fi sh

,and their

only native industry seems to have been basket-work . The

commercial importance of Venice in these early ages lay inits serving as a market-place between the East and the West ;and its possession had for Constantinople a similar value tothat of Cherson in the Euxine. G reek merchants brought toTorcello the rich products of the East —silk, purple, and linen

-peacocks, wines, articles of luxury ; and Venetian tradersdistributed these in I taly

, Gaul, and Germany. The Greekexports were paid for by wood

,and metals

,and slaves. The

traffic in slaves,with Greeks and Saracens, was actively

prosecuted by the merchan ts no twithstanding the prohibitionsof the Dukes ?

The D ukes remained unswervingly loyal to the Empirethroughout the eighth century. In A.D. 7 78 the DukeMaurice introduced into the Dukedom the principle of

co-regency, similar to that which was customary in the Imperialoffice itself ; he appointed his son as a colleague, and this wasa step towards hereditary succession. This innovation musthave received the Emperor ’s sanction ; Maurice was investedwith the dignities of stratélatés and hypatos, and his offi cialtitle ran

,magister militum, consul et imperia lis dux Venetiarum

provinciae?

The I talian conquest of Charles the Great and his advance

1 Kretschmayr, 80 sqq. For the contributory help fromG reek carvers .

cathedral Basi lic a of G rado, built inthe last quarter of the sixth century,see Rivo ira (L ombardic A rchitecture

,

i . 94 who considers it— as well asthe small adjac ent Church of Sta .

Maria del le G razie as“ probably a

work of the School of Ravenna, with

The capitals of the c olumns of the

nave are Byzantine .

2 76-97.

3 Cp. Kretschmayr, 51 . I take itthat mag. mi l . translates the titlearpa

‘

rnhdrns, c onferred 61d Bpafi elov.

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324 EA S TERN R OMAN EM P IRE CHAP. x

the spring of A.D . 807 the Emperor Nicephorus di spatched a

fleet to recall the rebellious dependency to its allegiance. The

patrician Nicetas, who was in command, encountered no

resistance ; the Dukes submitted ; Obelierius was confirmed inhis office and crea ted a spathar ; his brother 1 was carried as a

hostage to Constantinople along with the bishop of Olivolo .

Fortunatus, who had been reinstated at G rado,fled to Charles.

Thus Venice was recovered without bloodshed. Pippin,

who, with the title of King,was ruling I taly

,was unable to

interfere because he was powerless at sea,and he concluded a

truce with the Byzantine admiral till August 808 . But the

trial of strength between the Western and the Eastern powerswas only postponed. Another Greek fleet arrived

,under the

patrician Paulus,strategos of Kephallenia, wintered in Venice,

and in spring (809 ) a t tacked Comacchio, the chief market ofthe Po trade. The at tack was repelled

,and Paulus treated

with Pippin,but the negotiations were frustrated by the

intrigues of the Dukes, who perhaps saw in the continuanceof hostilities a means for establishing their own independencebetween the two rival powers ? Paulus departed

,and in the

autumn Pippin descended upon Venetia in force . He attackedit from the north and from the south

,both by land and by

sea. H is operations lasted through the winter. In the northhe took Heracliana, in the south the fort of Brondolo on the

Brenta ; then Chioggia,Palestrina, and Alb iola ;

8 finallyMalamocco.

4The Dukes seem to have fallen into h is hands,

and a yearly tribute was imposed 5 (A .D . Paulus againappeared on the scene, but all he could do was to saveDalmatia from an attack of Pippin ’s fleet .

The news quickly reached Constantinople, and Nicephorussent Arsaphios, an officer of spathar rank

, to negotiate withPippin . When he arrived, the King was dead (Julyand he proceeded to Aachen (October)

?

Charles was now in a better position to bargain for hisrecognition as Imperator than seven years before. He had

now a valuable consideration to offer to the monarch of

1 Beatus ; he returned to Venice, imp

.

with the title of hypatos, in 808 and Constantine, i b . , desc ribes the

he and Obelierius adopted their b rother siege of Malamocco, which he saysValentine as a third co-regent Duke . lasted six months.

2 Lentz, i . 37 .

5 l b .

3(Constantine, De adm.

6 Op. Ann. r . F. p. 133 .

CHAP. x VEN I CE 325

Constantinople, and he proved, by what he was ready to pay,how deeply he desired the recognition of his title. He agreedto restore to Nicephorus Venetia, Istria,

L iburnia, and the

cities of Dalma tia which were in his possession . He entrustedto Arsaphios a letter to the Emperor, and handed over to himthe Duke Obelierius to b e dealt with by his rightful lord ?

Arsaphios, who was evidently empowered to make a provisionalsettlement at Venice

,returned thither, deposed the Dukes

,

and caused the Venetians to elect Agnellus Partec iacus,

who had proved his devotion and loyalty to the Empire(Spring

In consequence of the death of Nicephorus in the sameyear

, the conclusion of peace devolved upon Michael I . He

agreed to the proposals,his ambassadors saluted Charles as

Emperor— Basileus -at Aachen and Charles, who hadat last attained the desire of his heart

,signed the treaty.

The other copy was signed by the successor of Michael andreceived by the successor of Charles This transactionrendered valid retrospectively the Imperial election of A.D . 800

at Rome, and, interpreted strictly and logically, it involvedthe formal union of the two sovran realms. For the recognitionof Charles as Basileus meant that he was the colleague of the

Emperor at Constantinople ; theywere both Roman Emperors,but there could b e, in theory, only one Roman Empire. In

other words, the Act of A.D . 8 1 2 revived,in theory, the position

of the fifth century. Michael I . and Charles, Leo V. and

Lewis the Pious,stood to one another as Arcadius to Honorius

,

as Valentinian I II . to Theodosius I I . the imperium Romanum

stretched from the borders of Armenia to the shores of the

Atlantic. The union,of course, was nominal, and glaringly

unreal, and this has disguised its theoretical significance. The

bases of the civilizations in east and west were now so different,the interests of the monarchs were so divergent, that therecould be no question of even a formal co-operation— of issuinglaws

,for instance

,in their joint names. And even if closer

1 Ann. r . F. , ad dominum suum,p . forms. As Charles, not Lewis, had

134. The letter of Charles is extant : been rec ognized by Leo, Lewis sentEpp. Ka r . aev. 546-548 . two envoys (a long with the Greek em

2 Cp. Lentz, ~ i. 43. b assadors) to Constantinople, to obtain3 About July A .D . 814. Simson, a new document (ib. They re

L udw ig, i. 30. It is worth noting turned with it towards the end of 815

the punc tiliousness of the d iplomatic (ib.

EAS TE RN ROM AN EM P IRE CHAP. x

intimacy had been possible, there was no goodwill on the partof Constan tinople in conceding the Imperial dignity, for whicha substantial price had been paid. Nor did the EasternEmperors consider that the concession was permanen t . It

became hereafter a principle of their policy to decline to

accord the title of Basileus to the W estern Emperor,unless

they required his assistance or had some particular object togain . Thus in diplomatic negotiations they had the advantageof possessing a consideration cheap to themselves, but valuableto the other party.

To return to Venice, the treaty between the two sovranpowers contained provisions which were of high importancefor the subject state. The limits of its territory were probablydefined ; the embargo on its trade in the empire of Charleswas at last removed ; and its con tinen tal possessions

,in the

borders Of Frankish I taly, were restored to it, on the conditionof paying a yearly tribute of about £ 1 5 50 to the Italian king ?

Commercially, this trea ty marks the beginning of a new periodfor Venice it laid the foundations of her mercantile prosperity.

Not so politically 2the state of things which had existed

before the Frankish intervention was restored . The Venetiansgladly acquiesced in the rule of Constantinople . They hadfelt the conquest of Pippin as a profound humiliation ; theirhistorians afterwards cast a veil over it

? Their long and

obstinate defence of Malamocc o showed their repugnance to theFranks. A Greek writer 4 tells us that, when Pippin calledupon them to yield, they replied

,We will b e the subjects of

the Emperor of the Romans,not of thee . Th is

,at all events

,

expresses their feeling at the time . There are signs thatduring the following years the Imperial government manifesteda closer and more constant interest in Venetian affairs and

perhaps drew the reins tighter. Two yearly tribunes wereappointed to con trol the Duke.

5 On the accessions of Leo V.

1 36 lb s . of gold ; it was still paid Dandulus, Chron. 151 , 163 ; L entz , i .xar éxovn To (Snydr ou

‘

r fis 45 .

firm Ila‘

lrfa s (Pavia ) in the 10th cent . 2 Cp. Lentz,i. 47 .

See Constantine,De adm. imp. 124-125,

3 Kretschmayr , 58 .

who considers it a continuation,

4 Constantine, ib .

diminished in amount, of the tribute 5 Such tribunes had been ap Ointed(whefa ‘

r a r am ) exacted by Pippin. before when Monegarius was uke in

For the provisions of the treaty see A .D . 756. Kretschmayr, 51 , 61, 423 .

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EAS TE RN R OM AN E M P IRE CHAP . x

on the mainland due north of Rialto,a basilica with three

apses, of which the ground plan was excavated not long ago?

A conspiracy (A.D . 83 6) terminated the rule of the

Partec iac i. The last duke was relegated to a monastery at

G rado, and he was succeeded by Peter Trandenicus, an illiterate,energetic man

,under whose memorable government Venice

made a long leap in her upward progress. For she now

practically asserted, though she did not ostentatiously proclaim,

a vir tual independence . There was no revolution ; there wasno Open renunciation of the authority of the Eastern Empire ;the Venetians still remained for generations nominally Imperial subjects. But the bonds were weakened , the reinswere relaxed

,and Venice actually conducted herself as a

sovran state. Her independence was promoted by the dutywhich fell upon her of struggling against the Croatian

'

pira tes ; the fleet of the Empire,occupied with the war in

Sicily, could not police the upper waters of the Hadriatic .

Hitherto Venice had used the same craft for war and

trade ; Peter Trandenicus built her first warships— chelandia

of the Greek type. Theophilus crea ted him a spathar ;he styled himself “ Duke and Spathar

,but he did not

,

like his predecessors, describe himself as “submissive” (humilis)

presently he assumed the epithet of “ glorious. I t is

significant that in the dates of public documen ts anni

Domini begin to replace the regnal years of the Emperor ?

But the most important mark of the new era is that Venicetakes upon herself to conclude

, on her own account, agreements with foreign powers. The earliest of these is the con

tract with the Emperor Lothar (Feb . 22,

which amongother provisions ensured reciprocal freedom of commerce byland and sea, and bound the Vene tians to render help in

protecting the eastern coasts of Frankish I taly against theCroatian pirates. This

,the oldest monumen t

,as it has been

called? of independent Venetian diplomacy,may b e said to

mark the inauguration of the independence of Venice.

4

If Venice was thus allowed to slide from under the con

1 See Cattaneo, op . cit. 235 sqq. Kretschmayr, 95 .

2 Capi tu lar ia ,n. 233, p. 130 sqq.

”1 For the change in the position o f

(op. Lentz,n . 1 12 Venice summarised in this paragraph ,

2 Along with the Praeceptum o f and the dukedom of Peter, see Lentz,Lothar, A .D . 841 (Capitu la ria , n. ii. 64 sqq. Kretschmayr, 92 sqq.

C HAP. x TH E EA S TE RN AND WE S TE RN EM P IRE S 329

trolling hand of the Emperors, without scandal or ill-feeling ,

she retained her supreme importance for Byzantine commerce,

and for the next two centuries she was probably as valuableto the Empire, of which she was still nominally a part

,as if

she had remained in her earlier state of strict subordination .

The conquest of Istria by the Franks affected not onlythe history of Vene tia,

but also that of Dalmatia . The realmof Charles the Grea t was now adjacent to the province of

Dalmatia,which included the Roman cities and islands of the

coast, from Tarsatica in L iburnia to Cattaro,and also to the

Slavs of the“ hinterland who were in a loose subjection to

the governmen t of Constantinople. In the treaty of A .D . 79 8

the Franks acknowledged the Imperial rights over the Slavs ;b ut in the following years both the heads or Zupans of theseSlavs

,and even the Roman communities of the coast

,seem to

have discerned, like the Venetians,in the rivalry between the

two Imperial powers an opportunity for winning independence.

The duke and the bishop of Zara 2 went to the court of Charles,along with the duke of Venice

,in A .D . 806 , and paid him

homage . About the same time some of the more northernSlavonic tribes submitted to him

,a submission which was

nominal and 1nvolved no obligations ? Bu t this,like the

corresponding political change in Venice, was only transient .By the treaty of A.D. 8 1 2 the Old order was formally restoredand the Franks undertook not to molest or invade the

Dalmatian communities . Some particular questions concerningthe boundaries in the north were settled in the reign of Leo V.

,

4

and no further at temp ts were made by the Western Empire toseduce Dalmatia from its allegiance. But this allegiance was

1 Just after this, in A . D . 799, the tec ture,i . 152) agrees tha t it dates

Margrave of Friuli was slain near

Tarsatica (Tersatto, Trsat ) , “ insidii s

Oppidanorum,Ann. r . F. p . 108, and

three years later there was a revo lt 111this region against N icephorus (onhi s ac c ession) led by one Turc is .

The Emperor destroyed Tarsatica

(“tantnmodo so lum Tarsaticum de

struere potuit the rebel subm ittedand was pardoned . Joann. Ven. 100.

On Tersatto , cp. Jackson, Da lmatia ,

iii. 166 sqq .

2 The c ircular church of San Donatoat Zara is a memoria l of this bishop

,

Donatus . R ivoira (L omba rdic A rchi

from his time,and points out that it

was“ insp ired d irec tly by San Vitale

at Ravenna .

”

3 Espec ially the Slavs of L iburnia

(Einhard , Vit. Kar . cp. Harnack ,48.

4 Leo sent an envoy, Nicephorus, toL ewis in A .D . 817,

“ de fi ni bus Dalma

torum Romanorum et Sc lavorum

(Ann . r . F. ,and another embassy

in A . D . 818. See S imson,L udwig, 78

and 110 Harnack , 60. N ic ephorus

and Gado lah , the Margrave of Friuli,

were sent to arrange a settlement onthe spo t .

330 EA S TE RN ROM AN EM P IRE CHAP. x

unstable and wavering. The Slavonic i upans acknowledgedno lord in the reign of Michael III . or perhaps at an earlier

date? The Roman communities of the coast, which wereunder their own magistrates

,subject to an Imperial governor

or archon , are said to have asserted their autonomy in the timeof Michael I I .

— and this may well have happened when hewas engaged in the struggle with Thomas ? But the controlof Constantinople was soon reimposed, and Dalmatia continuedto b e a province or Theme

,under an archon

,though the cities

enjoyed, as before, a measure of self-government,which re

sembled that of Cherson ?

The set tlement of another question in the reign Of MichaelI I . tended to pacify the relations between the two empires.

The Istrian bishops who were subjects of the WesternEmperor had been permitted by the Peace of A.D. 8 1 2 to

remain under the Patriarch of Grado,who was a subject of

the Eastern Emperor. This was an awkward arrangement,

which probab ly would not have been allowed to continue ifthe Pa triarch Fortuna tus had not proved himself a goodfriend of the Franks.

4 But it was satisfactory to bothEmperors to transfer the Istrian churches from the See of

G rado to that of Aquileia,so that the ecclesiastical juris

dictions were coincident with the boundaries between the tworealms. This settlement was effected in A.D . 8 27 by a synodheld at Mantua.

5

1 Cont. Th . (Vita Ba silii ) , 288 ; Constantine , De adm. imp. 128. Notethat in the former passage only therevolt of the Slavs is mentioned, whilein the latter the emphasis is on the

Da lmatian provinc ials, who are saidto have bec ome autonomous in the

reign of M ichael II . See next note .

2 This date is accepted by Hopf(Gr iechische Geschichte, and Mur

alt (410) and is defended by Harnack ,70, against H irsch , who (198 ) arguesthat in De '

adm. Cont. Th .

84) Michael II. is c onfounded withM ichael III. The passage in Cont.

Th . 288, is not really inconsistentw ith the assertion of autonomy by theS lavs before the reign of M ichael III .

3 See above, p . 223.

4 Fortunatus seems to have been a

born intriguer. He was ac cused of

rendering secret support to Liudewit,

when that leader raised the Croatiansof Pannonia in rebel lion against theFranks ; and when L ewis summonedhim to answer the charge , he fl ed toZara and thenc e to Constantinople(A. D . He accompanied M ichael ’sembassy to Lewis in 824, and was

sent on to the Pope, but d ied on the

way. See Ann. r . F. , s . 821 and 824

M ichael, Ep. ad L ud . 419 ; Joann.

Ven. 108 .

5 Mansi, xiv . 493 sqq. Cp. Harnack ,67-69 . The questionwas probably oneof the Obj ec ts of the embassies whichpassed between M ichael II . and Lewisin A .D . 827, 828. The Oekonomos of

St . Sophia was the head of the G reekembassy

,which presented to the

Western Emperor a Greek text of th eworks of D ionysios the Areopagite .

The Frank envoys, who were honourably received , brought back from

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BULGARIA

1 . The Bulgarian Kingdom

THE hill-ridge of Shumla, which stretches from north-west tosouth-east, divides the plain of Aboba from the plain of

Preslav, and these two plains are in timately associated withthe early period of Bulgarian history. I t must have beensoon after the invaders established their dominion overMoesia, from the Danube to the Balkans

,that they transferred

their capital and the seat of their princes from a marshyfortress in the Dobrudzha to a more central place. Theirchoice fell upon Pliska. I t is situated north-east of Shumla

,

in the plain of Aboba,and near the modern village of that

name ? Travellers had long since recognized the site as an

ancient settlement,but it was taken for gran ted that the

antiquities which the ground evidently concealed were of

Roman origin,and it has only recently been discovered by

excavation that here were the great entrenched camp and

the royal palace of the early khans of Bulgaria.

The camp or town formed a large irregular quadrilateral,and some idea of its size may b e conveyed, if it is said thatits greatest length from north to south was four miles, andthat its width varied from two miles and a half to aboutone mile and three-quarters. It was enclosed by a fortification ,consisting of a ditch outside a rampart Of earth

,the crown of

which appears to have been surmounted by a wooden fence.

Although early destruction and later cultivation have done1 This account of Pliska is based on Constantinople, c ited as Aboba (see

the publication of the excavations of Bibliography ) .the RussianArchaeologic al Institute of

332

ss c r . 1 THE B UL GARIAN K IN GD OM 333

what they could to level and obliterate the work, the lines

can b e clearly traced,and it has been shown that the town could

be entered by eleven gates. Near the centre Of the enclosurewas an inner stronghold, and within this again was the palaceof the Khans. The stronghold

,shaped like a trapezium

,was

surrounded by thick walls, which were demolished at an

ancient date ,and now present the appearance of a rampar t

about ten feet high . Four circular bastions pro tected the

four angles, and two double rectangular bastions guarded eachof the four gates, one of which pierced each of the four walls .

The walls were further strengthened by eight o ther pentagonalbastions. The main en trance was on the eastern side .

W ithin this fortress stood a group of bui ldings,whi ch is

undoubtedly to be iden tified as the pala tial residence of the

Khans. The principal edifice, which may b e distinguished as

the Throne-palace, was curiously constructed. A large roomin the basement, to which there seems to have been no

entrance from without, except perhaps a narrow issue underneath a staircase, points to the fact that the ground-floor wasonly a substructure for an upper storey. This storey con

sisted of a prodomos or entr ance-hall on the south side,to

which the chief staircase ascended,and a hall of audience.

The hall was nearly square,and was divided by rows of

columns into three parts,resembling the nave and aisles of

a church . The throne stood in a round apse,in the centre

of the northern wall. Not far from this building stood a

rectangular temple, which in the days of Krum and Omurtagwas devoted to the heathen cult of the Bulgarians

,b ut was

converted, after the adop tion of Christianity, into a church .

The fortress and the palace,which seem to have been

built much about the same time, certainly belong to no laterperiod than the first half of the ninth century. The architecture of the Throne-palace bears the impress of Byzantineinfluence , and has a certain resemblance to the Trikonchos of

Theophilus, as well as to the M agnaura .

1I t was doub tless

constructed by Greek masons. The columns may have beenimported from Constantinople ; it is recorded that Krum,

1 It resembled the Triklinos of the an upper storey and in being enteredMagnaura by its throne-apse and the through the prodomos, as the Trikonrows of c olumns in the “

nave it chos was entered through the Sigma,

resembled the Trikonchos in being to which external stairs ascended .

334 EAS TERN ROMAN EM P IRE CHAP. xx

when he attacked that city,carried Off works of art from the

suburban buildings.

The title of the rulers of Bulgaria was kanas uuege,

sublime khan,

” 1b ut even while they were still heathen

,they

did not scruple to have themselves described sometimes in theiroffi cial monuments as

“rulers by the will of G od.

” 2Of the

political constitution of the kingdom lit tle can b e ascertained.

The social fabric of the ruling race was based on the clansystem

,

3and the head of each clan was perhaps known as a

éupan. From early ages the monarchy had been hereditary inthe clan of Dulo

,but in the middle of the eighth century

,

Kormisos, who belonged to another family, ascended the throne,and after his death Bulgaria was distracted for some years bystruggles for the royal power. We may probably see in theseeven ts a revolt of the clans against the hereditary principleand an attempt to make the monarchy elective . There weretwo ranks of nobility

, the boilads and the b agains,4and among

the b oilads there were six or perhaps twelve who had a con

spicuous position at the court. When a Bulgarian ambassadorarrived at Constantinople, etiquette required that the foreignminister should make particular inquiry first for the six

1xa

’

wa s preceding the name

(frequent in the inscriptions ) .has been satisfac torily equated (byTomaschek) w ith the Cuman -Turk

glorious cp. Mar

quart, Streifzuge, 495 Chron. 40.

2 Omurtag in the Chatalar inscription (A . D . 821-822) ,éx 06 0i) dpxwv,Aboba ,

545 ; and Malamir, 6 ex 0. «i . , i b . 230

The use of the titleby Omurtag d isproves Uspenski ’s c onj ec ture (i b . 197-198) that the Roman

government c onferred it on Malamirbecause Christianity had spread inBulgaria in his reign. Marquart

’

s

view is (Chron. 41-42) that the title wasmeant as a translation of the TurkishTangrida

'

bolmyé qan,heaven

created khan.

”It was the regular

style of the Christian princ es, cp.

Constantine,Cer . 681 .

2 So among the Magyars (3x6 1 Oééxdorn yell ed dpxovra , Const. De adm.

imp. Besides the c lans of Dulo ,Ukil, and Ugain, mentioned in the

Regna l list, we have various yer/eat

rec orded in ninth c ent. inscriptions,e. g. Kvpi

'

yfip, Kovflidpm (A boba ,190

Okhsuu,of the family of Kuri

ger, is described as 6 { ovr duOkorses as 6 Korravbs (where K seems

to b e an error for and in an

other inscription (No . 7 , p . 192 ) inhonour of some one

‘

yeveds’

Ep dpns,I would supply at the beginningforma l/k s. AS the title Zhupan was

used by South Slavonic peoples forthe head of a tribe

,it is a rea sonable

conj ec ture that it designated a tribalprince among the Bulgarians . See

Uspenski, ib . 199. The word is supposed to occur in the form foa rrav inthe early inscr iption of Marosh inHungary, which is believed to relateto the G epids

‘1 Cp. 8691b, Kat r obs {5301t “

Ka l,Ba ‘

ya tuovs é‘w eVucyaka Eéma . Cp.

Uspenski, A boba , 201-202 . B orla s, in

Mansi, xvi. 158, has been rightlyc orrec ted to boelas (60171 69, usual formin the inscriptions) by Marquart(Chron. Vagantus or vaganlus,in the same passage, is doubtlessc aganius cp. Uspenski, op.

ci t. 204. coni c ; passed into Slavonicas boliarin (the Russian boia r ) .

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their records is the most striking sign of the influence whichwas exercised on the Bulgarians by the civilization of Con

stantinople . We can trace this influence also in their buildings,and we know that they enlisted in their service G reek engineers

,

and learned the use of those military engines which the G reeksand Romans had invented for besieging towns . Notwith

standing the constant warfare in which they were engagedagainst the Empire, they looked to Constantinople much as

the ancien t Germans looked to Rome. Tervel had been createda Caesar by the gratitude of Justinian IL

,and two of h is

successors found an honourable refuge in the Imperial citywhen they were driven by rivals from their own kingdom .

Tserig fled to the court of Leo IV. (A.D . accepted baptismand the title Of Patrician

,and was honoured by the hand of

an Imperial princess ? I t might b e expected that the Bulgarianswould have found it convenient to adopt the Roman system of

marking chronology by indictions or even to use the Romanera of the Creation of the world, and we actually find thememploying both these methods Of indicating time in theirofficial records ? But they had also a chronological system of

their own. They reckoned time by cycles of sixty lunar years,starting from the year A .D. 65 9 , memorable in their history as

that in which they had crossed the Danube and made theirfirst permanent set tlement in Moesia .

3 For historical purposes,this system involved the same disadvantage as that of Indictions,though to a much smaller degree ; for instance, when an eventwas dated by the year shegor alem or 48 , it was necessary also

to know to what cycle the year referred. But for practicalpurposes there was no inconvenience, and even in historicalrecords little ambiguity would have been caused until theBulgarian annals had been ex tended by the passage of timeinto a larger series. I t is possible that the Bulgarian lunaryears corresponded to the years of the Hijra

,and if so, this

would b e a remarkable indication of Mohammadan influence,which there are other reasons for suspecting. We know that inthe ninth century there must have been some Bulgarianswho were acquainted with Arabic literature ?

1 Krum’

s sister married a Greek 4 R esponsa N icola i, 103,

“ librideserter. profani quos a Sarac enis vos ab stulisse

2 See A boba ,227 and 546. s o a ud vos habere perhib etis .

”Cp.

6 See Bury, Chronol. Cycle. Jire ek

,Geschichte

,134.

SECT . I THE B UL GAR IAN K IN GD OM 337

Bu t the Bulgarians had other neighbours and foes besidesthe Romans, and political interests in other directions than inthat of Constantinople. It is recorded tha t the same princewho crossed the Danube and inaugurated a new period in

Bulgarian history, also drove the Avars westward,1 and the

record expresses the important fact tha t in the seventh centurythe Bulgarians succeeded to the overlordship which the Avarkhans had exercised over Dacia in the reigns of Maurice and

Heraclius. This influence extended to the Theiss or beyond.Eastward, their lordship was bounded by the Empire of the

Khazars, b ut it is impossible to define the prec ise .limit of its

ex tent. There can be no doubt that in the seven th and

eigh th centuries Bulgaria included the countries known inla ter times as Walachia and Bessarabia

,

2and the authority of

the khans may have been recognised even beyond the Dniester .

At all even ts it appears to be certain tha t in this periodBulgarian tribes were in occupation of the coastlands fromtha t river wellnigh to the Don

,and this Bulgarian continuity

was not cleft in twain till the ninth cen tury . The moreeasterly portion of the people were known as the InnerBulgarians

,and they were probably considered to belong to

the Empire of the Khazars . But we ca nnot decide whether itwas at the Dniester or rather at the Dnieper that the authorityof the Khazars ended and the claims of the G reat BulgariansOf Moesia began .

South of the Danube,the kingdom extended to the Timok,

which marked the Servian frontier ? The Bulgarians lived on

terms of unbroken friendship with the Servians,and this may

perhaps b e explained by the fact tha t between their territoriesthe Empire still possessed an important stronghold in the cityof Sardi ca .

For the greater security of their country the Bulgariansreinforced and supplemented the natural defences Of moun tain

1[Moses of Chorene] , Geography to limi t the Bulgarians on their eastern

(seventh c ited inWestberg , Beitre

'

tye, ii. 312 ; Marquart, Chron. 88 .

2 Sc r. Inc ertus, 345 . Bovx‘

yapta u

{ Keifi ev r oi)"IO' rpov r or auo ii (= Pseudo

Simeon,

There is no reason to

sup ose that when Isperikh settledin t e Dobrudzha, he abandoned Bessarabia. fi ll the ninth century therew as no power but that of the Kh azars

frontier, and there is no probabil itythat the Khazars ever exerted authority further than the Dni ester, if as

far .

3 One point on the frontier (Constantine , De adm. imp . 155 ) seems to

have been Rasa (Novi Bazar, Jireéek ,

Geschichte,

338 EAS TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE CHAP . X I

and river by elaborate systems of fortification and entrenchment ? Their kingdom, almost girt about by an artificialcircumvallation

,might b e compared to an entrenched camp

,

and the stages in its territorial expansion are marked bysuccessive ramparts . Beyond the Danube, a ditch and earthenwall connected the Pruth with the Dniester in northernBessarabia, and a similar fence pro tected the angle betweenthe mouths of the Sereth , the Danube, and the Pruth ? The

early settlement of Isperikh at Little Preslav, near the mouthof the Danube, was for tified by a rampart across the

Dobrudzha? following the line of Older Roman walls of earthand stone, but turned to confront a foe advancing from the

south,while the Roman defences had been designed against

barbarians descending from the north . When the royalresidence was moved to Pliska,

a line of fortifications was constructed along the heights of Haemus ; and a trench and

rampart from the moun tains to the Danube marked the

western frontier. When their successes at the expense of the

Empire enabled the conquerors to bestride the mountains, anew fence, traversing Thrace, marked the third position in

their southward advance ? The westward expansion is

similarly separated by two more entrenchments connectingthe Haemus with the Danube, wh ile the right bank of thatriver was defended by a series of fo rtresses and en trenchmentsfrom Little Preslav to the neighbourhood of Nicopolis.

The main road from Constantinople to the capital of the

Bulgarian kings crossed the frontier, east of the Tundzha, nearthe conspicuous heights of M eleona,

5 which,still covered with

1 The fo l lowing brief description isbased on Shkorpil

’

s,in Aboba , c . xx .

503 sqq. cp. also Pri lozh . i i . 566-569 .

Masudi desc ribes the dominionof the Bulgarians as surrounded bya thorn fence, with openings likewooden windows, and resembling a

wall and canal (Harkavi , Skazaniia ,Uspenski (Aboba , 15 ) takes

“ dominion ”to mean the royal aula,

and relates th e desc ription to Aboba .

This is a strained interpretation b ut

possibly Masudi’

s sourc e mentionedboth the c ircumvallation of the kingdom and the fortifications of Pliska,and Masudi confused them.

2 There was also an entrenchment

in Southern Bessarabia between the

Pruth and Lake Kunduk ; i b . 524 .

See Schuchhardt,Arch .

- ep. M ittheilungen, ix. 2 16 sqq.

2 Schuchhardt, ib . 87 sqq. Toc ilesco,

Foui lles et recher ches archéologiques en

R oumanie, 1900 (Bucharest) .“1 See below ,

p . 361.

6 Aboba,564-565 , 5 14, the heights of

Bakadzhik . Shkorpil remarks thatthey “

c ould serve as a naturalboundary , before the construc tion Of

the Erkesna . It is c ertain that bythe middle of the eighth c entury a t

latest the Bulgarian frontier had

moved south of Mount Haemus . The

text bearing on th is question is Theoph .

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340 EAS TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE CHAP. x i

a ttention of the Bulgarian king was at this time preoccupiedby the political situation which had arisen in the regionsadjacent to the Middle Danube by the advance of the Frankpower and the overthrow of the Avars. On the other hand

,

Nicephorus who ,soon after h is accession , was embroiled in war

with the Saracens,may have taken some pains to avoid

hostilities on his northern frontier. I t is at all eventssignificant that he did not become involved in war withBulgaria un til the tide of the eastern war had abated. W e

do not know What cause of provocation was given , but so far

as our record goes, it was the Roman Emperor who beganhostilities. Kardam had in the meantime been succeeded byKrum

,

1a strong

,crafty

,and ambitious barbarian , whose short

reign is memorable in the annals of his country.

It was in A.D. 807 that Nicephorus set forth at the headof an army to invade Bulgaria ?

But when he reachedHadrianople a mutiny broke out, and he was compelled to

abandon his expedition . The next hostile movement of whichwe hear— we cannot say which occurred— was the appearanceof a Bulgarian army in Macedonia,

in the regions of the

Strymon,towards the close of the following year ? Many

regimen ts of the garrison of the province,with the s trategos

himself and the Officers,were cut to pieces

,and the treasury

of the khan was enriched by the capture of 1 100 lb s. of goldwhich had been destined to pay the soldiers. It

would seem that the Romans had not expected an attack so

1 We are quite ignorant of the that the statements of Theophanesinternal history of Bulgaria from 797to 807, and know neither in what yearKrum acc eded nor whether he was

the immediate successor of Kardam.

Jirecek places h is ac cession in 802 807(Geschi chte, For the variousforms ofKrum

’

s name,inGreek

,Latin

,

and Slavonic sourc es, cp. Loparev,Duie Zamietlci , 341 , n. 1 . That Krumis the right form is shown by the

Shumla inscription (Kpofiuos : A boba ,233 ; cp. Shkorpil, A rch -cp. M itth .

xix . On the alleged legislationof Krum (Suidas, s .v . Botx'

yapoi ) seeG . Kazarow ,

B .Z. xvi . 254-257

2 Theoph . ,A .M .

3 Theoph . ,A.M . 6301 . This event is

placed by all h istorians in 809 (Jirecek,Geschichte

,But it seems to me

more naturally point to the last monthsof 808 (A . M . 6301 = September 608

August For a fter describingthe affair of the Strymon the chronic lerproceeds 6

'

aura) fr et 1rpo r fis éOprfi s‘

r oOHdaxa Kpofinuos Kr lx. Now if theBulgarians had immediately proceededaga inst Sardice , Theophanes wouldhardly have written 1 43 6

'

a br qi éra ,

which impl ies that two events are

independent or separated in time ;and i t is c lear that as the capture of

Sardica took plac e before Easter 809,it must have been immed iately preceded by the v ic tory on the Strymon

,

in c ase that vic tory was won in thesame spring . I therefore conc ludethat 808 is the r ight date ; and itseems more natural that the soldiersshould have been paid before winter.

seer . 11 KR UM AND N I CE P H OR US I . 341

la te in the year ; but the presence of a considerable force in theStrymon regions poin ts to the fact that the Bulgarians hadalready betrayed their designs against Macedonia . In the

ensuing spring (809 ) Krum followed up his success on the

Strymon by an attack on the town of Sardica,which seems at

this time to have been the most northerly outpost of the Empiretowards the Danube. He captured it not by violence

,but

by wily words,and put to death a garrison of six thousand

soldiers and (it is said) the population Of the place . I t doesnot appear that he had conceived the idea of annexing theplain of Sardica to his realm . He disman tled the fortificationsand perhaps burned the town

,which was one day to b e the

capital of the Bulgarian name . When the tidings of the calamityarrived, Nicephorus left Constantinople in haste on the Tuesdaybefore Easter (April Although the monk, who has relatedthese events

,says nothing of his route

,we can have no doubt

that he marched straigh t to the mountains by M eleona and

Marcellae, and descended on Pliska from the Veregava Pass.

For b e dispatched to the city an Imperial letter in which hementioned that he spent Easter day in the palace of the

Bulgarian king ? The plunder of Pliska was a reprisal forthe sack of Sardica , to which Nicephorus then proceeded forthe purpose of rebuilding it. We are not told what road hetook, but he avoided meeting the victorious army of the

enemy. I t is said that some offi cers who had escaped themassacre asked Nicephorus in vain for a promise that hewould not punish them

,and were forced to desert to the

Bulgarians.

The Emperor desired to rebuild Sardica as speedily and

as cheaply as possible,and

,fearing that the soldiers would

b e unwilling to submi t to a labour which they might say

was not a soldi er’s business, he prompted the generals and

officers to induce the soldiers to address a spontaneous requestto the Emperor that the city might b e rebuilt. But the men

saw through this stratagem,and were filled with indignation .

They tore down the ten ts of their superiors, and, standing infront of the Emperor’s pavilion , cried that they woul d endure

1 Theophanes malevolently insinu r ip! BamMOa r bhw weldew éowobdag‘

w

ates a doubt of the truth of the

Emperor’ s statement : adxpa i s évbpxocs

342 EAS TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE CHAP . x i

his rapacity no more. It was the hour Of noon and Nicephoruswas dining. He directed two patricians to attempt to tranquillise the army ; the noise abated ; the soldiers formed a

company on a hillock hard by,

and,forget ting the matter in

hand, kept crying, ‘ Lord,have mercy !’ This unorganized

mutiny was soon quelled by Imperial promises,l and the

officers were all on the Emperor’s side. Punishment, however,was afterwards inflicted on the ringleaders.

N icephorus viewed with anxiety the western provinces of

his Empire in Macedonia and Thessaly. The Slavs, on Whosefidelity no reliance could b e placed, were predominant there , andit was the aim of the Bulgarians to bring the MacedonianSlavs under their dominion . To meet the dangers in thisquarter the Emperor determined to translate a large numberof his subjects from o ther parts of the Empire and establishthem as Roman colonists in what was virtually a Slavonicland. They could keep the Slavs in check and help in

repulsing Bulgarian aggression . The transmigration beganin September 809 and continued until Easter 8 10. It seemsto have been an unpopular measure . M en did not like to

leave the homes to which they were attached,to sell their

property, and say farewell to the tombs of their fathers . The

poor cling far more to places than the rich and educated, andit was to the poor agriculturists that this measure exclusivelyapplied . Some . we are told

,were driven to desperation and

committed suicide rather than go into a strange and distan tland ; and their richer brethren sympathized with them ; infact , the act was described as nothing short of “

a cap tivity.

”

But though it may have been hard on individuals, it was a

measure of sound policy ; and those who on other groundswere ill-disposed to the government exaggerated the odiumwh ich it aroused . Nicephorus, who, as we are told, pridedhimself greatly on this act

,

2seems to have realised the danger

that the Slavonic settlements in Macedonia and G reece migh teventually b e gathered in to a Bulgarian empire ; and thesenew colonies were designed to obviate such a possibility.

1 On the next day Nic ephorus made says most were punished bya speech ful l of asseverations of his stripes, banishment, or c ompulsorygoodwill to the sold iers and their tonsure, and the rest were sent tochildren. H e then returned to Cple. , Chrysopolisleaving Theodosius Salibaras to 2 Theoph. 496.

discover the ringleaders. Theophanes

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344 E AS TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE CHAP. x1

peace. But the victor disdained to listen . Perhaps it washis hope to recover Moesia and completely to subdue the

Bulgarian power. But if this was his design it was not to

b e realised ; Nicephorus was not to do the work which wasreserved for Tzimi skes and Basil Bulgaroktonos. He allowedhimself to b e drawn back into the moun tain where Krum and

his army awaited him . I t is generally supposed that an

obvious precaution had been neglected and that the Romanshad not taken care to guard their retreat by leaving soldiersto protect the mountain pass behind them . But it seems

probable that the pass of Veregava was not the scene of the

disaster which followed, and the imprudence of Nic ephorus

did not consist in neglecting to secure the road of return . So

far as we can divine,he permitted the enemy to lure him into

the contiguous pass of Verb its, where a narrow defile was

blocked by wooden fortifications which small garrisons coulddefend against multitudes. Here

,perhaps, in what is called

to-day the G reek Hollow,

1 where tradition declares that manyG reeks once met their death

,the army found itself enclosed as

in a trap,and the Emperor exclaimed, Our destruction is

certain ifwe had wings, we could not escape .

”The Bulgarians

could conceal themselves in the mountains a nd abide theirtime until their enemies were pressed by want of supplies ;and as the numbers of the Roman army were so great, theywould not have to wait long. But the catastrophe was

accelerated by a successful night attack. The defi les had beenfortified on Thursday and Friday

,and on Sunday morning

just before dawn the tent in which N ieephorus and the chiefpatricians were reposing was assailed by the heathen . The

de tails of the attack are not recorded ; perhaps they werenever clearly known ; but we must suppose that there wassome extraordinary carelessness in the arrangements of the

Roman camp . The Roman soldiers, taken unawares, seem to

have been paralysed and to have allowed themselves to b e

massacred without resistance . Nicephorus himself was slain ,and almost all the generals and great offi cers who were withhim

, among the rest the general of Thrace and the generalof the Ana tolios ?

1 Groshki-Dol, between the heights as to the scene of the battle I haveof Kys

-tepe and Razboina : Shkorpil adopted .

A boba , 564,and whose view 2 The others spec ially mentioned

ss c r . 11 KR UM AND N I CE P H OR US I .

This di saster befell on the 2 6th of July. It seemed moreshameful than any reverse that had happened throughout theinvasions of the Huns and the Avars

,worse than any defeat

since the fatal day of Hadrianople . After the death of

Valens in that grea t triumph of the Visigoths, no RomanAugus tus had fallen a victim to barbarians. During the

fifth and six th centuries the Emperors were not used to fight ,b u t since the valour of Heraclius set a new example

,most of

the Roman sovrans had led armies to battle,and if they were

not always victorious, they always succeeded in escaping .

The slaughter of N icephorus was then an event to which noparallel could b e found for four centuries back, and it was a

shock to the Roman worldKrum exposed the head of the Emperor on a lance for a

certain number of days. H e then caused the skull to b e

hollowed out in the form of a large drinking bowl? and linedwith silver

,and at great banque ts he used to drink in it to

the health of his Slavonic b oliads with the Slavonic formulazdravitsa .

” 2

A memorial of this disaster survived till late times at

Eskibaba in Thrace,where a Servian patriarch of the seventeenth

century saw the -tomb of a certain Nicolas, a warrior who hadaccompanied the fatal expedition of Nicephorus and seen a

s trange warning dream . The Turks had shrouded the head of

the corpse with a turban ?

3 . Krum and M ichael I .

Sated with their brill iant victory, the Bulgarians did

not pursue the son and son -in - law of the Emperor, whoescaped from the slaughter, and they allowed the Romansample time to arrange the succession to the throne, which ,

comrades were burnt ali ve in a conare the patric ians Ac tins,Peter,

flagration of the wooden palisadesSisinnios Triphyllios, TheodosiusSalibaras

,and the Prefec t (it is very

strange to fi nd the Prefec t of the City— who c an only b e meant— tak ingpart in a campaign) ; also the

Domesticus of the Excub itors ; the

Drungarios of the Watch and manyother offic ers. Theoph. 491 . In whatmanner N ic ephorus was slain himself no one could tell . Some of his

(f tp Tfi s a obOa s 1rvpl) .1 Cp. Herodotus iv . 65 , and 26 .

See Blasel,Die Wanderzuge der

Langobarden,112 sq.

2oOpdfi ir j

’

a .

3 In the diary of a journey to

Jerusalem by Arseny Cernoj evié (A .D .

published in the G la snik (33,189 ) see Jirecek, op. cit. 144.

346 EAS TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE CHAP. X !

as we have seen, was at tended by serious complications.

But Michael I . had not been many months established inthe seat of Empire

,when he received tidings that the enemy

had invaded Thrace (A.D. The city which Krum firstattacked was near the fron tier. On an inner curve of the

bays,on whose northern and southern horns Anchialus and

Apollonia faced each other, lay the town of Develtos. I t

migh t pride itself on its dignity as an episcopal seat , or on

its strength as a fortified city. But its fortifications did not

now avail it,nor yet its bishop . Krum reduced the place ,

and transported inhabitants and bishop beyond the mountainsto Bulgaria . The Emperor meanwhile prepared to Opposethe invader. On the 7th day of June he left the capital,and the Empress Procopia accompanied him as far as

Tzurulon? a place which still preserves its name as Chorlu,

on the direct road from Selymbria to Hadrianople .

I t does not seem that Michael advanced far ther than toTzurulon. The news of the fate of Develtos came , and a

mutiny broke out in the army. I t was thought that theEmperor had shown incompetence or had followed injudiciousadvice. While we can well understand tha t little confidencecould b e felt in this weak and inexperienced commander, wemust also remember that there was in the army a largeiconoclastic section hostile to the government . The Opsikian

and Thrakesian Themes played the most prominent parts inthe rioting. A conspiracy in favour of the blind brothers ofConstan tine V. followed upon this mutiny

,and Michael re

turned to the City. The field was thus left to the Bulgarians,who prevailed in both Thrace and Macedonia. But the alarmfelt by the inhabitants caused perhaps more confusion thanthe actual Operations of the invaders. I t does not indeedappear that the Bulgarians committed in this year any

striking atrocities or won any further success of great momen t .But the fate of the Roman Emperor in the previous yearhad worked its full effect. The dwellers in Thrace werethoroughly frightened, and when they saw no Roman army

1 It was a town on a hill c lose to by the terrible hordes Of Zab ergan ;the tributary of the Erginus , which and in the reign of Maurice , the

is c alled Chorlu - su . See Jireéek ,valiant general Priscus was besieged

H eerstrasse, 51, 101 . In the days of in th is fortress by the Avars .

Justinian, Tzurulon had been stormed

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he would attack M esemb ria ifhis proposals were not immediatelyaccepted . The treaty in question ( 1 ) had defined the frontierby the hills of Meleona ; (2) had secured for the Bulgarianmonarch a gift of apparel and red dyed skins to the valueof £ 1 3 50 ; (3) had arranged that deserters should b e sentback ; and (4) stipulated for the free in tercourse of merchantsbetween the two states in case they were provided with seals

and passports ; 1 the property of those who had no passportwas to b e forfeited to the treasury ?

After some discussion the proposal for the renewal of thistreaty was rejected

,ch iefly on account of the clause relating

to refugees. True to his threat, Krum immediately set his

forces in motion against M esemb ria and laid siege to it aboutthe middle of October Farther out on the bay of

Anchialus than Anchialus itself, where the coast resumesits northward direction , stood thi s important city

,on a

peninsula hanging to the mainland by a low and narrowisthmus

,about fi ve hundred yards in length , which is often

overflowed by tempestuous seas?

It was famous for its

salubrious waters ; it was also famous for its massive fortifi cations. Here had lived the parents of the great Leo, thefounder of the Isaurian Dynasty . Hither had fled for refugea Bulgarian king

,driven from his country by a sedition

,in

the days of Constantine V. Krum was aided by the skillof an Arab engineer

,who,

formerly in the service of Nicephorus,had been dissatisfied with that Emperor’s parsimony and had

fled to Bulgaria ?No relief came, and M esemb ria fell in a

fortnight or three weeks. Meanwhile the promptness of

Krum in attacking had induced Michael to reconsider his

decision . The Patriarch was strongly in favour of the proposedpeace ; but he was Opposed by Theodore

,the abbot of Studion,

who was intimate with Theoktistos,the Emperor’s chief

adviser. The discussion which was held on this occasion(November 1 ) illustrates how the theological atmosphere of

1 as 0 17 0“t xa l o¢>pay£6wm (according to Theophanes) . He in2 Thi s c lause is not in our extant

MSS. but is preserved in the Latintranslation of Anastasius .

3 Cp. Jireéek, Fu'

rstenthum, 526 .

‘1 N ice horus settled him inHadrianople, an when he grumbled at not

rec eiving an adequate remunerationfor his servic es

,struck him violently

struc ted the Bulgarians in every poliorectic contrivance (r dc a vr éxvnv) . Theophanes mentions alsothe desertion of a c ertain spatharnamed Eumathios

,who was unxamxfis

tmra pos, in the year 809 but there isno reason for supposing that these twowere the same person.

sac r . 111 KR UM AND M I CHAE L I . 349

the time was not excluded from such debates . The war par tysaid

,

“We must not accep t peace at the risk of subvertingthe divine command ; for the Lord said, H im who comethunto me I will in no wise cast out

,referring to the clause

concerning the surrender Of refugees. The peace party,on

their side, submitted that in the firs t place there were,as a

ma tter of fact, no refugees, and secondly, even if there were, thesafe ty of a large number was more acceptable to God than thesafety of a few they suggested, moreover, that the real motive ofthose who rejected the peace was a short-sighted parsimony? andtha t they were more desirous of saving the 30 lb s. worthof skins than concerned for the safety of deserters ; thesedisputants were also able to retort upon their opponents passagesOf

'

Scrip ture in favour of peace . The war party prevailed.

Four days later the news came that M esemb ria was taken.

The barbarians had found it well stocked with the comfor tsOf life, full of gold and silver ; and among other things theydiscovered a considerable quantity of Roman Fire,

”and

thirty-six engines (large tubes) for hurling that deadly sub

stance. But they did not occupy the place ; they left it,

like Sardica ,dismantled and ruined. I t would seem that

,

not possessing a navy, they judged that M esemb ria wouldprove an embarrassing ra ther than a valuable acquisition .

All thoughts of pea ce were now put away,and the

Emperor made preparations to lead another expedition againstBulgaria in the following year. In February (8 1 3 ) twoChristians who had escaped from the hands Of Krum announcedthat he was preparing to harry Thrace . The Emperorimmediately set out and Krum was obliged to retreat , notwithout some losses. In M ay all the preparations were ready.

The Asiatic forces had been assembled in Thrace, and eventhe garrisons wh ich pro tected the kleisurai leading into Syriahad been withdrawn to fight against a fee who was at thismomen t more formidable than the Caliph . Lycaonians,

1 So I interpret Theophanes, whow ei’

v peac e, and this is an instruc tive case

and m pau xépOos The majority of the autoc rat being overruled by theat least of the Senate were opposed opinion of the Senate . Cp. Bury,to the peace, dr orrov é¢dvnreraw 1rp00

' Constitution of L .R .E .

, 31 . The Con

<1;t r ots r fis a vxkfir ov Bouhfis (Con f tinuator of Theophanes remarks thatTheoph . the Opinion of Th eo the Bulgarian k ings feared lest all

ktistos probably weighed heavily . the population should by degreesMichael himsel f was in favour of migrate to Roman territory

Isaurians, Cilicians, Cappadocians, and Galatians were compelledto march northwards, much against their will, and the Armeniacsand Cappadocians were noticed as louder than the others intheir murmurs. As Michael and his generals issued from the

city they were acc ompanied by all the inhabitants, as far as

the Aqueduct ? G ifts and keepsakes showered upon the

officers,

and the Empress ProcOpia herself was there,

exhorting the Imperial staff to take good care of Michael andto fight bravely for the Christians.

Michael,if he had some experience of warfare

,had no

ability as a general, and he was more ready to listen to the

advice of the ministers who had gained influence over him in

the palace than to consult the opinion of two really competentmilitary men who accompanied the expedition . These wereLeo

,general of the Anatolios, whom,

as we have already seen,

he had recalled from exile , and John Aplakes, the generalof Macedonia . During the month of M ay the army movedabou t Thrace, and was little less burdensome to the inhabitantsthan ‘

6

the presence of an enemy. I t was specially remarkedby con temporaries that no a ttempt was made to recoverM esemb ria . Early in June Krum entered Roman territoryand both armies encamped near Versinic ia,2 a place not far

from Hadrianople. At Versinicia, nearly twenty years before,another Emperor had met another Khan . Then Kardam had

skulked in a wood, and had not ventured to face Constantine.

Krum,however

,was bolder than his predecessor

,and

,contrary

to Bulgarian habit, did not shrink from a pitched bat tle.

For fifteen days they stood over against one another, neitherside venturing to attack, and the heat of summer renderedthis incessant watching a trying ordeal both for men and

for horses. At last John Aplakes, who commanded one wing,

composed of the Macedonian and Thracian troops,lost his

patience and sent a decisive message to the Emperor : H ow

long are we to stand here and perish ? I will strike first inthe name of God, and then do ye follow up bravely, and

we can conquer. We are ten times more numerous than

1 For the position of Kéduk tos see ment of Scriptor Inc ertus. The latterab ove

,p. 101. is the fuller, and from it we learn the

2 Theoph . 500. Of th is affair w e details of the c ourage of John Aplakeshave two independent ac counts , one (337 sqq. ) Jirecek (Geschichte, 145 )by Theophanes , the other in the Frag wrongly p lac es the battle in July .

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352 EA S TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE CHAP . x1

Anatolic troops, disciplined by warfare against the far moreformidable Saracens, were afraid of the enemy whom they metin Thrace .

The only reasonable explanation of the matter is treachery,

and treachery was the cause assigned by con temporary report ?

The Anatolic troops feigned cowardice and fled ; their flightproduced a panic and the rest fled too . Others may havebeen in the plo t besides the Anatolic s, but the soldiers of Leo,

the Armenian, were certainly the prime movers. The politicalconsequences of the battle show the intention Of the Asiatictroops in courting this defeat . The Emperor Michael lostcredit and was succeeded by Leo. This was what the Asiaticsoldiers desired. The religious side of Michael ’s rule was

highly unpopular in Phrygia and the districts of Mount Taurus,

and Michael himself was, probably, a Thracian or Macedonian .

The rivalry between the Asiatic and European nobles, whichplayed an importan t part at a later period of history, wasperhaps already beginning ; and it is noteworthy that theThracians and Macedonians under Aplakes were the only troopswho did not flee . Reviewing all the circumstances

,so far as

we know them,we cannot escape the conclusion that the

account is right which represents the regimen ts of Leo, if not

Leo himself,as guilty of intentional cowardice on the field of

Versinicia. I t was planned to discredit Michael and elevateLeo in his stead, and the plan completely succeeded.

1 The question really is,how far

Leo was himself privy to the c onduc tof his troops . H irsch acquits Lee of

éb’ekoxaxta (p . The data are as

fo llows (1 ) Theophanes does not hintat intentional c owardice on the partof either general or soldiers . But we

must remember that Theophaneswrote the end of his history just atthe time of Leo

’

s accession,and says

nothing unfavourable to thatmonarch .

(2 ) The Scriptor Inc ertus ac cuses the

Oe‘ua 7 65V dvar ohucé’

w,without spec ially

mentioning the c ommander . As the

author is violently hostile to Leo,

this silenc e is in Leo’

s favour. (3)Ignatius, Vita N icephor i , c . 31 , ao

cuses Leo as the author of the defeat(p. 7 73; firms Aéwv wpwr ep

'

ydrns

yevbuevos r aur l arparowéaqo T ijv uer'

a laxbuns d1i)t éua ceboaro. (4) G enesiosstates that there were two reports

of Leo’

s conduc t, one adverse and one

favourable (a ) that Leo ’

s retreat wastreacherous ; (13) that he was postedat a d istanc e from the army byMichael and hidden not to take partin the c ombat— at least this seems to

b e the meaning. Hirsch thinks that(a ) was derived from some pasquinadeor Spottgedicht. (5 ) In Cont. Th .

there are l ikewise two acc ounts : (a )L eo led the flight, riw fi amXetau del1rws émmrev. This the author professes to have got from a writtensource, éy

‘

ypdcpws (from IgnatiusLeo and his soldiers stood their

ground bravely ; it was the soldierscommanded by the Emperor who fled .

My c onc lusion from all this is thatLeo was really in the plot, but playedhis cards so c leverly that nobody couldprove anything against him, althoughthere were the gravest suspic ions .

ss c r . 1v B UL GARIAN S IE GE OF CON S TAN TIN OP L E 353

4 . The Bulgarian Siege of Constantinople (A.D. 8 1 3)

After his victory over the army of Michael,the king of

the Bulgarians resolved to attempt the siege of two greatcities at the same time . He had good reason to b e elated byhis recent successes against the Roman Empire ; he might welldream of winning greater successes still. He had achievedwhat few enemies of the Empire in past time could boast thatthey had done. He had caused the death of two Emperorsand the downfall of a third ; for he might attribute the

deposition of Michael to his own victory ; and within two

years he had annihilated one Roman army and signally defeatedanother. In point of fact, these successes were due rather toluck than to merit ; the Bulgarian king had shown craftb ut no conspicuous ability in generalship ; the battles had not

been won by superiority in tactics or by signal courage. But

the facts could not b e ignored ; the head of a RomanEmperor was a drinking-cup in the palace of Pliska , and a

large Roman army had been routed near Hadrianople.

It was an ambition of Leo the Armenian,as has been

already noticed, to emulate the great Isaurian Emperors of

the previous century ; and fortune gave him,at his very

accession,an Opportunity of showing how far he could approach

in military prowess the Fifth Constantine, whom the Bulgarianshad found so formidable. Krum left his brother to blockadethe city of Hadrian, and advanced himself to lay siege to thecity of Constantine. He appeared before it six days after theaccession of the new Emperor. In front Of the walls he madea display of his power, and in the park outside the GoldenGate he prepared sacrifices of men and animals. The Romanscould see from the walls how thi s “

new Sennacherib lavedhis feet on the margin of the sea and sprinkled his soldiers ;they could hear the acclamations of the barbarians, and witnessthe procession of the monarch through a line of his concubines,worshipping and glorifying their lord.

1He then asked the

Emperor to allow him to fix his lance on the Golden Gate as

an emblem of victory ; and when the proposal was refused he1 These details are given by the church of SS. Cosmas and Damian

Scriptor Incertus (342 ) . Krum’

s head (ib.

quarters seem to have been near the

354 EA S TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE CHAP. x i

retired to his tent ? Having produced no impression by hisheathen parade, and having failed to daun t New R ome

,he

threw up a rampart and plundered the neighbourhood for

several days. But there was no prospect of taking the queenof cities where so many, greater than he, had failed before, andhe soon Offered terms of peace, demanding as the price a largetreasure of gold and raiment

,and a certain number of chosen

damsels ? The new Emperor Leo saw in the overtures of the

enemy a good Opportunity to carry out a design, which in thepresent age public opinion would brand as an infamous ac t of

treachery, but which the most pious of contemporary monks,men by no means disposed to b e lenient to Leo, regarded as

laudable. The chronicler Theophanes, whom Leo afterwardspersecuted, said that the failure of the plot was due to our sins ?

The Emperor sent a message to Krum : Come down tothe shore, with a few unarmed men,

and we also unarmed wil lproceed by boat to meet you. W e can then talk togetherand arrange terms. The place convened was on the GoldenHorn

,just north of the seawall ; and at night three armed

men were concealed in a house 4 outside the Gate of Blachern,

with directions to issue forth and slay Krum when a certainsign was given by one of Leo

’

s attendants.

Nex t day the Bulgarian king duly rode down to the shore,with three companions, namely his treasurer? a Greek deserter,Constantine Patzikos, who had married Krum

’

s sister,and the

son of this Constan tine. Krum dismounted and sat on the

ground ; his nephew held his horse ready,

saddled and

bridled .

” 6 Leo and his party soon arrived in the Imperialbarge, and while they conversed, Hexabulios,

7who was with

Leo, suddenly covered his face with his hands. The motionoffended the sensitive pride of the barbarian ; highly offendedhe started to his feet and leaped upon his horse. Nor was

he too soon ; for the gesture was the concerted sign, and the1 Theoph . 503. Simeon transcribes 6 Theophanes, however, c learly

Theophanes with inconsiderable verbalchanges (Leo Gr.

2 m l Kopaaw. éwlhexra r oo brnrd Twa .

These fac ts and the details of the

a ttempt to slay Krum are recorded bythe Scriptor Incertus. Loparev (op. cit.

345 ) suggests that Krum was insisting on the fulfi lment of the treaty ofKormisos or, as he thinks, of Tervel.

wrote these pages in the first years ofLeo

’

s reign.

4 iv 6wuar lo¢s n o t» r d’

wFdhhns.6 hoy odérns.6orpwuévov xahwwpévov (Scr. Inc .

7 Doubtless John Hexabulios (seeabove, p .

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The fort of Athyras and a bridge of remarkable size and

strength 1 over the river of the same name, which flows intothe Propontis, were destroyed. Along the western highroadthe avenger advanced till he reached Selymbria, where b e

destroyed the churches and rased the citadel. The fort of

Dac'

inin2was levelled

,and the

' first obstacle in the path of

destruction was the strong wall of Heraclea which had oncedefied Philip of Macedon. Unable to enter it the Bulgariansburned the suburbs and the houses Of the harbour. Con tinuing their course , they rased the fort of Rhaedestos 3 and the

castle of Apros. Having spent ten days there, they marchedsouthward to the hills of Games? whither men and beastshad fled for concealment. The fugitives were easily dislodgedfrom their hiding-places by the practised mountaineers ; themen were slain ; the women, children , and animals were sentto Bulgaria . After a visit of depredation to the shore of the

Hellespont, the desolater returned slowly , capturing forts as

he went,to Hadrianople, which his brother had not yet

succeeded in reducing by blockade . Poliorcetic engines werenow applied ; hunger was already doing its work ; no reliefwas forthcoming ; and the city perforce surrendered. Al l the

inhabitants,including the archbishop Manuel, were trans

ported to “ Bulgaria beyond the Danube? where they werepermitted to live in a settlement, governed by one of themselves and known as Macedonia.

It was now the turn of the Imperial government to makeovertures for peace, and of the victorious and offendedBulgarian to reject them . Leo then took the field himself 7

1 wapdfeuov oboav Ka i wdr v 6xvr c

’

myv. For the locality see above,

p . 102.

2 The old Daunion teichos on the

road from Selymbria to Herac lea .

3 At this point the road left thec oast and reached the fort of A ros

,

more than twenty Roman miles of

Rhaedestos (Bisanthe ) . See Kiepert’

s

Map of Illyricum and Thrace .

4 On the c oast of the Propontis,over against Proconnesus .

5 Scr. Inc . 345 eis' Bovhyaplav e‘xei

’

dev

T OG'

Io~ rpov r or auofi. Simeon (Cont.Georg. Ka i nerd haofi whelo ‘

rou

Oiar epdoa s rd)» r e ebyevfi v M ae bvwv,

Kar eaxfiuwaev a Aavovfi ltp fl ora/1.45.

Simeon (ib. 817) numbers the captives as men

,as well as women.

The Chronography of Theophanesends with the capture of Hadrianople— r< a l r a trnv ého

’

w. The capture of

the Archbishop Manuel we learn fromthe history of Basil I . by ConstantinePorphyrogennetos, forming the 5th

Book of the Continuatio Theophanie,216. The parents

‘

o f Basil lived inHadrianople and were on this oc casionc arried into captivi ty .

6 See below,p. 370.

7 This campaign is not notic ed byGeorge or by the Scriptor Incertus.

Our authority is the combined testimony of Cont. Th . (24-25 ) and Genesios

ss cr . IV B UL GARIAN S IE GE OF CON S TAN TIN OP LE 357

I

and by a stratagem ,successfully executed

,he inflicted an

overwhelming defeat on the army of the enemy, or a portion of

it which was still ac tive in the neighbourhood of M esemb ria.

Entrenching himself near that city and not far from the

Bulgarian camp,he waited for some days. The Roman troops

had command of abundant supplies,but he soon heard that the

Bulgarians were hard pressed for food. Confi ding his planonly to one officer, Leo left the camp by night with a companyof experienced warriors

,and lay in ambush on an adjacent hill .

Day dawned, and the Romans,discovering that the Emperor

was not in the camp,imagined that he had fled. The tidings

reached the camp of the enemy before evening, and the

barbarians thought that their adversaries were now deliveredan easy prey in to their hands. Intending to attack the

Roman camp on the morrow,and meanwhile secure

,they left

aside the burden of their arms and yielded to the ease of sleep .

Then Leo and his men descended in the darkness of the nightand wrought great slaughter. The Roman camp had beenadvised of the stratagem just in time to admit of their co

operation , and not soon enough to give a deserter the

opportunity of perfi dy. The Bulgarians were annihilated ;not a fi reb earer, to use the Persian proverb, escaped . Thissuccess was followed up by an incursion into Bulgaria ;and Leo

’

s policy was to spare those who were of riper

(12 who drew here from a common

sourc e which is most fully reproduc edin Cont. Th . The

,campaign must b e

placed in the late autumn of A.D . 813 ,after the capture of Hadrianople,which probably determined L eo to

sue for peac e . Jireéek assigns it to

A .D . 814 (Geschichte, placingKrum

’

s death in A .D . 815 . But it is

c lear from the narrative of the Sc ript.Inc . that only one winter passed b etween Leo ’

s ac c ession andKrum’

s deathH irsc h (125 -126) regards

this episode as a legend , suggestingthat it was invented to explain the

name Bovvbs Aéovr os. His groundsseem to b e the silence of Theophanesand Simeon, a statement of the Sc r .

Inc .

“ iib er den ungiinstigen Verlaufdes Feldzuges," and the charge of

inac tivity brought against Leo in

Ignatius, Vit. N iceph . c . 34. But

these arguments have no weight .The silence of Theophanes has no

bearing on the question, as his chronicleends with the capture of Hadrianople,and Leo

’

s expedition was certainlylater. George

’

s notic es of mi litaryevents are so scrappy and meagre thathis silenc e proves nothing. The Scr.

Inc . says that during the Bulgarianravages whic h he has desc ribed Leodid not leave the c ity (346 m i 7 015ey evouévwv 6Aéwv r fis 1r6)\ews 015Kéfijhfi ev) .This was l iterally true, b ut the author ,bitterly hostile to Leo, cannot b econsidered incapable of having deliberately suppressed a subsequent suc c ess ,and h is silenc e is not a convinc ingargument . The imputationof Ignatiuscame similarly from the hostile camp ,wh ich employed every weapon of

calumny against the iconoc last. The

details in Co nt. Th . do not suggest alegend , and the account has beenac c epted by all historians (inc ludingFinlay, Hopf

,and Hertzberg) .

358 EA S TERN R OMAN EM P IRE CHAP . x1

years,while he destroyed their children by dashing them

against stones .

Henceforward the hill on which Leo had lain in ambushwas named the hill of Leo? and the Bulgarians, wheneverthey pass that way, shake the head and point with the finger,unable to forget that great disaster.

The ensuing winter was so mild, and the rivers so low ,

that an army of Bulgarians crossed the frontier and

advanced to Arcadiopolis. They passed the river Erginus and

made many captives. But when they returned to the river,they found that a week ’s rain had rendered it impassable, andthey were obliged to wait for two weeks on the banks. The

waters gradually subsided, a bridge was made, and

captives were led back to Bulgaria,while the plunder was

carried in waggons, loaded with rich Armenian carpets,blankets and coverlets

,raiment of all kinds, and bronze

utensils ? His censorious critics alleged that the Emperor wasremiss in not seizing the opportunity to attack the invadersduring the enforced delay.

Shortly after this incursion, tidings reached Constantinoplethat it was destined soon to b e the object of a grand Bulgarianexpedition . Krum was himself engaged in collecting a greathost ; all the Slavonias were contributing soldiers ; and, fromhis Empire beyond the Danube

,Avars as well as Slavs were

summoned to take part in despoiling the greatest city in theworld. Poliorcetic machines of all the various kinds whichNew Rome herself could dispose of were being prepared forthe service of Bulgaria . The varieties of these engines, of

which a list is recorded,must b e left to curious students of

the poliorcetic art to investigate. There were three-throwersand “ four-throwers

,

” tortoises,fi re-hurlers and stone-hurlers,

rams,little scorpions

,and “ dart-stands, besides a large

supply of balls, slings, long ladders, levers, and ropes (6pva 9) ,and the inevitable city-takers In the stablesof the king fed a thousand oxen destined to draw the engines,and fi ve thousand iron-bound cars were prepared . The attemptwhich had been made on his life still rankled in Krum’

s

1 6 Bovvbs Aéovros. xahxu’

mar a egbbprwoau ndur a els dudfa s.2 Scriptor Incertus, p. 347

’

Ap)uema He calls the Erginos the 1

P77‘

ylll a .

rma a rpayhouahwrdpta Ka i vaKordrrrrra6 I b .

dvu'

rreoa Ka i 11111 7 1031461, wol d/v Ka i

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360 EA S TE RN ROMAN EM P IRE C HAP. x i

was possibly before the end of the year (A.D . 8 14) that hewas slain , and succeeded by Omurtag, the son of Krum .

1

The first important act of the sublime Khan Omurtag 2 wasto conclude a formal treaty of peace with the Roman Empire(A.D. 8 1 5 It is probable tha t a truce or preliminaryagreement had been arranged immediately after Krum’

s death ,3

b ut when Krum ’

s son ascended the throne nego tiations wereopened which led to a permanent peace .

4 The contractingparties agreed that the treaty should continue in force forthirty years, with a qualification perhaps that it should b econfirmed anew at the expiration of each decennium.

6 A

fortunate chance has preserved a portion of what appears tob e an official abstract of the instrument , inscribed on a

marble column and set up in the precincts of his residence at

Pliska by order of the Bulgarian king ? Provision was madefor the interchange and ransom of captives,7 and the questionof the surrender of deserters, on which the negotiationsbetween Krum and Michael I . had fallen through

,was settled

in a manner satisfactory to Omurtag. All the Slavs who‘

had been undoubtedly subject to the Bulgarians in the periodbefore the war

,and had deserted to the Empire, were to b e

sent back to their various districts. The most importantarticles concerned the delimitation of the frontier which

1 That Omurtag was son of Krumis direc tly affirmed by Theophylac tus( loc. cit. ) and would b e probable fromthe fac t that Omurta ’

s son Malamirc alls Krum my gran father (inscription in Aboba , 233 ) —the alternativebeing that Omurtag was Krum’

s son-in

law .

2 The true form ofthe name, attestedby his inscriptions is

reserved in Latin sourc es (Omortag ) .heophylactus (H ist.xv.mart. 192 ) c allsh im the Greek chronicleshave Moprd

‘

ywuorM ovrpd'

ywv.

3 I have c onj ec tured (Bu lgarianTreaty of A .D . 814, pp . 286-287) that afragment of such an agreement mayb e preserved in the 1nscription of

Eski-Juma (Aboba ,4 Cont. Th . expressly ascribes thetreaty to Omurtag (658 apes a brbv) ,Genesios (41 7rp6$ a trots) leaves it open.

For the further evidence of the in

scription of Malamir see my artic le onthe treaty (op. In 823 the firstdecennium of the thirty years was near

expiration (o vverrh'hpovv oxeBév, Gen.

loc . Jireeek dates the treaty A .D .

815, Loparev and Zlatarski 816. I

am inc lined to believe that 815-816is right (not 814, as I argued op.

We must not press too far the oxedo’

u

of Genesios and other evidencemakesit likely that the twentieth year of

the period determined c. 836,and the

thirtieth c . 846.

6 This seems to b e implied in the

passage of Genesios .

6 The inscription of Suleiman-keui(Aboba , 220 Uspenski proposedto refer it to the beginning of the

reign of Michael II . I have shown(op . cit. ) that it contains a text orabstrac t of the Thirty Years’ Treaty.7 The common people (private

soldiers) were to b e interchanged ,man for man. A ransom of so much ahead was to b e paid for Roman officers.

A special arrangement was made forthe redem tion of Greeks who had

been foun in forts which the commanders had deserted .

361ss c r . v THE RE I GN OF OM UR TA G

divided Thrace between the two sovrans ? The new boundaryran westward from Develtos to M akrolivada, a fortress situatedbetween Hadrianople and Philippopolis

,close to the junction

of the Heb rus with its tributary the Arzus. At M akrolivada

the frontier-line turned nor thward and proceeded to M t .Haemus. The Bulgarians, who put their faith in earthworksand circumvallations, proposed to protect the boundary, and

give it a visible form,by a rampart and trench . The Imperial

government, without whose consent the execution of such a

work would have been impossible,agreed to withdraw the

garrisons from the forts in the neighbourhood of the frontierduring the construction of the fortification, in order to avoidthe possibility of hostile collisions.

The remains of the Great Fence,2 which marked the

southern boundary of the Bulgarian kingdom in the ninthand tenth centuries, can b e traced across Thrace, and are

locally known as the Erkesiia? Some parts of it are visible

to the eye of the inexperienced traveller, while in others theline has di sappeared or has to b e investigated by the diligentattention of the antiquarian . Its eastern extremity is nearthe ruins of Develtos,

‘1on that inlet of the Black Sea whose

horns were guarded by the cities of Anchialus and Apollonia .

It can b e followed easily in its westward course, pastRus okastro, as far as the river Tundzha

,for about forty miles ;

beyond that river it is more difficult to trace? but its westernextremity seems to have been discovered at M akrolivada, near

athe modern village of Trnovo - Seimen .

1 It is possible that some new

small distric t was c onc eded to the

B ulgarians. Michael Syr. 26 statesthat Lee made peace with them, sur

rendering to them the marsh for whichthey fought.

2ue

‘

ydxn c otea,Cedrenus, ii. 372.

6 So called from theTurkishj erkesen,a cutting in the earth . The easternpart of its course is described byJireéek, Fu

'

rstenthum, 505 sq. Sur

viving legends as to the origin of the

struc ture are mentioned by Jirecek(Arch -cp . M itth . x. 137) and Shkorpil(Aboba , Jireéek heard at Rusokastro the tradition that the rampartwas sinor (a bvopov) —a boundary (b etween the dominions of two brothersShkorpil) it was wrought, by a tsar’s

The line roughly

orders, by men and women,and so

pressing was the work that only one

woman was left at home to take careof nine children. The same story istold elsewhere among the Slavs , of theerec tion of great buildings .

4 Colonia Flavia Pacis Deultensium ,

or Deultum,founded by Vespasian,

was ca lled inByzantine times Aspe c ts.

The trac es of th e wal l ” begin at th e

west end of the lagoon of Mandra .

5 The length of the western sec tionfrom the Tundzha is 64 kils . ,

a littleless than the eastern.

6 Near the junc tionofR . Heb rus and

R . Arzus, now called Sazly-dere. The

Roman sta tion Arzus is doubtless tob e identified with the ruins at TekeMusachevo, and here the rampart was

362 EAS TERN ROMAN EMP IRE CHAP . xi

corresponds to the modern boundary between Turkey and

Bulgaria . The rampart was on the north, the ditch on the

south, showing that it was designed as a security against theEmpire ; the rampart was probably surmounted

,like the wall

of Pliska, by timber palisades? and the Bulgarians maintaineda constant watch and ward along their boundary fences ?

In the eastern section , near the heights of M eleona, the lineof defence was strengthened by a second entrenchment tothe south , ex tending for about half a mile in the form of a

b ow , and locally known as the G ipsy Erkesiia, but we do not

know the origin or date of this fortification ? It would seemthat the Bulgarians contented themselves with this fence, forno signs have been discovered of a similar construction on the

western frontier,

“between M akrolivada and the mountains.

Sanctity was imparted to the contract by the solemnrites of superstition . Omurtag consented to pledge his faithaccording to the Christian formalities, while Lee, on his part ,showing a religious toleration only worthy of a pagan ,did not scruple to conform to the heathen customs of the

barbarians. Great was the scandal caused to pious membersof the Church when the Roman Emperor, peer of the

Apostles,

” poured on the ear th a libation of water, sworeupon a sword

,sacrificed dogs, and performed other unholy

rites ? G reater, if possible, was their indignation , when the

cut by the great military road from 1 Cp. Theoph . 490, the use of

Hadrianople to Ph i l ippopolis. The

western sec tion was cut by anotherroad which branched off from the

m ilitary road at Lefke and led overthe Ba lkans to N ic opolis on the

Jantra ; and also by the road fromHadrianople to Kabyle (Sliven) , whichfo llowed the right bank of the

Tundzha (Aboba , 539 Shkorpil

th inks that the frontier continuedwestward (no traces of the wall are

found beyond Teke -Musachevo) to

Constantia (S. Kostenets ) in the

northern footh ills of Rhodope , and

thence northward to the pass of Succ i(Bovhyapmi; M ela s) near Ichtiman ;whence beyond the mountains it followed the line of the midd le entrenchment ofW est Bulgaria (fromKhairedinto Kiler -bair-kale on the Danube) .But Constantia, which is mentionedin the insc riptions as on the frontier,was probably a d ifferent place .

Ebhwa

2 N icolaus, Responsa , 25.

6 Aboba , 542-543 . Tradition saysthat the Tsar’s soldiers were calledaway before they had completed thechief entrenchment

,and ordered the

gipsies to finish it . The gipsies defl ec ted the line to the south, and thesoldiers when they returned continuedtheir entrenchment in its prev iousdirec tion.

4 Ignatius, Vit. N ic . p. 206. Thispassage is ignored by Bulgarian h istorians , though it points to some

curious and obscure customs. év a ls

(o vpfldo em) fir dpdv rdv fiamhe‘a

'

Pwua twu

(1K Kbhucos 17p Kare. 7 779 émhetflorr a ,ém adyua

‘

ra lmrwv a br ovp‘

yc'

bs‘ duaorpé

¢our a , ludvrwv ( urplrwv dr r buevov, Ka i

xbpr ou els a tpovra Ka i 616. nd.re

7 019e éav'

rOV'

érrapcbuevou. For the

sacrifi ce of dogs see Cont. Th. p. 31Jireeek, Geschichte, p. 132 .

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364 EAS TERN ROMAN EM P IRE CHAP. x1

the boundaries between the G erman and Bulgarian dominions.

l

Their empires touched at Singidunum,which was now a

Croatian town,

2under its new Slavonic name of Belgrade ,

the“ white city

,and the Bulgarian ruler probably claimed

that his lordship extended,northward from Belgrade, as far

perhaps as Pest, to the banks of the Danube. The EmperorLewis cautiously determined to learn more of Bulgaria and

its king before he committed himself to an answer, and hesent the embassy back along with an envoy of his own.

3

They returned to Bavaria at the end of the year. In the

meantime an embassy arrived from a Slavonic people, whosedenomination the German chroniclers disguised under the

name Praedenecenti.4

They were also known, or were a

branch of a people known , as the Abodrites, and must b ecarefully distinguished from the northern Ab odrites, whosehomes were on the Lower Elbe. This tribe, who seem to

have lived on the northern bank of the Danube, to the eastof Belgrade, suffered, like theTimocians, under the oppressiveexactions of the Bulgarians, and

,like them, looked to the

advance of the Franks as an opportunity for deliverance .

Lewis, whom they had approached on previous occasions,5

received their envoys in audience,and kept the Bulgarians

waiting for nearly six mon ths. Finally he received them at

Aachen,and dismissed them with an ambiguous letter to their

master.

6

I t is clear that Lewis deemed it premature to commit hispolicy to a definite regulation of the boundaries of the southeastern mark

,or to give any formal acknowledgment to the

Bulgarian claims on the confines of Pannonia and Croatia ;but he hesitated to decline definitely the proposals of the

1 I b . velut pac is fac iendae 167,dc terminis ac finibus inter Bulgaros

ac Francos constituendis .

”

2 Constantine, De adm. imp. 151,enumerates To BeM ‘

ypaaov among th e

Croatian towns . Cp. 1538.

3 Ann .fr , Fr . p. 164, “

ad explo

randam diligentius insolitae et nun

quam pritl s in Franc iam venientis

legationis causam.

4 I b . 165 ,“Abodritorum qui vulgo

Praedenecenti voc antur et c onterminiBulgaris Dac iam Danubio adiacentem

inco lunt . It is supposed that Prae

denec enti is a corruption of a nameconnec ted with Branitschevo, whichlay on the Danube, where the Mlavaflows in, and corresponded to the

anc ient Viminac ium. The site is

marked by the ruins ofBranitschevatsand Kostolats . See Séhafarik , ii . 209Dummler, Slawen fin Da lm. 376 Simson, L udwig der Fr . i. 139 .

5 In A .D . 818 (Ann. 7 . Fr . 149 ) andA .D . 822 (ib. Cp. Dummler,S iidostl. Marleen, 28.

6 l b. 167. Astronomus, Vita H ludoviez

’

,c . 39 (M . O.H . , Scr .

ss cr . v THE RE I GN OF OM UR TA G .365

Khan . Omurtag,impatient of a delay which encouraged the

rebellious spirit of his Slavonic dependencies, indited anotherletter, which he dispatched by the same officer who had beenthe bearer of his first missive (A.D . He requested the

Emperor to consent to an immediate regulation of the frontier ;and if this proposal were not accep table, he asked that

,

without any formal treaty, each power should keep withinhis own borders. The terms of this message show that theprincipal object of Omurtag was an agreement which shouldrestrain the Franks from intervening in his relations to hisSlavonic subjects. Lewis found a pretext for a new postponement. A report reached him that the Khan had been slainor dethroned by one of his nobles, and he sent an emissaryto the Eastern Mark to discover if the news were true. As

no certain information could b e gained,2 he dismissed the envoywithout a let ter.

The sublime Khan would wait no longer on the Emperor’spleasure. Policy as well as resentment urged him to takethe offensive, for, if b e displayed a timi d respect towards theFranks, his prestige among the Slavs beyond the Danubewas endangered. The power of Bulgaria was asserted by an

invasion of Pannonia (A.D. A fleet of boats sailed fromthe Danube up the D rave, carrying a host of Bulgarians whodevastated with fi re and sword the Slavs and Avars of EasternPannonia. The chiefs of the Slavonic tribes were expelledand Bulgarian governors were set over them .

3Throughout

the ninth century the Bulgarians were neighbours of the

Franks in these regions, and seem to have held both Sirmiumand Singidunum .

4 We may b e sure that Omurtag did

not fail to lay a heavy hand on the disloyal Slavs of

Dacia .

The operations of Omurtag in this quarter of his empireare slightly illustrated by an incidental memorial, in a stonerecording the death of Onegavon. This officer, who was oneof the king’s men and held the post of tarkan , was on his

1 l b . 168. parently in summer.

2 Thi s was early in the year. As Cp. D iimmler, Su‘

dastl. Marleen,late as June nothing c ertain could b e 28-29 , and S lawen in Da lm. 46 sqq.

ascertained (ib . This illustrates Schafarik ,ii. 176. For Singidunum

the lack of c ommunications between (Belgrade) cp. Pope John VIII. L etterBulgaria and the West. to B oris, Mansi, xvii. 64 Vi ta Clemen3 I b . 173. The expedition was ap his, ed . M iklosich, c . 16, p . 22.

way to the Bulgarian camp and was drowned in crossing theriver Theiss.

1

A simi lar memorial, in honour of Okorses,who in proceed

ing to a scene of war was drowned in the Dnieper,

2shows

that the arms of Omurtag were also active in the East. The

situation in the Pontic regions, where the dominion of the

Bulgarians confronted the empire of the Khazars,is at this time

veiled in obscurity. The tents of the Magyars extended overthe region between the Don and the Dnieper.

3The country to

the west was exposed to their raids, and not many years laterwe shall find their bands in the neighbourhood of the Danube.

The effect of the Magyar movement would ultimately b e topress back the frontier of Great Bulgaria to the Danube, butthey were already pressing the Inner Bulgarians into a smallterritory north of the Sea of Azov, and thus dividing by an

alien and hostile wedge the continuous Bulgarian fringewhich had ex tended along the northern coast of the Euxine.

Although the process of the Magyar advance is buried in

oblivion, it is not likely that it was not Opposed by the

resistance of the lords of Pliska, and it is tempting to surmisethat the military camp to which the unlucky Okorses was

bound when the waters of the Dnieper overwhelmed him was

connected with operations against the Magyars.

From the scanty and incidental notices of Omurtag whichoccur in the Greek and Latin chronicles, we should not havebeen able to guess the position which his reign takes inthe internal history of Bulgaria . But the accidents of

time and devastation have spared some of his own records,

which reveal him as a great builder. He constructed two newpalaces

,or palatial fortresses

,one on the bank of the Danube

,

the other at the gates of the Balkans, and both possessedstrategic significance. Tutrakan , the ancient Transmarisca (tothe east of Rustchuk) , marks a point where the Danube

,

divided here by an island amid-stream , offers a conspicuouslyconvenient passage for an army. Here the Emperor Valensbuilt a bridge of boats

,and in the past century the Russians

have frequently chosen this place to throw their armies across

1 Aboba , 191'

Qveyafi ov2 l b . 190 fl xopan

‘

s 6 Kor an/69 .[els] f a gbovadrou ér vlynv els r i) [v]

3 For the Hungarians see below, p.Tfiaav 1 61: r ora/Lou. 423 and Appendix XII.

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368 EA S TERN R OM AN EM P IRE CHAP . xx

ing the pass of Veregava, by which Roman armies had beenwont to descend upon Pliska

,as well as the adjacent pass of

Verb its. We do not know how the new town which the Kingerected in front of the mountain defi les was called in his own

tongue,but the Slavs called it Preslav, the glorious

,

”a name

which seems originally to have been applied to all the palacesof the Bulgarian kings.

1 It is not probable that Omurtagintended to transfer his principal residence from the plain tothe hills,2 but his new foundation was destined, as G reat Preslav, to become within a hundred years the capital of Bulgaria.

The foundation of the city is recorded on a large limestone column which was dug out of the earth a few years ago

at Chatalar,3 about four miles from the ruins of Preslav. The

sublime Khan Omurtag is divine ruler in the land where hewas born . Abiding in the Plain 4 of Pliska

,he made a palace

(aule) on the Tutsa and displayed his power to the Greeks andSlavs.

5And he constructed with skill a bridge over the

Tutsa. And he set up in his fortress 6 four columns,and

between the columns he set two bronze lions.

7 May God

grant that the divine ruler may press down the Emperpr withhis foot so long as the Tutsa flows,

8 that he may procure

where the texts give s ome.» (30.

Constantine V. ) 61: Boulvyapiav 1 00

Tg‘

lxa s, b ut one MS. has Torin/( a s. In

Anna Comnena (7 . 3 ) it is calledBirgi t/a . See Aboba , 547.

1 Preslav corresponds to 1rdv¢muos,the adj ec tive ap lied to the house on

the Danube an to Pliska in the

Tyrnovo inscription (r ov 6110 mm 1 011

”W WW ”, a genitive plural wronglytaken for atxov r bv 1r. by Jireé ek ; seeBury, App. 10 to Gibbon, The

palac e on the Danube is also c alledb7rép¢n,u.os Cp. To dpxa i ér ar ov

fnrépdmpnv and [inrép] dnaaav Menu in

an inscription ofMalamir (Aboba ,This word , like preslav, evidentlytranslated a Bulgarian appellative.

2 Uspenski thinks that the use of

a tM in the inscription impli es the“ transference of the capital (Aboba ,

But why should not the Khanhave two aukat

3 SeeA boba , 546 sqq.,for the inscrip

tion and the circumstance of its

d iscovery . Chata lar is c lose to the

railway station of Preslav-Krumovo.

£8 n s IIM '

Ka s row Doubtless Kdmros designates not the whole1re6lov of Aboba

,but the fortified

enc losure of Pliska .

5 m l rn‘

u 5151/a r ov [ls]I‘

pamobs m l t dflovs. Uspenskisupplies énfi‘ye. But Omurtag lived atpeac e with the Greeks. I would supplygauge (wife) or some equivalent, andrestore ls= els (Uspenski é 1ri) .

6perhjve

‘

yxcu] Ka i £ar ri de 619

7'[b xdae ov (Uspenski) . Kdarpov, I

think, is right, but ,wsrfiue'yxeu very

doubtful .7 I read Ka l b/Ad a. [r& ]v ar ékwv. The

four columns marked a space in the

c entre of wh ich were the two lions, orelse two columns were on either sideof a gateway and the lions betweenthem. Uspenski restores m l [els é‘u]a(“and placed two lions on one of the

columns an arrangement whichsounds too inartistic to b e credible.

8,ue‘

r bu 1r6[6a ] a i’

rr oii “rev fiamXéa

Kdlf/q l/ew é‘ws‘ Tpé]x[y] Tafirfa . Iread Kiwi/W (the future is required ) ;Uspenski gives xdmrr ew . xarafiaxetvmight also b e thought of.

THE RE I GN OF OM UR TA Gss c r . v 369

many captives for the Bulgarians,1 and that subduing his foeshe may, in j oy and happiness, live for a hundred years. The

date of the foundation was the Bulgarian year shegor a lem, or

the fifteenth indiction of the Greeks ” (A.D. 82 1 In

this valuable record of the foundation of Preslav, we may

note with interest the hostile reference to the Roman Emperoras the chief and permanent enemy of Bulgaria

,although at

this time Bulgaria and the Empire were at peace. I t was

probably a standing formula which had originally beenadop ted in the reign of some former king , when the two

powers were at war.

I t has been already related how Omurtag intervened inthe civil war between Michael and Thomas

,how b e defeated

the rebel on the field of Kéduktos, and returned laden withSpoils (A.D. This was his only expedition into Roman

territory ; the Thirty Years’ Peace was preserved inviolate

throughout his reign . The date of his death is uncertain .

2

6. The R eigns of Malamir and Boris

Omurtag was succeeded by his youngest son Presiam,

3

though one at least of his elder sons was still living .

Presiam is generally known as Malamir, a Slavonic name whichhe assumed

,perhaps toward the end of his reign . The

adoption of this name is a landmark in the gradual process of

the assertion of Slavonic influence in the Bulgarian realm .

We may surmise that it corresponds to a political situation inwhich the Khan was driven to rely on the support of his

Slavonic subjects against the Bulgarian nobles.

We have some official records of the sublime KhanMalamir

,

4 though not so many or so important as the records1Ka t a ixuakcbfi ous r ohhobs

Bovkyd[p]cs. I translate this extremelyuncertain restoration ofU spenski, onlysubstituting 566 W ,

i . e. M a cw,for h is

6é on.

2 Later than A.D . 827. See above,p . 365 . Zlatarski dates the reign as

814 (see Aboba ,

3 Th e ev idence, as I ho ld, po ints tothe identity o f Presiam w ith Malamirsee Appendix X . Enravotas, also

called Boluos (is this Bulgarian Ba ianor Slavonic warrior ” was - the

eldest son and survived Omurtag, aoc ording to the story told by Theophylactus, op . cit. 192 . See below ,

p. 382.

4 We know that Malamir was rulerof Bulgaria in the reign of Theoph i lusfrom Simeon (Cont. Georg. The

vers . S lav. 101 c alls him Vladimir,and so the Cod. Par. 854 and Va tic .

1807 ; the printed texts of Cont.

Georg , Leo Gr and Theod . M el .

have Baxoc’nep. The error may havearisen from c onfusion with a. laterKhan Vlad imir

,who succ eeded Boris,

2 B

370 EAS TE RN ROMAN EM P IRE CHAP. XI

of his father. We have a memorial column of Tsepa, a b oilad

and king ’s liegeman who died of illness.

1 From anotherstone we learn that Isb ules

, the kaukhan,who was one of the

king’s old b oilads, built an aqueduct for Malamir at his own

expense . This aqueduct was probably to supply one of the

royal palaces. Malamir celebrated the occasion by giving a

feast to the Bulgarians, and bestowing many gifts upon the

b oilads and bagains.

2

There was some risk that the treaty with the Empiremight b e denounced during the reign of Theophilus.

The Thracian and Macedonian captives who had beentransported by Krum to regions beyond the Danube 3 formeda plan to return to their homes. This colony of exiles

,who

are said to have numbered not counting females, werepermit ted to choose one of their own number as a governor

,

and Kordyles, who exercised this function , contrived to makehis way secretly to Constantinople and persuaded Theophilusto send ships to rescue the exiles and bring them home.

This act was evidently a violation of the Thirty Years’ Peace,

and at the same moment the Bulgarian ruler was engaged in a

and Zlatarski suggests that the

narrative was derived by Simeonfrom a hagiographica l work (wheresuch a confusion would not b e sur

prising ) . But it may b e suggestedthat Simeon or h is source wroteM ahcpép the form of p. in tenth-cent .MSS. was liable to confusion with 13,and if the word was read Bah /zi p thefurther corruption was almost inevitable. In any case the identifi cationis certain. Simeon states thatBaldimer was grand son of Krum,

and Malamir was Omurtag’

s son. In

the inscriptions his name is writtenM ahaunp and M akump. Zlatarski(who distinguishes Presiam from M . )thinks that M . reigned from to

cp. Append ix X .

1 Aboba , 191 .

2 Ih. 230-231. dvdflpvr ov is the wordwhich I follow Zlatarski and Us enski

in interpreting “aqueduct. he in

scription conc ludes w ith the prayerthat the d ivine ruler may live a

hundred years along with Isbulés thekaukhan.

”

3 Simeon (Cont. Georg. 818 ; vers.

S lav. 101 The account of the

return of the captives in this chronicleis confused , but has no legendarydetails and is evidently based upongenuine fac ts. One d iffi culty lies inthe position of Kordyles. He is

described as arpa rnhdrns év Maxeaoq z,

and he left h is son“ to govern the

Macedonians beyond the Danubeinstead of himself. Then

,after their

failure to escape ac ross Bulgaria, thecaptives, who are throughout c alled“the Mac edonians, make Kordyles

and Tzantzes their leaders. It seems

c lear that there is a confusion betweenMacedonia and the

“ Macedonian ”

settlement in Bulgaria, and thatKordyles was not strategos of Mac e

donia, b ut governor of the Macedonian

exi les . This is confirmed by the statement that Kordyles had to use a device(ner d. pmxam

'

js rwos) to reach Theophilus ; if he had been strat. of

Macedonia,this would b e inexplicable.

We can infer the interesting fac t thatthe c aptives were established as a

c olony with a governor of their own,

and that as a large number of thesewere Macedonians

, the region whichthey inhabited was known as

Macedonia .

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372 EAS TE RN R OMAN EM P IRE C HAP. x1

which broke out between Bulgaria and Servia in the last yearsof Theophilus.

About this time the Servians, who had hitherto lived in a

loose group of independent tribes, acknowledging the nominallordship of the Emperor

,were united under the rule of

Vlastimir into the semblance of a state. If it is true tha tthe extension of Bulgarian authority over the Slavs to the

south of Servia was effected at this epoch,we can understand

the union of the Servian tribes as due to the instinct of selfdefence. Hitherto they had always lived as good neighboursof the Bulgarians, but the annexation of western Macedoniachanged the political situation . Vlastimir

’

s policy of con

solidating Servia may have been a sufficient motive withMalamir to lose no time in crushing a power which mightbecome a formidable rival

,and he determined to subjugate it.

But it is not unlikely that the Emperor also played a hand inthe game. D isabled from interfering actively by the necessitiesof the war against the Moslems

,he may have reverted to

diplomacy and stirred up the Servians, who were nominallyhis clients

,to avert a peril which menaced themselves, by

driving the Bulgarians from western Macedonia. The prospec tof common action between the '

Empire and the Servians wouldexplain satisfactorily Malamir

’

s aggression against Servia .

1 The

war lasted three years, and ended in failure and disaster forthe Bulgarians.

2

These speculations concerning the political situation in

the Balkan peninsul a in the last years of Theophilus dependon the hypothesis, which cannot b e proved, that the Bulgarianshad succeeded in annexing the Slavonic tribes to the west ofThessalonica. In any case, whatever may have occurred

, the

Thirty Years’ Peace had been confirmed, and remained inviolatetill its due termination in A.D. 845-84 6. I t was not renewed

,

and soon afterwards a Bulgarian army under the generalIsbules seems to have invaded Macedonia and operated in theregions of the Strymon and the Nestos 3 while the Imperial

1 For these conj ec tures, see Jireéek, stantine, De adm. imp. 154 ; he calls

Archie fitr s lavische Philologie, xxi. the Bulgarian ruler HpGO'

Ld/L, the only609 sq. ; Zlatarski, op. cit. 40 sqq. evidence we have for the name .

Z . supposes that Theophilus offered Vlastimir’

s date is given by Schafarikthe Servians an acknowledgment of as A .D . 836-843 (ii .their complete independence .

3 I adopt Zlatarski’

s interpreta2 The source for the war is Con tion (49 sq. ) of the Villoison inscrip

SECT . v 1 B ORI S 373

government retaliated by reinforcing the garrisons of the

frontier forts of Thrace in order to carry out a systematicdevastation of Thracian Bulgaria.

1This plan released

Macedonia from the enemy ; Isbules was recall ed to defend hiscountry. The absence of the Thracian and Macedonian troops

,

which these events imply, is explained,if they were at this

time engaged in reducing the Slavs of the Peloponnesus.

2

These hostilities seem to have been followed by a truce,3

and soon afterwards Malamir was succeeded by his nephewBoris (c . A.D . This king, whose reign marks an

important epoch in the development of Bulgaria,was soon

involved in war with the Servians and with the Croatians.

He hoped to avenge the defeats which his uncle had sufferedin Servia.

5But the Servians again proved themselves

superior and captured Vladimir, the son of Boris, along with

the twelve great b oliads . The Bulgarian king was compelledto submit to terms of peace in order to save the prisoners, andfearing that he might b e waylaid on his homeward march heasked for a safe-conduct. He was conducted by two Servian

t ion iv . 8691 b ) found near

Philippi. Its obvious meaning is

that the Bulgarian king sent Isbuleswith an army and that he operated inthe distric t of the Smoleanoi, who, weknow, l ived on the midd le course of

the Nestos . Cp. Appendix X .

1 Simeon (Cont. Georg. Thisnotice comes immediately after thatof the d eath of Methodius, whichoc curred in June 847 . Zlatarski

,43

sq. , has made it quite c lear thatSimeon refers here to d ifferent eventsfrom those recorded by Genesios, 85sq. (see below) . He is almost c ertainlyright in referring the important insc ription of Shumla (Aboba , 233 ) tooperations at this period in Thrace(5 1 though otherwise I cannotac cept his interpretation (seeAppendix The forts of Probaton and Burdizos whic h are mentionedin it would b e two of the xdarpa.

referred to by Simeon, with whosenotic e the words v vv v epnuoa

'd (oZI‘

pc uxol épfiywaav) are obviously in

ac c ordance.

2 There is no independent evidenc eas to the date of the Peloponnesianwar (see below, p .

3 Zlatarski, 53.

4 The date of the ac c ession of Boris

is determined by Zlatarski, 46-47 . He

reigned thirty -six years (Theophylac tus , Mart. h is suc c essor

Vladimir four years (i b . Vladimir was still alive in 892 (Ann. Fu ld . ,

but w as suc ceeded by Simeon

not later than 893 . This g ives 852853 for ac c ession of Boris (Golub inskiand Jireéek had already dated it to

852 852 is rendered probable bythe Bulgarian embassy sent to L ewisthe German in that year (Ann. Fu ld .

,

s. a . wh ich was probably to announc ethe ac cession and confirm the treatyof 845 (i b.

,

5 Constantine,De adm. imp. 154

155 (Servian war ) , 150 (Croatian warunsucc essful and fol lowed by peace ) .Z latarski dates these wars to 854-860

B ummler (S lawen in Da lm.

397 ) conjec tures that the Croatianwar was succ essful, and that the

Croatians c eded Bosnia to Boris . He

bases this guess on the apparent fac tthat about this time the Croatianpower seriously dec lined . He supposesthat soon after the c onquest, Boriswas defeated in h is war with the

Servians and compelled to surrenderBosnia to them .

3 74 EA S TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE CHAP. x1

princes to the frontier at Rasa, where he repaid their servicesby ample gifts, and received from them

,as a pledge of friendship ,

two slaves,two falcons

, two hounds, and ninety skins.

1 Thisfriendship bore political fruits. The two princes were sons of

Muntimir, one of three brothers, who, soon after the Bulgarianinvasion, engaged in a struggle for supreme power, and

when Muntimir gained the upper hand he sent his rivals to

Bulgaria to b e detained in the custody of Boris.

During the reign of Boris peace was maintained, notwithstanding occasional menaces,2 between Bulgaria and the

Empire ; and before the end of the reign of Michael III . the

two powers were drawn into a new relation , when the kingaccepted Christian baptism. But the circumstances of thisevent, which is closely connected with larger issues of

European politics, must b e reserved for another chapter.

1yoovas.

2 G enesios, 85-86, says that the

Bulgarian ruler (unnamed ) threatenedto invade Roman territory, b ut Theodora declared that she would lead an

army in person against him.

“ It

will b e no glory to you to defeat awoman ; if she defeats you, you willb e ridiculous. The Bulgarian thoughtbetter of h is purpose, and remainedquiet in his own country . Cont. Th .

162 says (1 ) that the king was Boris

(Bdrywpts) , and (2 ) that he purposed tobreak the treaty, but renewed it (3)brings the inc ident into c onnexion

with the conversion of the Bulgarians.

Zlatarski (54 sq. ) accepts the king ’

s

name from Cont. Th . and gives reasonsfor dating the inc ident to A . D . 852.

He thinks that this writer has combined the passage in Genesios withanother source— the same from whichhe drew the stories about TheodoreKupharas , the s ister of Boris

, and the

painter Methodic s. I doubt whetherthe anecdote has any value but it

may b e based on the c ircumstanc ethat Boris on his ac c ession renewedthe truce with Byzantium.

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the beginning of the eleventh century the Western Empire of

the Germans had ex tended its power far and irretrievablybeyond the Elbe

,while the Eastern Empire of the Greeks had

trampled the Bulgarian power under foot . And in the meantimethe Hungarians had inserted themselves like a wedge betweenthe Slavs of the north and the Slavs of the south . On the

o ther hand, two things had happened which were of greatmoment for the future of the Slavonic race : the religion of

the Greeks and the Teutons had spread among the Slavs,and

the kingdom of Russia had been created . The beginnings of

both these movements, which were slow and gradual,fall in

the period when the Amorian dynasty reigned at New Rome.

l

It was under the auspices of Michael I I I . that the unrulySlavonic tribes in the Peloponnesus were finally brought underthe control of the government, and the credit of their subjugation is probably to b e imputed to Theodora and her fellowregents. The Slavs were diffused all over the peninsula

,but

the evidence of place~ names indica tes that their settlements

were thickest in Arcadia and Elis, Messenia,Laconia

,and

Achaia.

2 In the plains of Elis,on the slopes of Taygetos, and

in the great marshlands of the lower Eurotas, they seem almostentirely to have replaced the ancien t inhabitan ts. Somewherebetween Sparta and Megalopolis was the great Slavonic townVeligosti, of which no traces remain. Of the tribes we knowonly the names of the M ilings and the Ezerites. The M ilings

had settled in the secure fastnesses of Taygetos ; the Ezerites,

or Lake-men, abode in the neighbouring Helos or marshland,from which they took their name.

3Living independently

under their ownZupans, they seized every favourable opportunityof robbery and plunder. In the reign of Nicephorus (A.D . 807)they formed a conspiracy with the Saracens of Africa 4

to

1 The introduction of Christianityamong the Croatians and Servians wasof older date .

2 See Philippson,i . 3-4 Grego

rovius , Athen,1. 113 sqq. G . Me er,

Aufsdtze and Studien 140. he

plac e-names still require a thorough

going investigation. a few, whichave been taken for Slavonic , may b e

Greek or Albanian. E . g. Malevo— thename of Parnon and other mountains— was explained as Slavonic by Fallmerayer and Gregorovius, but it is

undoubtedly Albanian, from na ,

mountain,

as Philippson points out(i b. Goritsa is often enumeratedamong the Slavonic names, but it

may come from A-goritsa

But there are plenty about whichthere can b e no doubt (such as

Krivitsa, Garditsa, Kamenitsa) .3 Ezero, Slavonic for lake.

The sourc e is Constantine, De adm.

imp. c . 49 . He says that the storywas told orally (d

‘

ypdcpws) duringtheir lifetime by contemporaries to

THE SLA VS IN GRE E CESECT . 1 377

at tack the rich city of Patrae. The strategos of the provincewhose residence was at Corinth

,delayed in sending troops

to relieve the besieged town , and the citizens suffered fromwant of food and water. The story of their deliveranceis inextricably bound up wi th a legend of supernatural aid

,

vouchsafed to them by their patron saint . A scout was sentto a hill

,east of the town, anxiously to scan the coast road

from Corin th , and if he saw the approach of the troops,to

signal to the inhabitants,when he came within sight of the

walls,by lowering a flag ; while if he kep t the flag erect , it

would b e known that there was no sign of the help which wasso impatiently expected . H e returned disappointed, with hisflag erect

,b ut his horse slipped and the flag was lowered in

the rider’s fall. The incident was afterwards imputed to the

direct interposition of the Deity,who had been moved to

resort to this artifice by the intercessions of St. Andrew,the

guardian of Pa trae. The citizens,meanwhile, seeing the

flag fall, and supposing that succour was at hand,immediately

opened the gates and fell upon the Saracens and the Slavs .

Conspicuous in their ranks rode a great horseman,whose more

than human appearance terrified the barbarians. Aided bythis champion,who was no other than St. Andrew himself, theG reeks routed the enemy and won great booty and manycaptives. Two days later the strategos arrived

,and sent a

full report of all the miraculous circumstances to the Emperor,who issued a charter for the Church of St. Andrew

,ordaining

that the defeated Slavs,their families, and all their belongings

should become the property of the Church inasmuch as the

the younger generation. But the to infer that there was an Avar settlegenuine sourc e was the c lycM ov (seal )or charter of N icephorus, to whichh e refers

,and which was extant in

the eleventh c entury. For it is c itedin a Synodal L etter of the PatriarchNicolaus in the reign of Alexius I .

see Leunclavius, Jus Graeco-Romanum,

p . 278 or M igne, P . G . 119, 877 .

Here the oc currenc e is briefly described , and dated 218 years after theoc cupation of the Peloponnesus, whichthe Patriarch connec ted with the invasion of A .D . 589 (Evagrius, vi .Henc e we get the date A . D . 807 for

the siege of Patrae (cp. Fallmerayer,M or ea ,

i . But the Pa triarc hspeaks of Avars, not of Slavs. Are w e

ment in the Peloponnesus, that Avarsjoined the Slavs in the a ttack, and

were mentioned in the Chrysobul l ofNic ephorus

? I drew this inference ina paper on Navarino (Herma thena

,

xxxi. 430 sqq.,

connecting it

w ith the interpretation of Avarinos

the original name of Navarino— as an

Avar settlement . See also M i ller inE ng. H ist. Revi ew,

20,307 sqq

But another possible derivation 15

from the Slavonic j avorii , “maple, so

that the name would mean“ maple

wood cp.

’

A6apiro'

a in Epirus,”Aflopos in Phoc is G . Meyer, Ana lectaGraeciensia , 12

378 EAS TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE CHAP. x i i

triumph and the victory were the work of the apostle. A

particular duty was imposed upon these Slavs, a duty whichhitherto had probably been a burden upon the town. Theywere obliged to provide and defray the board and entertainmentof all Imperial officials who visited Patrae, and also of all

foreign ambassadors who halted there on their way to and

from I taly and Constantinople. For this purpose they had tomaintain in the city a staff of servants and cooks.

1 The

Emperor also made the bishopric of Patrae a Metropolis,and

submitted to its control the sees of Methone, Lacedaemon, andKorone.

2It is possible that he sent military colonists from

other parts of the Empire to the Peloponnesus, as well as

to the regions of the Strymon and o ther Slavonic territories,

3

and if so, these may have been the M ardaites, whom we findat a later period of the ninth century playing an importantpart among the naval contingents of the Empire .

4 We mayalso conjecture with some probability that this settlement wasimmediately followed by the separation of the Peloponnesusfrom Hellas as a separate Theme .

5

It would b e too much to infer from this narrative thatthe Slavonic communities of Achaia and Elis

,which were

doubtless concerned in the attack on Patrae , were permanentlyreduced to submission and orderly llife on this occasion , andthat the later devastations which vexed the peninsula in the

1 é‘xovr es‘ ldiovs Ka i Tpa

‘

rrej'

onowrl s Ka i

aayelpovs KT )“ The Slavs defrayed theexpense a

’

nro (Sta ti c/A775“Ka i ovv60crlas rfis

st eam a i’

zr é‘

w. The passage is interesting, as it shows inc identally that, aswe should expec t, the ordinary routeof travel from Italy to Constantinoplewas by Patrae and Corinth .

2 Nicolaus, Synoda l L etter, cit suprd .

3 Theoph . 486 rd. o rpar eéjuara mi l/Tyr ur a l/(boat oxegl/dneuos Xpw r ravobs d1r

oudaas ex navrbs fléua‘

r os e'

1rl rd?

Exhauw las yevéo fla t r pooérafev (A. D .

809-10) 496 01 f or e vnc’

bva olxofivr es

yé'

r oucoc 1rpo¢daews dpagdpeuoc éu r o'

L’

s

lé iow ¢ei§7 0vr es érravfihflov. (Cp. Hopf,98, See next note.

4 The western M ardaites (oi M . 1 559atom s) took part in the Cretan expedition of A . D . 902, and numbered w iththeir officers 4087 men (Const. Porph .

Cer . 11 . 44. p . They had foughtagainst the Sarac ens in Sic ily in the

reign of Basil I . Cont. Th . 304

1 47 W Kara Hehonéw noov arpan wrdiv

Ka i Mapda tr é‘

w, 311 7 6311 Kara Hex.

Mapaa tr fbv Ka i Tagardiv. As theybelonged to the marine establishment,they were probably settled in the

coast towns . See Bury, Nava l P olicy,29, where their settlement in Greece

is connec ted with the later subjugationby Theoktistos, and this seems to merather more probable .

5 See above , p . 224. Michael I . appointed Leo Skléros strategos of Pelo ~

ponnesus, Scr . Inc . 336. We mayprobably attribute to Leo V. the erec

tion of a watch-tower somewhere inthe Peloponnesus , to warn the c ity ofthe approach of enemies, doubtless theSaracens, recorded in the insc ription(Corp. Inscr . Gr . iv . No. 8620)

dragAéwv é‘omoe mip

‘

yov évfldae

Mixing 1rpo¢a lvew r ods héxovs 1 631:

flapfidpwv.

Cp. Hopf, 105 .

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380 EAS TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE CHAP. x l i

blending required for its completion four or fi ve centuries,

and the rate of progress varied in different parts of the

peninsula . The M ilings maintained their separate identitylongest, perhaps till the eve of the Ottoman conquest ; buteven in the thirteenth century Slavonic tribes still livedapart from the G reeks and preserved . their old customs in theregion of Skorta in the mountainous districts of Elis and

Arcadia.

1 W e may say that by the fifteenth century the

Slavs had ceased to b e a distinct nationality ; they had

become part of a new mixed Greek-speaking race,destined to

b e still further regenerated or corrupted under Turkish rule

by the absorp tion of the Albanians who began to pour intothe Peloponnesus in the fourteenth century. That theblending of Slavonic with G reek blood had begun in the

ninth century is suggested by the anecdote related of a

Peloponnesian magnate, Nicetas Rentakios, whose daughterhad the honour of marrying a son of the EmperorRomanus I . He was fond of boasting of his noble Hellenicdescent , and drew upon himself the sharp tongue of a

distinguished grammarian , who satirized in iambics his

Slavonic cast of fea tures.

2But the process of hellenization

was slow,and in the tenth century the Peloponnesus and

northern Greece were still regarded,like Macedonia,

as

mainly Slavonic.3

1 See Finlay, iv. 21, 22. It is re yapaadoetdi) ; 651/i s e’

aflhafiwpe‘vn

markable that in the Chronic le of

Morea it is only in c onnexion withSlavonic regions that the word 6pm“ ,

defile,

”is used : 6 6. 1 6311 Exhafi a

’

iv

4605,aa. 7 00MOM/7 00 4531, cp. 2993,

6 6. 7 63V Exop‘ra

'

iu 5026. But notwith

standing, the etymologyis not the

Slavonic dragii, “ wood ,’

as G . Meyerwould have it (op. ci t. 6p6y yos

is the same word as 6pofiw os,

drungus , the Byzantine militaryterm, which is derived from Germanic

(Eng . throng) . See J . Schmitt's ed. of

Chronicle of Morea,p. 605 . There are

very few Slavonic words in ModernGreek . M iklosich has c ounted 129

Die slavischen Elemente im Neu

riechischen,

"S .B . of Vienna Acad .

xiii. ,3 Const . Porph . Them. 53 Et¢rjmou

éxei‘

uou rov nepcflénrou ypaauan xov

dr oom’

b jl/a i els a brou r oom ? 7 6 dpvhoé

aeuou lanfle’

c’

ov

evidently one verse of an epigram on

Nicetas. The meaning of yapao6oa §fisis a well -known puzzle. Finlay ’sproposal, 7 a 6apoez§fis (from ydi

'

oapos,an ass ) , is unlikely , and the explanation of Sathas (see Gregorovius, op . cit.

with the c ountenance of a

Zoroastrian ”is extremely

far -fetched . I suggested that theSlavonic proper name Gorazd mayunderlie yapaeao (Gorazd , e.g. , was the

name of one of the upils of the

apostle Methodius) ; t is would suitthe context (English H istorica l Review ,

vi. , Jan. 1891, p .

3 See the tenth-century scholiast onStrabo 7 . p . 1251 (ed. Amsterdam,

and, for Elis, 8 . p . 1261 (dr awn .

yap r a fir a Zxéfla i Veg an/ra t ) . The c omplicated question of rac e-blending in

Greece requires still a thoroughgoinginvestigation, as Krumb acher observes

THE SLA VS IN GRE E CEsacr . 1 381

We can designate one part of the Peloponnesus into whichthe Slavonic elemen t did not penetrate, the border-regionbetween Laconia and Argolis. Here the old popula tion seemsto have con tinued unchanged, and the ancient Doric tonguedeveloped into the Tzakonian dialect , which is still spokenin the modern province of Kynuria.

l

I t is interesting to note that on the promontory of

Taenaron in Laconia a small Hellenic community survived,

little touched by the political and social changes which hadtransformed the Hellenistic into the Byzan tine world. Sur

rounded by Slavs, these Hellenes lived in the fortress of

Maina,and in the days of Theophilus and his son still

worshipped the old gods of Greece. But the days of thispagan immunity were numbered ; the Olympians were soonto b e driven from their last recess. Before the end of the

century the Mainotes were baptized.

2

2. The Conversion of Bulgaria

Christianity had made some progress within the Bulgariankingdom before the accession of Boris. It is not likely thatthe Roman natives of Moesia, who had become the subjects of

the Bulgarian kings, did much to propagate their faith ; butwe can hardly doubt that some of the Slavs had been con

verted, and Christian prisoners of war seem to have improvedthe season of their captivity by attempting to proselytizetheir masters. The introduction of Christianity by captivesis a phenomenon which meets us in other cases

,

3and we are

(B .Z. 10. Meanwhile consultA. Philippson,

“ Zur Ethnographic

des Peloponnes, i . and ii . in P eter

manns M ittei lungen aus Justus

Perthes’

geographischer Ansta lt, vol.

xxxvi . , 1890.

1 The Tzakonian dialec t perplexedphilologists and was variously takenfor S lavonic (Kopitar, Hopf, Philippson) and Albanian (Sathas) . But the

studies of Deffner (cp. h is Zakonische

Gramma tik, 1881 ) and Thumb Die

ethnographische Stellung der Za

konen,” in I ndogermanische Forschungen,

iv. 195 sqq. ,1894 ) have demon

strated that the Tzakones and theirlanguage are Greek . The name

presents diffi culties . Thumb holdsthat the loss of l wes a rule in the

Tzakonian dialec t, and suggests the

etymo logy els Aaxwvlau,’

s Axwvla (v) ,Ea xwvla , Tg axwula (c omparing o ép

flovhov : r a épflovhe). The chief townin the Tzakonian d istric t is Leonidi .Its extent is exh ibited in the ethno

graphical map in Philippson, op. cit.

The Tg'

éxwves are mentioned in Con

stantine, Ger . 696 .

2 In the reign of Basil I . See Con

stantine, De adm. imp. 224 ; Hopf,

129.

3 E .g. the Goths (Wulfi las) and theIberians.

382 EA S TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE C HAP. x 11

not surprised to learn that some of the numerous prisonerswho were carried away by Krum made efforts to spreadtheir religion among the Bulgarians, not without success.

Omurtag was deeply displeased and alarmed when he was

informed of these proceedings,

and when threats failed to

recall the perverts to their ancestral cult, he persecu ted boththose who had fallen away and those who had corruptedthem .

lAmongst the martyrs was Manuel

, the archbishop of

Hadrianople.

2The most illustrious proselyte is said to have

been the eldest son of Omurtag himself,

3who on account of

his perversion was put to death by his brother Malamir.

The adoption of Christianity by pagan rulers has

generally been prompted by political considerations,and has

invariably a political aspect. This was eminently the casein the conversion of Bulgaria. She was entangled in the

complexities of a political situa tion, in which the interests of

both the Western and the Eastern Empire were involved. The

disturbing fact was the policy of the Franks,which aimed at

the extension of their power over the Slavonic states on theirsouth-eastern frontier. Their collision with Bulgaria on the

Middle Danube in the reign of Omurtag had been followedby years of peace, and a treaty of alliance was concluded inA.D. 845 . The efforts of King Lewis the German were at

1 Theodore Stud . (Pa rva C’a t. lxiii . Manuel to death , cutting off his arms

pp . 220sqq. ) relates that the Bulgarianruler, whose name, unfortunately, hedoes not mention (and the date of

this catechesis is unknown) , issued a

decree that all Christians should eat

meat in L ent on pain of death . Fourteen resisted the order. One was put

to death, and his wife and childrengiven as slaves to Bulgarian mastersas an example ; b ut the others heldout

,and were also exec uted . The

khan has been supposed to b e Krumc f. Auvray

’

s note, p . 647. Theophylac tas (H ist. mart. 192 ) relates thatone of Krum

'

s captives, Kinamon, wasassigned to Omurtag, who became

greatly a ttached to h im, and tried toinduce him to apostatize. As he was

obstinate,he was thrown into a foul

prison, where he remained till afterOmurtag

’

s death .

2 Cont. Th . 217 . According to theMenologion Basi lii, Pars ii. , Jan. 22,

M igne, P . G . 117 , 276, Krum put

from his shoulders, then cleaving himin twain with a sword

,and throwing

the remains to wi ld beasts. It is

added that Krum’

s ac t c aused suchd isgust among the Bulgarians thatthey strangled him with ropes. All

this is evidently a sensational andimpudent invention. For the persecution of Tsok

,see above

,p . 359.

3 Theophyl. op. cit. 193 sqq.

Malamir released the captive Kinamon

from prison at the request of h is

brother Enravé tas . Kinamon c on

verted Enravfitas, who was put to

death by Malamir as an apostate.

Malamir,acc ording to th is narrative

(197) ,died three years later ; this wouldgive 848-849 for the death ofEnravé tas.

We have an earlier instanc e ofapostasyon the part of a royal Bulgarian in

Telerig,the refugee who accepted b aptism at the court of Leo IV. (Theop

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384 EAS TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE CHAP . X I I

of Rostislav may have helped Michael and his advisers to

realize the full gravity of the situation . I t was decided tocoerce the Bulgarians, and in the summer of A.D. 8 63

Michael marched into their territory at the head of his army ,while his fleet appeared off their coast on the Black Sea.

1

The moment was favourable. Bulgarian forces were absent,taking part in the campaign against Karlmann

,and the

coun try was suffering from a cruel famine. In these cir

cumstances, the Emperor accomplished his purpose withoutstriking a blow ; the demonstration of his power sufficed to

induce Boris to submit to his conditions. It was arrangedthat Bulgaria should receive Christianity from the Greeks andbecome ecclesiastically dependent on ConstantinOple ;

2 thatBoris should withdraw from the offensive alliance with Lewisand only conclude a treaty of peace.

3In return for this

alteration of his policy, the Emperor agreed to some territorialconcessions. He surrendered to Bulgaria a district whichwas uninhabited and formed a march between the two

realms, extending from the Iron Gate,a pass in the Strauja

Dagh,northward to Develtos.

4 I t has been supposed that atthe same time the frontier in the far west was also regulated,and that the results of the Bulgarian advance towards theHadriatic were formally recognized.

5

The brilliant victory which was gained over the Saracens1 The meaning of this expedition

has been first satisfactorily explainedby Zlatarski, 62 sqq. The sourc e is

Simeon (Cont. Georg.

2,The consent to accept Christianity

was perhaps unexpec ted . Photius,Ep. 4. p . 168 els r ijv r c

’

bv xpwn am’

bv

napa fiégws uer euexeurploflnaav 1rlo 'rw .

3 This treaty was maintained for

many years to come .

"1 Cont. Theoph. 165 aéowxev épfiunvofio av Tnuixa fir a duoEi6npds, r eturns

as 7 67 6 8p¢ov r vyxavouons'

Pw/.La lwv r e

Ka i (1 157 631: tha n7 739 Aefléhr ov, fin s o ifrw

xahefra i Zd'

yopa. 1rap’

aur ol‘

s (épr'

nun is

the antecedent of fin s). The creditof having explained this passagebelongs to Zlatarski, op. cit. 65 sqq.

H itherto E idnpa had been ex lained of

the se-named Balkan pass eregava,see above , p . 339, n. b ut the

district stretching from the Balkansto Develtos was already Bulgarian.

Zlatarski has seen that 2 1677c marks

the southern point of the region in

question, and identifies it with a passc alled Demir Kapu

,

“ Iron Gate,

”in

the north-western hills of the Stranj aPlanina

,north of Losen-

grad , which isnear Kovchat . He plac es the westernpoint of the surrendered districtat the Sakar Planina. The otherregion, between the Eastern Balkansand the Erkesiia

,was also c alled

Zagora beh ind the mountains5 Zlatarski

, 70 sqq. Cobrida and

G lavinitsa were Bulgarian in the reignofBoris (Vita Clementis, c . 17. p. 24, ed.

Miklosich Kephalenia G lavinitsa ) .Zlatarsk i c arefully discusses the

whereabouts of this plac e and con

eludes that (distinc t from the regionof Cape G lossa, on the b ay ofAvlonia

,

which was called Glavinitsa ) therewas an inland fortress G lavinitsa

,

between the rivers Voiusa (anc ientAous ) and Ozum (ancient Apsus) ,near Mount Tomor ; and he would

ss c r . 11 THE CON VE RSION OF B UL GAR IA 385

in the autumn of the same year at Poson was calculated to

confirm the Bulgarians in their change of policy,1 and in thecourse of the winter the details of the treaty were arranged .

The envoys whom Boris sent to Constantinople were baptizedthere ; 2 this was a pledge of the loyal intentions of theirmaster. When the peace was finally concluded (A.D . 8 64 the

king himself received baptism.

3The Emperor acted as his

sponsor, and the royal proselyte adopted the name of Michael .The infant Church of Bulgaria was included in the see of

Constantinople .

4

Popular and ecclesiastical interest turned rather to the

personal side of the conversion of the Bulgarian monarchthan to its poli tical aspects, and the Opportunity was not lostof inventing edifying tales. According to one story, Borisbecame acquainted with the elements of Christian doctrine byconversa tions with a captive monk, Theodore Kupharas. The

Empress Theodora offered him a ransom for thi s monk, andthen restored to him his sister who had been led captive bythe Greeks and honourably detained in the Imperial palaceat Constantinople, where she had embraced the Christian faith .

W hen she returned to her country she laboured incessantlyto convert her brother . He remained loyal to his own religionuntil Bul garia was visited by a terrible famine

,and then he

was moved to appeal to the G od whom Theodore Kupharasand his own sister had urged him to worship .

5There are

define the western frontier ofBulgaria ,in the reign of Boris, as drawn fromLake Ostrovo south-west by Kastoria,taking in Mount Grammos

, reac hingthe middle c ourse of the Voiusa, thenturning north , reaching the Ozumand following its tributary the Devol ,c rossing the Skumb i west of Elb asam ,

thence northward to the Black Drin,which it followed to theServian frontier.

Th e reader will fi nd these places on any

good modern map of the Balk an

peninsula (e. g. in the Times Atlas,Maps

1 Cp. Gen. 97 .

2 Zlatarski,80 sq.

3 In BulgariaCont. Th . 163 .

4 The narrative fixes 864 as the

earliest date for the baptism of Boris.

There is other evidenc e. Photius ,writing in A .D . 867 4 . p . 168) and

Cp. Gen. i b . ,

speaking of the“

Latin priests sentfrom Rome towards the end of A .D .

866, remarks that the Bulgarians at

that time had been Christians for lessthan two years (066’ els 6150 émav‘

rozfis) .This gives th e date as A. D . 864-865 .

For A. D . 865 see my Chronologica l

Cycle, p . 142, where I point out thatthe Bulgarian date for the baptism,

given in the Poslieslorie of Tudor (apudKalaidovich , Joannes Exarkh , p .

is to b e explained as toleh vechem,

which , on my interpretation of th e

chronological system,= A.D . 865 . The

date A .H . 6377= A .D . 869 is given inVita S . Clementis, c . 4. p . 7 , for thecall (Khficn s) of the Bulgarians.

5 Co nt. Th . 162-163. The captivityof a sister of Boris seems high ly improbable, but it is of course quitepossible that he had a sister who wasa convert.

386 EA S TE RN ROM AN EM P IRE C HAP . x11

two points of interest in this tale. It reflects the element offeminine influence

,which is said to have played a part in the

conversions of many barbarian chiefs,and which

,for all we

know, may have co-operated in shaping the decision of Boris ;and it represents the famine ,

which prevailed in Bulgaria at

the time of Michael’s invasion , as a divine visitation designedto lead that country to the true religion .

1Another tale, which

bears on the face of it a monkish origin , is of a more sensational kind ? Boris was passionately addicted to hunting,and he desired to feast his eyes upon the scenes of the chaseduring those nocturnal hours of leisure in which he could notindulge in his favourite pursuit. He sent for a Greek monk,Methodius by name, who practised the art of painting, butinstead of commanding him to execute pictures of hun ting as

he had intended, the king was suddenly moved by a divineimpulse to give him different directions. I do not want you todepict,

”he said, the slaughter of men in battle, or of animals

in the hunting-fi eld ; paint anything you like that will striketerror into the hearts of those that gaze upon it. Methodiuscould imagine nothing more terrible than the second comingof God, and he painted a scene of the Last Judgment, ex

hib iting the righteous receiving their rewards, and the wickedignominiously dismissed to their everlasting punishment. In

consequence of the terror produced by this spec tacle,Boris

received instruction in Christian doctrine and was secretlybaptized at night.

In changing his superstition,Boris had to reckon with his

people,and the situation tested his strength as a king.

3He

forced his subjects to submit to the rite of baptism,

4and his

policy led to a rebellion . The nobles, incensed at his

apostasy, stirred up the people to slay him,and all the

Bulgarians of the ten districts of the kingdom gathered round

1 Cont. Th . 163-164. Method iusthe painter has sometimes been con

founded with Method ius the apostleof the Slavs.

2 It is probable enough that thefamine a lso had its psychological influence. Cp. Ann. B ert. 85,

“Deo

signis atque affi ic tionib us in populoregni sui monente.

3 The sources for the rebellion are

(1) Nic olaus, R esponsa , 17 ; (2) Ann.

Bert. (i . e . H incmar) A . D . 866, p . 85,

which gives the details ; and (3) thebrief notic e in Cont. Th. 164. In

the latter there is nothing miraculous ,b ut in the words oils Ka i nerd. rwd

’

w

(Shh/o w Kararrohemjaa s it agrees withthe genera l drift ofH incmar.

‘1 Nicolaus, Responsa, i b .

“postquam

baptisati fuere.

”In Cont. Th . the

baptism seems to follow the suppres

sion of the revolt.

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388 EAS TE RN ROM AN EM P IRE CHAP. x 11

and Constantinople, he proceeds to give a brief, but too long,history of the Seven Ecumenical Councils, in order to securehis new convert against the various pitfalls of heresy whichlie so close to the narrow path of orthodox belief. The secondpart of the letter is devoted to ethical precepts and admoni

tions. Having at tempted to deduce the universal principlesof morality from the two commandments, to love God and

thy neighbour as thyself, Photius traces the portrait of the

ideal prince . Isocrates had delineated a similar portrait forthe instruction of Nicoc les, prince of Cyprus, and Photius hasblended the j udicious counsels of the Athenian teacher withthe wisdom of Solomon’s Proverbs and Jesus the son of Sirach .

1

The philosophical reader Observes with interest that it is notChristian but pre

-Christian works to which the Patriarchresorts for his practical morality. Seldom has such a lecturebeen addressed to the patient ears of a barbarian convert

,and

we should b e curious to know what ideas it conveyed to theBulgarian king, when it was interpreted in Bulgarian or

Slavonic. The theological essay of the Patriarch can hardlyhave simplified for the minds of Boris and his subjects thoseabstruse metaphysical tenets of faith which the Christian isrequired to profess , and the lofty ideal of conduct , which hedelineated, assuredly did not help them to solve the practicaldi fficulties of adjus ting their native customs to the demandsof their new religion .

Not only G reek priests, but Armenians and others,busied

themselves in spreading their faith, and the natives werepuzzled by the discrepancies of their teaching ? A gravescandal was caused when it was discovered that a Greek whobaptized many was not really a priest, and the unfortunateman was condemned by the indignant barbarians to lose hisears and nose, to be beaten with cruel stripes, and driven fromthe country which he had deceived ? A year’s experience of

the missionaries by whom his dominion was inundated mayprobably have disappointed Boris. Perhaps he would not

have broken with Byzantium if it had not become evident

1 This has been shown by Valettas 2 Nic . Resp. 106 . Snopek (Konstin his notes. There are many re Cyr . 17 ) states that the Armenianssemblances between the precepts of mentioned here were Paulic ians.

Photius and th e Admonitions (Il ap This seems highly probable.

aw éaets) of Basil I. to his son Leo VI.

3 l b. 14 .

ss cr . 11 THE CON VERSION OF B UL GAR IA 389

that the Patriarch was determined to keep the new Churchin close dependence on himself, and was reluctant to appointa bishop for Bulgaria . But it is evident that Boris feltat the moment able to defy the Imperial governmen t. The

strained relations which existed between Rome and Con

stantinople suggested the probability that the Pope mighteasily b e induced to interfere

,and that under his authority

the Bulgarian Church might b e organized in a manner moreagreeable to the king ’s views. Accordingly he despatchedambassadors to Rome who appeared before Pope Nicolas(August A.D . asked him to send a bishop and priests totheir country

,

1and submitted to him one hundred and six

questions as to the social and religious obligations which theirnew faith imposed upon their countrymen . They also

presented to him,along with other gifts, the arms which the

king had worn when he triumphed over his unbelievingadversaries ? Boris at the same time sent an embassy to

King Lewis, begging him to send a bishop and priests ?

The Pope selected Paul,bishop of Populonia, and Formosus,

bishop of Porto, as his legates, to introduce the Roman ritesin Bulgaria

,and add a new province to his spiritual empire .

He provided them with the necessary ecclesiastical books and

paraphernalia,and he sent by their hands a full reply in

writing to the numerous questions,trivial or important , on

which the Bulgarians had consulted him.

This papal document is marked by the caution and

moderation which have generally characteriz ed the policy of

the ablest Popes when they have not been quite sure of theirground. It is evident that Nicolas was anxious not to laytoo heavy a yoke upon the converts, and it is interesting tonotice what he permits and what he forbids. He insists on

the observance of the fasts of the Church , on abstinence from

1 Ann. B ert. 86 ; for the date, Vit. vestments,and books for the use of

N icol. pap. 156. The names of the the Bulgarian Church ; “unde KarolusBulgarian envoys were Peter , a relative ab episcopi s

.

regni sui non parvam

ofBoris,John,andMartin ; Mansi, xvii. summam acci iens misit ei ad diri128 (in a letter of Pope John gendum reg1 (I have inserted misit,

which seems indispensable ) . Lewis2 Ann. Bert. 12“ n Lew1s, when sent a bishop with priests and deac ons,h e heard Of tlns, bade the Pope send but finding that the bishops sent by

the arms, etc . to klm’

the Pope were a lready ac tively engaged3 I b. Lewis asked his brother the in b e tizing, they immed iately re

Emperor Charles to send him ve ssels, turnedp: Ann. Fu ld . 380 (A. D .

390 EA S TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE CHAP . x11

work on holy days,on the prohibition of marriages within

the forbidden degrees. Besides these taboos, he lays downthat it is unlawful to enter a church with a turban on the

head,1 and that no food may b e tasted before nine o’clock in

the morning. On the other hand,he discoun tenances some

taboos which the Greek priests had sought to impose,that it

is unlawful to bathe on Wednesdays and Fridays,and to eat

the flesh of an animal that has been killed by a eunuch . But

he rules that it is not allowable to taste an animal which hasbeen hunted by a Christian if it has been killed by a pagan

,

or killed by a Christian if it has been hun ted by a pagan .

The Bulgarians had inquired whether they should adopt thehabit of wearing drawers ; he replied that it was a ma tter Of

no importance. I t was the custom for their king to eat in

solitary grandeur, not even his wife was permitted to sit besidehim. The Pope observes that this is b ad manners and thatJesus Christ did not disdain to eat with publicans and sinners,but candidly aflirms that it is not wrong nor irreligious. He

bids them substitute the cross for the horse’s tail which wastheir military standard. He strictly prohibits the practiceof pagan superstitions

,the use of healing charms

,and swearing

by the sword. He commands them to discontinue the singingof songs and taking of auguries before battle, and exhortsthem to prepare for combat by reciting prayers

,Opening

prisons, liberating slaves,and bestowing alms. He condemns

the superstition of sortes biblicae to which the Greeks resorted ?

A pleasing feature of the Pope’s Responses is his solicitudeto humanize the Bulgarians by advising them to mitigate theirpunishments in dealing with offenders. He sternly denounces,and supports his denunciation by the argument of commonsense

,the use of torture for extracting confessions from accused

persons ? He condemns the measures which had been takento destroy the rebels and their families as severe and unjust

,

‘1

and censures the punishment which had been inflicted on the

G reek who had masqueraded as a priest . He enjoins the

right of asylum in churches,and lays down that even parricides

and fratricides who seek the refuge of the sanctuary should b etreated with mildness. But in the eyes of the medieval

1 N ic . Resp. 66 (cum ligatura lintei) . 2 l b. 77 .

3 l b . 86 .

‘1 See above, p . 387 .

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392 E AS TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE CHAP .

’

x11

ever allowed to escape alive ; how great should b e the royalanger when men deny, and do not keep their promised faith to,Christ, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Be zealouswith the zeal of God.

”Thus was the principle of the Inquisi

tion laid down by Rome for the benefit of Bulgaria.

In the eyes of Boris the most important ques tion submittedto the Pope was the appointment of a Patriarch . On thispoint Nicolas declined to commit h imself. He said that hecould not decide until he had heard the report of his legatesbut he promised that in any case Bulgaria shoul d have a

bishop,and when a certain number of churches had been built,

an archbishop,if not a Patriarch . The prospect of an arch

bishopric seems to have satisfied the king. He welcomed thepapal legates and

, expelling all other missionaries from the

kingdom, committed to them exclusively the task of preachingand baptizing.

1 Formosus succeeded so well in ingratiatinghimself, that Boris destined him for the future archbishopricbut the Pope declined to spare him from his I talian see, and

sent out other . bishops and priests, promising to consecrate as

archbishop whichever of them the king should select.The Latin ecclesiastics worked for more than a year (A.D.

8 66-8 67 ) in the land which the Pope hoped he had annexedto the spiritual dominion of Rome ? Bulgaria, however, wasnot destined to belong to the Latin Church ; her fate was

linked in the religious as in the political sphere to Con

stantinOple. But the defeat of papal hopes and the triumphof Byzantine diplomacy transcend the limits of the presentvolume.

3 . The Slavonic Apostles

The Slavonic land of Moravia, which ex tended into themodern Hungary as far eastward as the river Gran , was splitinto small principalities

,the rivalries of whose lords invited

the interference of the Franks. The margraves of the EastMark looked on the country as a client state ; the archbishopsof Passau considered it as within their spiritual jurisdiction ;and G erman ecclesiastics worked here and there in the land,though Christian theology had penetrated but little into the1 Vit. Nic . pap. 157 . tic es by Photius, see above, Chap . VI.2 For the denunc iation of their prac p . 200.

SECT . 111 THE SLA VONI C AP OS TL E S 393

wilds,and only by an abuse of terms could Moravia be described

as Christian .

1The Moravian Slavs chafed under a dependency

which their own divisions had helped to bring abou t,and we

have seen how Rostislav,a prince who owed his ascendancy

in the land to the support of King Lewis the German, sent anembassy to Constantinople .

Ecclesiastical tradition affirms that his envoys, who arrivedat the court of Michael I II . in A.D . 8 62 requested theEmperor to send to Moravia a teacher who knew Slavonic andcould instruct the inhabitants in the Chris tian faith and

explain the Scriptures. Christian teachers have been amongstus already, from I taly

, Greece, and Germany, teaching us con

tradic tory doctrines ; but we are simple Slavs and we wantsome one to teach us the whole truth .

” 3

We may confidently reject this account of the matter as

a legend The truth probably is that, when the Moravi anembassy arrived

,the Patriarch Photius saw an opportunity of

extending the influence of the Greek Church among the

Slavs, and inciden tally of counteracting,in a new field, the

forms of Western Christianity which he so arden tly detested.

The suggestion may have come to him from his friendConstantine the Philosopher

,a man of Thessalonica, who

had a remarkable gift for languages and was a master of

that Slavonic tongue which was Spoken in the regions aroundhis birthplace.

There is not the least reason to suppose that the family of

Constan tine (more familiarly known under his later name of

Cyril) was not G reek .

4His elder brother, Methodius, had

entered the public service, had held the post of governor of

some region where there were Slavonic settlements? and had

then retired to a monastery on M t . Olympus in Bithynia .

Constantine (born about A.D. had been devoted to

1 At the Synod of Mainz in A .D . 852

we hear of the “rudis adhuc chri

stianitasgentisMarahensium 111. G .H

(L eg. ) i. 414. Cp. Jagié , Entstehwngs

geschichte, i . 7 .

2 A. D . 860 or 861, acc . to Jagié,Entstehungsgeschichte, i . 6. As Con

stantine probablydid not go to Moraviatill A .D . 864 (see below,-p. it seems

more likely that the embassy arrivedin 863 or at earliest 862. SO too

Bretholz, Geschichte Mahrens, 66. See

above, p . 383, for its real Objec t.3 Vit. Meth. c . 5 ; cp. Trans la tio,

c . 7,“qui ad legendum eos et ad

perfec tam legem ipsam edoc eat .

"

‘1 Jireéek’

s attempt to c laim the

apostles as Slavs (Geschichte, 151) isunconv1nc 1ng.

3 Vit. M et. 0. 3, driati slovénsko,

princ ipatum Slovenicum.

3 When he died (A .D . 869 , February14) he was 42 years old (Vit. Const.c .

394 EAS TE RN ROMAN EMP IRE CHAP . X I I

learning from his you th . Legend said that at the age of sevenyears he had chosen, in a dream, W isdom as his bride. The

promise of his boyhood excited the in terest of the statesmanTheoktistos

, who fetched him to Constantinople to completehis education . He pursued his studies under two eminen t menof learning, Leo 1 and Photius. But he disappointed the hopesof his patron , who destined him for a secular career and

offered him the hand of his god-daughter

,a weal thy heiress.

He took orders and acted for some time as librarian of the

Patriarch ’s library, a post which, when Photius was Patriarch ,could not have been filled by one who was not exceptionallyproficient in learning. But Constantine soon buried himselfin a cloister,2 wh ich he was with difli culty persuaded to leave,in order to occupy what may b e described as an official chairof philosophy at Constan tinople ? H is biographer says thathe was chosen by the Emperor to hold a disputation withSaracen theologians on the doctrine of the Trinity.

4 Sub

sequently he retired to live with his brother on Moun tOlympus . He was in this retreat when envoys from the

Chagan of the Khazars arrived at Constantinople and askedthe Emperor to send him a learned man to explain the tenetsof Christianity, so that the Khazars migh t judge betweenit and two other faiths, Judaism and Mohammadanism,

which were competing for their acceptance . Michael,by the

advice of Photius, entrusted the mission to Constantine, who,accompanied by Imperial envoys

,travelled to Cherson with

the embassy of the Khazars.

5 At Cherson he remained somemonths to learn the Khazar language

,

6and to seek for the

body of St. Clement, the first bishop of Rome, who had

suffered martyrdom in the neighbourhood. But St. Clementwas a name almost forgotten by the natives, or rather the

1 See below,p . 436.

2 On the Stenon, i .e. the Bosphorussince, accord ing to the source, Vit.

Const. 6 , he was aged 24. The authorof this life describes the debate at(Vit. Const. c .

3 See below, 439 . H is friendshipwith Photius did not deter h im fromentering into a speculative c ontroversywith the learned Patriarch , who hadwritten a treatise to maintain the rashdoc tr ine that two souls inhabited thehuman body . Anastasius

,Praef . 6,

fortissimo eius amico .

"

‘1 Cp. Appendix XI. The date, if thestory were true, would b e A . D .

length .

5 Op. below, p . 423. The sourc e

for the disc overy of the body of St.

C lement is the Translatio of Gauderic,

cp. Appendix XI.

3 Translatio,c . 2. In Vit. Const.

c . 8 he is represented as studyingHebrew and Samaritan at ChersonHebrew ev idently for the purpose of

d isputing with the Jews .

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396 EAS TE RN ROMAN E M P IRE CHAP. xl 1

request of the Chagan is of one piece with the similar assertionin regard to his subsequent mission to Moravia. H is discoveryof the body of St. Clement is a myth

,

1 but underlying it isthe fact that he brought back to Constantinople from ChersonWhat he and all the world supposed to be relics of the

Roman saint.The visit to the Khazars may probably b e placed in the

neighbourhood of A.D. and it was not long afterConstantine’s return to Constantinople that the arrival of theMoravian envoys suggested the idea of a new sphere of

activity. We are quite in the dark as to how the arrangements were made, but it was at all events decided thatConstantine and his brother Methodius should undertake thetask of propagating Christianity in Moravia. They set out

not later than in the summer of A.D. 8 64?

According to the na1ve story,which , as we have seen,

represents Rostislav as begging for teachers, Constantineaccomplished, in the short interval between the embassy and

his departure, what was no less than a miracle. He inventeda new script and translated one of the Gospels or compiled a

Lectionary 4 in the Slavonic tongue. If we consider what thismeans we shall hardly be prepared to believe it. The alphabet

1 Anastasius believed in it, b ut heheard it from Metrophanes, bishop ofSm rna . Constantine himself, whomhe new personal ly (at Rome in A .D .

dec lined to say how the relics

had been obtained (Ep. ad Ganderi

cum,

apud Pastrnek, 247 quae

praedictus philosophus fugiens arro

gantiae notam referre non passusThis admission enables us to judge thestory. Cp. Franko, Beitra

’

ge, 236 .

Franko,in this artic le

,points out that

there was another legend which relatesthe disc overy of St. C lement to the

reign of Nic ephorus I. (2312 If we assume that he was a

librarian of Photius and that heheld this Office before the Khazarmission (as the Vit. Const. states) .We have a c ertain confirmation of thisin the probability that he could hard lyhave undertaken the mission until hewas in priest’s orders. As 30 was the

minimum age (Conc . Tru ll. can.

and he was born in 827 , he c ould nothave been ordained priest before 857 .

3 Ac cord ing to Vit. Const. c . 15,

they remained 40months in Moraviaac cord ing to Vit. Meth . c . 6

, 3 years .

(The Trans latio, c . 7 , gives 45 years,but there may b e an error throughc onfusion of iii. with They leftprobably before the end of A .D . 867see below.

4 Jagic’

, op. cit. i. 17, who thinksthat Constantine ’s work as a translatorconsisted of (besides the Lec tionary )liturgical books containing psalms

and prayers . These books may havebeen begun before his arrival in

Moravia , but the evidenc e of the Old

G lagolitic Psalter (ed. by Geitler in1883 ) points to the conc lusion thatsome of the Psalms were translated inMoravia (ih. ii. For the con

sultation of the Latin text (l ikely inMoravia, highly im robab le at Con

stantinople) is evi ent in severalpassages, e .g . P3 . 118, 130, 7) 67pmO

'

ts raw hbywv O'

ou (pom s? Kat o vven e'

i

vnr lovs where the Slavonic razumdaet for o vver cei is obv iously influencedby the Latin intellectum dat.

SEC’

I‘

. 111 THE SLA VON I C AP OS TL E S 397

of the early Slavonic books that were used by Constantine and

his brother in Moravia was a difficult script , derived fromGreek minuscule characters, so modified that the origincan only be detected by careful study. I t would have beenimpossible to invent , and compose books in, this Glagoliticwriting, as it is called, in a year. It has been suggested thatthe Macedonian Slavs already possessed an alphabet which theyemployed for the needs of daily life , and that what Constantinedid was to revise this script and complete it, for the moreaccurate rendering of the sounds of Slavonic speech

,by some

additional symbols which b e adapted from Hebrew or

Samaritan .

1 H is work would then have been similar to thatof Wulfi las, who adapted the Runic alphabe t already in use

among the Goths and augmented it by new signs for hisliterary purpose. But we have no evidence of earlier Slavonicwriting ; and the G lagolitic forms give the impression thatthey were not the result of an evolution, but were an artificialinvention , for which the artist took G reek minuscules as his

guide, but deliberately set himself to disguise the origin of the

new characters.

It must have been obvious to Constantine that the Greeksigns themselves without any change, supplemented by a few

additional symbols, were an incomparably more convenientand practical instrument . And, as a matter of fact

,his name

is popularly associated with the script which ultimately superseded the Glagolitic . The Cyrill ic script, used to this day bythe Bul garians, Servians, and Rus sians

,is simply the Greek

uncial alphabet, absolutely undisguised, expanded by somenecessary additions. That tradition is wrong in connectingit with Cyril, it is impossible to affirm or deny ; it is certainonly that he used Glagolitic for the purpose of his mission toMoravia and that for a century after his death Glagoliticremained in possession . To expend labour in manufacturingsuch symbols as the G lagolitic and to use them for the

purpose of educating a barbarous folk , when the simple Greekforms were ready to his hand, argues a perversity which wouldb e incredible if it had not some powerful motive . I t has beenpo inted out that such a motive existed ? In order to obtaina footing in Moravia

,it was necessary to proceed with the

1 Op. Jagio'

,0p. cit. ii. 28.

2 Bruckner, 219 sq.

398 EAS TE RN R OM AN E /tI P IRE C HAP. x11

utmost caution . There could b e no question there,in the

existing situa tion, of an open conflict with Rome or of fallingfoul of the G erman priests who were already in the country.

Rostislav would never have acquiesced in an ecclesiasticalquarrel which would have increased the difficulties of his

own position . The object of Photius and Constantine, tow in Moravia ultimately from Rome and attach her to

Byzantium,could only b e accomplished by a gradual process

of insinuation . I t would be fatal to the success of the

enterprise to alarm the Latin Church at the outset,and

nothing would have alarmed it more than the introductionof books written in the G reek alphabet. G lagolitic solvedthe problem. I t could profess to b e a purely Slavonic script ,and could defy the most suspicious eye of a Latin bishop todetect anything Greek in its features. It had the fur theradvantage of attracting the Slavs

,as a proper and pecul iar

alphabet of their own.

But the important fact remains that the invention Of

G lagolitic and the compilation Of G lagolitic books requireda longer time than the short interval between the Moravianembassy and the departure of the two apostles. There is noground for supposing, and it is in itself highly improbable,that the idea of a mission to that distant country had beenconceived before the arrival of Rostislav’

s envoys. Moreover,

if the alphabet and books had been expressly designed forMoravian use, it is hard to understand why Constantine shouldhave decided to offer his converts a literature written in a

different Speech from their own. He translated the Scriptureinto the dialect of Macedonian Slavonic

,which was entirely

different from the Slovak tongue spoken in Moravia.

lI t is

true that the Macedonian was the only dialect whi ch he knew,

and it was comparatively easy for the Moravians to learn itspeculiarities ; but if it was the needs of the Moravian missionthat provoked Constantine’s literary services to Slavonic

, the

natural procedure for a missionary was to learn the speech of

the people whom he undertook to teach , and then prepareb opks for them in their own language.

The logical conclusion from these considerations is that1 Cp. Jagie, op . cit. i. 9 -11. Slovak belongs to the Bohemian group of

Slavonic languages.

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400 EA S TE RN ROMAN EM P IRE C HAP. xx1

Rome. Pope N icolas, hearing of their activity in Moravia,

and deeming it imperative to inqui re into the matter,had

addressed to them an apostolic letter, couched in friendlyterms and summoning them to Rome. They had doubtlessdiscovered for themselves that their position would b e soonimpossible unless they came to terms with the Pope . The

accession of Basil and the deposition of Photius changed thesituation . A Patriarch who was under obligations to the

Roman See was now enthroned,and Constantine and Methodius

,

coming from Constantinople and bearing as a gift the relicsof St. Clement, could be sure of a favourable reception . Theyfound that a new Pope had succeeded to the pontifi cal chair.

1

Hadrian I I . ,attended by all the Roman clergy, went forth at

the head of the people to welcome the bearers of the martyr’srelics

,which

,it is superfluous to observe, worked many miracles

and cures.

The Pope seems to have approved generally of the workwhich Constantine had inaugurated. Methodius and three of

the Moravian disciples were ordained priests ; 2 but Moraviawas not made a bishopric and still remained formally dependenton the See of Passau. Hadrian seems also to have expresseda qualified approval of the Slavonic books. The opponents ofthe Greek brethren urged that there were only three sacredtongues, Latin, Greek , and Hebrew,

appealing to the superscription on the Cross. The Pope is said to have rejected thisPilatic dogma in its extreme form,

and to have authorizedpreaching and the reading of the Scriptures in Slavonic ; buthe certainly did not

,as was afterwards alleged

,license the

singing of the service of the Mass in the strange tongue,even

though it were also chanted in Latin? nor did he cause the

Slavonic liturgy to b e recited in the principal churches of

Rome.

4

At this time, the most learned man at Rome was the

librarian Anastasius, who knew Greek, kept himself in contactwith the Greek world, and translated into Latin the Chronicle

1 N icolas died A .D . 867, Nov. 13, Methodius became bishop of PannoniaHadrian succeeded Dec . 14. at a later period (Vit. Meth. c . 8 ad2 Vit. M eth . c . 6 . The addition to fi n. )

the Trans la tio (c . 9 ad fi n. ) states 3

that both C onstantine and Methodius in Vipe

ifl

zphspc

ur

éous letter orHadri an

were consecrated bishops, and this isaccepted by Snopek , op. cit. 126 sqq.

‘1 Vit. Const. c . 17 .

401ss cr . 111 THE SLA VON I C AP OS TL E S

of Theophanes. He made the acquaintance of Constan tine,of whose character and learning he en tertained a profoundadmiration . Writing at a later time to the Western Emperor,Anastasius mentions that Constantine knew by heart theworks of Dionysios the Areopagite and recommended themas a powerful weapon for combating heresies.

1 But the daysof Constantine the Philosopher were numbered. H e fell illand was tonsured as a monk

,assuming the name of Cyril.

He di ed on February 14,A .D. and his body was

entombed near the altar in the church which had beennewly erected in honour of St. Clement ?

The subsequent career of Methodius in Moravia and

Pannonia lies outside our subject. H e was in an untenableposition

,and the forces against him were strong.

-He was

determined to celebrate mass in Slavonic, yet he depended on

the goodwill of the Roman See. H is disciples, soon aftertheir master ’s death , were compelled to leave the country ,and they found a more promising field of work in Bulgaria,the land for which

, as we have seen reason to think , Cyril’

s

literary labours were originally intended .

1 Ep . ad Car . ,apud Ginzel, Anhang,

p . 44. Anastasius is mentioned in

Vit. Const. c . 17— One of the detailswhich show that the writer (who also

discovered c lose to the place whereConstantine was buried , representingthe translation Of the saint ’s relics

into the church , the inscriptionknew that Constantine ’

s disc iples wereconsecrated by bishops Formosus andGauderic ) had some good information.

2 Vi t. Const. c . 18 Translatio,c . 10.

3 It was built by Gauderic , bishopof Velletri, who was interested in St.Clement

,to whom the Church of

Velletri was dedicated (Anastasius,Ep. ad Gaudgricum) . On Old frescoes

AC IR IL oc curs (apparently referring totheir discovery and restoration byCyril) . Rossi dates the frescoes to

the tenth century . See Bullettino

di archeologia cristiana ,i. 9 sqq. , 1863

ii. 1 sqq.,1864 ; and G . W ilpert, L e

pitture della basi li ca primitiva di San

Clementeci t. 91.

Cp. Pastrnek, op .

CHAPTER XI II

THE EMPIRE OF THE KHAZARS AND THE PEOPLES

OF THE NORTH

1 . The Khazars

AT the beginning of the ninth century the Eastern Empire hadtwo dependencies, remote and isolated, which lived outside theprovincial organization, and were governed by their own

magistrates, Venice and Cherson . We have seen how Venice,in the reign of Theophilus, virtually became independent of

Constan tinople ; under the same Emperor, the condition Of

Cherson was also changed, but in a very different sense —it was

incorporated in the provincial system . The chief value of

both cities to the Empire was commercial ; Venice was an

intermediary for Byzantine trade with the West, while Chersonwas the great centre for the commerce of the North . And

both cities lay at the gates of other empires, which were both aninfluence and a menace. If the people of the lagoons had todefend themselves against the Franks, the Chersonites had as

good reason to fear the Khazars.

In the period with which we are concerned,it is probable

that the Khan of the Khazars was of little less importance inthe view of the Imperial foreign policy than Charles the Greatand his successors. The marriage of an Emperor to the

daughter of a Khazar king had Signalised in the eighth centurythat Byzantium had interests of grave moment in this quarterof the globe, where the Khazars had formed a powerful andorganized state

,exercising control or influence over the barbarous

peoples which surrounded them .

Their realm extended from the Caucasus northward to theVolga and far up the lower reaches of. that river ; it included

402

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404 EAS TERN R OM AN EM P IRE C HAP . x1l 1

who lived in wooden houses with convex roofs.

lThe fortress

of Belenj er , which lay on the lower course of the Sulek, on theroad which leads southward from Kizliar to Petrovsk,2 seemsto have played some part in the earlier wars between theKhazars and the Saracens ? Further south still was the townof Tarku,

on the road to Kaiakend and the Caspian gates ?

The Arabic writers to whom we owe much of our knowledgeof Khazaria suggest a picture of agricultural and pastoralprosperity . The Khazars were extensive sheep-farmers 5 theirtowns were surrounded by gardens and vineyards they wererich in honey and wax ; and had abundance of fi sh . The richestpastures and most productive lands in their country were knownas the Nine Regions, and probably lay in the modern districtsof Kuban and Ter

?The king and his court wintered in I til,

but in the Spring they went forth and encamped in the plains.

7

According to one report , the Chagan had twenty-fi ve wives,

each the daughter of a king, and Sixty concubines eminent fortheir beauty. Each of them had a house of her own

,a gubba

covered with teakwood, surrounded by a large pavilion,and

each was jealously guarded by a eunuch who kept her frombeing seen ? But at a later period a Chagan boasts of his

queen,her maidens, and eunuchs, and we are left to wonder

whether polygamy had been renounced or was deliberatelyconcealed ?

The Chagan himself seems to have taken no direct share inthe administration of the state or the conduct of war. H is

sacred person was almost inaccessible ; when he rode abroad,

all those who saw him prostrated themselves on the groundand did not rise till he had passed out of sight. On his death

,

a great sepulchre was built with twenty chambers,suspended

1 Ibn Haukal and Istachri describeit see Marquart, Streifzuge, xlii. n. 3,

and 1-2. Istachri says that it was

governed b a princ e who was a Jew

and relate to the Chagan. Thisrefers to a period after the conversionto Judaism .

2 Westberg, ih.

3 For the ev idence see Marquart,op. ci t. 16-17 . He wrongly identifi esTarku with Semender.

‘1 Westberg , ih.

‘

5 Westberg , op . cit. 11. 13 .

3rd éw éa KMuar a r fis Xaf

‘

apla s, fromwhich was derived mi c a { on} «at

d¢90uta rfis X . ; they were on the sidetowards the land of the Alans (seebelow) . Const. De adm. imp . 80.

7 Cp. Gurdizi, p . 96 (tr. Barthold ) .See also der cha z . Ko

‘

nigsbrief , 80.

3 Cp. IbnFadhlan (Vet. 592 ;Marquart, xlii. n. 2. When the

Chagan wished to embrace one of hisc onsorts , her eunuch took her in an

instant to his qubba ,waited outside

,

and then reconducted her.

9 Der chaz. K‘

o’

nigsbri ef , 79 .

ss c r . 1 TH E XHAZARS 405

over a stream, so that neither devils nor men nor worms might

b e able to penetrate it. The mausoleum was called paradise,and those who deposited his body in one Of its recesses wereput to dea th, that the exact spot in which he was laid mightnever b e revealed. A rider who passed it by dismoun ted

,and

did not remount until the tomb could b e no longer seen .

When a new Chagan ascended the throne, a silk cord was

bound tightly round his neck and he was required to declarehow long he wished to reign ; when the period which he

mentioned had elapsed, he was put to death . But it isuncertain how farw e can believe the curious stories of the

Arabic travellers, from whom these details are derived ?

We have no information at what time the active authorityof the Chagan was exchanged for this divine nul lity, or why hewas exalted to a position, resembling that of the Emperor of

Japan,in which his existence, and not his government, was

considered essen tial to the prosperity of the State. The laboursof government were fulfilled by a Beg or viceroy,2 who com

mended the army, regulated the tribute, and presided over theadministration. He appeared in the presence of the Chaganwith naked feet, and lit a torch ; when the torch had burn tout he was permitted to take his seat at the right hand of

the monarch . When evil times befell, the people heldthe Chagan responsible and called upon the Beg to put himto death ; the Beg sometimes complied with their demand?The commander of an army who suffered defeat was cruellytreated : his wife

,ch ildren

,and property were sold before

his eyes, and he was either executed or degraded to menialrank ?

The most remarkable fact in the civilisation of this Turkishpeople was the conversion of the Chagan and the upper rankof society to Judaism . The religion of the Hebrews hadexercised a profound influence on the creed of I slam ,

and it

had been a basis of Christianity ; it had won sca ttered prose

1 Ibn Fadhlan,ib. 592-593. H e is xa

-ydvos érce

'

ivos Ka l 6 r'ex Xa j

’

apia s

cal led by Arabic writers the ishfid (text 6 Ka t r éx erroneously, which we(G urdizi, tr . Barthold

,120 isha , c ould correc t even w ithout the right

Ibn Rusta = al-shad, cp. Marquart, read ing in Cont. Th. Ibn Fadhop. cit. But he was probably also lan, i h. 592 . Cp. Masudi (Sprenger) ,known as the but-khan, see below, p . 410.

406, n. 1 .

3 Masud i , i b . 411 .

2 Const. De adm. imp. 1782 6 yap‘1 Ib n Fadhlan, ib . 593.

406 EA S TE RN R OM A /V EM P IRE CHAP . x 111

lytes ; but the conversion of the Khazars to the undilutedreligion of Jehovah is unique in history. The date of thisevent has been disputed, and the evidence variously assigns it tothe first half of the eighth century or to the beginning of the

ninth ? There can b e no question that the ruler was actuatedby political motives in adopting Judaism. To embraceMohammadanism would have made him the spiritual dependentof the Caliphs, who attempted to press their faith on the

Khazars,and in Christianity lay the danger of his becoming

an ecclesiastical vassal of the Roman Empire . Judaism was a

reputable religion with sacred books which both Christian and

Mohammadan respected ; it elevated him above the heathenbarbarians, and secured him against the interference of Caliphor Emperor. But he did not adopt

,along with circumcision ,

the intolerance of the Jewish cult. He allowed the mass of

his people to abide in their heathendom and worship theiridols ?

The circumstances of the conversion are as uncertain as the

date. Joseph , the Chagan whose Hebrew letter to the RabbiChisdai of Cordova in the tenth century is preserved, states thatthe Roman Emperor and the Caliph

,whom he respectively

styles the King of Edom and the King of the Ishmaelites, sentembassies laden with rich gifts and accompanied by theologicalsages, to induce his ancestor to embrace their civilisations.

The prince found a learned Israelite and set him to disputewith the foreign theologians. When he saw that they could1 For the former date, our authority

is the Khazar tradition preserved inthe Letter of Joseph it; is supportedby Westberg, K. ana l. ii. 34. For

the latter (reign of Harun), Masudi(Sprenger) , 407 . Acc ording to Joseph ,the name Of the King who was c on

verted was Bu lan, who passed throughthe Gates of Dariel and reached theland ofArdebil . We know fromArabicand Armenian sourc es that such an

exped ition was conduc ted by B ulkhanin A .D . 731 . Bulkhan was the majordomo (mix) , as Westberg sa S ; and

we may suspect that this was his title ,not his name. Marquart (who deniesthe genuineness of Joseph's Letter)plac es the conversion to Judaism in

the second hal f of the ninth century,after the mission of Constantine(Streifzugs, 5 on the ground that

in the accounts of that mission the

Chagan is not represented as a Jew .

But theArabic ac counts of the Khazars(Ibn Rusta, which depend on an

Older source prior toA.D . 850, assume the

Judaism of the Khazars at that time .

Marquart endeavours to explain awaythis evidence by assuming that it isa later add ition of an intermediatesourc e, Gaihani. The passage whichhe c ites from the commentary on

Matthew by Druthmar (on Matt . 24,14,Max . bibl . veterumpatrumLugdun.

xv. 158, who was writing soon

after the conversion of the Bulgarians,proves nothing as to the chronology,exc ept that the conversion of the

Khazars was prior to A . D . 865, the

date of the c onversion of the Bul

garians. C Westberg, op. cit. 36.

2 So Gur izi and Ibn Rusta.

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408 EA S TE RN ROM AN EM P IRE CHAP. x 111

story unintentionally suggests ? The Jewish influence in

Khazaria was due to the encouragement given by the Chagansto Hebrew merchants ? Of the Jewish port of Tamatarkha

more will b e said presently ; and we may notice the Jewishpopulation at Jundar, a town in the Caucasus, which was

governed in the nin th century by a relation of the Chagan,

who is said to have prayed impartially with the Moslems on

Friday,with the Jews on Saturday, and with the Christians

on Sunday ?

Somewhat later in the eighth century a princess of the

Khazars married the Saracen governor of Armenia, and there

was peace on the southern frontier till the reign of Harun al

Rashid ? In A.D . 7 9 8 another marriage alliance was arrangedbetween a daughter of the Chagan and one of the powerfulfamily of the Barmecides. The lady died in Albania on the

way to her bridal, and the officers who were in charge of her

reported to her father their suspicion that she had beenpoisoned. The suggestion infuriated the Chagan

,and in the

following year the Khazars invaded Armenia, by the Gates ofDerbend, and returned with an immense booty in captives ?

Then Harun’

s son, Mamun, carried his arms Victoriously intothe land of the Khazars ?

2 . The Subj ects and Neighbours of the Kh azars

The Khazars had never succeeded in extending theirlordship over their neighbours the ALANS

,whose territory

extended from the Caucasus to the banks of the river Kubanand was bounded on the west by the Euxine. The Alans, who

‘1 Baladhuri (Marquart, op. cit.

5 Marquart, i b . 5 .

1 The Jewish rabbi who disputes isalready on the spot. The L etter of

Joseph gives the date as about 340years before his own time (0. A .D .

340 is c learly c orrupt, and if we read240 with Westberg (op. ci t. ii.

we get 0. A . D . 720 as the date.

2 In the ninth c entury, Ibn Khurdadhb ah mentions that Jewishmerchants from Spain used to c ome

regularly overland , through the country of the Slavs, to the capl tal of

the Khazars (Chamlich ) . Marquart,op. cit. 24.

3 Ibn Rusta and Gurdizi,Marquart, op. cit. 20.

190

3 The authority is Mukaddasi, whosays that Mamun required the Chaganto embrace Islam (Marquart, it?Mamun governed Khurasan, under h isfather, from A .D . 799. He was also inKhurasan, as Caliph

,between A.D .

813 and 818. Marquart does not

dec ide the date of the c ampaign inKhazaria . It is natural to supposethat it was the reply to the Khazarinvasion of A .D . 799 , and to assign itto the earlier period ; but cp. Mar

quart, 476.

ss c r . 11 S UB/E CTS AND N E I GH B O UR S OF KHAZA RS 409

have survived to the present day under the name of the

Ossetians,were a mainly pastoral people ; their army consisted

in cavalry ; and they had a fortress, which was virtuallyimpregnable

,at the so-called Alan-gate of the Caucasus or Pass

of Daric l ? We are told that the habitations of the peoplewere so close together that when a cock crowed in one placehe was answered by all the cocks in the rest of the kingdom .

At some time before the tenth century the king adoptedChristianity, bu t the mass of his subjects remained heathen ?

He received his Christianity from Constantinople, and the

Emperors appropriated to him the special title of epusiastes?

Between the Alans and the Khazars were the habitations of

the SARIRS, a heathen people whose name does not come intothe annals of Byzantium ?

North of the Alans, between the rivers Kuban and Don,

the territory of the Khazars extended to the shores of the

Maeotic lake,5 and at the mouth Of that water they possessedthe important town of Tamatarkha, the modern Taman, whichhad arisen close to the ancient Phanagoria, over against thecity of Bosporos on the other side of the straits. The com

merc ial importance of Tamatarkha,which had a large Jewish

population,will claim our attention presently. Bosporos itself,

the ancient Pantikapaion, was under the control of the

Khazars,and the Tetraxite Goths, who occupied the greater

part of the Crimea ,were subject to their sway. The Gothic

capital, Doras, had been taken by the Khazars before A.D . 78 7 ,and in the following years the Goths, under the leadership of

their bishop, had made an attempt to throw off the yoke of

their powerful neighbours ?

1 For descriptions of the Alans, seeGurdizi and Ibn Rusta, 193-194, andMasudi (Sprenger) , 434 sqq. Cp. Mar

quart, op. ci t. 164 sqq. The King’

s

title was bagha'

ya r (Ibn R . ) or kar

kundaj (Mas ) . Arabic writers call theAlans Nandar, or Tulash wi th thesecond part ofwhichMarquart c onnec tsthe G eorgian name Owsi OldRussian

Ya si ) , whenc e the modern Ossetian.

2 That the Alans were still pagansin the ninth c entury is shown by Kulakovski, Viz . Vrem. v. 1 sqq.

3 Constantine, Cer . 688. He was

a Spiritual son of the Emperors(r uevua r ixOv iyuc

'

év r éxvov) .

‘1 Of the Sarirs an account is preserved by Ibn Rusta and Gurdizi (187sqq. derived from their common ninthc entury sourc e.

3 This country had been the habitation of the Utigurs

— the m ama

Bouhyapia of Theophanes and N ic e

phorus. Cp. Marquart, op. cit. 503.

After the sixth c entury we hearnoth in more of this people

,but the ir

desc endants may have stil l been there,though of no politic al importance.

3 Shestakov, P amia tniki , 35 sq. Vi t.Joann. ep . Gotthia e, 191 . The bishopJohn was taken prisoner

, but succeededin escaping to Amastris .

410 EA S TE RN R OM AN E RIP I RE CHAP. x l 11

North of the Don and extending to the banks of the

Dnieper were the tents and hunting-grounds of the MAGYARSor Hungarians ? The continuous history of this Finnishpeople, who lived by hunting and fi shing,

2 begins in the ninthcentury, and if we think we can recognise it under other namesin the days of At tila and the early migrations, our conclusionsare more or less specula tive. I t is, however, highly probablethat the Magyars had lived or wandered for centuries in the

regions of the Volga, had bowed to the sway of the great Hun

,

and had been affected by the manners of their Turkish neighbours ? They spoke a tongue closely akin to those of the

Finns, the Ostyaks, the Voguls, and the Samoyeds, but it islikely that even before the ninth century it had been modified,in its vocabulary, by Turkish influence ? A branch of the

people penetrated in the eigh th cen tury south of the Caucasus,

and settled on the river Cyrus, east of Tiflis and west of Partav ,

where they were known to the Armenians by the name of

Sevordik or Black children .

” 5These Black Hungarians, in

the ninth century,destroyed the town of Shamkor, and the

governor of Armenia repeopled it with Khazars who had beenconverted to Islam (A.D. 8 54

On the northern shore of the Sea of Azov, and extendingtowards the Dnieper

, was the land of the Inner or BLACKBULGARIANS

,

7 which thus lay between the Magyars and the

1 For critic ism of the Arabic sourc es but it was profoundly ,modified by

(Gurdizi, etc . ) see Westberg, op. cit.

20 sqq. , B ei tr . i. 24 sqq. Marquart,(op. cit. 30-31, 516) plac es the Hungariana between the Don and the

Kuban, but his interpretation hasbeen refuted by Westberg .

2 Regine , s . a . 889, p . 132, ed . Kurze.

This is an insertion of Regine in his

generaldesc riptionwhich is transcribedfrom Justinus, ii. 133 Marquart finds their ancestors in

the Akatzirs (cp. Prisons, fr. 8 in

F.H . G . iv . 89 ; Jordanes, Get. 0. 5 )and the Unigurs (op. c it. 40 sqq. ) but

see the important work of K. Néma’

ti,Nagy

-Magyarorszag ismeretlen terté

nelmi okmanya where the

pas sage in the Origines of Isidore ofSevil le (ix. 2

, 66, in M igne, P .L . 82,334) is fully discussed . He likewiseidentifies them with the Unigurs.

Cp. Marquart, 53 . The basis ofthe Hungarian language was Ugrian,

M kish . Thewell-knownable attemptof Vamb éry to prove that it was

originally a Turkish tongue (in h is Amagyar ok credete) has not c onvinc edme

, nor has it persuaded Marquart ,who has pertinent observations on thesubjec t

Constantine, Cer . 687 els r ats 7’

dpxovra s r c’

bv Eepflor tdw (leg. Zeflomlwv,Marquart) rd

’

mhe‘yoyé vwv ua iipa r acala .

Hence Mar

quart explains Eafidpr oi

da qbaAoi,sai in De adm. imp. 169 to

b e the Old name of the Hungarians, as

the lower Sevordik (op. cit. 39-ordile

,children, he considers only an

Armenian transformation by popularetymology of Orgik =Ugrians . See

also W . Péc z in B .Z. vii . 201 -202,618-619 .

3 For this wehave thegood authoritof Baladhuri, who calls the SevordiScivardi . Marquart, i b . 36.

7 See above, p. 337 .

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412 EA S TERN R OIV/AN EM P IRE CHAP. X II I

the horizon Of Constantinople and I til, was already known to

those cities by the ways Of commerce. The RUSSIANS or Rus

were Scandinavians of Eastern Sweden who, crossing the

Baltic and sailing into the Gulf of Finland, had settled on

Lake Ilmen, where they founded the island town , known as

Novgorod , the Holmgard of Icelandic Saga, at the point wherethe river Volkhov issues from the northern waters of the

lake ? They were active traders,and they monopolized all the

traffic of north-eastern Europe with the great capitals of the

south, Constantinople, Baghdad, and I til. Their chief wareswere the skins of the castor and the black fox

,swords

,and

men. The Slavs were their natural prey ; 2 they used to

plunder them in river expeditions, and often carry them off,

to b e transported and sold in southern lands. Many of the

Slavs used to purchase immunity by en tering into theirservice. The Russians did not till the soil, and consequentlyhad no property in land ; when a son was born , his father,with a drawn sword in his hand, addressed the infant : “

I

leave thee no inheritance ; thou shalt have only what thouwinnest by this sword .

”They were, in fact , a settlement of

1 The following ac count of the

Russians and their commerce is derivedfrom the early Arabic source and fromthe somewhat later book of Ibn

Khurdadhbah, as eluc idated by Westberg, K . ana l . ii . 23 sqq. and i . 372 sqq.

As for the Scand inavian (Swed ish )origin of the Russians (Rfi s the

evidenc e is overwhelming, and it is

now admitted by all c ompetent investigators . The theor that theywere Slavs— of which l ovaiski wasthe ab lest exponent— was crushinglyrefuted by Pogodin, Kunik , andThomsen. The Norman or Var

angian”

question which raged in

Russia at one time is no longer sub

iud ice. For a full examination of the

data, the Engl ish reader should con

sult Thomsen’

s Ancient Russia (seeBibliography, ii . The theory propounded by Vasil’evski, in his Old age,that the Russians were (Crimean)Goths

,and that 'Pu’is is a corruption of

r a v-poo-k tea i , may b e mentioned as a

cur iosity .

2 The general d isposition of the

Slavonic tribes,as the Russians found

them, seems to have been as follows :the Krivichi (Kptfltrg’a l, Constantine,

De adm. imp . south OfNovgorod ,towards Smolensk ; the Viatichi, on

the river Oka , south of Moscow the

Radimishchi, on the river Sozh ’,east

of the Dnieper ; the Siever, on the

river Desna,which joins the Dnieper

north of Kiev ; the Poliane (“ plainmen probably west of Kiev ; theDrievliane (

“ men of the woods” ;Aep/Shevivor, Const. op. cit. per

haps north of the Poliane the

Dregovichi (Apowovfllra t, ib.

between the rivers Pripet and Dunaalso the Tiver

’

tsi,on the Dniester

(whom Schafarik , ii. 133, finds in Constentino

,ib. , reading rOV Teflepflid u

for rd‘

m r e their neighbours theUglichi (identified by Schafarik withConstantine’s omen/or, i b . the

Bujani , so c alled from their habitationon the river Bug . Schafarik (ii. 113 )explains Constantine ’

s Aevj'

avivm (loc .

cit. ) as Luchane, whom h e c onsiders aportion of the Krivitsi. The localitiesof these tribes are mainl determinedby the data in Pseudo-Nestor. See

further Schafarik, ii. sect. 28, and cp.

the relevant articles in L eger'

s Indexto his Chronique de N estor .

sac r . 111 THE R USSIAN S AND THE IR COMM E R CE 413

mili tary merchants— it is said their numbers wereliving by plunder and trade. They had a chief who receiveda tithe from the merchants ?

The Russian traders carried their wares to the south bytwo river routes, the Dnieper and the Volga . The voyagedown the Dnieper was bese t by some difficul ties and dangers ?

The boats of the Russians were canoes,

3and were renewed

every year. They rowed down as far as Kiev in the boats Of

the last season, and here they were met by Slavs, who, duringthe winter had cut down trees in the mountains and madenew boats, which they brough t down to the Dnieper and soldto the merchants. The gear and merchandise were transhipped, and in the month of June they sailed down to thefort of Vytitshev,

4 where they waited till the whole flotillawas assembled ? South of the modern Ekaterinoslav the

Dnieper forces its way for some Sixtymiles through high walls ofgranite rock, and descends in a succession of waterfalls whi choffer a tedious obstacle to navigation ? The Slavs had theirown names for these falls , which the Russians rendered intoNorse. For instance , Vlng/i -prag

’

was translated literally byBaru-fors, both names meaning billowy waterfall

,

” 7and this

force is still called Volnyi , the billowy . In some casesthe navigators, having unloaded the boats, could guide themthrough the fall ; in others it was necessary to transport them,

as well as their freights, for a considerable distance. Thispassage could not safely be made except in a formidable com

1 The Arabic writers designate himthe Chagan of the Russ ians, and so he

is cal led (cha canus ) in Ann. B er t , s . a .

839. This Turkish title was evidentlyapplied to him by the Khazars , and

was adopted from them by the Arabsand perhaps by the Greeks (in the

letter of Theophilus to Lewis2 The following ac count is derivedfrom Constantine, De adm . imp. c. 9 .

Though c omposed a t a later t ime,

when the Patz inaks were in the

neighbourhood of the Dnieper, itobviously applies to the earl ier periodtoo .

3uovbévka , one-plankers .

”1 B i r er f'

éfln. The name still exists.

5 Constantine says that the mer

chants c ame no t only from Novgorod ,

but also from Miliniska (Smolensk ) ,

Chernigov , Vyshegrad , and Teliutsa

(Liub ec h), b ut it is unc ertain whetherany of these settlements were prior tothe settlement a t Kiev.3 There are elevenporogi (waterfalls

extending over the whole b ed of the

river) , of which Constantine enumer

ates seven, and six za bori (only partial obstruc tions) .7 The fifth in Constantine’s enu

meration : Bov rpdx, Bapovqbbpos

(volna is the Russ ian,bara the Old

Norse, for“ wave ” . All the names

are not quite so clear, but they havebeen explained

,some with certainty,

others probably, by Thomsen, op. ci t.

Lec t. ii . These double names are one

of the most important items in the

overwhelming evidence for the fac tthat the Russ ians were Scandinavians .

414 EAS TERN R OMAN EM P IRE CHAP. x111

pany ; a small body would have fallen a prey to predatorynomads like the Hungarians and the Patz inaks. On reachingthe Black Sea, they could coast westwards to Varna and

M esemb ria, but their usual route was to Cherson . There theysupplied the demands of the G reek merchan ts

,and then

rounding the south of the peninsula, reached the Khazar townof Tamatarkha, where they could dispose of the rest of theirmerchandise to the Jewish traders, who in their turn couldtransport it to Itil, or perhaps to Armenia and Baghdad. But

the Russians could also trade directly with I til and Baghdad.

The Volga carried them to I til,where they lodged in the

eastern'

town ; then they embarked on the Caspian Sea and

sailed to various ports within the Saracen dominion ; sometimes from Jurjan they made the journey with camels to

Baghdad , where Slavonic eunuchs served as their interpreters.

This commerce was of high importance both to the

Emperor and to the Chagan , not only in itself,but because

the Emperor levied a tithe at Cherson on all the wares whichpassed through to Tamatarkha, and the Chagan exacted the sameduty on all that passed through Chamlich to the dominion of theSaracens. The identity of the amount of the du ties

, ten per

cent, was the natural result of the conditions.

4 . Imperial P olicy. The Russian Danger

The first principle of Imperial policy in this quarter of

the world was the maintenance Of peace with the Khazars.

This was the immediate consequence of the geographicalposition of the Khazar Empire, lying as it did between theDnieper and the Caucasus, and thus approaching the frontiersof the two powers which were most formidable to Byzantium,

the Bulgarians and the Saracens. From the seventh century,

when Heraclius had sought the help of the Khazars againstPersia, to the tenth , in which the power of I til declined, thiswas the constant policy of the Emperors. The Byzantinesand the Khazars, moreover, had a common interest in the

development of commerce with Northern Europe ; it was to

the advantage of the Empire that the Chagan should exercisean effective con trol over his barbarian neighbours, that h isinfluence Should b e felt in the basin of the Dnieper, and that

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416 EAS TE RN ROMAN EM P IRE CHAP . x111

surrounding countries must have constantly engaged the

attention of the Imperial governmen t , but till the reign of

Theophilus no important event is recorded . This Emperorreceived (0. A.D . 8 33) an embassy from the Chagan and the Begor chief minister of the Khazars

,requesting him to build a

fort for them close to the mouth of the D011,

1and perhaps

this fort was only to be the most important part of a long lineof defence extending up that river and connected by a fossewith the Volga ? Theophilus agreed to the Chagan ’s proposal.He entrusted the execution of the work to an officer of

Spatharo-candidate rank

,Petronas Kamateros, who sailed for

Cherson with an armament of ships of the Imperial fleet,

where he met another contingent of vessels supplied by theKatepano or governor of Paphlagonia ? The troops werere-embarked in ships of burden , which bore them through thestraits of Bosporos to the Spot on the lower Don wherethis stronghold was to b e built. As there was no stone inthe place

,kilns were constructed and bricks were prepared 4

by embedding pebbles from the river in a sort of asbestos.

The fort was called in the Khazar tongue Sarkel, or WhiteHouse

,and it was guarded by yearly relays of three hundred

men ?

When Petronas returned to Constantinople he laid a reportof the Situation before the Emperor and expressed his Opinionthat there was grave danger of losing Cherson , and that the bestmeans of ensuring its safety would b e to supersede the local1 The account will b e found in

Constantine, De adm. imp. 177 sqq. :

Cont. Th . 122 sqq. The date seems to

b e soon after A .D . 832 ; for in Cont.

Th . e . 26 ad fi n. the e levation Of Johnto the Patriarchate is dated ; then,c . 27, prophec ies are recorded relativeto John ; then 0. 28 rd} ém bvr i xpéwp(“ in the following year ”) there iswarfare with the Saracens , and xard

rev m ay m upbu the Khazar embassyarrives.

2 For the position of Sarkel , see

Westberg, B eitra’

ge, i . 226. Ibn Rustasays that “ the Khazars onc e sur

rounded themselves by a ditch ,through fear of the Magyars and otherneighbouring peoples see Marquart,28, who suggests that Sarkel wasconnec ted w ith a whole line of de

fenc es. If so, the fosse would probably

begin where the line of the Donended . The theory of U spenski thatSarkel was built for the Empire

,not

for the Khazars, and in the reign of

L eo VI.,0. 904 A .D . (propounded in

the Kievslea ia Starina,May and June

has found no adherents : itwas answered by Vasil’evski

,in the

Zhurna l min. na r . prosv. , Oct . 1889,

273 sqq.

3 Petronas,on reaching Cherson,

rd My xehdvdia ebpev év Xepofi m (Deadm. imp . I formerly suspec tedebpev (B .Z. xv . but now see thatit means

“ found the Paph lagonian

chelandia already there .

‘1Bv

’

joahou bessa lis (la ter ) .5e’u Q5 r afec

’

br a i Ka fi ég'

our a t rd Kurd

p vov évahhaao éuevoz, De adm. imp.

177, where rd is c learly an error for r'

(Cont. Th .

,i b .

,has

TH E R USS IAN DAN GERss c r . xv 417

magistrates and commit the authority to a military governor ?

The advice of Petronas was adop ted,and he was himself

appointed the first governor, with the title of Strategos of the

Klimata.

” 2The magistrates of Cherson were not deposed

,but

were subordinated to the strategos.

In attempting to discover the meaning and motives of

these transactions we must not lose sight of the close chronological connexion between the service rendered by the G reeksto the Khazars, in building Sarkel, and the institution of the

strategos of Cherson . The latter was due to the danger of

losing the city, but we are not told from what quarter thecity was threatened . It is evident that the Khazars at the

same moment felt the need of defence against some new and

special peril. The fortification cannot have been simplydesigned against their neighbours the Magyars and the

Patzinaks ; for the Magyars and Patzinaks had been theirneighbours long. We can hardly go wrong in supposing thatthe Khazars and the Chersonites were menaced by the

same danger,and that its gravity had been brought home

both to the Emperor and to the Khazar ruler by some recentoccurrence. The jeopardy which was impending over the

Euxine lands must b e sought at Novgorod .

I t was not likely that the predatory Scandinavians wouldb e content with the gains which they earned as peacefulmerchants in the south . The riches of the G reek towns on

the Euxine tempted their cupidity, and in the reign of

Theophilus,if not before, they seem to have descended as

pirates into the waters of that sea,8to have plundered the

coasts, perhaps venturing into the Bosphorus,4 and especially to

1 Shestakov, 0p . cit. 44, thinks thatthe danger may have been the dis

loyalty of the c itizens. A certaindisloyalty is not impossible, for the

Chersonese had been a refuge for

many monks during the persecutionof the ic onoc lasts, and there may haveprevaileda feeling highlyunfavourableto Theophilus b ut there was no realdanger of Cherson inviting the rule of

another power.

2 This was the offic ial title (Ta let.Uspenski,3 The evidence for these early

Russian hostilities , unnotic ed by thechronic lers, is to be found in the L ife

of St. George of Amastr is and the L ifeof St. Stephen of Surozh (Sugdaia) .Vasil

’

evski (who has edited the textsin Russlco-vi zantiisleiia I zsliedovaniia

,

Vyp. 2 , 1893, a work which it isimpossible to procure) seems to haveshown that the whole legend ofG eorgeof Amastris (whose Vi ta he wouldascribe to Ignatius the deac on) wascomplete before A . D . 843 . See V.

Jagié in Archiv f . slavische Phi lologie,xvi. 216 sqq.

4 See Vi ta Georg . Am. (vers. L at. ,A . S . April 23, t . iii . 278) a Propontide c ladem auspic ati omnemque orammaritimam depasti.

”It should b e2 1:

418 EA S TERN ROMAN EM P IRE CHAP. x i i 1

have attacked the wealthy and well-walled city of Amastris,which was said to have been saved by a miracle. We also

hear of an expedition against the Chersonese, the despoiling of

Cherson, and the miraculous escape of Sugdaia? Such host

ings of Russian marauders, a stalwart and savage race, providea complete explanation of the mission of Petronas to Cherson ,of the institution of a stratégos there, and of the co-operationof the Greeks with the Khazars in building Sarkel. In

view of the Russian attack on Amastris,it is significant that

the governor of Paphlagonia assisted Petronas ; and we mayconjecture with some probability that the need of defendingthe Pontic coasts against a new enemy was the motive whichled to the elevation of this Official from the rank of katepano

to the higher status of a strategos.

The timely measures adopted by Theophilus were efficaciousfor the safety of Cherson. That outpost of Greek life was

ultimately to fall into the hands of the Russians, but itremained Imperial for another century and a half ; and whenit passed from the possession of Byzantium

, the sacrifice wasnot too dear a price for perpetual peace and friendship withthe Russian state

,then becoming a great power.

Some years after the appointment of the strategos of

Cherson, Russian envoys arrived at the court of Theophilus(A.D . 838 Their business is not recorded ; perhapsthey came to offer excuses for the recent hostilities againstthe Empire. But they seem to have dreaded the dangersof the homeward journey by the way they had come.

The Emperor was dispatching an embassy to the court of

Lewis the Pious. He committed the Russians to the care of

the ambassadors, and in his letter to Lewis requested thatsovran to facilitate their return to their own country throughG ermany ?

noted that the Russians were also a Prince Bravalin,sailing from Cherson

danger for Trapezus (Trebizond ), a

great entrepOt for trade betweenRoman and Saracen merchants (seeLe Strange, Eastern Ca lipha te,thou h we do not hear that theyattac ed it .

1 Besides the L ife of Stephen, see

the assage Of the Russian Chronic leof ovgorod (A. M . 6360) quoted byMuralt, Chron. byz . 426-427 (s . a .

ARussian band ofNovgorodians,under

to Kerch , attacked Surozh, which wassaved by the miraculous interventionof St. Stephen. The date 6360wouldb e 852 but the dates of the Russian

c hronic les for this eriod are untrustworthy . Pseudo estor, for instanc e,plac es the accession of Michael III.in 852.

2 Ann. Bert. , s . a . 839 . The embassyarrived at the c ourt of Lewis in AprilorMay. It is quite possible that these

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420 EA S TE RN ROM AN EM P IRE CHAP. xm

the suburbs, the barbarians prepared to attack the city. At

this crisis it was perhaps not the Prefect and the ministersentrusted with the guardianship of the city in the Emperor’sabsence who did most to meet the emergency. The learnedPatriarch, Photius, rose to the occasion ; he undertook the

task of restoring the moral courage of his fellow-citizens. If

the sermons which he preached in St. Sophia were deliveredas they were written , we may suspect that they can only havebeen appreciated by the most educated of his congregation .

H is copious rhetoric touches all sides of the situation,and no

priest could have made bet ter use of the opportunity to

inculcate the obvious lesson that this peril was a punishmentfor sin,

and to urge repentance.

lHe expressed the general

feeling when he dwelt on the incongruity that the Imperialcity

,queen of almost all the world,

”should b e mocked by

'

a

band of slaves, a mean and barbarous crowd.

2 But the

populace was perhaps more impressed and consoled when heresorted to the ecclesiastical magic which had been usedeficic

'

ac iously at previous sieges. The precious garment of the

Virgin Mother was borne in procession round the walls of

the city ; 3 and it was believed that it was dipped in the

waters of the sea for the purpose of raising a storm of wind.

4

No storm arose , but soon afterwards the Russians began to

retreat , and perhaps there were not many among the joyfulcitizens who did not impute their relief to the direct intervention of the queen of heaven . Photius preached a sermonof thanksgiving as the enemy were departing ; 5 the miraculousdeliverance was an inspiring motive for his eloquence .

I t would be interesting to know whether Photius re

1 In his first sermon (Ham.

Gerland (in a review of the ed. of the

Homilies by Aristarchos) , in New

Jahrbb . f . das klassische Altertum, xi. ,1903, p. 719 ) sng ests that this addressmay have been elivered on June 23.

2 Ham. 51,p

. 20 (Bapflaptm‘

) [ca l

m newh xetp) . he absenc e of troo s

is referred to, p . 17 :“ Where is t e

Basileus ? where are the armies ? thearms , machines, c ounsels, and preparations of a general ? Are not all thesewithdrawn to meet the attack of otherbarbarians I t is to b e observed(cp. de Boor, op. cit. 462 ) that in thissermon there is no r eference to the

relic of the Virgin ; the preacher insists exclusively on human efforts.

3 Ham. 52, p . 42 . Simeon errone

ously represents the Emperor as present at the ceremony .

4 Simeon,loc. cit. according to which

the wind immediately rose in a deadc alm. But in his second sermon

Photius represents the Russians as retreating unaffected by a storm. Joann.

Ven. 117 lets them return home intriumph .

5 Ham. 52 . The Emperor was notyet in the c ity (p . 42 ; cp. de Boor,460)

seer . xv TH E R US SIAN DAN GE R 421

garded the ceremony which he had conducted as a powerfulmeans of propitiation , or rather valued it as an effi cacioussedative of the public excitement. H e and all who were not

blinded by superstition knew well that the cause which led tothe sudden retreat of the enemy was simple, and would havesufficed without any supernatural intervention. I t is evidentthat the Russians became aware that the Emperor and his

army were at hand, and that their only safety lay in flight.

1

But they had delayed too long. Michael and Bardas had

hurried to the scene ,doubtless by forced marches, and they

must have intercepted the barbarians and their spoils in the

Bosphorus. There was a bat tle and a rout ; 2 it is possiblethat high winds aided in the work of destruction.

3

The Russians had chosen the moment for their surpriseastutely. They must have known beforehand that the

Emperor had made preparations for a campaign in full forceagainst the Saracens But what about the fleet ? Modernhistorians have made this episode a text for the reproach thatthe navy had been allowed to fall into utter decay. We

have seen,on the contrary

,that the Amorians had revived

the navy, and ~ the impunity which the barbarians enjoyeduntil the arrival of the Emperor must b e explained by theabsence of the Imperial fleet. And

,as a matter of fact, it

was absent in the west . The Sicilian fortress of Castrogiovannihad been captured by the Moslems in the previous year, anda fleet of 300 ships had been sent to Sicily.

4The possibility

of an attack from the north did not enter into the calculationsof the government . I t is clear that the Russians must havebeen informed of the absence of the fleet

,for otherwise they

would never have ventured in their small boats into the jawsof certain death .

1 This is obviously the true explana j ecture but possibly on receiving thenation of the sudden retreat, which news he had ordered shi

psto sail from

began spontaneously, before the battle . Amastri s to the Bosp orus. Two

It is imposs ible to ac cept Gerland’s iambic poems on the Church of

view that the battle was fought during Blachernae, Ant/ml. Pa l. i . 120, 121,the proc ession, perhaps 1n Sight of the most probably refer to the rout of thepray ing people. Russians. Op. 121, vv. 10, 11

2 Of the battlewe knownomore than “u se“ ”mm“ w as h u f f” ;

the notice inAnon. Cumont. SimeonM eme” dyfl M7 7O”“9 fiawp‘

ascribes the des truc tion entirely to the where Stadt-miiller ad loo. misses themiraculous storm. How the land forc es point by proposing emcee .

of the Emperor operated against the 3 Cp. Gerland , op. cit. 720.

boats of the enemies we cano

only con 4 See above, p . 307 .

422 EA S TE RN R OMAN EM P IRE CHAP. x111

The episode was followed by an unexpected triumph for

Byzan tium,less important in its immediate results than as

an augury for the future. The Northmen sent ambassadors toConstantinople, and— this is the Byzan tine way of put tingit —besought the Emperor for Christian bap tism . W e cannotsay which , or how many, of the Russian set tlements wererepresented by this embassy

,but the object must have been

to offer amends for the recen t raid,perhaps to procure the

deliverance of pri soners. It is certain that some of the

Russians agreed to adopt Christianity, and the PatriarchPhotius could boast (in A.D. 8 66) that a bishop had beensent to teach the race which in cruelty and deeds of bloodleft all other .peoples far behind.1 But the seed did not fallon very fertile ground. For upwards of a hundred years wehear no more of the Christianity of the Russians. The treaty,however

,which was concluded between A.D . 860 and 8 66, led

probably to other consequences. We may surmise that itled to the admission of Norse mercenaries into the Imperialfleet 2— a notable event, because it was the beginning of the

famous Varangian 3 service at Constantinople, which was

ultimately to include the Norsemen of Scandinavia as wellas of Russia, and even Englishmen .

I t has been already observed that the attack uponConstantinople happened just before the traditional date of

a far more important event in the history of Russia— the

foundation of the principality of Kiev. According to the old

Russian chronicle,4 Rurik was at this time the ruler of all

the Scandinavian settlements, and exercised sway over the

northern Slavs and some of the Finns. Two of his men,

Oskold and Dir,

5set out with their families for Constantinople,

and,coming to the Dnieper, they saw a castle on a mountain.

On enquiry they learned that it was Kiev,and that its

inhabitants paid tribute to the Khazars. They settled in the

place,gathered many Norsemen to them ,

and ruled over the

1 Photius, Ep. 4,p. 178 . The 3 The c onnotation of Varangz

’

an is

Russians are said to have plac ed them equivalent to N orse or Scandinam’

an.

se lves éu br nxbwu'

xa l wpogéuwv raga . Arab ic geographers and Pseudo-Nestorerr. refers to ec c lesiastical de endenc e, c al l the Baltic the Varangian Sea .

”

r pog. to political friendship. he other In Kekaumenos (ed. Vasilievski and

source is Cont. Th . 196. Jermstedt) 97 Harald Hardrada is “ son2 Under Leo VI . (A .D . 902) there of the Emperor ofVarangia .

”

were 700 ‘

Pcbs in the fleet (Constantine, 4 Pseudo -Nestor, xv . p. 10.

Cer .

5 Scandinavian names .

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424 EAS TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE CHAP. x111

The cause of th is migration was the advance of the

Patz inaks from the Volga. We may guess that they werepressed westward by their Eastern neighbours, the Uzes ; weare told that they made war upon the Khazars and were defeated

,and were therefore compelled to leave their own land

and occupy that of the Magyars.

1The truth may b e that

they made an unsuccessful attempt to settle in Khazaria,and

then turned their arms against the Magyar people, whom theydrove beyond the Dnieper.

2The Patz inaks thus rose above

the horizon of the Empire and introduced a new elementinto the political situation . They had no king ; they wereorganized in eight tribes, with tribal chiefs, and ea ch tribewas subdivided into fi ve portions under subordinate leaders .

When a chief died he was succeeded by a first cousin or a

first cousin’s son ; brothers and sons were excluded,so that

the chieftainship should b e not confined to one branch of the

family .

3

The Magyars now took possession of the territory lyingbetween the Dnieper and the lower reaches of the Pruth and

the Seret 4 —a country which had hitherto belonged to the

dominion of the Khans of Bulgaria. They were thus close tothe Danube, but the first use they made of their new position was

Constantine,De adm. imp. 169 .

In the later movement of the

Patzinaks to the west of the Dnieper(in the reign of Leo we are

expressly told that the were drivenfrom their land by t e Uzes and

Khazars,ib. 164.

2 Constantine says that a portionof the Magyars joined their kinsmen

,

the Sa bartoi a spha loi in Persia ,”i. e .

the Sevordik in Armenia (see abovep .3 Constantine, i b . 165 . He gives

the names of the eight ‘yevea l or Oépa '

r a,

in two forms,s imple and c ompound ,

e .g. Tzur and Kuarti-tzur, Ertem and

Iabdi-ertem.

4 This country was called (by theHungarians or Patzinaks, or both )Atel-kuzu : Constantine, i b. 169 els

1 67rovs r obs éwovoua f‘

ouéuovs

The name is explained , i b . 173, as

Kurd. T i)” érrwvvulau T OG éxei’

ae di epxo

,ne‘vou 1ro1

'

a,u017 J

’

E ‘

r e‘h xal Kovj

’

ozi (wherethere seems to b e an error in the text,as

'

E. Ka i K . , two rivers, is incons istent with f or? iro

'

r auofi ) and p . 171

it is said to b e called Kara r ip; éwwvv

,ulav raw éKe

'

ia e (ix/r a w r or auc’

bv,which

are enumerated as the RapouxDnieper, cp. Var in Jordanes, Get.0. 52, and Bory-sthenes) , the Kovflofi

the TpouM os ( = DniesterTurla

, y ,ras c Roesler, the

BpoGr os

T

(=y—Prutii), and the Zéper os.

A tel or E tel means river (and was

spec ially applied to the Volga— the

“Itil ” —cp. Constantine, ib .

Zeuss (Die Deutschen and die Nach

barsta'

mme, Kuun (Relat. Hung .

i . Marquart (op . cit. explainkuzu as between (cp. Hungarian has ,in geographical names like Szamos

koz ) ; so that Atelkuzu would mean

M esopotamia . ButWestberg (K ana l.

i i . 48) explains Kocko in the

Geography of Pseudo -Moses as the

Dnieper, and identifies the name withKuzu. He supposes that in Con

stantine, p . 169 , the true reading is(as on p 173) ,

’

A1'é7\ xa l Kovi’

ov,and

that Atel and Kuzu were alternativenames for the region of

the lower Dnieper.

sac r . v THE M A G YARS 425

not against Bulgaria.

1In A.D . 8 62 they showed how far they

could strike by invading territories in cen tral Europe whichacknowledged the dominion of Lewis the G erman ,2 the firstof that terrible series of invasions which were to continuethroughout a hundred years, until Otto the Grea t won his crushing victory at Augsburg. If we can trust the accounts of

their enemies, the Magyars appear to have been a more

terrible sc ourge than the Huns. I t was their practice to put

all males to the sword,for they believed that warriors whom

they slew would b e their slaves in heaven ; they put the old

women to death ; and dragged the young women with them,

like animals,to serve their lusts.

3 Western writers depictthe Hungarians of this period as grotesquely ugly

,but, on the

other hand, Arabic authors describe them as handsome. We

may reconcile the contradiction by the assumption that therewere two types, the consequence of blending with other races.

The original Finnish physiognomy had been modified bymixture with Iranian races in the course of many generations,during which theMagyars

,in the Caucasian regions, had pursued

their practice of women-lifting.

4

Up to the time of their migration the Magyars, like thePa tzinaks

,had no common chieftain , but among the leaders

of their seven tribes 5 one seems to have had a certain preeminence . H is name was Lebedias,

6and he had married a

noble Khazar lady, by whom he had no children . Soon afterthe crossing of the Dnieper, the Chagan of the Khazars, whostill claimed the rights of suzerainty over them,

proposed to

the Magyars to create Leb edias ruler over the whole people .

The story is that Leb edias met the Chagan— b ut we mustinterpret this to mean the Beg— at Kalancha in the gulf ofPerekop

,

7and refused the offer for himself, but suggested

1 Their attack on the Slavs of Kiev Megere (= Magyar Kurtygermatu,

cannot b e dated . Pseudo -Nestor, Tarianu, Genakh, Kare, Kasé . Cp.

xix. ,p . 12 ; Marquart , op. cit. 34.

2 Ann . B ert. (Hincmar) , s. a .

“sed

et hostes antea illis populis inexpertiqui Ungri vocantur regnum eiusdem

populantur.

Cp. Ann. Sangall . , s .a . 894

(M Scr .

4 This hypothes is is Marquart’

s,op.

cit. 144.

5 Constantine (op. cit. 172 ) givesthe names of the tribes : Neké ,

Kuun,i. 148-158.

6 Kuun (op . ci t. i. 205, 208) thinksthatLeb edias is identical with Eleud ofthe No tary ofKing Béla . H is titlewas,no doubt

,Kende, see Ibn Rusta , 167.

7 Constantine, op . cit. 169 1 06 r pos'

aurov drroa rahfiva t Xehdvow. 7 6V r pc'

br ov

a t a

-(Br fioéflooou. Banduri saw that

xexdyaa was a proper name,and els

has probably fallen out of the text.See Kuun

, i. 208, Marquart, 35 .

426 EAS TERN ROMAN EM P IRE CHAPu XI I I

Salmutzes,1

another tribal chief, or his son Arpad. The.

Magyars declared in favour of Arpad, and he was elevated on

a shield, according to the custom of the Khazars, and re

cognized as king. In this way the Khazars instituted kingship among the Magyars. But while this account may b e

true so far as it goes,it furn ishes no reason for such an im

portant innovation,and it is difficult to see why the Khazar

government should have taken the initiative. We shallprobably b e right in connecting the change with another fact,which had a decisive influence on Magyar history . Amongthe Turks who composed the Khazar people, there was a tribeor tribes— known as the Kabars, who were remarkable for

their strength and bravery. About this time they rose

against the Chagan the revolt was crushed ; and those whoescaped death fled across the Dnieper and were received and

adopted by the Magyars, to whose seven tribes they were

added as an eighth . Their bravery and skill in war enabledthem to take a leading part in the counsels of the nation .

We are told that they taught the Magyars the Turkishlanguage

,and in the tenth cen tury both Magyar and Turkish

were spoken in Hungary .

2The result of this double tongue is

the mixed character of the modern Hungarian language, whichhas supplied specious argument for the two opposite opinionsas to the ethnical affinities of the Magyars.

3 W e may suspectthat the idea of introducing kingship was due to the Kabars,and it has even been conjectured that Arpad belonged to thisTurkish people which was now permanently incorporated inthe Hungarian nation .

4

1 Almus in the Hungarian chronioles . On Arpad

’

s date, see AppendixXII.

2 Constantine, op. cit. 171-l 72 . vamb éry, A magyarolc eredete, 140, explainsthe name Kabar as

“ insurgent. ”3 See above, p . 410, n. 4 .

4 Marquart makes th is assertioncit. basing it on the passage

in Constantine (op. cit.

where, he observes,ol Kdflapor is the

subjec t throughout, and consequently‘r bv Atouvrwa m uldy 7 05 '

Ap1rd.677 eixov

dpxou‘

ra means that Levente, Arpad’

s

son,was ruler of the Kabars . I can

not accept this stric t interpretation of

the grammar . I fee l sure that thesubjec t of the verbs (6Le 1répaorav, etxov,e tc . ) is not the Kabars, b ut the

Hungarians (ol Tofipxoi ) , who inc ludethe Kabars . Levente was dpxwv of

the Hungarians.

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428 E AS TERN R OMAN EM P IRE CHAP. x1v

s tances. The principles and the framework remained the samethere was no revolution ; but there was constant adapta tionhere and there. It will b e found, for instance, that theadministrative arrangements in the twelfth century differ inendless details from those of the ninth . To this elasticity,which historians have failed to emphasize

, the Empire owedits longevity. Byzantium was conservative ; but Byzantineuniformity is a legend .

The history of the period described in this volume ex

hib its the vitality of the Empire. It experienced losses and

reverses, but there are no such symptoms of decline as mayb e detected in the constitution of its rival

, the Caliphate, andno tendencies to disintegration , like those which in the sameperiod were at work in the Carolingian realm . The Amorian

age, however, is apt to b e regarded as an inglorious intervalbetween the rule of the Isaurians who renovated the strengthof the Empire and the brilliant expansion under Basil I . and

his successors. The losses of Crete and Sicily have beentaken as a proof of decline ; the character and the regime of

Theophilus have been viewed with antipathy or contempt ;and the worthlessness of Michael I II . has prejudiced posterityagainst the generation which tolerated such a sovran. Thisunfavourable opinion is not confined to the learned slaves of

the Papacy, who are unable to regard with impartial eyes theage of Theophilus the enemy of icons, and of Photius theenemy of the Pope. The deepest cause of the prevalent viewhas been the deliberate and malignant detraction with whichthe sovrans and servile chroniclers of the Basilian periodpursued the memory and blackened the repute of the Amorian

administration ; for modern historians have not emancipatedthemselves completely from the bias of those prejudicedsources.

In the foregoing pages we have seen that while evendetraction has not ventured to accuse the Amorian rulers of

exceptional rigour in taxing their subjects, the Empire was

wealthy and prosperous. We have seen that it maintaineditself, with alternations of defeat and victory, b ut withoutlosing ground, against the Caliphate, that peace was preservedon the Bulgarian fron tier

,and that the reduction of the

Slavs in G reece was completed. Oversea dominions were

C HAP. x 1v CHARA CTE R OF AM ORIAN P ERIOD 429

lost, but against this we have to set the fact that the Amorianmonarchs, by taking in hand the recons truction of the navalestablishment, which the Isaurians had neglected, preparedthe way for the successes of Basil I . in I taly. We have stillto see what services they rendered to art, education

,and

learning. In these spheres we shall find a new pulse of

movement, endeavour, revival, distinguishing the nin thcentury from the two hundred years which preceded it. We

may indeed say that our period established the most fullydeveloped and most pardonably self-complacent phase of

Byzantin ism .

I t is a striking fact , and may possibly b e relevant in thisconnexion , that the Armenian element, which had long beenan ethnical constituent of the Empire, comes conspicuouslyforward in the ninth century. Before now

,Hellenized

Armenians had often occupied high posts, once even the

throne ; but now they begin to rise in numbers into socialand political prominence . The pretender Bardanes, Leo V. ,

Basil would not be significant if they s tood alone. But

the gifted family of the Empress Theodora was of Armenianstock ; it included Manuel, Bardas, and Petronas. Throughhis mother, Photius the Patriarch ; John the Grammarianand his brother (who held a high dignity) , were also of

Armenian descent ; and Alexius Muscle and ConstantineBabutzikos are two other eminent examples of the Armenianswho rose to high rank and offi ce in the Imperial service.

1

All these men were thorough Byzantines,saturated with the

tradi tions of their environment ; but their energy and ability,

proved by their success,suggest the conjecture that they

represented a renovating force which did much to maintainthe vitality of the State .

1 . Art

I t is commonly supposed that the iconoc lastic movementwas a ca lamity for art

,and the dearth of artistic works dating

from the period in which religious pictures were discouraged,

1 Cons tantine, Drungary of the M ic hael III. were Armenians . OnWatch under M ichael III . , is another this subjec t see Rambaud

, L’

Empireinstanc e . Several of the fel low grec, 536 , and cp. Bussell, Const.c onspirators of Basil in the murder of H istory, ii. 166, 3443 45 .

430 EA S TERN ROM AN EM P IRE C HAP. x 1v

proscribed, or destroyed, seems, at first sight, to bear out this

Opinion . If, however, we examine the facts more closely, we

shall find that the iconoclastic age was far from being inartistic,and that it witnessed the insurrec tion of new ideas and

tendencies which exercised a potent and valuable influenceupon the religious art of the succeeding period.

1One

immediate effect, indeed, which may b e considered a loss and

a calamity, the doctrine of the image-breakers produced. It

ex terminated a whole branch of art,it abolished sculp ture.

The polemic against images had carried weight with orthodoxopinion so far that sculptured representations of holy persons orsacred scenes were discontinued by common consent. It was

a partial victory for the iconoclasts, an illogical concession of

the image-worshippers. No formal prohibition was enactedby Church or State ; the rejection of plastic images was a

tacit but authoritative decree of public opinion .

The iconoclastic sovrans were not unfriends of pictorialart as such . Two of the most illustrious and uncompromising

,

Constantine V. and Theophilus, who desired to abolish entirelyreligious pictures of a monumental kind, sought a substitutein secular painting for the decoration of both sacred and

profane buildings. The antique traditions of profane art had

never disappeared in the Byzantine world, but they had

become inconspicuous and uninfi uential through the dominationof religious art, with its fixed iconographic types, which hadascended to its highest plane of excellence in the sixthcentury. Under the auspices of the iconoclasts

,profane art

revived. Constantine V. caused the church of Blachernae to

b e decorated with landscapes, trees, and birds and animals ;Theophilus followed his example.

2This was not really a

novelty ; it was a return to the primitive decoration of earlyChristian churches, which had been gradually

,

abandoned .

Scenes de genre, pictures of the chase , scenes in the hippodrome,were demanded from the artists who adorned the halls of the

Imperial Palace. Of such frescoes and mosaics we know onlywhat chroniclers tell us, but some ivory coffers which were

1 This has been shown in some bril D . V. Ainalov, E llinisticheski i a osnoryliant pages of Dieh l ’ s L '

Art byzantin, vi zantiiskago iskusstva ,1900.

339 sqq. , 372 sqq. To this masterly 2 Cont. Th . 99 . See above, p . 130work the following pages are indebted . sqq. , for the decoration of his new

For the influence of Hel lenistic on bui ldings in the Palace .

Byzantine painting and design, see

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432 EAS TERN R OM AN EM P IRE CHAP. x 1v

Biblical sorcerer Simon hurled down by St. Peter.

1In another

book of the same period, designed for popular instruction , thePhysiologus, some of the illustrations are allusive to the recentcontroversy and inspired by monastic spite ; but this manuscriptexhibits at the same time the influence of the profane art whichthe iconoclasts had revived

,in the realism of its pictures and

in the pagan subjects,such as sirens

,nymphs, and centaurs.

2

The employment of art in the service of controversy, or as

an outlet for controversial Spite, seems to b e characteristic ofthe age. The archbishop G regory Asb estas, the friend and

supporter of Photius, had some skill in painting, and he

illustrated a copy of the Acts of the synod which condemnedIgnatius with realistic and somewhat scurrilous caricatures.

At the beginning of the first Ac t he depic ted the flogging of

the Patriarch , above whose head was inscribed “the Devil.”

The second picture showed the bystanders spitting upon himas he was haled to prison ; the third represented him

, the

son of perdition , suffering dethronement ; the fourth , boundin chains and going into exile. In the fifth his neck was ina collar ; and in the sixth he was condemned to death . Eachvignette had an insulting legend ; and in the seventh

,and last

,

the head of“Antichrist was severed from his body. This

manuscript, in a rich cover of purple silk, was found amongthe books of Photius, and was burned, with others, at the EighthEcumenical Council.3

Enough has been said to indicate the significance of the

iconoclastic movement for the history of art. A b an was

placed on certain forms of pictorial work ; but whatevertemporary disadvantages this may be thought to have entailed,they were far outweighed by the revival of other styles whichwere in danger of complete extinction. If there had been noiconoclastic movement, the dead religious art of the seventhcentury decadence might have continued, without reanimation,to the end. Under the Isaurian and Amorian dynasties profaneart revived ; there was a renaissance of the old picturesquedecorative style which, originating in Alexandria, had spread1 The Barberini Psalter (in the 3 Vita Ign. 260. A second copy

Vatican) . Tikkanen, Die P sa lter had been prepared , destined for thei llustrationimM ittela lter, 1895. Diehl, Emperor Lewis . A companion MS . ,

355-356. containing the Ac ts of the Counc il2 Strzygowski, Der Bi lderkreis des which condemned Pope Nicolas

, seems

griechischen Physiologus, 1899 . not to have been illustrated .

ssc r . 1 AR T 433

over the world,and profoundly influenced the development of

the art of the early Church . Alexandrine decoration,with its

landscapes,idyllic scenes , mythological themes, still life

,and

realistic portraits,came to life again in the iconoclastic period

a school of secular artists, who worked for the Emperors andthe Court

,arose ; and the spirit of their work

,with its antique

inspiration,did not fail to awaken religious painters from their

torpor. For the second great period of her art, which coincidedwith the Macedonian dynasty, Byzantium was chiefly indebtedto the iconoclastic sovrans.

1Or rather we should say that art

revived under the Amorians,religious art under their successors.

Wealth was a condition of this artistic revival, of whicha chief characteristic was rich and costly decoration . In the

work of the age of Justinian the richness of the material hadbeen conspicuous ; in the subsequent period, when all the

resources of the State were strained in a life and death strugglewith formidable enemies

,there were no funds for the luxuries

of art. By the ninth cen tury the financial prosperity of the

Empire had revived ; the Imperial coffers were well filled ;and the Emperors could indulge their taste or their pride inartistic magnificence. In the flourishing condition of the

minor arts of the jeweller and the enameller, from the ninthto the twelfth century

,we may also see an indication of the

wealth of Constantinople. Here, too, we may probably suspectoriental influence. The jewellers did not abandon repousséwork, but they devoted themselves more and more to the coloureffects of enamel decoration ; the richest altars and chalices,crosses and the caskets which contained crosses or relics, thegold and silver cups and vessels in the houses of the rich

,gold

embroidered robes, the bindings of books, all shone with cloisonné

enamels.

2The cloisonné technique was invented in the East,

probably in Persia,and though it seems to have been known

at Byzantium in the sixth century,3 we may ascribe its

domestication and the definite abandonment of the old champlevé method to the oriental influences of the ninth . Portableobjects with enamel designs

,as well as embroidered fabrics,

1 On the formation of a new system treasury of the Sancta Sanctorum at

of iconography between the ninth and Rome, ascribed to this period,is

e leventh centuries, see Diehl, 381 sqq. wrought in c loisonné enamel (not2 Diehl, op. cit. 642. glass ) .3 I I) . A c ross preserved in the

434 EAS TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE CHAP. x 1v

easily travelled , and were frequently offered by the Emperorsto foreign potentates they must have performed an appreciablepart in diffusing inWestern Europe the influence of the motivesand styles of Byzantine art.

1

2 . Educa tion and L earning

Among the traditions which the Empire inherited fromantiquity, one of the most conspicuous

,but not perhaps duly

estimated in its importance as a social fact,was higher educa

tion . The children of the well-to-do class,from which the

superior administrative officials of the State were mainly drawn ,were taught ancient Greek , and gained some acquaintance at

least with some of the works of the great classical writers.

I lliterateness was a reproach among reputable people ; and thepossession of literary education by laymen generally and womenwas a deep-reaching distinction between Byzantine civilisationand the barbarous West, where the field of letters was monopolized by ecclesiastics. I t constituted one of the mostindisputable claims of Byzan tium to superiority, and it hadan important social result. In the West the cleavage betweenthe ecclesiastical and lay classes was widened and deepened bythe fact that the distinction between them coincided with thedistinction between learned and ignorant . In the East therewere as many learned laymen as learned monks and priests ;and even in divinity the layman was not helplessly at the

mercy of the priest , for his educa tion included some smatteringof theology. The Patriarchs Tarasius and Nicephorus musthave acquired, before they were suddenly moved into the

spiritual order, no contemptible knowledge of theology ; andPhotius

,as a layman

,was a theological expert. Thus layman

and cleric of the better classes met on common ground ; therewas no pregnant significance in the word clerk ; and ecclesiasticsnever obtained the influence, or played the part , in administra

1 This has been rightly insisted on nople to the Abbey of Stavelot inby Diehl . The enamelled reliquariespreserved at Limbourg and Gran are

well known, and there are many finespecimens in the Treasury of St. Markat Venic e

,inc luding the Pala d ’ Oro .

An ename lled gold triptych broughtin the twelfth century from Constanti

Belgium has recently been sold inLondon. I t c ontains a relic of the

true Cross . Many churches inFranc eand Germany possess rich silks , withembroidered or woven designs, fromthe fac tories of Constantinople (tenthand eleventh c enturies) .

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436 EAS TE RN R OMAN EM P IRE CHAP. x 1v

decessors, that it behoved a proud centre of civilisation likeByzantium to assert and maintain pre

-eminence in the

intellectual as well as in o ther spheres. Hitherto it had beentaken for granted that all the learning of the world was contained within the boundaries of the Empire

,and that the

G reeks and Romans alone possessed the vessel of knowledge.

Nobody thought of asking, Have we any great savan ts amongus, or is learning on the decline ? But the strenuous cultivation of scientific studies at Baghdad under the auspices of

Harun and Mamun,and the repute which the Caliphs were

winning as patrons of learning and literature, awakened a

feeling at the Byzan tine court that the Greeks must not

surrender their pre-eminence in intellectual culture, the moreso as it was from the old G reek masters that in many branchesof science the Saracens were learning . If the reports of themagnificence of the palaces of Baghdad stimulated Theophilusto the construction of wonderful buildings in a new style at

Constan tinople, we may believe that Mamun’

s examplebrought home to him the idea that it was a ruler

’

s duty tofoster learning. We need not accept the story of the careerof Leo,

’

the philosopher and mathematician,as literally exact

in all its details, but it probably embodies, in the form of an

anecdote , the truth that the influence of suggestion was

exercised by the court of Baghdad upon that of Byzant ium .

Leo was a cousin of John the Patriarch . He had studiedgrammar and poetry at Constantinople, but it was in the

island of Andros that he discovered a learned teacher who madehim proficient in philosophy and mathematics.

1 Havingvisited many monastic libraries, for the purpose of consultingand purchasing books, he returned to Constantinople

,where he

lived poorly in a cheap lodging, supporting himself byteaching. H is pupils were generally successful . One

,to

whom he had taugh t geome try, was employed as a secretary bya strategos, whom he accompanied in a campaign in the East .He was taken prisoner and became the slave of a Saracen

,who

must have been a man of some importance at Baghdad and

treated him well. .One day his master’

s conversation turned1 A monument of the cultivation of Ptolemy ’s Geography , illustrated in

sc ienc e about the time at which Leo the reign of Leo V. (perhaps at Con

was a youthful student exists in the stantinople) after an older MS. See

Vatic an L ibrary : a manuscript of D iehl,op. cit. 350.

sac r . 11 E D UCA TI ON AND LEARN IN G 437

on the Caliph , and he men tioned M amun’

s interest in geometry.

I should like,

said the Greek youth, “to hear h im and his

masters discourse on the subjec t . The presence in Baghdadof a Greek slave who professed to understand geometry cameto the ears of Mamun

,who eagerly summoned him to the

Palace . He was confronted with the Saracen geometers.

They described squares and triangles ; they displayed a mostaccurate acquaintance with the nomenclature of Euclid ; butthey showed no comprehension of geometrical reasoning. At

their request,he gave them a demonstration, and they inquired

in amazement how many savants of such a quality Constantinople possessed. Many disciples like myself ” was the reply ,but not masters. Is your master still alive ? ” they asked.

Yes,b ut he lives in poverty and obscurity.

”Then Mamun

wrote a letter to Leo, inviting him to come to Baghdad,offering him rich rewards, and promising that the Saracenswould how their heads to his learning. The you th

, to whomgifts and honours and permission to return to his countrywere promised if he succeeded in his mission

,was dispatched

as ambassador to Leo. The philosopher discreetly showed theCaliph ’s letter to Theoktistos, the Logo thete of the Course, whocommunicated the matter to the Emperor. By this meansLeo was discovered, and his value was appreciated . Theophilusgave him a salary and established him as a public teacher, atthe Church of the Forty Martyrs, be tween the Augusteon and

the Forum of Constantine.

1

Mamun is said to have afterwards corresponded with Leo,submit ting to him a number of geometrical and astronomicalproblems. The solutions which he received rendered the

Caliph more anxious than ever to welcome the eminentmathematician at his court, and he wrote to Theophilusbegging him to send Leo to Baghdad for a short time

,as an

act of friendship, and offering in return eternal peace and

2000 pounds of gold But the Emperor, treatingscience as if it were a secret to b e guarded like the manufacture of G reek fi re ,

and deeming it b ad policy to enlighten

1 In the Midd le St. near the Forum Th . 189 has evidently more prec iseof Constantine (cp. Theoph . 267 , and information. In the following reign,

Patria , Acc . to Simeon (Add . Leo d id teac h in the Magnaura ; see

Georg. Theophilus established him below .

in the palac e of Magnaura b ut Cont.

438 EA S TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE CHAP. x 1v

barbarians, declined. He valued Leo the more, and afterwardsarranged his election as archbishop of Thessalonica (c. A.D.

The in terest of Mamun in science and learning is an

undoubted fact. He founded a library and an observatory at

Baghdad ; 2 and under him and his successors many mathematical, medical, and philosophical works of the ancient Greeksappeared in Arabic translations.

3The charge that the Ar abic

geometers were unable to comprehend the demonstrations of

Euclid is the calumny of a jealous G reek, but making everyallowance for the embellishmen ts with which a story-tellerwould seek to enhance the interest of his tale, we may acceptit as evidence for the stimulating influence of Baghdad uponByzantium and emulation between these two seats of culture.

And in this connexion it is not insignifican t that“

two otherdistinguished luminaries of learning in this age had relationswith the Caliphate. We have seen how John the Patriarchand Photius were sent on missions to the East . Constantinethe Philosopher is said to have been selected to conduct a

dispute with learned M ohammadans on the doctrine of the

Trinity, which was held by the Caliph ’s request.‘ The

evidence for this dispute is unconvincing, yet the traditionembodies the truth that there was in the ninth centurya lively intellectual interest among the Christians and

the M ohammadans in the comparative merits of theirdoctrines. It is not impossible that there were cases of

proselytism due not to motives of expediency but to conviction.

The controversial interest is strongly marked in the versionof the Acts of the Amorian Mar tyrs composed by Euodios

,

5

1 The date is inferred from the fac tthat he he ld the offic e for three years(Cont. Th . 192 ) and must have beendeposed after the Counc il ofOrthodoxyin 843 .

2 Brockelmann, Geschichteder a ra b.

L it. i. 202 Cp. G ibbon, vi. 29 sqg.

(and recent books mentioned in

editorial note For the sourc es

of Ab u-’

l-Faraj and D’

Herb elot,on

whom Gibbon relies, cp. M . Steinschneider, DiearabischenUbersetzungen aus dem Griech ischen

,inBeihefte

zum Centra lbla ttfu‘

r B ibliothekswesen,

v. pp. 11, 133 I b . Balab akhi

,c . 835 , who

became a Christian, translated fromEuc lid , Heron, and other mathema

tic ians (ib. Mohammad ibnMusa (al-Khwarizmi) , who belongs tothis period

,wrote treatises on algebra

and arithmetic,which

,translated into

Latin,were much used in Euro e in

the later M idd le Ages Tabitibn Kurra (born a d istinguishedmathematic ian,

translated into Arabicthe 5th book of the Conic Sections of

Apollonius of Perge Hunain

ibn Ishak (born 809 ) translated worksof P lato, Aristotle, and H ippocrates(205

4 Vita Const. c . 6 . See above, p. 394.

5 He seems to have been well ao

quainted w ith Islam and to haveknown th e Koran. One of the

Mohammadan arguments “as the

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440 EAS TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE C HAP. xxv

The intensity of this revival of profane s tudies,and the

new prestige which they enjoyed, might b e illustrated by thesuspicious attitude of a monk like the Patriarch Ignatiustowards secular learning. But the suspicion which pre

vailed in certain ecclesiastical or monastic circles is violentlyexpressed in a venomous attack 1

upon Leo the Philosopherafter his death 2 by one Constan tine, a former pupil, who haddiscovered the wickedness of Hellenic culture. The attack iscouched in elegiacs, and he confesses that he owed his abilityto write them to the instruction of Leo :

I, Constantine, these verses wrought with skill,Who drained the milk of thy dear Muse

’s rill.

The secrets of thy mind I searched and learned,

And now , at last, their sinfulness discerned .

He accuses his master of apostasy to Hellenism,of reject

ing Christ, of worshipping the ancient gods of G reece *

Teacher of countless arts,in worldly lore

The peer of all the proud wise men of yore,

Thy soul was lost,when in the unhallowed sea

Thou drankest of its salt imp iety.

The sh ining glory of the Christian riteW ith its fair lustrous waters

, the awful mightOf the great sacrifice, the saintly writ

,

Of all these wonders recking not one whit,

Into the vast and many -monstend deepOf heathen G reece did thy fair spirit leap

,

The prey of soul-devouring beasts to b e.

Who would not pity and make moan for thee ?

Then a chorus of good Christians is invited to address the

Euc lid vi. def. 5 . See J . L . Heiberg,Der byz . Ma thema tiker L eon, in

B ib liotheca mathema tica ,i . 2

,34 sqq.

where attention is also drawnto a note at the end of the FlorentineMS. of the treatise of Archimedes onthe Quadrature of the Parabolaebr vxotns, Aéov 7 ewuérpa , r ohhobs els

hvxdflavra s l’

ors r ah ) (pth'

r ar e M obaa ts.

Leo is to b e d i stinguished from Leo

Magister, a d iplomatist in the reign

of L eo VI . ; cp. de B oor, B .Z. 10,

63 . norauofi Mac y xareibov1 Printed with the works of Leo VI . wore f or 7 611011 Kvflripns,

(surnamed 6 aoqfibs and hence c onfused évemjxer o wpona tf’

wv

with the Philosopher) in M igne, nerd Nntawv xopelns.

c . lxi. sgq. The verses are quite good ,for the period .

2 See below, p. 441, n. 4. Leo hadtwo pupils named Constantine— theSlavonic apostle (see above, p . 394) andthe Sic il ian. The latter is doubtlessthe pupil in question. He wrote goodAnacreontic s (conveniently accessiblein Bergk

’

s Paetae L yrici Graeci , ed. 4,348 The aiddptov épwrmbv (35 1sqq. ) is pleasing . It beg ins

sec r . 11 E D UCA TI ON AND LEARN IN G 441

apostate who had made Zeus his divinity,in the following

strainG o to the house of gloom, yea down to hell

,

Laden w ith all th ine impious lore, to dwellBeside the stream of Pyriphlegethon,In the fell plain of Tartarus

,all undone.

There thy Chrysippus shalt thou haply spy,And Socrates and Epicure descry,Plato and Aristotle, Euclid dear,Proclus

,

1and Ptolemy the Astronomer

,

2

Aratus,Hesiod

,and Homer too

Whose Muse is queen, in sooth,of all that crew .

3

The satire was circulated,and evoked severe criticism.

The author was sharply a ttacked for impiety towards hismaster, and some alleged that he was instigated by Leo’senemies to calumniate the memory of the ph ilosopher. Con

stantine replied to these reproaches in an iambic effusion .

4

He does not retract or mitigate his harsh judgment on Leo,

but complacently describes himself as the parricide ‘

of an

impious master— even if the pagans (Hellenes) should burstwith spite.

” 5H is apology consists in appealing to Christ ,

as the sole fountain of truth,and imprecating curses on all

heretics and unbelievers. The Spirit of the verses directedagainst Hellenists may b e rendered thus :

Foul fare they,who the gods adore

Worsh ipped by G recian folk of yoreAmorous gods, to pass ions prone,Gods as adulterers well known

,

G ods who were lame,and gods who felt

The wound that some mean mortal dealtAnd goddesses, a crowd obscene

,

Among them many a harlot queanSome wedded clownish herds

,I trow

,

Some squinted hideously enow .

1 Among some epigrams ascribed toLeo, one is in praise of Proc lus and

the mathematic ian Theon.

2Kat Hr ohenaa

‘

rpoubaovs.3 This homage to Homer is not

ironical. It is a genuine thoughambiguous tribute .

4 M igne, ih. 660 sq. The poem is

here described (after Matranga, fromwhose Anecdota Graeca

,vol . ii. it is re

printed ) as anApologyofLeo the Philosopher, vindicating himself againstthe calumnies of Constantine. This

5 6 warpopa la‘

rns fivao efiofis Biaaaxdkov,Kay el dcappa

‘

yei’

ev"E7\7\17ves ,

a éaov

,aavéur es eu Myota Tehxiuwv aér a .

is an extraordinary error, wh ich , so

far as I know ,has not been hitherto

pointed out. The openin lines statethat the author was rev i le for havingac cused his master L LO of apostasy.

We learn from 1. 14 that Leo was deadwhenConstantine published his attack .

(I ma note that in l . 25 éftéy evosshoul b e corrected to égténeuos)

442 EA S TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE CHAP . x 1v

The sentiment is quite in the vein of the early Fathersof the Church ; but it would not have displeased Xenophanesor Plato, and the most enthusiastic Hellenist could afford tosmile at a display of such blunt weapons . The interest of

the episode lies in the illustra tion which it furnishes of the

vitality of secular learning (7) Oupa flev a ocpia ) in the ninthcentury. Though the charges which the fanatic brings againstLeo may b e exaggera tions, they establish the fac t that he wasentirely preoccupied by science and philosophy and uncon

cerned about Christian dogma . The appearance of a man of

this type is in i tself significant. If,we consider that the

study of the G reek classics was a permanent feature of the

Byzantine world and was not generally held to clash withorthodox piety

, the c ircumstance that in this period the

apprehensions of fanatical or narrow-minded people wereexcited against the dangers of profane studies confirms in a

striking way our other evidence that there was a genuinerevival of higher education and a new birth of enthusiasmfor secular knowledge. Would that it were possible to speakof any real danger, from science and learning

, to the prevailing superstitions ! Danger there was none. Photius

,not

Leo,was the typical Byzan tine savant

,uniting arden t devotion

to learning with no less ardent zeal for the orthodox faithAnother Sign of the revival of secular studies is the

impression which some of their chief exponents made on the

popular imagination— preserved in the stories that were toldof Leo, of John the Patriarch , and of Photius. I t was saidthat when Leo l was archbishop of Thessalonica the cr0psfailed and there was a distressing dearth . Leo told the peoplenot to b e discouraged. By making an astronomical calculation he discovered at what time benignant and sympatheticinfluences would descend from the sky to the earth , and directedthe husbandmen to sow their seed accordingly. They wereamazed and gratified b y the plenteousness of the ensuingharvest . If the chronicler , who tells the tale, perfunctorilyobserves that the result was due to prayer and not to the

1 That Leo was actually interested bacher, G .E .L . 631 ) and of a fragmentia the arts of discovering future events ary astrological treatise on Ec lipsesmay be argued from the attribution to (published inHermes, 8, 174h im of a M6060; wpov an xh 7 017 aylau which is evidently copied from a workebayyextov r) 7 06 (taxmptou (Krum dating from the pre

-Saracenic period .

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444 EA S TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE CHAP. x 1v

two heads fell to the ground ; but the third blow was less

forceful, and bent the head without severing it. The eventcorresponded to the performance of the rite. The hostile leadersfell out among themselves ; two were slain by the third,who was wounded

,b ut survived ; and the enemy retreated

from the Roman borders.

That John practised arts of divination, in which all the

world believed, we need no more doubt than that Leo used hisastronomical knowledge for the purpose of reading the secrets ofthe future in the stars. I t was the medieval habit to associatescientific learning with supernatural powers and perilousknowledge

,and in every man of science to see a magician ;

But the vulgar mind had some reason for this opinion , as it isprobable that the greater number of the few men who devotedthemselves to scientific research did not disdain to studyoccult lore and the arts of prognostication . In the case of

John,his practices, encouraged perhaps by the Emperor’s

curiosity,1 furnished a welcome ground of calumny to the

image-worshippers who detested him. The learning of

Photius also gave rise to legends which were even moredamaging and had a far more slender foundation . I t was

of the Bulgarian Tsar Simeon, a i’

mfiyap éor orxa fba fiat 7 17V T ora érnv 0 7 7)t(Skylitzes z Cedr. i i . 308, cp. Cont.

Th. 411 ) Romanus followed his advic eand Simeon died instantly . The

magic process of O'Tocxeiwa'ts was regularly used when statues were erected .

Legend said that man of the statuesin Constantinople ha been thus en

chanted by Apollonius of Tyana (whois called ar c txetwuan xbs in Cedr. i.

see Patria,19 1, 206, 221 . He was said

to have placed three stone images of

storks dururpoa cbr ws dhhfihors 6pc3ura s,to prevent storks from c oming to thec ity (ib . The Tyche of the c ity inthe M ilion was éar orxetwuévou (ib .

The Pallad ion brought from Rome

to Constantinople '

1s called a ar ozxeiou

Diels (Elementum, 54

in d iscussing the history of o r otxetov,mentions the use o f 0 7 01x5 113 in the

sense o f “ bewitch ” (and Dieterich ,Rheinisches Museum, 56, 77 sqq. 1901,is c ertainly right in connec ting the

meaning with the use of the letters of

the alphabet in magic ), b ut has not

real ised that it means only a spec ialkind of bewitching— the sorcery by

which Meleager’

s life depended on a

brand,or that o fDelphis on the (Saws

of Simaitha . Thus we read of a statuewhic h was the c r atxeiov of one Phidalia(‘

Ehknvlbog a pagan ? Pa tria ,

But we fi nd the b est illustration in

the story about theEmperorAlexander ,son of Basil I who bel ieved in soothsayers , and was told by them (Cont.

Th . 379 ) that the bronze image of a

wi ld boar ln the Hippodrome O'

T OLXGLOV

uvr ou el’

n, which is explained b ythe corresponding passage in Simeon(Leo G 1 . 287 1 6 r ou a va

‘

ypov or orxei’

ou

0'

ol Ka l r fi of) {an} npoa avdxetra t .

Compare the use of 0 7 01x1516 in modernGreek for spirit, bogey ; and I maypoint out that a rorxefov r ou r b1rou

occurs in Digenes Akr itas, vi. 320 (inLegrand ’s Grotta Ferrata ”

ed.

in the sense of ghost or genius of theplace. Il lustra tions ofmagic prac ticesof this kind will b e found in Dalzell ,The Da rker Superstitions of Scotland ,328 sqq.

—The destruc tion of

the three-headed statue by John is

pic tured in the Madrid Skylitzes

(Beylié , L’

Ha bita tion byzantine,1 Op. Cont. Th . 12110

ss c r . 11 E D UCA TI ON AND LEARN IN G 445

related that in his youth he met a Jew who said, What willyou give me, young man

,if I make you excel all men in

G recian learning ? ” My fa ther,”said Photius, will gladly

give you half his estate. I need not money,”was the

tempter’s reply, “and your father must hear nought of this.

Come hither with me and deny the sign of the cross on whichwe nailed Jesus ; and I will give you a strange charm

,and

all your life will b e lived in wealth and wisdom and j oy.

Photius gladly consented , and from that time for th he devotedh imself assiduously to the study of forbidden things

,astrology

and divination. Here the Patriarch appears as one of the

forerunners of Faustus, and we may confidently set down theinvention of a compact with the Evil One to the superstitionand malignancy of a monk . For in another story the monasticorigin is unconcealed . John the Solitary, who had beenconversing with two friends touching the iniquities of the

Pa triarch , dreamed a dream . A hideous negro appeared to

him and gripped his throat. The monk made the sign of

the cross and cried, “Who are you ? who sent you ?”

The

apparition replied, “My name is Lebuphas I am the masterof Beliar and the familiar of Photius ; I am the helper of

sorcerers, the guide of robbers and adulterers,the friend of

pagans and of my secret servant Photius. He sent me to

punish you for what was said against him yesterday,but you

have defeated me by the weapon of the cross.

” 1Thus the

learning of Photius was honoured by popular fancy like the

science of Gerb ert 2 legend represented them both as sorcerersand friends of the devil.

The encyclopaedic learning of Photius, his indefatigableinterest in philosophy and theology

,history and grammar

,

are shown by his writings and the contents of his library.

He collected ancien t and modern books on every subject ,including many works which must have been rarities in

his own time and have since entirely disappeared. We knowsome of his possessions through his Bibliotheca

,and the

circumstance s which suggested the composition of this work1 These stories about Photius are was probably a propos of the earthtold only by Pseudo-Simeon

,670 sqq. quake of A .D . 862, see above p . 198

,

He mentions (673 ) that Photius n. 4.

preached a. sermon to show that earth 2 See Olleris , Vie de Gerbert, 321

quakes are not a consequenc e of our sqq.

s ins but due to natural causes . This

446 EAS TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE CHAP. x 1v

throw light on a side of Byzan tine life of which we are seldompermitted to gain a glimpse. A select circle of friends seemsto have been in the habit of assembling at the house of

Photius for the purpose of reading aloud literature of all

kinds, secular and religious, pagan and Christian. H is

library was thus at the service of friends who were qualifiedto appreciate it. H is brother Tarasius was a member of thisreading-club, and when Photius was sent on a mission to theEast

,Tarasius, who had been unable to attend a number of

the gatherings, asked him to write synopses of those bookswhich had been read in his absence. Photius complied withthis request , and probably began the task, though he cannothave completed it, before his return to Constantinople .

l

He enumerates more than 270 volumes,2 and describestheir contents somet imes very briefly, sometimes at considerablelength. As some of these works are long, and as many otherbooks must have been read when Tarasius was present, the reading séances must have continued for several years. The rangeof reading was wide. History was represented by authorsfrom the earliest to the latest period ; for instance, Herodotus,Ktesias

,TheOpompus, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Appian ,

Josephus, Arriam,Plutarch , Diodorus, Dion Cassius, Herodian ,

1 See his Prefatory ded ication to

Tarasius, wh ich Shows that he beganthe work when h e was abroad . H e

had some d ifficulty in finding a

secretary, and he implies that hewrote from memory. The a rtic lesvary greatly in length : the first 60oc cupy less than 19 pages out o f 544 inBekker

’

s edition ; the last 60 extendto 368 pages . There are many of thelong analyses which we cannot supposePhotius to have written without thebooks before him and we may con

elude that he drew up the whole listand wrote the short artic les at the

beginning frommemory, and continuedthe work on a larger scale when he

returned . In determining the lengthof his articles he was indeed guided byanother princ iple , which he notes inhis Prefac e . He intended to treatmore

briefly those books wh ich he mightassume his brother would have readh imself (Kara a ea vrév) . Krumbacherhas suggested that the Prefac e mayb e entirely a literary fic tion, but itseems quite expl icable without that

assumption. A critic al ed ition of the

work is much wanted , and the groundis being prepared by E. Martini

,who

in h is Textgeschichte der B ibliotheke

des Pa tr . Photios fvon e l.,I . Teil

(Abhandlungen der phil. -hist. K l. derk. Sachs. Ges . dcr Wiss. xxviii . No. 6,

studies the MSS.,and c oncludes

that the textual tradition dependsmainly on the Codd . Marc iani 450

and 451 .

2 279 according to his Prefac e .

There are ac tually 280 artic les , b ut

there is no inconsistency, as vol. 268

(p . the Orations of Lycurgus, wasnot read . But there are a number ofdoublets : several works are enumerated twice though differently described(Philostratus, Vita Apollonii ; Josephus,Archaeologia ; Isocrates ; Hierocles ,wept r povota s ; Dionysius of Aegae ;Diodorus ; H imerius ) . Evidently inthe drafting of the list, some repetitions c rept in ; and, as the work wasprobably c omposed at intervals, Phot.could easily have forgotten one noticewhen h e c ame to write the second .

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448 EA S TE RN R OMAN EM P IRE C HAP. x 1v

In A.D. 88 8 we find him purchasing a copy of Euclid ; l and

seven years later the famous manuscrip t of Plato, formerly at

Pa tmos, and now one of the treasures of the Bodleian Library,

was written expressly for him.

2Students of early Christianity

owe him a particular debt for preserving apologetic writingswhich would otherwise have been lost.3

I t is notorious that the Byzantine world, wh ich producedmany men of wide and varied learning, or of

'

subtle intellect ,such as Photius

,Psellos

,and Eustathios— to name three

of the best-known names,— never gave birth to an originaland creative genius. Its science can boast of no new

discovery,its philosophy of no novel system or explanation of

the universe. Age after age, innumerable pens moved, lakesof ink were exhausted, b ut no literary work remains whichcan claim a place among the memorable books of the world.To the mass of mankind Byzan tine literature is a dead thing ;it has not left a Single immortal book to instruct and deligh tposterity.

While the unquestioned authority of religious dogma , and

the tyranny of orthodoxy, confined the mind by invisiblefet ters which repressed the instinct of Speculation and in

tellec tual adventure,

4 there was another authority no less

fatal to tha t freedom which is an indispensable condition of

literary excellence as of scientific progress,the authority of

the ancients. We have seen the superiority of the EasternEmpire to the contemporary European states in the highereducation which it provided . In this educational system

,

which enabled and encouraged studious youths to becomeacquain ted with the great pagan writers of Greece

,we might

have looked to find an outlet of escape from the theories of

the universe and the views of life dogmatically imposed byreligion

,or at least a stimulus to seek in the broad field of

human nature material for li terary art . But the influence of

the great Greek thinkers proved powerless to unchain willing

1 Subsc ription in the MS . in the much less than £ 40.

Bodle ian (D’

Orville, xi . inf. 2, 3

where the price he paid is stated , Harnack , Zb ' 46'

4 noni ismata = £ 2 z 88. (equ ivalent in 4 Cp. Gibbon vi. 108,“ The minds

value to about of the G reeks were bound in the fetters2 Clark ianus , 39 . Arethas paid the o f a base and imperious superstition,

scribe Stephen 13 nom. or £ 7 a wh ich extends her domlnion roundsum equa l in purchasing value to not the c irc le of profane sc ience .

SECT . 11 E D UCA TI ON AND L EARN IN G 449

slaves, who studied the letter and did not understand the

meaning. And so the effect of this education was to submitthe mind to another yoke, the literary authority of the ancients.

Classical tradition was an incubus rather than a stimulant ;classical literature was an idol

,not an inspiration . The

higher education was civilizing, but not quickening ; it wasliberal, but it did not liberate .

The later G reeks wrote in a style and manner whichappealed to the highly educated among their own con

temporaries,and the taste of such readers appreciated and

demanded an artificial and laboured style, indirect, periphrastic,and often allusive, which to us is excessively tedious and

frigid. The vocabulary and grammar of this literature weredifferent from the vocabulary and grammar of everyday life

,

and had painfully to b e acqui red at school. Written thus ina language which was purely conventional

,and preserving

the tradition of rhetoric which had descended from the

Hellenistic age, the literature of Byzantium was tied handand foot by unnatural restraints. I t was much as if the

I talians had always used Latin as their literary medium,and

were unable to emancipate themselves from the control of

Cicero, Livy, and Seneca. The power of this stylistic traditionis one of the traits of the conservative spirit of Byzantinesociety.

These facts bear upon the failure of Byzantine men of

letters to produce anything that makes an universal appeal.Yet if the literature of the world is not indebted to the

Byzantines for contributions of enduring value, we owe

to them and to their tenacity of educational traditionsan inestimable debt for preserving the monuments of G reekliterature which we possess to-day. W e take our inheritancefor granted, and seldom stop to remember that the manuscriptsof the great poets and prose-writers of ancient Greece werenot written for the sake of a remote and unknown posterity,but to supply the demand of contemporary readers.

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EA S TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE

Coisl . 269 was written in the ninth c entury and is itself thefirst volume of the original collec tion of Theodore

’

s Epistles madein the monastery of Studion. It contains 507 let ters and is

divided into three Sec tions. Sec t . 2 is written in a different handfrom that of Sec ts. 1 and 3 and M elioranski

, on the ground of a

palaeographical comparison with the script of a copy of the G ospelsdated A.D . 835 and signed by a Studite named Nicolaus

,makes it

probable that the copyist is no other than Theodore’s disc ipleNicolaus, who had been his amanuensis and shared his persecution.

M elioranski also seeks to establish that the writer of Sec ts . 1 and

3 was the monk Athanasios who became abbot of Studion towardsthe close of the ninth century . The letters of Sec t . 2 belongentirely to the years A.D . 8 15 - 8 19 and include all those publishedby Cozza Luzi.

In the ninth c entury a copy was made of this Studitecollec tion, but the let ters were rearranged in a new order . Theywere divided into fi ve Books. Books 1-4 contained at least 849

,

and Book 5 275 letters . This MS . is not preserved, but it isundoubtedly the collec tion which is referred to in Michael’s Vita

Theodori (246 D) as consisting of fi ve Books . We have an incompletecopy derived from it in P, which contains a selec tion from Books1-4. The importance of P lies in the c ircumstance that the copyisthas no ted the numeration of each let ter in the archetype . Thusthe letter numbered 170 in P ( = ii. 146, Migne) was 7 26 in the

archetype. The highest number in the archetype is 849 .

V,like P

,is an anthology it differs from P not in contents but

only in form ;1 like P

,it contains none of the let ters of Book 5 .

The two Books into which V is divided on a chronological principledo not correspond to any of the Books of the Five-Book arrange

men t . But from Book II. Ep. 37 onward the letters follow in the

same order as that of the older non-chronological collec tion, and

therefore the order in V has no chronological value ; the date of

each letter must b e determined, if it can b e de termined, by ‘

its

contents. Obviously the anthologies V and P cannot b e independent of each other .

Coisl. 94 is also an anthology (non-chronological) . It containsmore let ters than any of the other MSS . ,

and the last 275 are

Book 5 of the tenth-century collec tion.

A new edition of the Epistles of Theodore is desirable, and itseems evident tha t it should b e based on Coisl . 269 .

1 The arrangement in P was based (b ) those of the third exile . The

on two princ iples (l ) subject— fortydogmatic epistles, on image worship,were grouped together and placed at the

beginning ; (2) chronology— the remaining epistles were divided into two groups,(a ) those of the fi rst and second exiles,

arrangement of V was purely chronological . The tenth—c entury collectionfrom which both these anthologies werederived was not based on chronologic alorder.

A P PEND IX I I

GEoRGE’

s CHRON ICLE

THE Chronicle of G eorge the Monk is a world-chronicle b e

ginning w ith Adam and coming down to the first year of

Michael III . (842 Of the writer we only know that he wasa monk who lived in the reign of Michael III . ,

and tha t he didnot put the las t touch to his work till after the death of thatEmperor.

1 His interest was entirely ecc lesiastical ; he had the

narrowest of monastic horizons ; and the lat ter portion of his

work, which concerns us, is inordinately brief and yields lit tle to

the historian. His account of the reign of Theophilus, of whomhe must have been a contemporary, is conta ined in three and a

half short pages (in de Boor’

s edition) , and of these more than a

page consis ts of a quotation from G regory of Naz ianzus. Forthis portion (802-843) he made use of Theophanes Theosteriktos,Vita Nicetae ; Ignatius, Vita N icephori ; the Epistola synodica ad

Theophilum ; works of the Pa triarch Nicephorus. (Cp. his Pro

logue, pp . 1-2, where he refers to modern histories, chronographies,and edifying works, which he laid under contribution) . His

account of the reigns of L eo V. ,Michael II . , and Theophilus has

no pretensions to b e a historical narrative ; it is lit tle more thanthe passionate outpouring of a fanatical image-worshipper

’

s rancouragains t the iconoclasts.

The tex t of this chronicle is preserved in a variety of forms

which have caused grea t perplexity . A grea t many MSS. are

largely interpolated, and in many of these a Continuation has beenadded

,transc ribed from the work of Simeon the Logothe te (see

nex t Appendix) . These MSS . are derived from an archetype inwhich large additions were inserted in the margin, from the

Logo thete’

s chronicle,and the MSS . vary according as the scribes

incorpora ted in the text various parts of these additions. From1 The words rl.e 56‘ 9 66¢thov 6

1

130.

atheva e M txahlx vlos (1 131 017 57 17 K6'

(p .

801 ) surely imply that M ichae l ’s reignwas over. The author adds he reignedfor four teen years with his mother Theodora and was sole Emperor for elevenyears and three months.

”This gives

twenty-fi ve years three months it shouldb e twenty-fi ve years eight months (Jan

27, 842, to Sept. 23, But it wouldb e wrong, I think, to infer that Georgewrote this in April 867 . H irsch arguedthat the joint reign of M ichae l with Bas il(from May 26, 866) was not inc luded

,

and that the words were wri tten beforeM ichael's death

,b ut he read 1’m, where

as the evidence of the MSS. establishesca

'

é‘rn(see de Boor

’

s critic al note ad Zoe ) .

454 EA S TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE

Leo V. forward they furnish a tradition of the L o'

gothete’

s text.In several of them the Logothete

’

s authorship of the Continuation is noticed.

The later par t of the composite chronicle, from A.D . 8 13-948,was printed by Comb efi s (1685 ) in the Paris ed. of the Scriptores

post Theophanem,and was reprinted by Bekker in the Bonn Corpus.

The tex t was based on a depraved Paris MS . , but Bekker usedHase’s collation of codex Coislinianus 134

,which contains the

Chronicle of G eorge unadulterated by interpola tions from the

Logothete,and Signalised its variants. The whole composite work

was edited for the first time by Muralt who based histext on a Moscow MS . ,

which, as de Boor has shown, is ita interpolatus ut a genuino textu omnium fere plurimum abesse iudicandus sit

”

(G eorg . Mon. pp. x, lviii) . Muralt procured collationsof many other MSS.

,including Coislinianus 3 10, but he did not

reproduce them accurately,and he failed entirely to see their

relations, or even to grasp the problem. De Boor’s judgmenton his edition is that studiis Byzantinis nonmodo non profuit sedvalde nocuit

”(ib. p. x) . Nevertheless it was of some use to

Hirsch,who in his Byzantinische Studien (18 76) made it generally

clear that the Coisliniani 3 10 and 134 preserve the genuine textof G eorge, and that the other MSS. with which he was acquaintedpresent an interpolated redac tion (cp. p.

The difficult problem of determining the original text of G eorgeand explaining the interrelations of the numerous MSS. was

a t tacked by C . de Boor,and his edition of the genuine Chronicle of

G eorge Monachus appeared in 1904 (see Bibliography, where hispreliminary studies on the subjec t are noted) . He arrived at the

conclusion that G eorge himself wrote out his chronicle twice. The

first copy was rough and perhaps incomplete, and a large numberof illustrative extrac ts from Biblical and other literature wereadded in the margin. This rough copy was not destroyed, and inthe tenth century it was copied by a scribe who incorpora ted all

the marginal additions in the text . This later copy exists to dayas Coislinianus 305 (the text only comes down to the reign of

Constantine Afterwards,G eorge prepared a revised copy, in

which b e incorporated only parts of his marginal material and

treated the tex t of the excerpts very freely . All the o ther MSS .

are derived from this second edition (going back to an archetypewhich is most faithfully produced in the tenth-century Coislin.

3 10 and in Coislin. and it is this which the edition of de

Boor aims at reproducing. The hypothesis that these two dis

tinc t traditions are due to G eorge himself explains the fac ts, butcanno t b e considered certain

,as rehandling by Copyists is a con

ceivab le alternative. See the observa tions of Prachter in his reviewof de Boor’s edition (B .Z. xv. p .

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456 EAS TERN R OM AN EM P IRE

their mutual rela tions to one another,informa tion will b e found

in Krumb acher, G .E .L . 35 9-360, and in the discussions of de Boor( lVeiteres, etc . ) and Shestakov (0 rukopisiakh) . Cp. also Zlatarski

,

Izoiestuata, 8 3g. The view of Vasil’

evski (Khron Log. ) tha t theOld Slavonic transla tion supplies the best tradition of Simeon

’s

work is now largely held by Slavonic scholars. Shestakov (Par .

rule. ) has given reasons for thinking that the anonymous chroniclein Cod. Par . 854 (of which the first part is printed, see below) is,of all Greek texts, c losest to the original. This conclusion is

questioned by de Boor (Weiteres,

who doubts whether Simeonwas really the author of the chronicle

,conjec tures tha t he wrote

only the Koo pow'

o cia which is prefixed to it, and thinks that theoriginal chronicle is most faithfully represented by the Chronography of Theodosius of Melitene.

Simeon’s chronicle has come down to us under other titlesunder the names of L eo G rammaticus

,Theodosius ofMelitene

,and

partly in the expansion of G eorge the Monk. These compilerscopied it with few and trifling alterations.

(1) Leo G rammaticus. The text of this chronicle,which is

preserved in Cod. Par. 17 11, was written in A.D. 1013 by L eo,

who in the no tice at the end of the work, which comes down to

A.D . 948, speaks of himself as a scribe ra ther than as an author .

The la t ter part of the text has been printed (from the accession of

Leo and it was evidently transcribed from the Chronicle of

Simeon. In his edition of L eo,Bekker printed (though without

committing himself to the authorship) a portion of the chronicle

of Cod. Par . 85 4, coming down to the point at which Leo’s textbegins. This had been originally printed by Cramer (AnecdotaParisina , ii. 243 who assumed tha t the chronicles of the twoMSS . were identical, and this view was accepted by Hirsch. It

has been shown by Shestakov tha t the texts are different (Par .

Rule. ) he made it c lear that L eo and the Continuation of G eorge

are nearer to each o ther than either to Par . 85 4.

(2) The Chronography of Theodosius of Melitene,edited by

Tafel, is likewise no more than a transcript of Simeon, and likeL eo

’

s tex t, it ends at A .D . 948 . Vasil’

evski called attention to a

note in Bekker’s Anecdota Graeca, iii. 465 , where, in a passage citedfrom the commentary of Johannes Sikeliotes on the Hepi. 5& c of

Hermogenes, 6Mam—rims 6 60860 10 9 18 mentioned . Vasil’

evski inferredtha t Theodosius flourished c. A .D . 1 120

,but it is probable that

Johannes Doxopatres, called Sikeliotes, lived in the firs t half of theeleventh century (Krumb acher, G.E .L . and if so

,Theodosius

may have lived in the eleventh century. The tex t of this versionresembles that of L eo G ramm. and the Contin. of G eorge moreclosely than it resembles Cod. Par. 854. For its relation to Leo

Grammaticus see Patzig (Leo Gramm. ) and de Boor (Die Chron. des

AP P E ND IX 45 7

Log. It is much closer to the Contin. cf G eorge than to

L eo G ramm. the difl’

erences are chiefly stylistic . I t is to b e

observed that many of the omissions which occur in L eo and in

the Contin. are accidental,due to homoeo teleuton.

(3) The Chronicle of Cod. Par . 85 4. The lat ter part isunpublished. See Shestakov

,op. cit.

(4) It has been stated in the prec eding Appendix that manyof the MSS . of G eorge the Monk contain a considerable amplifi ca

tion of G eorge’s text . His ac count of the reigns from the ac cession

of L eo V. to the accession of Michael III . has been expanded bylarge additions from a chronicle of a different tone and charac terand a continuat ion has been added coming down to A.D . 948 (insome MSS . to later dates) . In some MSS.

,at the point where

G eorge’

s work ends in A.D . 843, w e find the note é’

ws (535 7 61

xpow xd P ewpy t'

ov'

o’

wrb 7 13V (5

86,advov 7 0 13 Aoyodé

‘

r ov (ed. Muralt,

and at the year 948 Muralt’

s tex t has (85 1) 86501 7 15 deg?ndvrwv gvexa

' dprjv. Te‘rékeorr a t Ka i rd r ofi Aoyode’

r ov. The close

resemblance of the tex t of the continuation to the tex ts whichhave come down under the name of Simeon the Logo thete rendersit virtually certain that Simeon is meant by 7 013 Aoyodé

‘

r ov in thesenotes. This applies not only to the continuation but to the

expansions of G eorge’s Chronicle from A.D . 8 13 to 843. For ifthese expansions are separated, they furnish a text which coincideswith those of Theodosius and L eo . The word

,advov in the note

cited above probably refers to this interweaving of the works of

G eorge and Simeon.

The portion of the expanded chronicle which concerns us,

A.D . 813 to 948,was printed from one MS . by Comb efi s (1685 )

and reprinted by Bekker. Muralt’

s edition of the whole chronic leis based on a Moscow MS . ,

but contains colla tions of some otherMSS .

1 See above,Appendix II .

The Old Slavonic translation of Simeon (preserved in a MS . in

the Imperial Public L ibrary of Petersburg), recently edited bySreznevski, implies an original which was closer to L eo thanto Theodosius (Sreznevski, p . xii ) . A comparison with thesechronicles shows b oth omissions and additions (ib. xi

One of the chief sources of Simeon,up to the year A.D . 8 13

,

was Theophanes ; another was G eorge the Monk . For the

period A .D .

° 8 13-867, which a lone concerns us here, Simeon is

one of our most important authorities. Unlike G eorge, whoseat tention is almost entirely direc ted to ec clesiastical affairs

,he is

interested in profane history and furnishes a good deal of informa

tion concerning the court intrigues ; ec clesiastical affairs are quitein the background . (Cp. the analysis of Hirsch

,16

1 It would b e useless here to enumer artic les c ited,and the Preface to his ed.

ate or discuss the MSS. See de Boor’

s of George.

458 EAS TE RN ROMAN EM P IRE

It is obvious from the character both of his shorter notices andhis longer narrations tha t the chronicler had a writ ten source

,dating

from a time not far removed from the events. Any one accustomedto the investigation of sources can discern at once that Simeon’swork could not have been compiled from anecdote, oral traditions,or Vitae Sanctorum. He has clearly used an older chronicle writtenby some one who had a fi rst -hand knowledge of the reign of

Michael III. and was in touch with contemporaries of Theophilus.

Can we discover anything about this lost chronicle ?One of the fea tures of Simeon’s work is his admira tion for

Romanus I . ano ther is the unfavourable light in which he presentsBasil I . Hirsch has observed that the treatment of Theophilus,Michael III . , and Bardas shows a c ertain impartiality, in the

sense tha t the author recounts their good deeds as well as thosewhich he esteems bad ; he does not blacken Theophilus and

Michael III . by lurid ac counts of the persecutions of the former 1and the debaucheries of the lat ter.

The chronicle,then

,which was the basis of this part of Simeon

’

s

work was distinc tly animated by hostility to Basil, and was not

unfavourable to the Amorians, though it did not conceal theirfaults. We cannot say how favourable it was, because we are

unable to determine what Simeon may have omitted or whattouches of his own he may have added . The author of the lost

Amorian chronicle,as it migh t b e called

,was probably a ttached to

the Court in the reign of Michael III.,and wro te his work during

the reign of Basil or L eo VI. There is one passage which perhapsgives us an indication . Among the murderers of Michael III. are

mentioned Boipda g 6 na r r’

yp Baa-Melon r ofi fia lfKT OpO S Ka i Evjafldr tos

6 ddekcbbs Barn /Vim) Ka i e’

foidekcpos Baa-theiov (Cont. Georg.

837 = Mur. 7 50, agreeing exac tly with oers. Slav. Now

the post of Rec tor, which we know to have existed in A.D . 899,was probably instituted either by Basil I . or L eo VI .

2 T he

chronicler assumes Basil the Rec tor to b e well known, for heidentifies the three conspira tors Bardas, Symbatios, and Asylaion bytheir rela tionship to him

,and

,as he does not himself play any

part in history,it is natural to suppose tha t he was Rec tor when

the chronicler was writing. His Rec torship we may reasonablyassume to have fallen before that of Joannes, who held the office

under Alexander and Romanus I . This could b e established to a

certainty if we could b e quite sure that BOLO'

LAelfov in the textmeans throughout Basil the Rec tor, and not Basil the Emperor

1 H irsch notes (32) that the author (m 2 Evufidn os oi d6eh¢ol flow . 175 ) asprobably made use of the Vita Theodori well as to L . Gr. (251 , where 1 00 t.

Bamkelov is omitted ea: homoeotel)2 In th is passage the Cont. Georg.

3 See Bury, Imp . Administrativetext is markedly superior to Theod. Mel . System, 115 sq.

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APPEND IX IV

GENESIOS AND THE CONTINUATION OF THEOPHANES

THE Basileiai of G enesios (written 0. 944-948 A.D . ) and the

Chronography (Books 1 -4,written

,under the auspices of

Constantine VII .,949-950 A.D . )

1 known as the Continuation of

Theophanes, which along with G eorge and Simeon are the chief

Sources for the continuous history of our period,have been analysed

in detail by Hirsch in his Byzantinische Studien. He has determinedsome of their sources, and he has made it quite c lear tha t

,as we

should expec t, the author or authors of Cont. Th. used the workof G enesios. Some of his particular results admit of reconsidera

tion, but for the most part they are suffic ient as a guide to the

historical student . There are two things, however, which may b epointed out.

(1) Joseph G enesios was a kinsman of Constantine the

Armenian, for whom he evinces a particular interest in his history .

Constantine was Drungarios of the Wa tch under Michael III . (seeabove

, pp. 147 , 15 7 , and from Simeon (Leo G r. 249 Theod.

M el. 1 74) we learn tha t he was 6 na ‘m’

ypOmyd narptk iov Ka i. I‘

evem’

ov.

Hirsch concluded that G enesios the historian was his son. But

de Boor (B .Z. x . 62 sqq. ) has shown that Simeon refers to anotherG enesios who was a magister in the reign of L eo VI .

,while

Joseph G enesios the historian was Chartulary of the Ink (6 e’

1r2

~ r 08 Ka VLKAet'

ov) under Constantine VII. The relationship is

Constantine, Opovyy.

Thomas(Koy. r .

Joseph Genesios(6 e

’

rri r .

(2) I t can b e proved,I think

,from a number of comparisons

1 Cp. Bury, Treatise De adm. imp . 570 sqq.

460

AP P EN D IX 461

tha t the Continuators of Theophanes used,along with G enesios, the

source of G enesios . There are passages in Co nt. Th. in whichthe rela tionship to G en. is plain

,b ut there are additions which

canno t b e explained either as amplifica tions invented by the authoror as derived from oral tradition,

and which,therefore, probably

come from the source used by G en. and were omitted by him.

I t will b e suffic ient here to mention two examples . In the ac countof the campaign of Theophilus in A.D . 837 , the close interdependence oi Cont. Th. 1 24 and G en. 63-64 is obvious in the

similar phraseology ; but while G en. particularises only the

capture of Zapetra, Cont. Th. records tha t two other cities werealso taken. There is no probability tha t this record came from

any o ther source than that which G en. used. Again, the two

relations of the rescue of Theophilus by Manuel,and Manuel

’

s

subsequent flight (G en. 61-62 Cont. Th. 117 are manifestlyinterdependent . But Cont. Th. designates the person who accusedManuel of treasonable designs

,while G en. confines himself to a

generality. Here,too

,this addition probably comes from the

source which G en. used and I suspec t that the further particularsof Manuel

’

s services to the Saracens should b e referred to the

same origin. For o ther additions in Cont. Th. which may b e

derived from the common source, cp. above, pp. 46, 54, 87 , 88,

APPEND IX V

CHRONOLOGY OF THE WAR BETWEEN M ICHAEL II . AND

THOMAS THE SLAV

OUR authorities supply singularly few landmarks for the chronology oi the Civil War. It will b e well to set down in a listexac tly what determinations of time they furnish

,before we con

sider wha t inferences may or mus t b e drawn.

(1) The whole revolt lasted three years. We have this on

early authority : G eorge, p. 7 9 7 7 6V e’

v rpw iv gr ea t mikeuov.

It is repeated by G enesios, 34 (cf. Cont. Th. 67 It might almostbe inferred also from the Letter of Michael to Lewis

,which

describes the whole course of the rebellion,and was written in

April 824 .

(2) The siege of Constantinople lasted a year . For this wehave the authority of the besieged Emperor himself in his L etter(p. and also that of G eorge (79 7) 6d)

,

E'

va xpcivov e’

mropdrjo a s.

(3) The siege began in December of the 15 th,

Indic tion, thatis December 82 1 A.D . We get this date from Michael

’

s L etter(ibn) Cp. Cont. Th. 61 fir e Ka i

‘

xetudivos e’

myevouévov.

(4) Having wintered elsewhere,Thomas returned to the siege

of the city in the spring following (t.e. spring of Cont. Th.,

ih. 13677 SEr ofi é'

apos fipepov e’

m hdjarrovr os.

(5 ) The embassy of the Bulgarians is only indicated roughlyby G enesios as taking place when the first decade of the ThirtyYears’ Peace with L eo was nearly coming to a close : p. 41 a t yap1371-6 Aéovr os 7 0 13 Bao théws npbs (167-obs rpta Kovr our etg o

-rrovda i. r r

’

yv

npuirnv OeKaernpt O'

vverr/Mjpovv O'

XGOOV.

(6) The ba ttle of Diabasis belongs to the third year of the warCont. Th. 67 rptr os yap (xpdvos

‘ ) égnvtm (wrongly rendered in the

L atin translation, cum— fluaisset) ; the third year was current.(7) The siege of Arcadiopolis lasted fi ve months : Michael’s

Let ter,p. 419 .

(8) The tyrant Thomas was slain in the middle of Oc tober.

This we learn from G enesios, 45 pip/Os,

O k rwfipt'

ov,uerroiivr os ijdn,

and Cont. Th. 70.

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464 EA S TE RN R OMAN EM P IRE

April or at earliest in the last days of March . I hold that weshould count the year of the siegefrom the Spring of 822, and not from

December 821 . For it was in spring 822 that the continuousblockade really began. During the months which intervenedbetween December 82 1 and spring 822 the city was not formallybesieged . It is true tha t the L e tter of Michael does not conveythis impression ; but, on the other hand

,it does not really con

tradict my interpreta tion. Michael is only giving a zrough outlineof the events, and omits the details of the siege . It is quiteintelligible tha t he should ha ve formally mentioned the date of

the first appearance of the tyrant before the w alls tha t he shouldhave omit ted to mention his second appearance and the beginningof the regular siege ; and tha t then he should have stated the

length of the siege as a year,without explaining that b e counted

from a later da te than December .

This postponement of the Bulgarian episode lightens, thoughbut slightly, the burden that has to b e laid on o

-

XeSév in G enesios

(see above, Chap . XI. p.

A PPEND IX VI

THE FAM ILY OF THEOPH ILUS

THERE is considerable difficulty in reconciling the evidence of

coins with the statements of the chronicles as to the children of

Theophilus and Theodora . There were two sons and fi ve daughters .

The elder son, Constantine, is ignored by the chroniclers, but ismentioned in the enumeration of the tombs in the Church of the

Apostles,in Const . Porph . Cer. 645

,and his head appears on coins.

The younger, Michael III . (who was the youngest child of the

marriage), was born 0. 839, for at the time of his father’s death,Jan. 842

,he was rpc

'

r ov é'

r os Ora l/150111 (Cont. Th. The fi ve

daughters were Thecla, Anna, Anastasia , Pulcheria, Maria,named

in this order in Cont. Th. 90 (though the s tory here ra ther suggeststhat Pulcheria was the youngest) . Maria is elsewhere describedas

“the youngest of all

”

(rip; e’

crxoimv ndvrwv) and her father’sfavourite

,in Cont. Th. 107, but Simeon doe s not designate her as

the youngest (Cont. Georg. 7 She married Alexios Muscle and

died in her father’s lifetime (loco. Simeon (ib. 823) mentionsthe four surviving daughters in the order Theela

,Anastasia

,Anna

,

Pulcheria, and adds tha t Pulcheria was her mo ther’s favourite.

The evidence of the coins is thus classified by Wro th (Imp. Bye .

Coins,i. xlii-xliii) :

1 . Coins of Theophilus, Theodora, Theela, Anna, and Anastasia .

2 . Coins of Theophilus, Michael (bearded) , and Constantine(beardless) .

3 . Coins of Theophilus and Cons tantine (beardless) .4. Coins of Theophilus and Michael (beardless) .

Class 4 evidently belong to A.D . 839-842, the infancy ofMichael,and prove that Constantine had died before Michael’s birth. As

to class 2 the difficul ty which these coins present has beensatisfac torily cleared up by Wroth

’

s solution,which is undoubtedly

right, that the bearded Michael is a memorial effi gy ofMichael II .

such a commemoration occurs in coins of the Isaurian Emperors,e.g. coins of Constantine V. retain the head of Leo III . Thus

465 2 H

466 EAS TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE

c lasses 2 and 3 were issued not earlier than the end of 829,not

later than the beginning of 839 .

Class 1 Obviously belong to some time during the period of

ten years in which neither Constantine nor M ichael existed .

Wroth dates them to the first years of the reign of Theophilus.

He suggests that Constantine was born some years after his father’saccession (say A.D .

But the difficulty connec ted with the marriage ofMaria (whichWro th has not taken into account) bears on the interpre tation of

the numisma tic data . It has been discussed by E. W . Brooks(B .Z. x . 544) and M elioranski (Viz . Vrem. viii. 1

As Theophilus married in spring 821,the earliest date for the

birth of his eldest child would b e about Jan. 822. If Maria was

the fifth daughter, her birth could hardly b e earlier than 826, or,

if we take into account the possibility of twins, 825 . She wouldnot have reached the earliest possible age for marriage till afterthe birth of her brother in 839 . But such a date is incompa tiblewith the narrative and the probabilities. Her marriage w as

evidently prior to the birth of Michael and intended to providefor wha t seemed the probable eventuality of the Emperor’s deathwithout a son to succeed him.

This argument forces us to rejec t the statement of Cont. Th.

tha t Maria was the youngest daughter. For w e canno t entertainthe suggestion tha t Maria was not married

, but only betrothed toAlexios the evidence that she was his wife (Cont. Th. 107 , 108 )is quite c lear . Nor can w e admit

,except as the las t resort of

despair, the hypothesis that Theodora was the second wife of

Theophilus, and that some or all of his daughters were the

progeny of a first wife,of whose existence there is no evidence .

M elioranski,who contemplated the notion that Maria might

b e the daughter of a former marriage, put forward the alterna tive

suggestion tha t she was his youngest sister (thus accepting the

e’

oxdrnv, but rej ec ting the dvya r épa of Cont. Th.) There is nothingto b e said for this hypothesis in itself and as it was unquestionablythe purpose of Theophilus to prov ide for the succession to the

throne, it is impossible to suppose tha t he would have chosen a

Sister when he had daughters.

Tha t Maria w as the eldest daughter of Theophilus (so Brooks,op. cit. ) is the only reasonable solution (and it renders unnecessarythe hypothesis of a first marriage) . Born, say, in January orFebruary822

,she would have been fourteen in 836, and we could assign

her marriage to tha t year. But She was probably betrothed toAlexios as early as A.D . 831 for in that year he is already Caesar,as appears from the description of the triumph of Theophilus inConstantine Porph . H epl 505

14.

This result compels us to modify . Wroth’e chronology for the

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468 EA S TERN R OM AN EMPIRE

some changes which he made in the types may b e mentioned here .

They are thus described by Wroth “He restored the

c ross (now the pa triarchal cross)1on some spec imens, and on the

folles an inscription— in this case OEOFILE AVI'

OVST E SV

N ICAS— takes the place of the familiar mark of value M . He

also introduces on coins the legend Kupce Borjdet r qi O'

gi 60 15Mp so

familiar on Byzantine seals and other monuments. On some of

his c oins Theophilus describes himself and his son Constantine as

the 8061 0 1 of Christ : Justinian II. ,on his solidi

,had called

himself Servus Christi.1 I , not the cross potent a} which appeared on the older coinage.

APPEND IX VI I

THE FALL or THEODORA (chronology)

MICHAEL III . came to the throne January 21,842, and died

September 23, 867, so that his whole reign lasted twenty-fi ve years,eight months. For the last year and four months, Basil was hiscolleague (from May 26, so that the rest of his reign, including both the period of his minority and his sole reign after Theodora’s fall

,lasted twenty-four years, four months. Now , according

to the con temporary chronicler G eorge the Monk he reignedfourteen years with -

Theodora,ten years and three months by

himself. There is an error of a month, but here we are helped bythe Anonymi Chron. Synt , ed. Bauer, p . 68 (cp. also an additionto the Chronography of Nicephorus, ed. de Boor

,p. where

the joint reign is given as fourteen years, one month, twenty—twodays. These figures are probably correc t

,

1and so we can fix the

meeting of the Senate which signalised the formal deposition of

Theodora to March 15,856 . In any case

,these data seem to b e

independent,and they

'

Show tha t the deposition fell, not in 85 7 as

Schlosser and Finlay supposed, but early in 85 6 . This is the con

elusion rightly supported by Hirsch It bears out the narrativeof the chroniclers (SimeonandG en. ) who connec t Theodora

’

s fall from

power immediately with the murder of Theoktistos,who was still

alive at the time of Michael’s marriage, to which we cannot assignan earlier date than 85 5 . The two events must thus have been inchronological proximity .

But a serious diffi culty has arisen through the connexion of the

deposition of Ignatius from the Pa triarchate and the expulsion of

Theodora from the Palace . This connexion rests on good authority,the L ibellus of Ignatius (composed by Theognostos) addressed to

1 The other figures given by this pip/a. a’ here is omitted. The error

source here are incorrec t : M ichael is may have arisen in the additions to thesaid to have reigned alone eleven years, Chron. of N ic ephorus from a repetitionone month , nine days. Thus the total of ufiva a.

’

in the preceding notic e. The

reign would b e twenty-fi ve years, three list stops with Basil I . , so that the c ommonths

,instead of twenty -fi ve years

,piler must have written soon after A .D .

eight months. In the Cod. Matritensis 886.

469

470 EAS TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE

Pope Nicolas (Mansi,xvi. “When the sovran

,persuaded by

Bardas, wished to ostracize his mo ther and sisters from the Palace,

he ordered me to tonsure them,b ut I would not obey, because they

were unw illing for this reason too I was driven from the Church .

In ac cordance with this sta tement of the Pa triarch is his biographer’

s

intima tion tha t there was not a long interval ol.d ympév) betweenthe two events (Vita Ignatii,

According to the older view which was still held by Hirsch,Igna tius was deposed in November 85 7 , so that if these statementsare true

,the tonsuring of the Imperial ladies cannot b e placed

before 85 7 . Hirsch therefore (loc. cit. ) rej ec ts them as inaccurate .

But it is quite impossible to set them aside .

We know now that the deposition of Ignatius falls in November858 (not and this seems to make the difli culty still greater .

The Patriarch could never speak as he does of a refusal to complywith the Emperor ’s wishes early in 85 6 as the cause of his deposition near the close of 85 8.

The key to the solution of the difficulty is simple enough.

Both the chronological s tatement of G eorge the Monk (who was

writing some ten years later) and the e vidence of the Pa triarch are

perfec tly correc t . The fall of Theodora from power is a distinc t .

event,chronologically divided by an interval

,from her expulsion

from the Palace. The end of the joint reign fell in the beginning(perhaps March) of 85 6, and was marked by the meeting of the

Senate recorded in Cont. Georg. 823 . But Theodora continued to

live in the Palace and was expelled at a much la ter period . Thisseems to b e the obvious inference from the da ta .

It is true tha t any one reading the chronic les of G enesios and

Simeon would infer that the expulsion of Theodora from the Palaceensued almos t immedia tely upon the fall of Theoktistos . G en. 90 Ka i.

nerd ,Bpaxi) rd. Ka rd r ij u Bia n c a/a v e

’

xr apdr r er a t OLO r ofi n aka r iov

égoo rpa KZCa-a r But the chronology of these writers is extremely

vague ; they furnish very few absolute dates, and they had no

precise information as to the intervals between events . Suchphrases as nerd fipaxu and nerd. ‘

lLt dV generally conceal theirignorance. Moreover, if we look more closely at the statements ofSimeon (Cont. Georg. we fi nd that they assume an interval(which may b e either short or long) between the murder of

Theoktistos and the expulsion of Theodora . (1) Michael tried to

pac ify his mother, who was irreconcilable then (2) he endeavouredto distress her : b e expelled three of his sisters to Karianos

,and

the youngest,Pulcheria, to the monastery of Gastria afterwards he

tonsured them all and confined them in Gastria . (3) He was

recognized by the Sena te as sole ruler, and created Bardas Domesticof the Schools . (4) He sent Theodora also to G astria. Althoughthis account is confused and cannot b e right in detail, yet it assumes

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A PPEND IX VI I I

THE WARFARE W ITH THE SARACENS IN A.D. 830-832

THE events and chronology of these years have been carefullystudied by Vasil’ev

,from the G reek and Arabic writers ; but he

was not acquainted with the original Syriac Chronicle ofMichaelSyrus

,knowing it only through the Armenian abbreviation and

the compila tion of Bar-Heb raeus,nor does he seem to have realised

its importance for the reign of Theophilus, and especially for thelast years of Mamun. Michael’s source was the lost Chronicle ofDionysios of Tell-Mahre

, the Monophysite Pa triarch of Antioch(A.D . 8 18 who was not only a contemporary but was a friendof Mamun and was with him at times during these years. He

visited the Caliph in his camp at Kasin in the autumn of A.D. 831

(Michael Syr. and accompanied him in the following Februaryto Egypt (ib. The evidence of Michael is therefore of the

highest importance .

It appears that in the spring of A D 830,Theophilus— with

Theophobos and his new Persamenian allies— crossed the mountainsand captured and burned the town of Zapetra, perhaps massacringmany of the inhabitants.

1 Mamun lost no time in re taliating.

In the same year,marching by Mosul

,Zeugma, Membij , and

1 This capture of Zapetra, not mentioned by the G reek writers, is rec ordedby M ichael Syr. 74, and must b e ac cepted.There is, however, some chronologicalc onfusion in this chapter of M ichael .Immediately after his notic e of the

ac c ession of Theophilus he records : (1 )without date

,the capture of Zapetra ;

(2 ) in the following year the revolt ofManuel, and Mamun

’

s c apture, in or afterJune,of four forts ; (3) inMay 1142 : 831,the siege of Lulon (4) in 1143= October831 to October 832, Mamun

’

s departurefor Damascus, on hearing that Egypthad revolted the capture of Lulouat this period the return of Manuel to

Theophilus the embassy of Theophilus

Mamun in C ilic ia ; further successes in

Romania. This brings us to the beginning of Ann. Sel. 1144= October 832.

It is c lear that the capture of the fourforts is here dated to the summer of 1141and Manuel ’s flight to the same year= October 829 to October 830. I t wouldfollow that the c apture of Zapetra fell in1140, t.e. before Oc tober 829, beforethe ac cession of Th eophilus. M ichaelhas introduced a superfluous year. The

true dates are : 114l = 830, capture of

Zapetra, and Mamun’

s capture of the

forts ; 1142 (after October 1, May,siege of Lulou, etc . (Michael dates bySeleuc id years, wh ich began onOc tober

AP P E ND IX 473

Antioch to Tarsus,he passed through the Cilic ian gates in July,

while his son Abbas,at the head of another force, advanced at the

same time fromMelitene to cross the eastern frontier. Theophilushimself had again taken the field with Manuel

,the most eminent

of his generals,and Theophob os, but w e have no intelligible account

of the military Opera tions, which seem to have been chiefly inCappadocia . Several G reek fortresses were captured

,

l includingKoron

,

2 from which Manuel was expelled, and a battle was

subsequently fought,in which Theophilus was defeated and barely

escaped with his life .

3

In the spring of the following year (A.D . Theophilusanticipated his enemies by invading Cilic ia, where he gained a

vic tory over an army of frontier troops, collec ted from the

fortresses of Tarsus, Adana, M 0psuestia, and Anazarbus.

4 Thissuccess he c elebra ted by a triumph .

If Theophilus was flushed with triumph at the success of his

raid,he may have desired that his own vic tory should termina te

the military Operations of the year ; it is said that he sent an

envoy with fi ve hundred captives as a peace-offering to the Caliph .

Mamun was already at Adana,preparing to retaliate, and the

embassy did not check his advance .

5 The ensuing campaign(from the beginning of July till end of September), like that ofthe year before

,seems to have been chiefly confined to Cappadocia .

Herac lea-Cybistra surrendered to the invaders without resistance,and then the Caliph divided his army . His son Abbas

,commanding

one of the divisions,captured some important forts,6 and won a

1 Th ese are named only in the Arabicsources (Vasil ’ev, 85-86) Maj id (perhapsnear Lulou ; ib. 85, n. Kurru (seenext note), Sundus, and Sinan. Vasil ’evwould identify Sundus with Soandos

(Nev Sheher) . These may be the “ fourfortresses ” mentioned by M ichael Syr.

ib . But Ib n-Kutaib a (2 ) mentions twoothers, B arshan and Shemal, evidentlyCharsianon and Semalouos. Yakubi (7 )also mentions Shemal. Semalouos wastaken by Harun after a long siege inA .D . 780 it was in the Armeniac Theme—a vague indication. The fort of Char

sianon is placed by Ramsay at Alaja on

the road between Euchaita and Tavion.

It was taken by the Saracens in 730. W e

see that the Romans had been successfulin rec overing positions east of the Halys

which they had lost in the eighth c entury.2 Kurru in theArab sources . Vasil ’ev ’eidentifi cationwith reKopay eu rfi Kan

-7m

dok lamentioned in Simeon (Cont. Georg . )is acceptable. Cp. Constantine, Them.

21 . It is supposed to be Viran Sheber,ruins south -east of Ah -sera i (Colonia

Archelais) , ontheoutskirts ofHassanDagh

(Mt.Argaios, thebeaconstation) : Ramsay,A sia M inor, 355 . Kurru was taken on

July 21 (Yakubi,whose text gives Ancyra,b ut must be c orrected from Ibn Kutaib a

2 and Tabari3 Vasil ’ev (P ril. ii. 133) places this in

the early part of the year.

4 The Sarac en armywas strongthe men of Irenopolis are alsomentioned.See Constantine

, Hepl r ag. 503. About1600 Moslems were slain according to

Tabari ; 2000 according to the anonymousauthor of the K itab d l-Uywn (Vasil ’ev,P ril . ThisMoslem defeat is ignoredby Michael .

5 Tabari,24 (but he does not relate the

story with c onfi dence), and Kitab al

Uyun. 108.

6 K itab al-Ug/un, ib . Cp. Vasil ’ev, 93.

Among the forts mentioned was Antigfi s,which Ramsay identifi es with Tyriaion(Asia M inor, south-west of Caesarea. It was called by the Greeks rer e’bur vpdw wv xdorpou (Leo. Diac . and

Vas il'ev suggests that Antigvls may b e an

474 EA S TE RN R OMAN EM P IRE

bat tle in which Theophilus himself was at the head of the Romanforces .

Mamun was at Kasin in September, where the Pa triarchDionysios met him

,and he retired for the w inter to Damascus .

Early in A .D . 832 he proceeded to Egypt to quell an insurrec tion,and was there from February 16 to April He returned rapidlyto renew the warfare in Asia Minor

,and must have reached Adana

early in May . The important event of this campaign was the

capture Of Lulon. Mamun besieged it in vain for one hundreddays then he instituted a blockade

,and entrusted the conduc t of

the Opera tions to U jaif ibn Ambas . The Romans had the luck tocapture this general, but Theophilus, who came to relieve the

fortress,was compelled to retire, without a bat tle

,by a Saracen

force,and the commander of Lulou negotia ted its surrender with

the captive U jaif.2The capture of Lulon is placed both by the Arabic historians

and by Michael (who does not give the details) in A.D . 832 . But

Michael also says that Mamun laid siege to Lulou in May, Ann.

Sel. 1 142 A.D . 83 1 . From his narrative we might infer that thesiege las ted a year. This is out of the question

,in view of the

o ther ev idence . We must therefore infer tha t in 83 1 Mamun,

who was in the neighbourhood of Lulon,since he took Heraclea

Cybistra,a t tacked Lulon unsuccessfully .

3

The da tes Of the flight and re turn Of Manuel and of the

Emperor’s overtures for peace remain to b e considered . The

references of the Arabic authorities to Manuel are as follows

1 . Yakubi, 7 , says that in A.D . 830 Mamun took “Ancyra

(error for Kurru Koron) and the patrician Manuel escapedfrom it.

”

2 . Tabari,24

,says tha t in A.D . 830 Manuel and Mamun

’

s son

Abbas metMamun at Resaina,before the campaign. There seems

to b e an error here,for, as Brooks has pointed out

,Mamun did

not go near Resaina (B .Z. x .

If we are to reconc ile the sta tement of Yakubi with the G reek ‘

sources,Manuel must have fled after the capture Of Koron (July ,

830 : Tabari,

Arabic translation (thaghiye, ‘tyrant was taken in A.D . 831 (Tabari, It

Another of the forts taken by Abbas was was fortifi ed by Abbas in 833 (to. 27Kasin

,an underground stronghold, in cp. M ichael, For the embassy to

the plainwhich stretches south ofSoandos Adana see Tabari, 24, and Kitab d l

to Sasima. The road through this plain Ug/un, 108.

passes Malakopaia. Underground habi 1 Yakubi, 7.

tations are a feature of the district. See 2 0

Ramsay, to. 356 he has pointed out that108

16° 8 Tabar1, 25 Katab d l Uy1m ,

Kasin is the same name as Kases, a Turmain the Cappadocian Theme.

3 M ichael, 74. The Kitab dl-Uyun

Yakubi (p . 7) says that twelve strong describes the capture of Lulom bef oreplaces and many subterranean abodes the expedition to Egypt, misdating the

(podzemnie-metamir ) were taken. Tyana latter by a year.

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476 EAS TE RN ROMAN EM P IRE

helped to prepare for the return of Manuel,it supplies a consider

able support for the view of Brooks as to the da te of tha t officer’sflight and return. John may have afterwards ac ted as envoy toMamun when he was in Syria

,and the two missions may have

been confounded.

I have assumed throughout that this Manuel is identical withthe uncle Of Theodora, though some modern writers distinguishthem. Manuel the general was protostrator under M ichael I .

,

and stra tegos Of the Armeniacs under Leo V. (Cont. Th. He

was of Armenian race (ib. and so was Manuel, Theodora’

s

uncle (ib. The lat ter,at the death of Theophilus, had the

rank Of magister ; and Simeon, Cont. Georg. 798, states that theformer was created magister and Domestic Of the Schools after hisreturn. These coinc idences point clearly to identifica tion. The

difficulty lies in another statement of Simeon that Manuelwas wounded in saving the life of Theophilus and died . Thismust b e rejec ted

,and w e may set against it the sta tement of

Michael Syr. (113) tha t after the death of Theophilus Manuel was

appointed general-in-chief Of the army . Brooks also contends forthe identity (B .Z. x . 543

,n .

Three other embassies from Theophilus to Mamun in A.D .

831-832 are mentioned by the Arabic historians. (1) The embassy,referred to above

,which found Mamun at Adana

,before his

summer campaign in A.D . 831 . (2) An embassy towards the close

of this campaign, while Mamun was still in Cappadocia ; see

above, p. 473 . The envoy was a bishop . Vasil’

ev thinks he wasJohn the G rammarian (who was not a bishop yet), and that thisembassy to Mamun

’

s camp was the historical basis for the Greektradition . This cannot b e the complete explanation ; but it ispossible that John was the envoy, and a confusion between thisand his former embassy might have helped to lead to the chronological errors in the G reek sources . (3) The third embassy was

in AH . 2 17 February 7, 832, to January 26,833, ac cording to

Tabari,and this harmonises with the date ofMichael, who, clearly

meaning the same negotiation,refers it to 1143 October 831 to

September It was after the fall of Lulon, probably a conse

quence of that event ; and if Vasil’

ev is right in calcula ting tha tLulou did not surrender before September the embassy mustfall in September.

1ram to. 110, in the text, order cannot b e pressed.

is a mistake for ’

Apaewax6w.

3 Mamun,leaving Egypt in April , can

2 M ichael, if we take the order of his hardly have reached the Cilic ian gatesnarrative as chronological here, would before May 1 Mamun

’

s siege lastedimply that it was earlier than September, one hundred days, which brings us to c .

for after notic ing the embassy he records August 1 , and the blockade at least athat Mamun took several fortresses and month (ac cording to Yakubi and Kitabin September retired to Kasin. But the a l-Uyun b ut otherwise Tabari ) .

AP P END IX 477

I must finally no tice a c lear c ontradic tion be tween Michaeland the Arabic chronicles as to the beginning of Mamun

’

s campaignin 83 1 . Michael says tha t he invaded Romania in the month of

May ; Tabari says tha t he entered Roman territory on July 4.

As Michael’s source is of higher authority,we should accept it .

We must therefore infer tha t the invasion of Cilicia by Theophiluswas in April and early par t Of May.

A PPEND IX IX

THE REVOLT OF EUPHEMIOS

THE sources for this episode are

(1) Greek.

—Theognostos, a contemporarywriter. His historicalwork, of which we do not know the charac ter or compass

,is lost

,

but the story of Euphemios in Cont. Th. is based upon it : p . 82

OnAOZ83r a iir a o a cfiéa r ar a Ka i wha rmcfir epov rj r ér e 7paqfie'

w a Oeoyva’

xr r cp

rqii wept Opeoypagbia s yeypaqfidr t Ka i ( is xei’

pa g G’

AOOOO'

G. 75v ( iio r opia

or xpovoypa¢id > iju d ,BOUAO/xevos ,

uer axetpzfd/Levos rd Ka 9’

3Ka<f r ov

dva 8c8axdfio em i . From this,the only notice of Theognostos as a

historian,we infer tha t he gave a detailed account of the incidents

,

of which the passage in Cont. Th. is an abridgment . The work on

Or thography, which w e could well spare,is preserved, and has been

published by Cramer (Anecd. Graec. ii. 1 It is dedicated to theEmperor L eo

r tp demrdry y

ou Ka i. (rogbq) a r ecfindpq)Aéovr c r tp Kpar ovvr l. wdvrwv e

’

u Adj /0 4.8,

a tribute which seems distinc tly more appropriate to Leo VI . thanto Leo V. But

,according to Cont. Th. ,

the author was a contemporary of Euphemios and

,if so

,the Emperor can only b e Leo V.

(so Villoison,Krumbacher,Vasil

’

ev Hirsch leans to L eo VI .

,p.

I am inclined to suspec t tha t Theognostos the historian was a

different person from Theognostos the grammarian, and tha t theContinua tor of TheOph . confounded them. I fi nd it hard to believetha t L eo of the dedication is not L eo the W ise .

(2) Arabia — Ibn al-Athir ; Nuwairi.

(3 ) La tin— Traditions preserved in South I taly ChroniconSalernitanum Joannes diaconus Neapolitanus.

There are many difliculties in connexion with the revolt . The

following points may b e noticed .

( I ) The date of the rebellion is given by Ibn al-Athir as A.H .

2 11 A.D . 826,April 13, to 827 , April 1 . According to him,

in thisyear the Emperor appointed the patrician Constantine governor of

Sicily,and Constantine named Euphemios commander of the fleet.

Euphemios made a successful descent on Africa,and then the

478

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480 EAS TE RN R OMAN E M P IRE

There is no evidence that he had held this post or been a turmarch

before the governorship Of Photeinos. Now Theognostos (Cont. Th. )speaks of him as contrac ting the marriage when he was turmarch(r ovppdxpns f eMlv) , and the story as told by Cont. Th. does not

‘

contemplate any considerable lapse of time between the marriage

and its consequences. Of course this is not conclusive,Cont. Th.

,in

abridging, may have foreshortened the chronology. Still, takingthe evidence such as it is, no chronological difficulty is involved ifw e assume that Euphemios married the nun after his appointmentto the command of the fleet . We may suppose that Photeinosarrived in Sic ily

,and appointed Euphemios turmarch, and that

Euphemios married Homoniza,in spring 826 that her brothers at

once sailed for Constantinople there is then,in the early summer

,

time for dispatch of the Emperor’s let ter to Photeinos, and for theexpedition of Euphemios in the late summer and autumn

,for

the warfare between Photeinos and Euphemios, and then betweenEuphemios and Palata .

I do not put forward this v iew with any confidence,but merely

as a tenable interpretation of the evidence. But the fac t tha t it isa tenable (and perhaps the less unlikely) interpretation is important .For it shows tha t w e have no ground to conjec ture that Euphemiosplayed any leading part in the island before A.D. 826. He had

,

doubtless,distinguished himself as an Officer ; to this he owed his

appointment by Photeinos. But there is no reason to suppose thathe was marked out as a politically dangerous person.

(4) The Arabic writers give Balata as the name of the adherentof Euphemios, who turned against him. (Euphemios) nominateda man named Balata as governor over a part of the island and he

opposed Euphemios and rebelled and he and his cousin,by name

Michael,the governor of Palermo, joined together

”

(Ibn al-Athir,

apud Vasil’

ev,

As p is often represented by b inArabic reproduc tions Of G reek names, it is probable that Balata representsPalat ; and it looks as if the source of Ibn al-Athir had taken a

title of office or dignity for a personal name. Gab otto suggested(28) that the person in question had been created curopalates byEuphemios ; but we need not go further than to say tha t he wasprobably invested with a palatine dignity .

It is not proved (as Gab otto assumes,and apparently Vasil’ev

,

60) that Palata’

e cousin Michael was at first a supporter of

Euphemios. Ibn al-Athir does not say so. It is quite as likelythat he had remained inac tive, and then induced his cousin to

change sides.

The speculation of Gab otto tha t this Michael is identical withthe Michael who was stra tegos of Sicily in 803, and that Palata isthe same as Gregory who was stra tegos in 813, has no evidence or

probability and has rightly been rejec ted by Vasil’ev (60

APPEND IX X

PRESIAM,MALA MIR

THE suc cession of the Bulgarian sovrans between Omurtag and

Boris (whose date of accession has been fixed by Zla tarski to A .D .

85 2) is a problem which has not been sa tisfac torily c leared up.

Theophylactus, the Bulgarian archbishop of Ochrida (in the

eleventh century) , is the only writer who furnishes any con

nected ac count of the suc cession Of the kings . It is evidentfrom the details which he gives in his Historia marlgrii s o.

marigram tha t he had a source Of informa tion otherwise lost,and

I suspec t tha t it was a hagiographical work —a Vita. Cinarnonis

(cp. above,p . 382

,n. He states (p. 193) that Omurtag had three

sons, (the eldest), and MaAAopnypds

‘ tha t thelas t-named suc ceeded his fa ther (d; 87) Ka i r oii 7ra rpOs dwek knpaiGr)dpxfi), and put to death Enrab otas

,who had been converted to

Christianity . The nex t ruler,

after Malamir,was Boris

,whom

Theophylactus designates as the son of Zvenitsa Thus,

according to him,there was only one reign

,tha t Of Malamir

,

between the death Of Omurtag and the ac cession Of Boris .

It was long ago recognised tha t the MaAAO/rq s of TheOphylactus was identical with the BaASZnep or BAadZ/Lep whom Simeon

mentions in his account of the return of the G reek captives (seeabove, p . 369, n. a passage from which it can b e inferred thathe was on the throne c. A.D . 836—837 .

In recent years, the G reek inscriptions of Bulgaria thrownew light on this Khan, and show tha t the form of the name

given by Theophylactus is nearly right . The name in the inscriptions is Mahaprjp.

If our evidence were confined to these da ta,there w ould b e no

problem. But (I ) Constantine, De adm. imp. 154,mentions

Hpeo td/L as the Bulgarian king who, before Boris, made war on

Servia, and says tha t he was the fa ther of Boris,and (2) we have

a fragmentary inscription (from Philippi) , evidently of this1 He says that M . was suc ceeded by the son of Z.,

and then goes on to speakof B . as 6 gnfi els Bwpians.

482 EA S TERN R OMAN E M P IRE

period,in which the name of the ruler (6 3K Gem? dpxwv) seems

to end in — a vos (GI G. iv . and the kaukhan Isbules

(known o therwise from inscriptions Of Malamir) is mentioned .

Zla tarski (Izo. za Belg v Khron. 49 ) combines these data, supplyingin the inscription the name Hpem ]o€vos, for which he refers to

Skylitzes (Cedrenus, ii. 5 7 4) Hpovo-wivov, Where a Vienna MS .

gives Hpeam dvov (B. Prokié,Die Zusatze in der H3. des Joh. Skylitzes,

cod. Vind. hist. Gr. lxxiv . p. 36) Observing that Constantine’

s

HpeO'wi/l. for Hpecrw

i

v is parallel to the alternation Mappia rjvMappia rj/J. in the same trea tise

Jireé’

ek (Geschichie, 170) had conjec tured tha t Presiam and

Malamir were one and the same person ; but Zlatarski distinguishesthem, and regards Presiam as the suc cessor of Malamir . He

places the ac cession of the former in A.D . 836-837, finding an

intimation Of a change on the throne at this time in Simeon’

s

chronicle (vers. Slav. 102, L eo Gr. where Malamir

is first mentioned, and then suddenly,without

explanation,Michael (i.e. Boris) . He supposes that Michael is an

error for his father Presiam. It is Obvious,however, tha t this

argument has little weight .In favour Of the v iew tha t Malamir and Presiam are different

persons is (1) the fac t tha t Presiam,according to Constantine

Porph . loo. cii.,

was fa ther Of Boris, while according to

Theophylactus, loc cit,Zvenitsa was father of Boris ; if both

s tatements are true,Presiam was identical with Zvenitsa

,and

therefore distinc t from Z.

’

s brother Malamir ; (2) the difficulty of

supposing that in the inscriptions the same ruler is designatedsometimes as Mahapnjp, sometimes as —a vos.

On the o ther hand, it is not easy to believe tha t if,during the

period between Omurtag’

s death (at earliest 827 ) and 852,

there were two khans,of whom one (Malamir) reigned at most

ten years,and the other

,Presiam

,fifteen years, the longer reign

should have been completely ignored by Theophylactus .

But the important Shumla inscription (Aboba, whichZlatarski claims for P resiam

,has still to b e considered. The

khan,for whom this stone was inscribed

,designa tes Krum as

my grandfa ther 1and Omurtag as my father.

” 2 It seems to

record an invasion of G reek territory by Malamir with the

kaukhan Isbules, and the natural interpretation is tha t the

monument was inscribed for Malamir. But Zla tarski (op. cit. 5 1)holds that the warlike Operations were conduc ted by P resiam

,not

by Malamir. Having stated tha t Omur tag made peace and lived

1 l . 1 . I would restore 6,uéya s]

'

Q,uovprdy . That Omurtag

’

s

dpx(wv) 6 Kpofiuos b 7rd1r1ros pov peb name must b e supplied here followsa verb . from the beginning of l . 3 camp/nu r e

2 l . 2. I read m l 6 r arhp ,uov 6 wocfio

'

a s.

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484 EA S TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE

his uncle) . The fragmentary inscription of Philippi cannot countlargely in the question ; but if Zlatarski’s plausible restora tion isright, it may b e supposed that Presiam or Presian adopted thename Malamir at a late period of his reign, perhaps in connexionw ith the extension Of his power (which Zla tarski has madeprobable) over the western Slavs. As the inscription is probablynot prior to A .D . 847, it would b e one of the last monuments Of

Malamir under his earlier name .

APPENDIX X I

ON SOME OF THE SOURCES FOR THE H ISTORY OF CONSTANTINE

AND METHODIUS

(See Bibliography I . 4a )

I . FOR Constantine the Philosopher the most trustwor thy witnesswe have is his contemporary Anastasius, the librarian, who wrotethe la ter biographies in the Liber P ontifi calis and transla ted the

chronicle of Theophanes . Anastasius had not only the advantageof knowing G reek, but he was personally acquainted withConstantine . Unfortuna tely the three texts Of Anastasius whichw e possess tell us nothing of his work as an apostle to the Slavs .

Before 1892 only two brief no tices by this writer,relating to

Constantine were known,namely

, ( 1) P raef. 6, where he recordsConstantine s opposition to Pho tius concerning the doc trine of the

two souls and (2) a letter to Charles the Ba ld (87 5 where hementions tha t Cons tantinus philosophus vir magnus et apostolicaevitae praeceptor knew the writings of Dionysius the Areopagiteby heart

,and used to recommend them as an armoury against all

heresies further,tha t Constantine came to Rome in the pontifi cate

of Hadrian and restored the body Of St. Clement to his see .

(3) In 189 2 a more important document, a letter of Anastasiusto Gauderic

,bishop of Velletri

,was published by J . Friedrich in

the SE . of the Bavarian Academy,Hist . kl. , 189 2 . The original

is in a fourteenth-century MS . (cod. 205 ) of the library ofAlcobazaat Lisbon

,and a copy made by Heine (ob. 1848) passed with o ther

papers into the hands Of Dollinger,in whose possession it

remained,apparently unexplored, till it was edited by Friedrich

after his dea th .

The subjec t of this let ter is St . Clement,to whom the Church

of Velle tri was dedicated . Gauderic , since the recovery of the

relics,was interested in promo ting the cul t of the saint

,to whom

he built an ora tory in Rome,spending all his wealth on the work.

He commit ted to a deacon named Johannes the task of writingthe saint’s biography and in addition to the La tin ma terial

486 EAS TE RN R O/WAN EM P IRE

(dioersoru/m Laiinormn oolumiria) he desired to make use of anyG reek sources tha t might b e a vailable

,and for this purpose had

applied to Anastasius asking him to transla te into Latin any suchdocuments . Anas tasius

,in response, transla ted two works of

“

Constantine rela ting to the discovery Of the relics namely,a brief

history of the discovery (breois historia, storiaio ), and a rhetoricalAo

’

yos (sermo declamaiorius) . The letter preserved at L isbon is thecovering letter. Anastasius mentions tha t Constantine also com

posed a hymn c elebrating St . Clement, but he refrained fromtransla ting it as he could not reproduc e the metre and harmony of

the original.

But he also records the story of Constantine’s discovery of the

relic s near Cherson,which b e derived from M etrophanes, bishop of

Smyrna,who had been banished to Cherson as an opponent Of

Photius,and had heard a legend current there as to the c ircum

stances Of the discovery . Anastasius was in Constantinople at the

time Of the Eighth Council, and had quest ioned Metrophanes

(cw iose scisciiantibus) on the mat ter .

The biography of Clement was completed, and Gaudericdedica ted it to POpe John VIII . In the letter of dedication(A .S. March 9

,t . ii. 15) he explains its arrangement in three

Books,and we learn tha t Book 3 contained the story of O.

’

s exileand martyrdom and reversionis eius ad propriam sedem miracula .

”

Now we possess a document entitled Vita cum translatione

S . Clementis,which its Bollandist editor, Henschen,

considered to

b e that portion of G auderic’

s Book 3 which dealt with the

discovery and transla tion of the relics The letter Of

Anastasius to G auderic has been taken to confirm Henschen’

s

conj ec ture ; and it certainly pro ves a c lose connexion betweenthis document and Gauderie’s work . The na ture and extent of

this connexion are debatable.

The Translatio,which is reprinted in the works Of G inzel,

B il’

basov,G oe tz

,and Pastrnek, is often called the Legends I ialica .

I t may b e described as a Life of Constantine,but its interest in

Constantine is due to his connexion w ith the relics of St . Clement .H ismissions to the Khazars and theMoravians are subordina ted tothe Clement-motif, and are only introduced to supply the necessaryset ting and explana tions .

Now in c c . 2 and 3 Of the Translatio we fi nd tha t the com

munications of Anastasius to G auderic have been utilised ; the

occurrence of the same expressions puts this beyond a ll doubt .We must

,therefore, infer tha t the Biography written by G auderic

(or, more strictly,by Johannes) was a source Of the Transl. , if the

Transl. is not a part of it . Different v iews have been maintained .

Jagié has contended that the whole Transl. could not have beeninc luded in the Biography, b ut only the episode Of the discovery

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488 EA S TE RN ROM AN EM P IRE

liturgy against the G reeks, by disciples Of M ethodius, who utilisedfac ts which they had learned from him. The Lives w ere also

intended to serve theological instruc t ion ; to teach the Bulgariansmethods of apologetic and controversy (against Jews, Saracens,and the L atin Church) . We cannot regard as historical the

disputations (in with John the ex-Patriarch or w ith the

Mohammadans and the arguments against the Jews and Khazarsare the work Of the biographer. Bruckner dwells on what hecalls schematism in the missions to the Mohammadans, the

Khazars,and the Moravians in each case Constantine is repre

sented as being sent by the Emperor. The Mohammadan episodeis unhistorical

,the others are historical but the part assigned to

the Byzantine government is probably a misrepresentation Of fac t .But incidental bits of information

,not necessary to the w riter’s

pragmatical purposes,

are t rustworthy with some reservations .

We may ac cept the statement about the parentage of the apostles,

the patronage accorded to Constantine by the logothete(Theoktistos) , his appointment as librarian of the Patriarch. His

friendship with Photius is known from Anastasius. If he was

appointed librarian by Photius, the da te could not b e earlier than85 9

,and it would follow that, if the order of events in V.C’. is

correc t,the visit to the Khazars could hardly have been earlier

than 860. But we can hardly accept the statement tha t he waseducated with the son Of Theophilus

,for he was at least ten years

older than Michael III .

1

1 Leger (Cyri lle etMethode, 58) sug meant. But his death occurred fargests that Constantine, the Emperor ’s too early to suit the dates implied byson who died in childhood

,may b e the narrative in

APPEND IX X I I

THE MAGYARS

1 . Date of the Second Magyar M igration (to Atelkuzu)

WESTBERG has put forward a new view as to the da te of the

migra tion of the Hungarians to Atelkuzu (in K anal. ii. 49-5 1)which he places 0. A.D . 825 . H is argument is based on a passagein Constantine

,De adm. imp. 175 , relating to the four sons and four

grandsons Of Arpad . The descent may conveniently b e representedin a table.

Salmutzes (Almus)

Tarkatzus Ielekh Iutotzas Zaltas

Tebeles Ezelekh

Termatzus

When Constantine was writing (A.D . 950 Phalitz is was

the Hungarian king (r bv vvvl dpxovr a ) , Teb eles was dead, and hisson Termatzus was adul t and had recently visited Cons tantinople onan embassy (6 dpr t

’

ws aveaeav qtiAog mistranslated by Westberg,as

by most o thers) . 1 Westberg infers that Teb eles died not laterthan 945

,and that the surviving grandsons of Arpad

,Phalitz is

and Taxis,

2 were advanced in years . Reckoning thirty years to

a genera tion,he goes on to place the death Of Tarkatzus about

9 15, tha t of Arpad c. 885

,tha t Of Salmutzes c. 85 5 . At the time

of the eleva tion of Arpad,Salmutz es was alive and considered (by

L eb edias) c apable of ruling the Magyar nation. Therefore the

elec tion of Arpad mus t belong to the second quarter of the ninthcentury

,not la ter than A .D . 850. But the migra tion to Atelkuzu

oc curred not long before Arpad’

s elec tion (De adm. imp. 16914) so

1 I have pointed this out in B .Z. xv. who , he thinks, was the eldest son of

562. Arpad (B .Z. vi. 587 But the passage2 I assume that Taxis and Tasés are implies that Teses has been already men

the same. Pec z, however, has conjectured tioned, and the identifi cation with Taxisthat Teses was a son of Liuntis or Levente, seems inevitable .

490 EAS TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE

the presence of the Magyars in Atelkuzu covers the period fromapproxima tely 825 to

This argumenta tion carries no convic tion. We can readilyaccept 885 as the approxima te date of Arpad

’

s death,for c. 889

‘

his son L evente (who is not mentioned in this passage) was king.

But this does not necessitate the inferenc e that Arpad was electedbefore 850

, or even before 860. Suppose that he was six ty yearsold when he died then he would have been born in 825 . Supposetha t Salmutzes

,his father, was then twenty e five years old

,he would

have been sixty,a b odrii starik,” in 860. This hypothesis

,which

might .b e varied (there is no reason to suppose that Arpad was oldwhen he died ; he may have been much younger than sixty), issufficient to show that Westberg’s reasoning is arbitrary

,and tha t

the data admit of no such conc lusion as he draws.

Our fixed date ante guem for the first migra tion of the Magyarsis A .D . 862

,the year in which they invaded the empire of the

Franks,for it is improbable that this invasion was undertaken

before they had se t tled west of the Dnieper. Our fixed date postgnem is the time of the visit Of Constantine the Philosopher to

Cherson and the Khazars,which we can only define approximately

as before A .D . 863 (see above,p. At tha t time, as w e learn

from the Vita Constantini,the Magyars were still in the neighb our

hood of the Crimea . Although there are many unhistorical de tailsin this Vita

,the episode Of the Hungarians evidently preserves a

genuine fac t, for when the Vita was writ ten the Hungarians werefar away

,and no inventor Of fic tion would have dreamed Of

introducing them on the scene . Westberg (ih. 5 1) admits the

genuineness Of the notice, but seems to think ,that the Hungarians

invaded the Crimea from Atelkuzu . This is possible,but less

probable ; once they left their Old seats,they were not likely to

return across the Dnieper and trespass on the hunting grounds Ofthe Patzinaks

,whom they dreaded .

As the mission Of Constantine was probably about A. .D 860,

we can deduce A.D . 860 861 as a probable da te for the firsthistorical migration Of the Magyars . Their second migra tion, totheir abiding home

,oc curred about 895 , so that their period in

Atelkuzu was about forty years. The elec tion of Arpad may b e

placed roughly abou t A.D . 860.

The appearance Of the Magyars west of the Dnieper c. A.D . 837

(see above, p. 37 1 ) proves only tha t, as we should expec t, they madepredatory expeditions into Atelkuzu long before they oc cupied it .

2 . Date of the First Magyar M igration (to Lebedia)

The question of the da te of the migration of the Magyars intotheir earlier home between the Don and Dnieper is

.

more difficult.

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3 . The names Magyar, Hungarian, Turk

While they were in L eb edia,the Hungarians seem already to

,

have called themselves Magyars, for they were known by thisname to an Arabic writer (before A.D . who reproduced it asBazhghar (cp. Marquart

,op. cit. In their own anc ient

chronic les the name appears as Mogor. It is obviously identicalwith the name of one Of their tribes, the Meyépn, mentioned byConstantine .

2 We may conjec ture that this was the tribe Of

which Leb edias was chieftain,and that his pre-eminence was the

cause Of its becoming a name for the na tion.

To the Slavs and Latins,the Magyars were known by the

more c omprehensive name of the Ugrian race,to which they

belonged : Ungri, whence Hangari and the G reek chronicle, whichdescribes their appearance west of the Dnieper in the reign of

Theophilus,likewise calls them Ofiyypm (Add. George But

this designa tion in a G reek writer of the ninth and tenth centuriesis exceptional, for the G reeks regularly applied to them the termTofipxoc, and even in this passage they are also called Tofipxo c ?’and Ofivvo i . Why did the G reeks call them Turks ? The simplestanswer is that the name came into use after the union of the

Magyars with the Kabars who were Turks.

Marquart has put forward an ingenious but hardly convincingexplana tion of ToiipKOL. He identifies it w ith the

’

Itpxa i Of

Herodotus 4. 22,who seem to appear in Pliny, vi. 19, as Tyrcae, and

in Pomponius Mela,i. 1 16, as Tnrcae. He supposes that Iurkai

is the same word as Iugra, Ugrian, with meta thesis of r,that the

word afterwards acquired an initial t in Scythian dialec ts, and thatthe G reeks borrowed it from the Alans as a designa tion of the

Magyars (op. cit. 5 4 sqq. ) before their union with the Kabars.

According' to this theory

,the Turks are false “ Turks

,

”and the

Magyars are true “ Turks,

according to the original denotationof the name ; in fac t, the Ugrian name

,in its Scythian form,

came

in the course Of history to b e transferred from the Ugrian to theTuranian race.

1 The Arabs used the same name todesignate the Bashkirs, and this led to

confusions,for which see Marquart, 69

and 515 .

2 It has been supposed that Mdfapocin Const. De adm. i/mp . 16410 means

Magyars ; so Hunfalvy, Roesler . The

Patz inaks are said to have had as theirneighbours, when they dwelled betweenthe Volga and Ural (Pefix) , r obs r e

Ma'

g‘

dpovs Ka i r obs érrovouaf‘

onévovs 0652The context, however, renders it highly

improbable that these Mdfapoi are the

same as the Tofipxoc (Magyars) who are

mentioned a few lines below. Some

eastern people is meant— I suspect theBashkirs, who lived betweenthe Patzinaksand the Bulgarians of the Kama . Probably we should read Bag‘dpovs (an instanc eof the frequent c onfusion of

,u. and ,8 in

eleventh-century3 But this does not prove that the

Greeks called them ToUpKOi in the reign

of Theophilus (as Marquart argues, p .

B IBL IOGRAPHY

THE following list includes most of the works cited in the notes Of th isvolume. T hose whi ch it omits are referred to seldom or do not beardirectly on the period . The follow ing abbreviations are usedActa Sanctorum (Boll) ; B .Z. Byzantinische Zeitschrift ; E.H .R. EnglishH istorical Review ; Izv . Kpl. = Izviestiia russkago arkheologicheskago

Ins tituta v Konstantinopolie ; of Hellenic S tud ies ;Germanias h istorica ; Mansi = Mansi

,Sacrorum

conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio ; M igne = M igne, PatrologiaG raeco-Latina (M igne, Latina) ; SB .

= Sitzungsb erichte ;Sbo rnik Sbornik za narodnago umotvoreniia nauka i knizhnina (Sofia)Viz . Vrem.

= Vizantiiski Vremennik ; Zapiski imp. Ah . nauk = Zapiski

imperatorskoi Akademii nauk (St. Petersburg) ; Zhurn. min. n.p.

Zhurnal ministerstva narodnago prosvieshcheniia.

In some cases I have added references to other editions than thosefrom which I cite, for the convenience of readers to whom they mayhappen to be more accessible.

I . SOURCES

1 . GENERAL

Acta Concili i A.D . 8 1 5 .— Les Actes du concile iconoclaste de l’an 8 15 .

Ed. D. Serruys. Mélanges d’archéologie et d

’histoire (Ecole

francaise de Rome), x xiii. 346 sgg. Paris,Rome

, 19 03 .

Ac ta Conc . viii — Acta Concilii generalis viii . Constantinopolitani

Mansi, xvi. 308 sqq.

Anonymi chronograph ia syntomos e cod ice Matritensi NO. 12 1 (nuncEd . A Bauer. Leipzig, 19 09 .

Anonymus. De StaurOpatis. Mansi, xvi . 44 1 sqq.

Cedrenus, George. ia r opufw. Vol . ii . Ed . Bekker. Bonn,

1 839 .

Constantine, Cer. ; Constantine,II epi r ag— Constantinus Porphyro

genitus, vol. i. [De cerimoniis,

and IIepi rdiv,Bac miiv

r a§ecdiwv= Appendix ad lib rum primum]. Ed. Bekker. Bonn,

1829 .

Constantine, Them Cons tantine, De adm . imp— Constantinus Porphyro

493

494 EA S TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE

genitus, vol . iii . [De thematibus, and De administrando imperio] .Ed. Bekker . Bonn

,1840.

Cont. Th .— Theophanes continuatus. Ed. Bekker. Bonn

,18 38 .

’

E7rapxu< 61f ,BLBM

'

OV. Ed. N icole. G eneva,189 3 .

G en— G enesios. Baa-M eia i . Ed. Lachmann. Bonn,1834 .

Ep istola synodica Orientalium ad Theophilum imperatorem de cultu se.

imaginum. M igne, 9 5 , 345 sqq.

G eorge.— Georgius Monachus. Chronikon . Ed. C. de Boor. 2 vols.

Leipzig, 1 9 04 . The interpolated Chronicle,with its continua

tion,ed. Muralt

,Petersburg, 18 59 ; the latter part, ed. Bekker

(with Cont. Th.,

S ee under Simeon.

Ignatius d iaconus. Epistola e. Ed. M . G edeon,

under the title[Oeo cpa vovs N LKa ia s] errw r oAa i. Néa BLBALOGfiK

‘

l)e’

KKAnO'

i ao r i v (rvyypa cpewv, i . I . Constantinople,1903 .

[For the true authorsh ip see Pargoire, Viz . Vrem. x . 633 sq.

Lib ellus Ign. Ignatius patriarche . Lib ellus (written by Theo

gnostos) . M ans i, xvi . 29 6 sqq.

Kasia. Ed. Krumbacher . Munich,189 7 .

Leo G ramm .— Leo grammaticus.

t

H r u'

iv ve'

wv flao'ikéwv xpovoypa clu

'

a .

Ed. Bekker (pp . 207 Bonn, 1 842 .

Methodius monachus. De schismate vitando. M igne, 140, 7 8 1 sqq.

Methodius patriarcha. Epistola ad H ierosolymorum patriarcham .

Pitra,Iuris ecclesiastici G raecorum h istoria et monumenta, ii.

3 5 5 sqq. Rome,1868 .

”Exdea i s 7repi r d

’

md.yi eixd v,ih. 3 5 7 sqq.

Epistola adv. Studites. Migne, 100, 12 9 3 sqq. (See also Pitra,

ib. 36 1

Metrophanes. Epistola ad Manuelem logothetam. Mansi, xvi . 4 13 sqq.

Narratio de ss. patriarch ie Teresio et N icephoro . M igne, 9 9 , 1849 sqq.

(Also Mai,Spicilegium Romanum

,v ii . xxix sqq. and Goaf s com

mentary on Theophanes, ed. Bonn, ii . 5 5 7 sqq. )Naukratios. Encyclica de Obita S . Theodori Studitae . Migne, 9 9

,

1825 sqq.

Nicephorus patriarcha. (1) Opera (including Apologeticus, and threeAntirrhetici) . M igne, 100. (2) Other Antirrhetics in Pitra

,

Spicilegium Solesmense,i . 302 sqq. iv. 233 sqq.

Petrus Siculus . H istoria Manichaeorum. Ed. G ieseler. G ottingen,1 846 . (Also in Migne,

Philotheos. Klétorologion. Ed. Bury. Supplemental Papers of BritishAcademy

,1. 19 1 1 . (Also in Constantine, De cerimoniis

supra ], ii. cc . 5 2 and

Photius. Epistolae. (1 ) Ed. Valettas. London,1864 . (Also in

M igne, (2) Sanctissimi Patriarchae Photii, arch iepiscopiConstantinopoleos ep istolae x1v. e codd . M ontis Atb o. Ed .

Papadopulos-Kerameus. Petersburg, 189 6 .

Opera . M igne, 101-104 . 1860.

Monumenta G raeca ad Photium eiusque h istoriam pertinentia. Ed .

HergenrOther. Regensburg, 1869 .

Contra Manichaeos. In Migne, 102 .

https://www.forgottenbooks.com/join

EAS TE RN R OM AN EM P IR E

im. Ed. V. Vasil’evsk i and P . Nikitin. Zapishi imp. Ak. nauk

,

viiie ser. v ii. 2 , 19 05 .

Grecheskii tekst zhitiia soroka dvukh Amornskikh muchenikov.

Ed. A. Vasil’ev. Zapiski imp. Ak. nauk, viii° sér. iii. 3

,189 8 .

Krumb acher,K. Die Erzahlungen uber die 42 Martyrer von

Amorion und ihre Liturgie. (Review of the publication of

Vasil’evski and Nikitin.) GOttingsche gel. Anz.,1905

,no. 12

, p.

9 3 7 sqq.

v a vr w bv’

Eopr oA6~

yiov. Ed . Gedeon. Constantinople, 189 9 .

Narratio de Theophili imperatorie ab solutione. See below, Vita

Theodorae Aug.

Synaxarium Ecclesiae Constantinopolitanae. Ed. Delehaye. Propylaeumad Acta Sanctorum Novemb ris. Brussels

,1902 .

Vita Athanasiae Aegineticae. A.S. August 14, t. iii. 170 sqq.

Vita Eudocimi. Bios r oii dyiov Ka i. Sak a iov Efidoxipov. Ed. Kh . Loparev.

Petersburg, 189 3 . Latin version in (1) A S. July 3 1,t. vii.

308 sqq. ; (2) Symeon M etaphr.

,M igne, 1 15 , 487 sqq.

Vita Eustratii. Ed. Papadopulos-Kerameus. Analecta H ierosolymiticae

Bibliothecae, iv. 367 sqq.,189 7.

Vita Euthymii junioris. By Basil of Thessalonica. Ed. L. Petit.Revue de l’orient chrétien

,viii. 15 5 sqq.

, 1903 .

Vita G regorii Decapolitae. Ed. Ioannu, Mvnlue’

ia dyi okoyixd, 129 sqq.

Venice, 1884 .

Vita Hadriani (I I . ) papac . Mansi,xv . 805 sqq.

Vita Ignatii patriarches. By N icetas Paphlagon. Mansi, xvi.

209 sqq. (Also M igne, 105 , 488 sqq.)Vita Irenes. A.S. July 28, t. vi. 602 sqq.

Vita Joannicii. By Sabas. Ed. van den Gheyn. A.S . Nov. 4,t. ii. 1,

332 sqq., 189 4.

By Petrus. Ed van den G heyn. I b. 384 sqq.,189 4.

(By Simeon metaphrastes .) M igne, 1 16, 3 5 sqq.

Vita Joannis,episcopi Gotth iae. A S. June 26, t. v. 19 0 sqq.

Vita Joannis Psichiotae. Ed. P . van den Ven. Muséon, nouv. ser. iii.

9 7 sqq.

,1902 .

Vita Joseph i hymnograph i. I . By T heophanes. Ed. PapadopulosKerameus, in Sb ornik grecheskikh i latinskikh pamiatnikov

kasaiushchikh Photiia Patriarkha, I I . Petersburg, 1901. I I . ByJoannes Diaconus. . M igne, 105 , 9 3 1 sqq. (Also A.S. April 3 ,t. i. ad calc . xxxiv sqq.)

Vita Macarii. By Sabas. Ed . Delehaye, Analecta Bollandiana,xvi.

140 sqq.,18 9 7 .

Vita Methodii (patriarchae). A.S. June 14, t. ii. 9 60 sqq. (Also M igne,100

,124 sqq.)

Vita Michaelis syncelli. (A ) Izv. Kpl. xi . 22 7 sqq.

, 1906. (Extrac ts in

n‘a vrwov

t

Eopr okéy i ov, q.u.,23 1 sqq. (B .) Izv. Kpl. i b. 260 sqq.

Vita Nicephori (patriarchae) . By Ignatius diaconus. Ed. de Boor (in

Nicephori Opuscula historica) . Leipzig, 1880.

Vita Nicetae Mediciani. By Theosteriktos. A .S. April 3 , t. i. ad cal c.

xxii. sqq.

B IBL I OGRAPH Y 497

Vita Nicolai (I . ) papae. Mansi,x v . 143 sqq. (Also M igne, P .L . 1 1 7 ,

7 5 3 sqq. )Vita N icolai S tuditae. M igne, 105 , 86 3 sqq. (Latin version, A.S. Feb . 4 ,

t. i. 5 3 8 sqq. )Vita Tarasii. By Ignatius diaconus. Ed. I . A . Heikel. (Acta soc.

scient . Fennicae, xvii. ) Helsingfors, 1889 .

Vita Theoctistae Lesb iae. (1) By Nicetas magister. Ed. Ioannu,

Mvnue’

ia dy i okoymd, 1 sqq. Venice, 1884 . By Simeon

metaphrastes. I b. 18 sqq.

Vita Theodorae Augustae. Ed. Regel . Analecta Byzantino-russica .

Petersburg, 18 9 1 . (With two other texts : De TheOphili

imperatoris ab solutione, and De TheOphil i imp. b enefi ciis.)Vita Theodorae Thessalonicensis. By G regorios. Ed. E. Kurtz .

Zapiski imp. Ak. nauk , viiie sér. vi. 1 . Petersburg, 1902 .

Vita Theodori G rapti. By Simeon metaphrastes. M igne, 1 16,

6 5 3 sqq.

Vita Theodori Studitae. (1) By M ichael Studita . M igne, 9 9 , 2 33 sqq.

(2) By Anonymus (Pseudo-M ichael) . Ih. 1 13 sqq.

Vitae Theophanis confessoris.

By Anonymus [A ]. Ed. de Boor,in his ed. of Theophanes, ii .

3 sqq. (Also A.S . Mart. ii . 700 sqq. )By Anonymus [Bu] Ed. Krumbach er. SB . Bavarian Acad . 18 9 7 ,3 7 1 sqq.

Enkomion,by Theodore protoasecretis. Ed. Krumb acher. SB .

Bavarian Acad . 1 89 6 , 608 sqq.

By Nicephorus skeuophylax of B lachernae . Ed. de Boor,ih.

13 sqq.

Ex oflic io festi eius . Ed. de Boor,ib. 2 8 sqq.

Ex M enologio . Ed. de Boor, ib. 30.

By Anonymus [C H] Ed. Gedeon, in v a vrwdvt

l'

iiopr o ltciy i ou,2 90 sqq.

[The Oldest Life, by the Patriarch Methodius, is contained in Cod.

M osq . Synod . 1 5 9 , but is still unpublished . ]Vita Theophanie G rapti . By T heodora Raoulina Kantakuzene Palaeo

logina. Ed. Papadopulos-Kerameus,Analecta H ierosolymiticae

Bibliothecae,iv . 18 5 sqq. 189 7 .

2 . WESTERN

Anast. Praef. — Ana stasius (b ibliothecarius). Praefatio in Concilium

Cplitanum iv. Mansi,xvi. 1 sqq.

Ann. Bert.— Annales Bertiniani. Ed. Waitz,in Scr. rer. G erm.

,1883 .

(Also M .G .H . (Sen) 1. 4 23 sqq. )Annales Fuldenses. M .G .H . (Sen) 1. 343 sqq.

A. r. F.— Annales regni Francorum ( = Anna les Laurissenses maiores et

E inhardi). Ed. Kurze,in Scr. rer. Germ.

,189 5 .

Capitularia.— Capitularia regum Francorum. Leges ii.

,

Capitularia ii.Chronicon Casinense (a. 5 68 M .G .H . (Scr.) iii. 2 22 sqq.

498 EAS TERN R OMAN EM P IRE

Chronicon Salernitanum (a . 747 M .G .H . (Scr.) iii. 46 7 sqq.

Codex Carolinus. Ed. Gundlach,M .G .H . Epistolae

,iii. 47 6 sqq. 189 2 .

(Also in Jaffé, B ibl. rer. G erm. iv . 1867 M igne, P .L.

Dandulus,Andreas. Chronicon. Muratori

,S.R.I . xii. 13 sqq.

Einhard . Vita Karoli Magni . Ed.

4 Waitz,in Scr. rer. Germ.

,1880.

Epp. Kar. aev.— Ed. Dummler, M .G .H . Epistolae Karolini s evi, ii. 1 89 5 .

(See also above, Codex Carolinus.)Erchempert. H istoria Langobardorum Beneventanorum (a. 7 7 4

Ed. Waitz,M .G .H . (Scr. rer. Lang.) 234 sqq. 18 78 . (Al so

M .G .H . (Scr.) iii. 240 sqq.)Joannes Venetus (d iaconus). Chroni con Venetum. Ed. Monticolo

, in

Fonti per la storia d ’ I talia : Cronache venez . antichissime, vol. 1.

5 9 sqq.,18 90. (Also M .G .H . (Scr. ) vii. 1 sqq. and M igne, P .L .

1 39,8 7 5 sqq.)

Joannes Neapoli tanus (diaconus) . Chronicon episcoporum S . Nea

politanae ecclesiae G esta episc. M .G .H . (Scr.) x .

5 3 1 sqq. (Also ed. Capasso in Monumenta ad Neapolitani ducatushistoriam pertinentia, vol. i . , Naples, 188 1 and M igne, P .L . .9 6,1465 sqq. )

L iber pontifi calis . Ed. Duchesne. VOL ii. Paris,189 2 .

Nicolaus I . (papa) . Epistolae. Mansi,x v . 1 5 9 sqq. (Also Epistolae et

Decreta. Migne, P .L . 1 1 7, 769 sqq. )Responsa Nic.

— Nicolaus 1. Response ad consulta Bulgarorum. Mansi,

x v . 401 sqq. (Also M igne , P .L . 1 17 , 9 78 sqq.)S ickel, Th . Die U rkunden der Karolinger. Part ii. (Acta regum et

imperatorum Karolinorum digesta et enarrata. ) Vienna, 186 7 .

3 . OR IENTAL

[Many of the Arabic authorities are cited in the notes by referencesto the pages of the I talian, English, and Russian translations of relevantparts by Amari, Brooks, and Va sil

’ev

,in the works included under their

names in the following list ]Amari M . Biblio teca arabo-sicula. Vers ions italiana. Turin and

Rome, 18 80. [Arabic texts, Leipzig,

Arab ski synaksar o b olgarskom pokhodie imperatori N ikiphori I . Ed.

A Vasil’ev . In Sb ornik statei

,sostab lenni uchenikami V. I .

Lamanskago, pp. 3 6 1-362 . Petersburg, 1905 .

Baladhuri. Liber expugnationum regionum. Trans lations of relevantparts in Brooks and Vasil

’ev.

Bar Heb raeus. G regorii Abulpharagii sive Bar-heb raei chroniconSyriacum. Ed. Bruns and Kirsch, w ith Latin translation. Vol. -ii.

Leipz ig, 17 89 .

Brooks— Brooks,E. W . Byzantines and Arabs in the Time of the Early

Abbasids. I . Translations from Yakubi, Tabari, and the Kitabal-Uyun (from A.D. 7 50 to E .H .R . Oct. 1900 ; I I . Trans

lations from Baladhuri (for same period), ib. Jan. 1901 .

Cambridge Sicilian Chronicle. La Cronaca siculo-saracena di Cambridge[Arabic text in Cambridge MS .] con doppio testo greco [in a

https://www.forgottenbooks.com/join

EAS TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE

Izviestiia al-Bekri i drugikh avtorov O Rusi i Slavianakh .

Zapiski imp. ak . Nauk,x x xi. i . 2 . Petersburg, 18 7 8 . (Cp. also

M agyar H . Kuti. 1 50,

Cassel, P. Der chazarische KO'

nigsb rief aus dem 10. Jahrhundert (von ‘

neuem iib ersetzt und erklart). Berlin,18 7 6 . [Hebrew text

publis hed by Buxtorf (fi lius), in the introductory dissertation to

his edition of Juda Halevi’s Kitab al-Khazari . Basel,16 60.

Cassel also included a translation in his Magyarische Alterthumer,

1 9 5 sqq.]Garkavi, A. Ia Skazanna Musulmanskikh pisatelei o Slavianakh i

Russkikh . Petersburg, 18 70.

Gurdizi. Chronicle. Ed. Barthold , with Russian translation. M émoires

de 1’Acad . Imp. des Sc iences

,Petersburg, viii° sér. i . NO. 4

,189 7 .

Relevant parts in Magyar H . Kuti. 1 50 sqq.

Ibn Fadhlan. Relevant parts in Magyar H . Kutf. 19 9 sqq. Al so Frahn,C . M . : (1 ) Veteres memoriae Chazarorum ex Ibn Fozlano

,Ibn

Haukale, et Scheme-cd-dino Damasceno. (With Latin transla

tion.) M émoires de l’Acad. Imp. des S ciences,Petersburg, viii.

5 7 7 sqq.

,1822 (2) Die altesten arabischen Nachrichten uber die

Wolga-Bulgaren. 1b . vi° sé r. i. 5 2 7 sqq.

,1 832 .

Ibn Haukal. Relevant parts in Magyar H . Kutf. 2 23 sqq. (See also

Frahn’s first memoir cited under Ibn Fadhlan.)Ibn Rusta . Book of Precious Jewels . In Khvol

’son

,I zviestiia

, gxv.

[The Arabic text of Ibn Rusta is edited by De G oej e in Bibl. geographorum Arab icorum

, vii. Leiden,1 89 2 ] Relevant parts in

Magyar H . Kuti. 15 2 sqq.

Istachri . Relevant parts in Magyar H . Kutf. 2 23 sqq.

Khvol’son, D. A . Izviestiia o Khozarakh

,Burtasakh , Bolgarakh,

Mad’iarakh

,Slavianakh, i Russakh , Abu

-Ali Akhmeda b en OmarIbn-Dasta. Petersburg, 1 869 .

A Magyar Honfoglalas Kut i. Published by the Hungarian Academyof Sciences. Budapest, 1 900.

Masudi. Relevant parts in Magyar H . Kutf. 247 sqq. Also : (1 )H istorical Encyclopaed ia entitled “Meadows of Gold and M ines ofG ems.

”Eng. tr. by A. Sprenger. Vol. 1. 3 9 9 sqq. London

,1841 .

(2 ) C harmoy, Ph . Relation de Mas’oudy et d

’autres auteurs

musulmans sur les anciens Slaves. M émoires de l’Acad. Imp. des

Sciences,Petersburg, vi° sér. ii. 2 9 7 sqq.

,1834. (3) See also

Masudi under I . 3 abovePseudo-Nestor.

— Chronica Nestoris. Ed. M iklosich . Vienna,1 860.

Chronique de Nestor. French translation by L . Leger. Paris,1884 .

4a . RELATING TO CONSTANTINE (CYRIL) AND METHODIus

[For the works of Bil’basov

,G inzel, Goetz, and Pastrnek, in which many

of the following texts are printed conveniently for reference, see below,11. 5a . ]Anastasius (b ib liothecarius). Praefatio in Concilium Cplitanum iv.

Mansi,xvi. 1 sqq. (Also in G inzel and Pastrnek.)

B IBL I OGRAPH Y 501

Epis tola ad Carolum (calvum) regem. U ssher, Opera, iv. 6 7 . (Alsoin G inzel and Pastrnek. )

Epistola ad Gaudericum. Ed . Friedrich . SB . of BavarianAcademy,

Heft 3,189 2 . (Tex t reprinted in Goetz, 243 sqq.

,and Pastrnek,

sqq. )Anonymus Salisburgensis. Historia conversionis Bagoariorum et Caranv

tanorum. M .G .H . (Scr.) xi. 1 sqq. (Also in G inz el, Bil’basov, and

Pastrnek.)

[Constantine AOyos on St. Clement, in Slavonic transla tion. Kirillo-Methodievskii Sbornik, ed. by M . Pogodin,3 19 sqq. Moscow

,186 5 .

Legenda SS . Cyrill i et M ethodii ( = Legenda Moravica) . A.S . March 9,

22 sqq.,1668 . Revised ed. by Dob rowsky, in Abhandlungen

d . kOn. bOhmischen Gesellsc haft d. Wiss , N .F.,i. 1 sqq.

,Prague,

1826. (Also in Ginzel and Bil’b asov . )Johannes VI I I . (papa) . Letters collected in Pastrnek

,249 sqq. (including

fragments published by Ewald , in Neues Archi v, v .,

S tephanus V. (papa) . Letters collec ted in Pastrnek, 2 5 9 sqq. (includingCommonitorium published by Ewald in Neues Archi v

,v . 408

sqq.

,

Vita cum translatione S . Clementis ( = Legenda I talica). A. S . March 9,

19 sqq.,16 68 . (Also in works of G inzel

,Bil

’basov , Goetz, and

Pastrnek. )Vita S. Clementis Legenda Bulgarica) . Ed. M iklosich (greece) , Vienna,

1847 . (Als o in Bil’basov . Latin version of part in G in zel )

Vita Constantini. Serbo-slovenic text and Latin translation. Ed. E .

Dummler and F. Miklosich. Denkschr iften of Vienna Academy,

xix. 2 14 sqq.

,18 70. (Also in Pastrnek .)

Vita Methodii ( = Legenda Pannonica ). Ed . M iklosich (russico-sloveniceet latine), Vienna, 1870. (Also in B il

’basov and Pastrnek .

Latin translation in Archi v f. Kunde Osterr. G esch ich tsquellen,xi ii. 1 , 1 5 6 sqq.

,Vienna

,18 5 4 in G inzel and Goetz.)

Texts of less importance will be found (reprinted from Older editions) inthe books of G inzel and Bil’b as ov

,namely

Legenda Thessalonicensia, a short slovo of Cyril,in Slavoni c.

Leg enda Bohemi ca (de S . Ludmilla) .Legenda Serbica (very short vi ta C . et M . sctorum) .Legenda Ochridica (G reek) .Legenda Mac edonica (G reek) .Obdormitio S . Cyrill i (Old Slavonic).

5 . ARCHAEOLOG ICAL (INCLUDING COINS AND SEALS)

Abo ba — Materialy dlia bolgarskikh drevnostei Aboba-Pliska. (W ithalbum of plates.) By Th . U spenski

,K. Shkorpil , and others.

I zv. Kpl. x ,1905 .

KonstantOPulos, K. M . v a vr ca xd po flSdflovA/Mz Ev rd; éevq'

i

vopw pa rmq'

i Move-city

’

A9qv<3v. Journal international d’archéologie numismatique, vols. ix. and x.

,Athens, 1906, 1907 .

502 E AS TERN R OM AN EM P IRE

Panchenko, B. A. Katalog molybdobullov kollektsii Russkago Arkheol.

Instituta v Konstantinopolie. I zv. Kpl. viii. 1 9 9 sqq.,1 903 ix.

342 sqq. ,1904 ; xiii. 78 sqq.,

19 08 .

Schlumberger, G . Sigillographie de l’empire byzantin. Paris

,1884.

Melanges d’archéologie byzantine. Paris, 189 5 .

U spenski, Th . O drevnostiakh goroda Tyrnova. I zv. Kpl. vii. p. 1 sqq. ,

1 902 .

Starob olgarskaia nadpis’Omortaga. Izv. Kpl. vi. 1, p. 2 16 sqq.

,1900.

Wroth,W. Catalogue Of the Imperial Byzantine Coins in the BritishMuseum. 2 vols . London

,1 908 .

A. CR ITICISM, ETC . , OF SOURCES

Boor, C . de . R'

Omische Kaisergesch ich te in byzantinischer Fassung, ii .B .Z. ii . 1 sqq. ,

1 893 .

Die Chronik des Logotheten. B .Z. vi . , 189 7 .

Weiteres zur Chronik des Logotheten. Ib. x., 1901 .

Der Bericht des Georgios Monachos uber die Paulikianer. B .Z.

vii. , 189 8 .

Zu Johannes Skylitzes. B .Z. xiii. , 1904 ; xiv.,1905 .

Brockelmann, C . G eschichte der arabischen Literatur,Bd. I . Weimar

,

18 9 8 .

Bury, J . B . The Treatise De administrando imperio . B .Z. xv ., 1906 .

The Ceremonial Book of Constantine Porphyrogennetos.

April and July 1907 .

A Source Of Symeon Magister [i .e. Pseudo-Simeon]. B .Z. i .,189 2 .

Friedrich , J . Der urspriingliche bei G eorgios Monachos nur theilweisc

erhaltene Bericht uber die Paulikianer. SB. of the BavarianAcademy, ph il -ph il .-h ist CL, 1 89 6, H eft i. 67 sqq.

H irsch, F. Byzantinische Studien. Leipzig, 18 76 .

Krumb acher, G . B. L .—K. Krumb acher

,G eschichte der byzantinischen

Literatur. Ed. 2 , Munich,189 7 .

Melioranski, .

B . Perechen vizantnskikh gramot i pisem. I . N ieskolko

slov o rukopisakh i izdaniakh prepod. Theodora Stud ite .

Zapiski imp. Ak. nauk,viii. sér. t. iv . ,

No. 5 , 18 9 9 .

Patzig, E . Leo G rammaticus und seine’

S ippe. B .Z. iii. 4 70 sqq.,18 94 .

Shestakov , S . Parizhskaia ruk Opis’ Khroniki Simeona Logothete. Viz .

Vrem. iv. 167 sqq.

,189 7 .

O rukopisiakh Simeona Logothete . Viz . Vrem. v. 19 sqq.

,189 8 .

Vasil’evsk i, V. O zhizni i trudakh Simeona Metaphrasta. Zhurn.

min. nar. prosv. 2 12, 3 7 9 sqq. ,1880.

Khronika Logotheta v slavianskom i grecheskom. Viz. Vrem. ii.

7 8 sqq.

, 18 9 5 .

Dva nadgrobnykh stikhotvoreniia Simeona Logothete . Viz . Vrem.

iii. 5 74 sqq.

,189 6 .

Zlatarski, V. N . Izviestniata za Bolgaritie v Khronikata na Simeona

metaphrasta i logoteta. Sbornik x xiv .,19 08.

Dva izviestni bolgarski nadpisa ot ix. vick. Sb ornik xv. 13 1 sqq.

Sofi a,189 8 .

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504 EA S TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE

G rossu, N . Prepodobny T heodor Studit, ego vremia, zh izn’ i tvoreniia .

Kiev,19 07 .

Harnack, 0 . Die Beziehungen des frankisch-italischen zum b yzantinischenReiche unter der Regierung Karls des G rossen und der spatercn

Kaiser karolingischen S tammes. Gottingen, 1880.

HergenrOther, J. Photius,Patriarch von Konstantinopel

,sein Leben

,

seine Schriften und das griechische Schisma. 3 vols. Regensburg,1867-9 .

Holm,A. G esch ichte Siciliens im Altertum

,by Ad. Holm. Bd. iii.

Leipzig, 189 8 .

Jager. H istoire de Photius. Ed. 2,Paris

,18 5 4.

Jireéek, C . Die Romanen in den Stadten Dalmatiens wah rend desM ittelalters. Part 1. Denkschriften der K. Akademie der

W issenschaften,Vienna

,xlviii.

,iii.

,19 02 .

Lebedev,A. P. Istoriia razdioleniia tse

'

rkvei v IX -m, X. i XI .

viekakh . Moscow,1900.

Lentz,E . Das Verh

'

altnis Venedigs zu Byzanz nach dem Fall des

Exarchats b is zum Ausgang des neunten Jahrhunderts. Teil 1.

Vened ig als byzantinische Provinz . Berlin,189 1 ; [Teil ii. ]

Vened igs Abhangigkeit von Byzanz . B .Z. iii., 18 94.

Melioranski,B . I z semeinoi istorii ainoriiskoi dinastii. Viz . Vrem. v iii.

l sqq.

,1 901.

Pargoire, J . Saint Theophane le Chronographe et ses rapports avec saintTheodore Studite. Viz . Vrem. ix . 3 1 sqq.

,19 02 .

Ramsay, W . M . The War of Moslem and Christian for the possession Of

Asia M inor . Contemporary Review , July 1906, London.

Schneider,G . A Der hL Theodor von S tudion

,sein Leben und Wirken.

(Kirchengeschichtliche S tudien,ed. Knopfler, SchrOrs, and Sdralek,

V. iii. ) Munster i . W .,19 00.

Schwarzlose,K. Der Bilderstreit. G otha, 18 90.

Shestakov, S . P . Ocherki po istorii Khersonesa v VI .-X. viekakh po

R. Khr. (Pamiatniki Khristianskago Khersonesa .) 1908 .

Ter Mkrttschian, Karapet, Die Paulikianer im byzantinischenKaiserreiche. Leipzig, 189 3 .

Thomas,C. Theodor von Studion und seinZeitalter. Osnabruck , 189 2 .

Tiede, C .

'

Quellenmassige Darstellung der Beziehungen Carls des G rossenzu Ost-Rom . Rostock

,18 9 2 .

Vailhé,S . Saint Michel le Syncelle et les deux fr ’

eres Grapti, SaintTheodore et Saint T heophane. Revue de 1’Orient chrétien, vi.3 13 sqq.

, 6 10 sqq.,1 901 .

Vasil’ev

, A A. Proizkhozhdenie imperatore Vasiliia Makedonianina.

Viz . Vrem.

,xii. Petersburg, 1905 .

Vasil’ev .— Vasil’ev, A. A . Vizantiia i Araby Poli ticheskiia

otnoshenn a Vizantii i Arab ov za bremia Amoriiskoi dinastii.Petersburg, 1900.

Vogt, A Basile I". Paris,19 08 .

B IB L !OGRAPH Y 505

3 . WORKS R ELAT ING PR IMARILY To WESTERN EUROPE

Bryce,James. The Holy Roman Empire. N ew ed. London

,19 04 .

Dummler,E. G eschich te des ostfrankischen Reiches

,Bd. i. (to

ed. 2 . Leipzig, 188 7 .

Uber die siidO'

stlichen Marken des frankischen Reiches unter denKarolingern (79 5 Archiv fiir Kunde Osterreichischer

Gesch ichtsquellen, Bd . x .

Gregorovius, F. History of the C ity of Rome in the M iddle Ages,transl. by Mrs. Hamil ton, vol. iii. 189 5 .

Kleinclausz,A L

’Empire carolingien, ses origines et ses transformations .

Paris,19 02 .

Kretschmayr, H . G eschichte von Venedig, Band 1. Go tha , 1905 .

Schipa, M . Storia del principato longobardo di Salerno. Ar chiviostorico per le province napoletane, anno XII .,

fasc. i. 7 9 sqq.

,

188 7 .

Simson,Karl — Simson

,B. Jahrb richer des frankischen Reiches unter

Karl dem G rossen,Bd. ii. (789 Leipzig, 18 8 3 .

Simson, Ludwig — Simson,B . Jahrb iicher des frankischen Re iches

unter Ludw ig dem Frommen. 2 vols. (8 14 Leipzig,1874-6 .

4 . WORKS RELATIN G PRIMAR I LY To EASTERN EUROPE OR THE

SARACENs

Amari,S toria — Amari

,M. S toria dei Musulmani di Sicilia, vol. i.

Florence,18 5 4 .

Chamich , M . H istory of Armenia,translated by T . Avdall. 2 vols.

Calcutta, 182 7 .

Conde,J . A H istory of the Dominion Of the Ar abs in Spain,

'

transL

by M rs. Foster,vol . i. London

,18 5 4 .

Dozy,R H istoire des Musulmans d

’Espagne, vol . ii. Leiden

,186 1.

Ghazarian, M . Armenien unter der arabischen Herrschaft b is zur

Entstehung des Bagratidenreiches. Marburg, 19 03 .

Kremer,Culturgeschichte.

— Culturgesch ichte des Orients unter den

Chalifen,by A von Kremer. 2 vols. Vienna

,18 7 5 .

Kremer, A von. Gesch ich te der herrschenden Ideen des Islams .

Leipzig,Kremer, A von. U ber das Einnahmebudget des Ab basidenreichs.

Denkschriften of the Vienna Academy, x xx vi., 1887 .

Kremer, Budget Harun— Kremer,A. von. Uber das Budge t der

Einnahmen unter der Regierung des Harun alraSid nach einer

neu aufgefundenen U rkunde. Verhandlungen des VI I . internationalen Orientalisten-Congresses, semitische Section. Vienna

,

18 88 .

Weil.— G . Weil, Geschichte der Chalifen. Bd. ii. Mannheim

,

1848 .

EA S TERN R OM AN EM P IRE

5 . WORKS RELATING PRIMAR ILY To NORTHERN EURO PE (SLAvs,RUSSIANS

,HUNGARIANS, ETC.)

Diimmler, E. Uber die alteste G eschichte der Slawen in Dalmatien(5 49 SB. of the Imp. Acad. of Sciences, Vienna, xx. 3 5 3

sqq.,18 5 6.

G il’ferding, A. [Istoriia Serb ov i Bolgar. In his collected works(Sob ranie Sochinenii), vol. 1 ] Geschichte der Serben und

Bulgaren. 2 parts. Bautzen,18 5 6

,1864 .

Hunfalvy, P. Magyarorszag Ethnograph iaja. Budapest,18 76.

Die Ungern Oder Magyaren. Vienna and Teschen,188 1.

Ilovaiski, D. Istoriia Rossii, vol i. , part i. Moscow , 18 76 .

Jireéek, C . J. G eschichte der Bulgaren. Prague, 187 6.

L0parev, Kh . M . Dvie zamietki po drevnei b olgarskoi istorii. Zapiski

imp. russkago arkheologicheskago ob shchestva, iii. 341 Sqq.

Petersburg, 1888 .

Marquart, I . Osteur0paische und ostasiatische Streifzuge. Leipzig,1903 .

Roesler,R . Romanische Studien. Leip zig, 18 7 1.

Schafarik, P . J. Slawische Al tertiimer,ed. Wuttke. 2 vols. Leipzig,

1843 -4.

Shishmanov, I . D. Kritichen priegled na voprosa za proizkhoda na

prabolgaritie ot ezikovo gledishte i etimologiitie na ineto“ bolgarin

”Sb ornik

,xvi -xvii. 505 sqq. Sofia

,19 00.

Thomsen,V. The Relations between Ancient Russia and Scandinavia

,

and the Origin of the Russian S tate. Oxford, 187 7 .

Vambéry, A. A magyarok eredete. Budapest, 1882 .

Westberg, F. Beitrage zur Klarung orientalischer Quellen uber Osteuropa,i. and ii. Izv . imp. Ak . nauk

,xi. 4

,189 9

,Nov . and Dec.

K analizy vostochnikh istochnikhov O vostochnoi Evropie. 2 parts.Zhuru. min. n.p. xiii. (Febr. ) and xiv. (March) , 1908 .

5 a. WORKS RELATING To CONSTANTINE (CYR IL) AND METHODIUs

Avril, A d ’. St Cyrille et St Méthode. Paris,1885 .

Bil’basov, V. A. Kirill i M ethodii. 2 parts. Petersburg, 1868-7 1 .

Bretholz, B . Geschichte Mahrens,vol. i. , part i. Briinn, 189 3 .

Brii ckner,A. Thesen zur cyrillo

~ methodianischen Frage. Archiv fiirslavische Philologie, xxviii. 186 sqq.

,1906 .

Franko, Ivan. Beitrage zur Quellenkritik der cyrillO-methodianischen

Frag e. Archiv f. slavische Philologie, x xviii. 229 sqq.

,19 06 .

G inzel, J . A. Geschichte der Slawenapostel Cyrill und Method und derslawischen Liturgie. Leitmeritz

,185 7 .

Goetz,K. G esch ich te der Slavenapostel Konstantinus (Kyrillus) und

Methodius. G otha, 189 7 .

Jagié, V. Zur Entstehungsgeschichte der kirchenslavischen Sprache.

2 parts. Denkschriften der k . Ak. (1. Wise. in Wien, phil.-hist.CL, xlvii . , 1900.

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508 EA S TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE

Brightman, F. Byzantine Imperial Coronations. Journal of TheologicalS tud ies, vii. 1901.

BroOks, E . W. Arabic lists of the Byzantine Themes. J.E .S . xxi.

67 sqq.

,19 01 .

Bury, J . B . The Constitution Of the Later Roman Empire (CreightonM emorial Lecture). Cambridge, 19 10.

The Imperial administrative system in the ninth century, with a

revised text of the Kletorologion of Philotheos. (Proceedings Of

the British Academy . Supplementary Papers i.) London, 19 10.

The Naval Policy of the Roman Empire in relation to the WesternProvinces from the 7 th to the 9 th century. Centenario dellanascita di M ichele Amari

, vol. ii. 2 1 sqq. Palermo, 19 10.

Gelzer,H . Die G enesis der byzantinischen Themenverfassung. Abbandlungen der kOn. sachsischen G esellschaft der Wissenschaften, phil.hist. CL

,xviii.

,1 8 9 9 .

Das Verh'

altnis von Staat und Kirche in Byzanz . H istorischeZeitschrift

,N .F.

,l. p . 19 3 sqq.

,19 01.

Kalligas, P . M eAér a i Ka i Adj/O i . Athens, 1882 .

Mayer,E . Die dalmatisch -istrische Munizipalverfassung im M ittelalterund ihre rOmischen G rundlagen . Zeitschrift der SavignyStiftung fur Rechtsgeschichte (germ. Abteilung) x xiv. 2 1 1 sqq.

1903.

Monnier,H . Etudes de droit byzantin. Nouvelle Revue h istorique dedroit francais et étranger, xv i. 12 5 sqq.

,330 sqq., 49 7 sqq.

, 637

sqq. xviii. 433 sqq. xix. 5 9 sqq.

Neumann, C . Die byzantinische Marine. Historische Zeitschrift

,N .F.

,

liv. 1 sqq. ,189 8 .

Sickel,W . Das byzantinische Kronungsrecht b is zum 10. Jahrhundert.B .Z. v i.

,189 7 .

Zacharia von Lingenthal, K. E. Geschi chte des griech isch -rOmischenRechts. Ed. 3 , Berlin, 189 2 .

Zur Kenntnis des rOmischen Steuerwesens in der Kaiserzeit.M émoires de 1’Académie imp. des Sciences de 8 . Pétersb ourg, vii

"

ser.

, vi. 9 , 1863 .

8 . GEOGRAPHY

Anderson, J . G . C . The Road-System of Eastern Asia M inor with theevidence of Byzantine Campaigns (with map). J .H .S . xvii. 22 sqq.

,

1 89 7 .

See below : Studia Pontica.

Cumont,F. See below : Studia Pontica .

Jireéek, C. J . Die Heerstrasse von Belgrad nach Constantinopel und dieBalkanpasse. Prague, 18 77 .

Das Furstentum Bulgarien. Vienna, 189 1.

Kanitz,F. Donau-Bulgarien und der Balkan. 3 vols.,

2nd ed. [esp. vol.

iii ], Leipzig, 1880.

Le Strange, G . Baghdad during the Abbasid Caliphate. Oxford, 1900.

The Lands of the Eastern Caliphate. London, 1905 .

B IBL I OGRAPH Y 09

Ramsay, Asia M inor.— Ramsay

,W . M . The His torical G eography Of

Asia M inor. (Royal G eographical Society,Supplementary

Papers, VOL iv.) London, 1890.

Ramsay, W. M . C ilicia,Tarsus

,and the G rea t Taurus Pass. G eo

graphical Journal, xxii. 4, p. 3 5 7 sqq. Oct. 1 903 .

Lycaonia. Jahreshefte des Osterreichischen archaologischen Institutes,vii. p. 60 sqq.

,1904 .

Studia Pontica. I . A Journey of Exploration in Pontus. By J . G . C .

Anderson. Brussels,1903 . I I . Voyage d

’

exploration archeologique dans le Pont et la petite Armenic . By F. Cumont andE. Cumont. Brussels, 19 06 . I I I . Recueil des inscriptionsgrecques et latines du Pont et de l

’Arménie. By J . G . C . A ,

F. C . , and H . G regoire. Brussels , 19 10.

Tomaschek, W . Zur Kunde der Hamushalb insel . SB . of Imperial

Academy,Vienna

,c xiii. 285 sqq.

,1886.

Zur historischen Topographie von Kleinasien. SB. of Imp. Acad .,

Vienna, cxxiv. Abb . v iii.,189 1 .

8a . MAPS

Anderson, J. G . C . Asia M inor (in Murray ’s series of Handy ClassicalMaps). 1903 .

Auber,Major R . Empire ottoman : carte statistique des cultes chrétiens.

(In 4 sheets.) Cairo, 19 10.

Kiepert, H . Formae orbis antiqui. Berlin,189 4

,etc. (ix. As ia

Provincia. xvii. Illyricum et Thrac ia.)nil/0.5 r oil [rec o unt/moi}

t

I‘l hAnvro-

uof) Ka r d rij v OeKdr rj v exar ovr a er rjpida ,published by theAthenian EriAAoyos apes Siddoa w rdiv

ypanpdrwv. (6 sheets.) Berlin,188 3 .

Poole,R . L . H istorical Atlas Of Modern Europe. 1 902 .

Spruner-Menke . Handatlas. Ed. 3 , Gotha, 1880.

9 . TOPOGRAPHY OF CONSTANTINOPLE AND ADJACENT REGIONS

Bieliaev, D . Th . Byzantina : ocherki materialy i zamietki po vizan

tiiskim drevnostiam,vols. i .-iii. Petersburg, 189 1, 189 3 , 1 908 .

Bury,J . B . The Great Palace. B .Z. xx . 19 1 1 .

Dethier,P . A. Der Bosphor und ConstantinOpel . Ed. 2

, Vienna,18 76 .

Du Cange. Constantinopolis Christiana ( = H istoria Byzantina duplicicommentario illustrate, Venice

,17 2 9 .

Eb ersolt, J . Le G rand Palais de Constantinople et le livre des céré

monies . Paris,19 10.

Hammer, J . von. Cons tantinopolis und der Bosporos. 2 vols,Pest

,

1822 .

Labarte, J . Le Palais impe’

rial a Constantinople . Paris,188 1 .

M illingen,A van. Constantinople : the walls of the city and adjoining

historical Sites. London,1 89 9 .

5 10 EA S TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE

Mordtmann. Esquisse topograph ique de Constantinople. (With Plan. )L ille

,1 89 2 .

Oberhummer,E. Constantinopolis . Abriss der Topographic und

G eschighte . Stuttgart, 189 9 .

Pargoire, J. A propos de Boradion. B .Z. xii. 449 sqq.

,1903 .

Hiéria . I zv . Kpl . iv . 2,9 sqq. , 18 9 9 .

Les Monasteres de Saint Ignace et les cinq plus petits ilots del’archipel des Princes. Izv. Kpl. vii. 5 6 sqq.

,19 02 .

Les SS. Mamas de Cons tantinople. I zv . Kpl. ix . 26 1 sqq.

,1 904.

Rufinianes. B .Z. viii.,429 sqq.

,189 9 .

Paspates, A G . v a vrw a i,ueAér a t r orroypa cpma i Ka i, ia r opi k a i.

Constantinople, 18 7 7 .

Schlumberger, G . L’ile des Princes . Paris

,1884 .

S tolpe, C . Text zum Plan von Constantinopel mit seinen Vorstadten.

(With Plan. ) Berlin, 1866 .

10. CHRONOLOGY AND GENEALOGY

Andreev, J. Konstantinopol’skie Patriarkhi

, vol. i . Sergiev Posad,

189 5 .

Bury, J. B . The Chronological Cycle of the Bulgarians . B .Z. xix.

12 7 sqq.

,19 10.

Du Cange. Familiae Byzantinae ( = H istoria Byzantina duplici com

mentario illustrata, Venice, 1 729 .

Krug, Ph. Kritischer Versuch zur Aufklarung der byzantinischenChronologie. Petersburg, 1 8 10.

Lane-Poole, S. The Mohammadan Dynasties. London, 189 4.

Mas-Latrie, Comte de. Trésor de chronologie, d’histoire et de geographic .

Paris,1 889 .

Muralt,E . de . Essai de chronographie byzantine (de 3 9 5 a

Petersburg, 185 5 .

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5 12

Antigfi s, fort, 473Antioch, 88, 274Antonius, monk, consulted-b y L eo V 59

Antonius Kassymatas, bishop of Syllaion(Patriarch), helps to prepare c ase

for iconoclasm, 61 sq. Patriarch,81, 115 , 134

Anzen, 265 , 282Apamea, 138Aphusia, island (Arablar) , 41 , 136, 139Aplakes, see John A.

Apollonia, Lake of, 72

Apollonia (in Thrace), 361Apollonius of Perge, 438Apollonius o f Tyana, enchanter of

statues,444

Apros, 356

Apulia, 309 , 315Aquileia, 322Arabic translations from Greek, 438Arab issos, 245 , 248

Arabs, see SaracensAratus

,astronomer, 441

Arcadiopol is,103 sqq. , 358, 462 sq.

Archimedes, MS. of, 440

Ar chitecture, 129 sqq.

A rchontes, 223, 330

Arethas, archbishop , 439 , 447 sq.

Argaios, M t. (1 ) S E . of L . Tatta, 247,285 (2 ) near Caesarea, 247

Argafi s, 278

Ar ichis,310 sq.

Ari stotle, 438, 441A rithmos (Vigla ) , 5, 227 sq.

Armenia, 260 sq.

Armenians, importanc e and suc cess in theEmpire, 43, 429 ; cp. 165

Army, Roman, organization of, 221

Army, Saracen, 237 sq.

Arpad, 426, 489 sq.

Arsab er, brother of John the G ram

marian, 60, 443Arsab er, magister, 155Arsab er, quaestor, conspires against Ni

cephorus, 14 father of EmpressTheodosia, 66

Arsab er,spatharios, 193

Arsakios, hermit, 147Arsamosata , 260

Arsaphios, 324 sq.

Art, 429 sqq.

Artavasdos, hetaeriarch, 178

Artynia, lake, 72Arzus, river, 361Asad, 298 sqq.

Asb ag ibn Wakil , 304Ashnas, Sarac en general, 263 sqq.

Ashot, son of Shapuh, 261

Ashot, Curopalates, 265Asylaion, 178, 458 sq.

Asylum, right of, 390Atel-kuzu, 424, Appendix XII .

EA S TERN R OM AN E M P IRE

Athingani, 40, 78, 79Athos, Mt .

, c ells and monasteries,150

,

291, 293

Athyras, fort, 356Athyras, river, 102, 356Attalia, 282Auxentios, St. , Mount, 247, 284Avars

, 337 , 358, 365, 377

Babdel,293

Babek, 251 sqq.,257, 259, 262

Babutzikos, see Constantine B . and

Theodosius B .

Baguine, 334

Bagarat, 264

B agatur, 335

Baghdad, palaces, 129, 240 sqq. founda

tion and desc ription,238 sqq. ;

sc ientifi c studies at, 436 sqq.

Bahasna, 244

Balab akhi,438

Baladhuri, 251

Balkan passes, 339, 344Bamb aludes, 267Barca, see Theodosia, Empress.

Bardanes Turons,rebellion of

, 10 sqq. ,

38, 212

Bardas, Caesar, restores sea walls, 135not appointed regent, 144 147155 wife of

,156

,188 ; overthrows

Theoktistos, 157 sq. Chartulary ofKanikleion, 159 ; Domestic ofSchools,160 Curopalates, 161 Caesar, ib . ;

government of, 161 sqq. overthrowsDamianos, 169 ; fall, 170 sqq. ; re

fused communion by Ignatius, 188action against Ignatius, 189 sqqletters of Photius to, 192, 195 interview with Ignatius, 198 expeditionto Ab asgia, 261 ; 284 ; in campaignagainst Sarac ens, 419 enc ourage

ment of learning, 439Bardas

,father of Symb atios, 178, 458

Bardas, nephew of Leo V., 68, 72Bardas, nephew of Theodora, 156Bari, 313, 315Bartholomew of Edessa

,439

Bashkirs, 492

Basil I . , Emperor (theMacedonian) : earlycareer of

,165 sqq. , 356, 371 proto

strator, 168 ; parakoemomenos, 169marriage, ib . plot against Bardas,170sqq. magister, 174 c oronation,174 sq. murder of M ichael III177 sqq. ; signature to Counc il ofA .D . 867, 202 ecc lesiastical policy,203 sq. 379

Basil,Prefect of C ity, 173

Basil , false legate at Synod of 867, 202Basil, son of Leo V 55 , 184

Bas il,archbishop of Thessalonica, 191

Bas il,kleisurarch of Charsianon

,272

INDEX

Basil, rec tor, 458 sq.

Basil , of St. Saba, 36, 37Basiliskianos , 176 sqq.

Bassoes, 267 , 271

Baths at Dorylaion,229

Beacons,see Fire-signals

Beatus, Duke of Venice, 324Belenj er, 404Belgrade, 364, 365Benedic t I II . , Pope , 185 , 193Beneventum, duchy of, 309 , 310 sqq

331 partition of, 315

Beroe (in Thrac e) , 347Bessarabia

,337, 338

B isignano, 309B izye , 103, 105, 107Boiditzes, 268 sq.

,271

B oilads,334 sq.

,373

Bonita, 72Books, c lassical, in the library of Photius,

446 sq. prices of, 448Boots

,red, Imperial, 175, 177

Boradion, 127Boris (M ichael ), ac cession, 373 Servian

war, 373 sq. relations with the

Empire and the Franks, 382 sqq. ;

baptism, 385 ; h is sister, ib . ; suppresses anti-Christian insurrec tion,387 ; letter of Photius to , 387 sq.

invites Pope to send c lergy, 389 ;embassy to King L ewis, ib . (cp.

Appendix X .)Bosporos (Kerch ), 409, 415Bravalin

,418

Bride-shows, of Staurac ius, 15 of Theoph ilus, 81 sqq. of M ichael I II ., 156

Brochthoi, 127Brondolo, 324Brundusium, 312

Bryas, palace of, 133

Bryennios, see Theoktistos Bryennios

Bugha , 423Bujani, 412Bulgar, town, 411

Bulgaria and Bulgarians, capital of, 332sqq. ; institutions, 334 sq. G reekinfluenc e on

,335 sq. chronological

system,336, 369 , 385 ; boundaries

of kingdom, 337 relations to Servia,337, 372 sqq. fortifi cations, 338sq. palaces, 339, 366 sqq. tendi s

tricts, 386 ; conversion to Christi

anity, 381 sqq. Thirty Years ’ Treatywith Empire, 360 sqq. truc e (underMalamir), 373 ; trea ty in A. D . 863,384 ; embassy to Constantinople inA . D . 860, 279 customs, 362, 389Latin heresies in

,200 Latin c lergy

in, 389 , 392 G reek inscriptions in,

335 sq. Arabic literatur e in, 336.

(See under Krum,Omurtag ,Malamir,Boris. )

5 13

Bulgarians, Inner (Black ) , 335, 337, 366,410 sq. , 415

Outer, 335, 411Bulgaros, see Peter BulgarosBul-khan of Khazars, 405, 406Bunos L eontos

,battle of, 357 sq.

Burdas , 411Burdizos, 373, 483Butera, 306, 307Butrentum, 246

Byrides, 98

Cadolah, margrave of Friuli, 329

Caesar, Alexios Musele, 126 Bardas,161 ; T ervel, 336

Caesarea in Cappadoc ia, 248

Caesarius, son of Sergius, Duk e ofNaples,314

Caesaropapism, 207 (see Church)Calabria, ec c lesiastical province of

,194

sq., 197 duchy of, 309Calatamauro, 305

Calloniana , 304

Calomaria,155 sq. , 157 sq.

Caltabellotta,305

Caltagirano, 308

Caltavuturo, 307Candia, 289Cantatores , 229

Cap itatio, 212

Captives , Roman and Saracen,101, 235

description of interchange of, 275 sq.

Capua, 310, 315Caria, 290Caricatures; 431 sq.

Castrogiovanni, 299 , 302, 305, 307Catana, 297Cattaro , 329Chalcedon, 112Chaldia

, 86, 261 (see Themes)Chaldos, see John C .

Chalkites (Halki ), island, 37, 55Chamaidrakon, see Leo C.

Chamlich , 403, 408

Chandax (Candia ), 289Charax 288

Charles the Great, embassy to Constantinople, A.D . 802, 1 , 5 , 320 pretextfor his Imperial coronation

, 4 pro

posal for marriage of a daughter of,23 ; dominion of, 317 ; treaty withIrene, ib . ; proc laimed Emperor, 318sqq. negotiations with N ic ephorus,320 sq. , 324 sq. ; with M ichael I . ,

325 deal ings with Venice, 323 sq.

Charsian kleisurarchy, see under Themes.

Charsianon, fort, 473Chatal ar, inscription of, 368

Chelidonian islands, 274Chernigov, 413Cherson, as place of exile

, 37, 75, 417Constantine the Philosopher at, 394

2 L

5 14

commercial importance, 401, 414 ;custom duties, 414 Petronas at

,

416 placed under strategos, 417 ;Russian attack on, 418

Cherson, Dalmatian island, 313Chiliokomon, 265Chioggia, 324Choereas , 107

Choirob akchoi, plain of,102

Chonarion, 282

Chorlu, 346Ghozan, 260, 261Chrab r, 487

Chrism of confirmation, 200Christodulos, 137

Chronic le of Cod. Par. 854, 456 sq.

Chronicle (lost) of ninth century, 458 sq.

Chrysippus (Stoic ), 441Chrysopolis (Scutari), 126, 179Church : theory and working of State

Church, 31 , 42, 180 sqq. authorityof Emperors in, 36, 37 , 180 sqq. ;l imited by capitulations, 39

Cilic ian Gates, 245 sq. , 473

Cipher, secret, 37Civilizations, mutual influence of G reek

and Saracen, 234 sq.

C ivitaNova, 321Clement, St. , relics of, 394 sq. , 400, 485

sqq.

Clement, archbishop of Bulgaria, 487Coinage : N ic ephorus I . , 8, 14 M ichael

I . , 22, 40 Theophylactus, 23 ;Leo V. , 44 Theophilus, 465 sqq.

M ichael and Theodora, 150, 154 ;senzaton, 164 international cur

reney,

Comacchio, 324VCommerciam

’

i,210

,217

Constantia (in Thrace ), 362Constantine V . ,

sarcophagus, 197 antimonastic , 208 ; treaty with Bul

garians, 339, 347 ; encouragementof secular art, 430

Constantine VI . ,divorce of

, 34 date of

death,85

Constantine VII . , Emperor (Porphyrogennetos ), 162, 172 , 415 ; De ad

ministrando imperio, Appendix XII .Constantine, Emperor, son of Leo V. ,

c oronation, 58 mutilated, 55Constantine, Emperor, son of Theophilus,

126, Appendix VI . , 488

Constantine, Armenian, Drungary of

Watch, 147 , 157 ; : Maniakes , 158

167, 17 2, 176, 192 ; relationship toG enesios , 460

Constantine Babutzikos, 155, 267, 271Constantine (Cyril ) the Philosopher,

Apostle of the Slavs : relations toPhotius , 187 , 394 c areer, 394 sqq.

423 ; professor at Constantinople,

EAS TE RN ROMAN EM P IRE

435 , 439 440 alleged disputationwith Saracens, 438, 490 sources

for,Appendix XI .

Constantine (of Sic ily), pupil of Leo thePhilosopher

,440 sqq.

Constantine Kapnogenes, 176Constantine Kontomytes, 290, 308Constantine Patz ikos

, 354Constantine, strategos of Sic ily, 295, 478Constantine Toxaras

, 178ConstantinopleAchilles, D iab atika of

, 128Anthemios

,urban quarter, 127

Augusteon, 128

Barb yses, R . , 93

Blachernae, 127, 354Bous

,6

Brachionion, 94

Bridges, 93Chain, Iron, of G olden H orn

,92

, 93Churches and MonasteriesAb raamios, St. , 141Apostles, 151, 182,herfion

, 197Braka

,21

Chenolakkos, 115

Chora, 75, 147

Cosmidion (SS. Cosmas andDamian) ,93, 94, 353

Dalmatos, 75Diomede, St. , 166Forty Martyrs, 437G astria, 126, 142, 160, 470Irene, St., 191

John, St. (Studion) , 45Karianos, 160, 188, 470Kasia, 83Katharoi

, 75

(of Manuel ) =Kefelé mosque, 155Mary Perib leptos, St 142

P égé, 198

Procopia, St. , 29

Procopius,St., 29

Psicha, 75

Sergius and Bac chus, SS. , 73Sophia, St.

,23, 62, 64, 77 ; well

of,128 ; 150, 174, 198, 420

Stadion, 182 (see also Studites,'andTheodore of Studion)

Virgin (Blachernae), 95, 122, 150,Virgin (Chalkoprateia) , 171

Cisterns : Moki os,127 Aspar

, 155

Galata, castle of, 93, 94

GatesBarbara, St. , 135Charisios (Polyandrion) , 29, 96De

'

i'

rmen-kapussi, 135

Eugenios, 92Golden, 127, 355Gyrolimne, 96

Golden Horn, 92 sqq. , 355 sqq.

191,195 ;

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5 16

Counc ils, ec clesiastical— contd .

A .D . 815, Constantinople (after Easter),69 sq. , 1 17

A .D . 825, Paris, 118A .D . 827, Mantua, 330A .D . 843, Constantinople, 147 sq.

date , 145 ; picture of, 431

A.D . 852, Mainz,393

A .D . 854, Rome, 185

A.D . 859 Constantinople, 191 , 196A .D . 861 Constantinople, 195 sq.

,

205 First and SecondA . D. 863 (April ) , Rome

,199

A. D. 863 (October ) , Rome, 200A .D . 864, Rome, 199

A .D. 867 (in Lent), Constantinople, 200A .D . 867, Constantinople, 201 sqq. , 432

A.D . 869-70, Eighth Ecumenical, Constantinople, 202, 204, 432

Count of Foederati, 12 (cp. Turmarch

of Federates)Count of Schools, 124Count of Stable (1 08 araékov) , 122,

211 , 290

Count of Tent (xéans‘

rfis xéprns) , 12Count of Walls, 156, 224, 228

Counts , captains of banda , 226Counts, Bulgarian, 335Crete, expedition to (A. D. 170 ;

Saracen c onquest of, 287 sqqImperial attempts to recover, 289sqq. ; government of, 224 ; Emirs

of, 186, 293, 439

expeditions to (A.D. 902 and

227 , 231

Croatia, 363 sq. ,373

Curator , Grea t, 211

Curopala tes M ichael,14 Bardas

, 161

Ashot, 265Custom-duties and houses, 217, 414Cyc lades, 293Cyril , bishop of Gortyn, 289Cyril, see Constantine the Philosopher

(Apostle of the Slavs)Cyrillic script, 397 sqq.

Dalmatia, 223, 323, 329 sq. [The sealof a r pm oaavad

'

rwp Tfi s Aahaar la s‘

is published by Schlumberger, Sig.

byz .

Damianos, Count of the Stable, 290Damianos, parakoimomenos, 157Damietta

,292 sq.

Danélis, 167Daonin, 356

Dargamer, 347Daricl, Pass of, 409

Dazimon, 264, 281 sq.

Death duties,216

Demes,128, 131, 174

Democracy, proposed byEmperor Staurac ius, 18

EAS TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE

Earthquakes, 198, 363, 445Eb issa, 81

Ec lipses, solar, 274 sq. , 442

Educ ation, 434 sqq.

Egypt, naval expedition to, 230, 292 sq. ;revolt against Mamun, 251 , 263,288

Eldikan, master of, (6 é1r2 7 017 elémofi ),

210 sq. , 212

Eikasia, see KasiaEkusoos, 343

Eleud,425

Elpidios, 295

Denderis, 141

D eputatoi , 229

Develtos, 346, 361, 384

Diab asis, battle of, 102 sq.,463

Diampolis, 339Digisene, 260

Dinar, 226, 236

D ioeketai, 210

Dionysios, anti-i conoclast, 73Dionysios the Areopagite, MS. of

, 330,401

Dionysios of Tell-Mahre, Patriarch and

chronic ler, 21, 275, 472, 474Dios

,290

Diplomatic forms (Emperor and Caliph ),254

Dir , 422 sq.

Durham, 226, 236

Ditseng, 359

Dnieper river, waterfalls of,413 sq.

names of, 424Dobrudzha, 338Doggerel verses, 137, 139, 176Dogs sacrifi ced, 362Dokimion, 130

Domestic of Excubitors, 227 M ichael, 46Domestic of H ikana toi, 227Domestic of Numeri

,156 , 19 1, 228

Domestic of the Schools, 227 sq. N icetasTriphyllios, 5 Stephanos

,16

Bardas,

160 Antigonus, 161

Petronas , ib. , 284 Manuel, 258Donatus, bishop of Zara, 329Doras

,409, 415

Dorylaion, 229, 247, 263, 266Dregovichi, 412

Drievliane, 412

Drungaries, offi cers in thematic armies,226

Drung ary of the Fleet (1 08 nkotaov),230 Coryphas, 144

D rungary of the Watch (1 739 Sty l us), 227sq. Petronas, 122 ; Coryphas143 Constantine the Armenian

147 Constantine Babutzikos,267

Dukum, 359

Dyrrhachium, 189

INDEX

Embroidery, 193, 433Enamelling, 433Engelberta, Empress, 201, 203E nkolp ia ,

13,198

Enravotas, 369, 382, 451

Ep ibole, 214, 215

Epicurus, 441Epiphanes, anti-iconoc last, 73Ep istola synodica Orientalium ad Theo

ph ilum, 138, 453

Epopta i, 210, 214

Erez, 176Erkes iia (rampart in Thrace) , 361 sq.

Esaias,hermit, 147

Estates , Imperial, 211, 212Euchaita, 24Euc lid, MS. of, 448 438, 441

Eudoc ia, Empress, wife of M ichael III . ,

156, 169, 179 , 284

Eudoc ia Ingerina, Empress, mistress of

M ichael I II . , 156 sq . wife of Bas ilI . , 169 ; coronation, 175 , 176 sqq.

Eudoxios, bishop of Amorion, 75Eugenius, Pope, 118Eulampios, bishop of Apamea, 185Eulogios, 178

Eumathios, 348

Euodios,271, 438

Euphemian, anti-ic onoc last, 73Euphemios, 296 sqq. and Appendix IX .

Euphrosyne, Empress, c onfusion withTheela, 80, 81 111 retires to

c loister,125 sq.

Eustath ios, quaestor, 122Euthymios, bishop of Sardis, 65, 75,

Euthymios, of Thessalonica, 150Eutychianos, 61 protoasekretes, 66

(probably same person)Exa rcb, of Patriarchal monasteries, 73 ,

198

Excub itors, 5, 227 sq.

Exusiastes , 409

Ezerites, 376, 379

Fald ibn Yakub, 305, 306Farghana, merc enaries from, 238 cp. 228

Fas ts,in Lent

,200

Financ e : of the Roman Empire,Chap.

VII. 1 also of Irene, 3, 213 ; of Nicephorus, 9 , 212 sqq. of AmorianEmperors, 218 sq. c entralministers,210 sqq. taxes , 212 sqq. con

j ec tural estimate of revenue, 219sqq. military expenditure, 225

sqq. naval,231

of the Caliphate , 236 sq.

Finns, 422Fire , Greek “

Roman, 91,96, 99 , 349

Fire-signals in Asia M inor,162

,246,

sqq. ,285

5 17

Forgeries, documentary, 202Formosus

,bishop of Porto

,389

, 392

Fortunatus, Patriarch of Grado,117,

323, 330

Fustat, 244

Gaeta, 310, 314Gallerianon, 316

Gallipoli,309

Ganos, Mt. , 356

Gar igliano, river, 316Garmi, AL ,

223,233

G auderic , bishop, 401 , 485 sqq.

Gazarenos,108

Gaz iura (Turkhal) , 11, 264, 281 sq.

G ebeon, 189

Gebobasileutos, 189

Gela, 299Gelam, 261

G enesios, Joseph, relations of his workto Cont. Theoph . illustrated

,10

,11,

147, 172 , 357 ; sources of,25

, 59 ,157 , 197 , 289 , 352, Appendix IV

G eometry,437 sq. , 439

G eorge, monk, Chronic le, 136 , AppendixI I . Continuation of

,454, 457

George, St. , of Amastris, 417George, bishop of Mytil ene, 75George, brother of Simeon Stylites, 148Gerace, 305

Ge rmanic ia, 244, 248, 263, 273Geron, 258

Getae (Goths 89

G ipsies, 40, 276, 362G lagolitic script, 397 sqq.

G lavinitsa, two places of this name,

384

G lyceria,St. , island, 74

Goloe, 339Gorgo, daughter of M ichae l I . , 14

Gorgonites , see John Gorg onitesG ortyn, 289

Goths of Crimea, 409 , 415G rado, 322 , 323, 330G rammos, Mt. , 385Greece : supports Thomas

,98 Slavs

of, rebellions suppressed, 376 sqq.

language question in, 207 ; latesurvival of paganism in

,381

Greeks antagonism between Greeks andLatins, 194, 206

Gregory IV., Pope, 314Gregory Asb estas, 184 sqq. , 190, 191 ;paints caricatures

,~ 432

Gregory, son of Leo V. ,55, 184

Gregory, son of Musul akios, 5

Gregory Pter6tos, 92, 97G regory, strategos of Sic ily, 295, 450G roshki-Dol

,344

Gryllos, 162 sq.

Gyb erion, 108

Gyrin,284

5 18 EA S TERN R OM AN EM P IRE

Hadath (Adata) 244, 263Hadrian Pope, 202, 400Hadrianople, Staurac ius at

, 16, 165

Nicephorus I . at, 340, 348 attackedby Bulgarians, 353, 356 ; parentsof Basil I . at, 356

Hafaj a ibn Sufyan, 308Hair, fashion of wearing, 124H akam

,Al Emir of Cordova, 287

Halmyros, river, 101Hanazit, 260

Harold Hardrada, 422

Harun al-Rash id, character, 233 revenueunder

,236 ; residence, 241 ; 244,

245 ; wars with the Empire, 249sqq.

Haruniyah, 245Hearth-tax, see Kapnikon

Heb domon, see under ConstantinopleHelena

, St Gastria legend of, 142Helena, wife of Manuel, 145B eliaka , 132

H erac lea (on Propontis), 103, 107, 356Herac lea (Kyb istra), 246, 250, 473Heracliana, 321, 344

H eron (mathematic ian), 438Hesiod, 441Heta ereia and H etaeriarch, 12, 159

Artavasdos, 178Hexab ulios, see John Hexabulios

H ieria, 191 palace of, 127, 133H ieron, toll -house of, 213, 217H ikana toi instituted, 14, 227 sq.

H ilarion, Exarch of Patriarchal Monas

teries, 73, 75, 139

Hincmar,of Reims, 387

H ippocrates, 438H isn as -Sakalib ah , fort, 246H isn Mansur, fort, 244Holmgard, 412Holy Ghost, theory of Procession of

,

200,305 sq.

Homer,435, 441

Homoniza,296, 450

Horkosion, 91

Kumandi,288, 289

Hunain ib n Ishak , 438Hungarians, see Magyars (cp. 492)Huns

,89

Hurramites,251, 257

Husain,poet, 266

Hyatros, island, 183Hymns, 271 sq.

Ibn Kadim,300

“ Ibn Katuna, 292

Ib n Khurdadhb ah, 226, 235, 237, 412Ibn Kudema, 226, 237Ibrahim

,son of Aghlab , 244, 295

Iconoc lasm : pol icy of Nicephorus I . ,

57 ; revived by Leo V. , 57 sqq. ;

Christological aspect of, 70 ; policy

of M ichael II 112 sqq. ; of Theophilus, 135 sqq. end of

,144 sqq. ,

182, 193

Icons, 141, 150 ; iconography, 433Idrisid dynasty, 295Ignatius, deac on : lampoon on Th omas,

109 biographical works, 183

Vita N icephori P atr . , 57 ; Canon

(hymn) on Amorian martyrs, 271,

417Ignatius, Patriarch birth, 14 Domestic

of H ikanatoi, 227 ; tonsured, 29 ;his monasteries, 30 refuses to

tonsure Theodora, 160, 188 ; 163 ;monastic work, 183 sq. Patriarch

,

184 quarrel with G regory, 184 sqq. ;

offends Bardas and M ichael , 188 ;arrested and exiled

, 189 ; deposed,191 ; sufferings, ih. , 198 ; petitionto Pope, 198 sq. restored by Bas il,203 caricatured, 432 ; date of de

position, 470Image -worship, abuses of

,117 fi nal

restoration, 144 sqq. (see Iconoclasm)Indians (negroes ), 89Inheritances, taxation of, 216

InscriptionsByzantine, on land walls of Con

stantinople, 96

on sea-walls of Constantinople, i134

sq.

in Chrysotriklinos, 150

on bricks,166

on walls of Ancyra, 266on tower in Peloponnesus, 378

Bulgarian (Aboba ), 365, 366Chatalar ), 334, 368 sq.

Eski-jurna ), 360Kady-keui ), 343Philippi ), 481 sq.

(Shumla ), 373, Appendix X .

Suleiman-keui ), 360Tyrnovo), 367various

, 334 sq. , 370Latin (San Clemente, Rome ), 401

Insects, 1 95Inthronistic letters, 192, 193Ionian Islands , 224Irenaeus, magister, 300Irene, Empress career

,policy

,and fall,

1 sqq . death, 7 iconoc lastic viewof her ecc lesiastical acts, 69 tributeto Harun

, 249 embassy of Arichisto, 311 ; negotiations with Charlesthe G reat, 317, 320

Irene, Empress, wife of Constantine V. ,

407

Irene,sister of Theodora, 156

Irene,mother of Photius

, 156

Irene, Cappadoc ian, 156

Irenopolis, 347Iron Gate, pass in Balkans, 339

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E A S TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE

402 sqq. ; c onversion to Judaism,

405 sqq. ; attempt to convert toIslam

,407 ; wars with Saracens

,

407 sq. ; relations of the Roman

Emperors to, 414 sqq. ask Theophilus to build Sarkel , 416 settlement at Shamkor, 423 ; relationsto Magyars, 423 sqq. , 491

Kiev,411 occupation by Russians,

419, 422 sq. ; Magyar attack on,

425

Kinamon, 382

Kios, 13Kipchaks, 411Kleidion, 151K leisurarchies , 223, 249 . See ThemesKlimata of Chersonesus, 223, 224, 415,

417Knossos, 289

Kokusos, 248

Kolchos,s ee John Kolob os

Kometas,philologist, 439

Kontomytes, see Constantine KontomytesKoran

,heresy as to the

,233 sq., 276

Kordyles, 370

Kormisos,339, 347

Koron,fort, 473, 474

Korone, 378

Kramb onitai, family, 54Krateros

,strategos of K ib yrrhaeots, 290

Krateros, see Theodore KraterosKrenitai, family, 126Krivichi

,412

Krum, 28, 46, 165 ; carr ies off works of

art from Constantinople, 333 sq. ,

355 ; his sister, 336 ; his brother,353 reign of

, 340 sqq.

Kupharas, see Th eodore KupharasKurru, see Koron

Kyminas, Mt 150

Kynoschora, 277Kynuria, 381

Lacedaemon, 378Lagusae, island, 75Lakku mitata, 112Lalakaon, river, 284Lalakon, see Leo Lalakon

Lamos,river, 275

L ampe, 75Lampoons

, 79, 109 (cp . Doggerel verses)Land

,large and small estates, 110,

214 sq.

Land-tax,212, 214 sqq.

Lardeas,339

Latifundia,see Land

Latros, Mt. , 290

L azar us, painter, 140L earning, Byzantine , 434 sqq.

Leb edia, Appendix XII.Leb edias, 425, 491

Lebuphas (name of the Devil ), 445

Leo III .,Emperor, admired by Leo V. ,

58

Leo V.,Emperor : origin 11 ; Count of

the Federates, 13 strat. ofAnatolics,24 prophec ies of his elevation, 25ambiguous conduct atVersinic ia, 26,350 sqq. elevation

,28 sq. reign,

43 sqq. ecc lesiastical policy, 56sqq. dealings with Iberia

,265

with Paulic ians, 277 ; treaty withLewis the P ious, 325, 329 embassyto L ewis in A.D . 817, 329 interestinVenice, 327 war with Bulgarians,353 sqq. Wall of, 359 erectswatch-tower in Greece

, 378Leo VI . , Emperor : parentage of, 169 ; law

on interest,2 17 ; military salaries

under,225

Leo III ., Pope : letter to Theodore Stud .,

37 crowns Charles, 318 sq.

Leo IV. , Pope, 185, 193Leo, bishop of Mytilene, 75Leo, c andidatus, envoy of M ichael II . to

Lewis,117

Leo Chamaidrakon,124

Leo Grammaticus,chronicle, 456

Leo Kastor, 174

Leo Lalakon, 191

Leo, magister, 440Leo, the Philosopher, warns Bardas of

danger, 170 constructs signalc locks, 247 271 professor at Con

stantinople, 435, 437, 439 ; career,436 sqq. invited to Baghdad, 436attacked posthumously for H el

lenism, 440 sqq.

Leo, protovestiarios, 258

Leo, sakellarios under Irene, 5Leo, sakellarios under Michael 116

Leo Serantapéchos, 5

Leo Skléros, 378

Leo,

spatharios, flees to Charles the

G reat, 318L eo, strategos of Armeniacs, 343Leo Triphyllios, 5

Leontini, 306

L eontios,iconoc lastic monk, 61

Leontios, false legate at Counc il of 867,202

Lesbos, 7, 90, 293Levente, 426Lewis the P ious, Emperor, 81 letter

of M ichael 11. to, 104, 117, 330 ;attempts to settle iconoclasticquestion, 118 embassies to M ichae l

ib embassy of Theophilus to,273 , 418 treaty with Leo V. , 325 ,329 (cp. 355, n. relations withBulgaria, 363 sqq.

Lewis Emperor : negotiations withConstantinople, 201 ac c laimedBasileus at Constantinople, 203

INDEX

campaign in Italy, 315 ; proposedmarriag e with daughter of Theophilus, 331, 432

Lewis the German, 373, 382 sqq. , 389, 425

L ibellas a al ii,198

Liburnia, 325

L icata, 299L icosa, cape, battle of, 314L ipar i

, as place of exile,37

Liudewit, 330, 363

Liz ik os,182

Logothe te of the Course (7 017 6p6aov), 35Hexab ulios

,49, 106 Theoktistos,

144 ; Symb atios, 159Logothete, Genera l (f or?functions

,210 Nicephorus, 5

Phlotheos,171

L ogothete of the H erds (7 65V ayeké‘

w), 211L ogothete, M ilitary (7 08 arpan wfl xofi ) ,

210

Lombards of South Italy, 309 sqq.

L ongoi, 102

Lothar , Emperor, 328, 331Lothar II. of Lothringen, 200Luchane, 412Lulou, 245 , 246 sq., 254, 280, 472, 474,

476Lycaonia, Paulic ianism in, 13

Macedonia, Bulgarians in, 340 Slavs of,

342 colonists from Asia M inor in,342, 347

Mac edonia ” beyond the Danube, 165sq. , 356, 370

Magic , 38, 433 sqq.

M ag ister order of rank ),108 Theoktistos, 16 Alexios

,

127 ; Arsaber, 156 ; Bardas , 160 ;Basil, 174 Petronas, 284 chiefmagister 127Manuel

, 144 ; Irenaeus, 300

Ill aqlabitai, 53

Magnaura, school of, 437, 439Magyars (Tofipxor), 366, 371, 410 ;

migrations of, 423 sqq. , and Appendix XII . language, 426 ; tribes,424

Mahdi, Caliph, 241 sq.

Al ahdi, 253

Maina, 381

Maj id, fort , 473Makarios, abbot of Pelekete, 75, 139, 277Makrolivada

, 361

Malagina, 13Malakopaia, 474Malamir, reign of

, 369 sqq., 382, Appendix X.

Malamocco , 321 sq. , 324, 327Maleinos, see Nicephorus Maleinos

Malevo, 376Mamun

, Caliph, supports Thomas the

Slavonian, 87 sqq. rel igious heresy,

521

233 sq. ; fi nance under, 237 ; at

Baghdad , 243, 259 struggle withAmin, 251 with Babek, ib . war

with the Empire,254 sqq., 472 sqq.

death, 256 ; expedition againstKhazars

,408 ; interest in sc ienc e

and learning, 446 sqq.

Maniakes, see Constantine, ArmenianManichaeanism imputed to Paulic ians,

40, 200, 277Manikophagos, 268, 271Mansur, Caliph, 239 sq.

Manuel, protostrator, 27 ; strategos of

Armeniacs, 46 unc le of Theodora,81 (cp. regent for M ichael111 144, 155 ; c onnection withStudites, 145, 149 ; speech in

H ippodrome,146 ; magister, 149 ;

flight of, 256 sq. (cp. 272,474 sqq.

-Domestic of Schools, 258Manuel , archbishop of Hadrianople, 356,Marbles, 130, 132Marc ellae, 339, 341, 343

Mardaites, 378

Maria, Empress,wife of Constantine

VI . , 111

Maria, daughter of Theophilus, 126,

Appendi x VI.Maria, wife of Basil I . , 169

Marianos, brother of Basil I .,459

Marineo, 305

Marinos,father of Empress Theodora,

81 , 156

Marj -U skuf, 284Mark

,St. c orpse of, 327

Marr iagewithnon Chri stians and heretics,124

Mart in, Bulgarian envoy, 389Martyropolis, 284

Marwan, Caliph, 407M asalaion, 73

Massar, 313

Mathematics, 436 sqq.

Maurianos, 178

Maurice , Emperor, = Maruk, 241 sq.

M aurice, Duke of Venic e, 322 ; his son

and colleague, Maurice, 323Mauropotamon, 274, 282

Mazara, 298 sq.

Megere, Hungarian tribe, 492Melas, R . , 102

M eleona, 338, 341, 348, 362

Melissenoi, family of, 25 , 67 , 159 (seeKallistos Melissenoi)

Melitene, 244, 260, 273, 278Menzale

,Lake, 292

Mesemb ria, 347 , 350, 357

Messina, 306fi l etamir , 474

Methodius, apostle of the Slavs, 393,399, 400, 401 Appendix XI .

522 EAS TE RN ROM AN EM P IRE

Methodius, Patriarch : abbot of Chenolakkos

, 73 ; at Rome, ib. ; bringspapal letter to M ichael 11 115 ;imprisoned, 116 ; treatment of, byTheophilus, 139 sq. , 435 share in restoring images, 145 sqq. Patriarch,147 date of death, 145 scandalouscharge against, 151 ; moderate policyagainst heretics, 152, 182 ; attackedby Studites, 181 sqq.

Methodius, painter, 374, 386Methone (in Peloponnesus), 378Metopa, 71Metrophanes, bishop of Smyrna, 151,

190 sq. , 396, 486

Mezkert, 260

Michael I . , Emperor : Curopalates, 14 ;children, 14 relations to Stauracius,17 sqq. reign, 21 sqq. policy, 23sq. ; defeated by Bulgarians, 26 ;fal l

,29 ; death, 30 ; ecc lesiastical

policy,39 sqq. negotiations with

Charles the G reat, 325 ; Bulgarianwar, 346 sqq. conspiracy of brothersof Constantine V. against, 346

M ichael Emperor : supports and

deserts Bardanes, 11 sq. Count ofthe Tent, 12 relations w ith Leo V. ,

44 sqq. ; Domestic of Excub itors,

46 ; conspiracy against Leo V. ,48

sqq. ac cession and coronation, 77sq. character, 78 sqq.

,112 ; second

marriage, 110 sq. ecc lesiasticalpolicy, 111 sqq. ; letter to Lewisthe P ious, 117, 462 ; death, 118 ;attitude to fellow c onspiratorsagainst LeoV . , 125 lightens hearthtax, 218 attempts to recover Crete,289 sq. sends expedition to Sic ily,296 sqq. Dalmatia under, 330

M ichael I II . , Emperor : birth, 126 (andAppendixVI . ) minority, 154 sqq.

marriage, 156 ; overthrows the re

gency, 157 sqq. ; proclaimed soleautokrator, 160 ; expels Theodora,ih consigns government to Bardas,161 sqq. passion for horse races

,

162,176, 285 travesties ecc lesias

tical ceremonies, 162 sq. extrava

gance, 164 ; relations with Eudoc iaIngeri na, 156, 162 promotes Basil,168 sqq. arranges murder of

Bardas, 170 sqq. letter to Photius,172 ; elevates Basil to throne, 174sq. ; murder of

, 177 sq. ; c alledDrunkard

,176 ; fortifi es Ancyra,

266 ; campaigns against Sarac ens,279 sqq. , 419 suppresses fi re

signals, 285 military demonstrationin Bulgaria, 384 acts as sponsor toBoris, 385 ; repels Russians, 421 ;length of reign, 468

M ichael , Synkellos of Jerusalem, 75imprisoned by Theophilus

, 139abbot of Chora

, 147M ichael, c ommander at Panormos, 297,

450

M ichael, strategos of Sic ily, 450M ichael , bishop of Synnada, 65, 75M ichael Syrus, chronicle, 275, 462 sqq.

M iliarision, 214

M ilings, 376, 379, 380Miliniska, 413

M ineo, 302, 303, 304M ines

,212

M iniatures,431 sq.

M int, 211, 212

Minturnae,310

Misenum, 314

Moechian controversy, 34 sqq. (cp. 38,note 1 )

Mohammad ibn Huzaw, 288

Mohammad,African general in Sic ily,

301

Mohammad ibn Musa (ai-Khwarizmi ),438

Molos (in Lesbos), 75Monasteries (see also under Constanti

nople)Agathos (Bosphorus) , 68, 112Agros (Sigriane ), 74Cresc entius, 1 12

Despotai, 56

Kleidion, 151Pelekete, 75Phob eron, 140, 141

Satyros, 30, 133, 183

Sosthenes, 136Theodore, St. (Bosphorus) , 68, 112Tryphon, St. , 116

Monasteries, taxation of, 213, 215

Monastic ism, 196, 208 sq.

M onegarius, 326

Monemb asia, 73Money, c omparative value of, 220

Mopsuestia , 245, 250, 276

Moravia, Great, 383, 392 sqq.

Mordvins, 411Morocharzamioi, family, 60Moros, see Theodore Moros

Mosaic s, 131 sq.

Mosmar, 86Motyke, 306

Mumdzhilar,mound at, 367

Mummeries of M ichae l III . , 162 sq. ,

176

Muntamir,374

Mustain, Caliph, 243, 286Mutasim, Cal iph : rel igious views, 234 ;

Turkish bodyguard, 237 ; goes toSamarra, 238, 243 war withEmpire, 259 sqq.

Mutawakkil, Caliph, 234, 307Mutazalites, 233 sq.

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524 E A S TE RN R OMAN EM P IRE

Paideuomenos, see Theophilus Paideuomenos

Painting, 430 sqq. (seeP ictures and Ic ons)Palata

,297 , 299, 450

Palestrina, 324Palin

,260

Panion,103, 107

Pankaleia,270

Pankalo , 165

Pankratios , father of John the Grammarian, 60

Pannonia, 365, 399, 401Panormos (Antigoni), island, 41Panormos (Palermo), 297 , 304 sq. , 308

Paphlagonia, 81 (see under Themes)P apias (keeper ofGreat Palace), 51, 159,

178

P arakoemmnenos (high chamberlain) :Damianos, 157 Basil

,169

Parakondakes,277

Paros,290

Partav,410

Partec iaci, of Venice, 328 (see AgnellusParteciac i)

Partridge , symbolic , 170Paschal I . , Pope : correspondence with

Theodore Stud. , 71 , 73 on imageworship, 1 15 death, 118

Passau, archbishopric of, 392, 400Patrae

,167, 377 sq.

Patriarchs ofConstantinople, appointmentof

,189 sq. , 196 oath of

,189 elec

tion of laymen, 32, 33, 194, 196, 207Patriarchs, oriental , 138, 192, 197, 200Patrikes, architect, 132Patzikos, see Constantine PatzikosPatzinaks, 411 , 424, 425 , 492

Paulic ians, under N icephorus I 38 ;persecution under Michael I 40,277 support Thomas, 86 , 109persecuted by Theoph ilus and

Theodora, 276 sqq. settlements ineasternCappadoc ia, 278 in Bulgaria,388

Paulus, strategos of Kephallenia, 324Paulus, bishop of Populonia, 389Peacocks

, 322

Peganes, George, 175 sq.

Peloponnesus, 167, 224, 376 sqq.

P entapyrgion,134

P entelcontafrchs, 227Perekop

,Gulf of

, 425

Persecution of apostates enjoined byPope, 391 sq.

Persian element in Caliphate, 232 sq.

Persians (Persamenians), in Imperialservice, 252 sqq. , 265

Peter, of Mt. Athos, 150Peter, bishop of Nicaea, 65Peter, relative of Boris, 389Peter Bulgaros, 178Peter, false legate at Counc il of 867, 202

Peter, bishop of Sardis, 185Peter, patric ian, slain in Bulgaria, 345Peter Trandenicus, 328Petronas, brother of Theodora Drungary

of the Watch, 122, 143, 160

Domestic of Schools, 161, 198 saidto have intrigued against Manuel,257 strategos of Thracesians, 278c ampaigns against Saracens, 278 sq.

victory at Poson, 283 sq. Domesticof Schools, 284

Petronas Kamateros (probably not identical with preceding) , 416 sq.

Phanagoria, 409

Pharganoi, 228, 238

P hia le, 131

Philaretos , of Panormos, 304

Philippi, 347

Philippopolis, 347. 483Philomelion, 11, 59

Philosophy, teachers of, at Constantinople,394

Philotheos, General Logothete, 171Photeinos, 289 sq. ,

296 sq. , 479 sq.

Photius, Patriarch family of, 156 163

c onstructs genealogy for Basil I . ,

165 ; 171 ; letters to M ichael 111.

after murder of Bardas , 172 sqq. ,

175 ; career, 186 ; doctrine of two

souls, 187 Patriarch, 190 con

c iliatory policy, 192 correspondencewith Pope N icolas , 193 sqq. ; con

demmed by Roman synod, 199

condemns Latin heresies, 200

obtains condemnation of Pope, 201 ;accused of forgery, 202 ; deposed ,203 ; death, 204 ; a Father of the

Church, ib. De mystagogia ,205 ;

champion of Greek national feeling,206 letter to Boris, 387 sq. friendship with Constantine the Philosopher, 393 sq. sermons on the

Russian peril , 420 sq. sends bishopto Russians, 422 books of, 432, 446sq. learning, 435 alleged compactwith the devil, 444 sq. ; on earthquakes, 445 B ib liotheca , 445 sqq.

relations with Cretan Emirs, 439Phrixu-limen

,127

P hysiologus, illustrations of, 432Pictures, 430 sqq. ; Last Judgment, 386

(see Icons and Skylitzes)Pidra

,1 1

P ippin, King, 323 sq.,326

Piracy, 327P isidia, Paulicians in, 38Platani, 305Plate , island, 30, 183P lateia Petra, fort, 176Plato , abbot, 32 exiled, 34, 36P lato , Bodleian MS. of, 448 Arabictranslations, 438, 441

INDEX

Pliska, 332 sqq. Nicephorus I . plunders(1) 341, (2) 343 ; 360

Podandos, 246, 256

P odreza , 167

Poetry (see also Politic al verses) , vulgar,108 of Constantine the Sicilian

,

440 sq.

Poliane, 411, 412

Poliorcetic machines, 358P olitica l verses

, 82

Ponza,archipelago of, 314

Poson, battle of, 283 sq. , 385

P ostmaster, of Caliphate, 236Praedenecenti, 364

Praenete, 192

P raepositus, 127, 175P raetori an P refect of I llyricum, 223 sq.

P raktores, 210

P refect of City (fir apxos) , 10, 124, 127father of the c ity,” 128 137 , 345 ;Ooryphas, 144, 419

Presiam,369, 370, Appendix X .

Preslav, G reat, foundation of, 367 sq.

Preslav,L ittle. 338

Princes,Islands of, 419 (see Prinkipo,

Prote, Antigoni, etc . )Prinkipo (Princ e ’s I sland) , 7, 111 , 116,

183

Prob aton, 347, 373, 483Proc lus, 441Proconnesian islands , 41, 293

Procopia (Empress) , marriage, 14 ; 17,19, 20 coronation, 22 jealousy of

wife of Leo V. ,27 ; tonsured, 29 ;

196, 346, 350

Procopius, protovestiarios of Bardas, 171Prote, island, 13, 30, 55 , 184P rotoasekretis

,Eutychian, 66 ; Photius,

186

P rotostra tor, Manuel, 27 ; 161 Basil, 168

P rotovestiar ios (Keeper of Pri vate -Wardrobe ), L eo Chamaidrakon, 124

Theophanes, 157 Rentakios, 177Prasa, 112

Psalters431 sq .

Pseudo-Nestor, 418, 423Pseudo-Simeon, chronic le, 44, 459Psicha

, 152

Pteleae, 112

Ptolemy the G eographer, 441 VaticanMS. of his work, 436

Pulcheria, daughter of Theophilus, 143,160

,Appendix VI .

Pylae (in B ithynia), 257

Khludov, 431 ; Barberini,

Quaestor, functions, 10 Theoktistos, 5

Arsab er,14 ; Eustathios, 122

Quarnero, Gulf of, 313

Radelchis, 312 sq.

Radimishchi, 412

525

Ragusa (in Sic ily), 306Rangabe, family, 22Rasa, 337, 374

Ratramnus, of Corbie, 205Rec eipts, tax duty on, 214Regenc ies in case of minority, 144, 154

sq.

Reggio, 309Relics, sacred : c lothes of the Virgin,

95, 420

Reliquaries, 434Rentakios, 177 (see Nicetas R entakios)Resaina , 258, 474

Rhaedestos,195 , 356

Rhegion (in Thrac e ), 355Rhegion (in Calabria) , see ReggioRodentos, 246

Rodsaldus , bishop of Porto , 193, 199Romanus I .

,Emperor, 443, 455 , 458

Romanus, strategos of Anatol ios, 343Rome , See of question o f appeal to, 114,

185, 199 theory of supremacy of,115, 180, 194, 198, 199 , 205

Rome, attacked by Saracens, 314 ; proc laims Charles the G reat Emperor,318

Rossano, 309

Rostislav, 383, 393, 396

Rufi nianae, 133

Rur ik, 422Rusokastro, 361Russians, origin and settlements

,412 ;

trade,413 sq. plundering expedi

tions,417 sq. embassy to Theo

ph ilus, 418 attack Constantinople,192, 419 sqq. conversion to Christianity, 422 ; foundation of Kiev,419 , 422 sq.

Sabbatians, 78Sab b atios, hermit, 59, 363Safi ah

,Caliph, 238

Safsaf,al 245

Saipes (Shuaib ), 293Sakellarios, functions, 211 sq. Leo

, 5

Sakellion, 211 sq.

Sakellion, Cha rtulary of , 211

Saksin , 403

Salerno,310, 311 principality of, 315

Salib aras, see Theodosius Salib arasSalmutzes, 426, 489 sq.

Samarra, 150, 271 , 286

Samb atas, 411

Samosata,279

Samothrace, 74Saniana

,108, 238

Sansego, 313

Sarac ens hostilities in reign of M ichael87 ; warfare wi th Empire in

As ia M inor,249 sqq. (cp . Appendix

attack Crete, 287 sqq.

attack Sic ily, 294 sqq. attack South

526 EA S TE RN R OMAN EM P IRE

Italy, 312 sqq. ; administration of

Caliphate, 235 sqq. captives, 101(see under Captives ) c c -operatewith Peloponnesian Slavs

,376 sq.

theological disputations with Christians

, 394, 438 sq. commerce, 414,418 sc ience and learning, 436 sqq.

Sardica (Sofia), 337, 341 sq.

Sarire, 409Sarkel , 416Saryg-shar, 403Sasima, 474

Satyros, see under MonasteriesSaximodeximon

,131

Sazly-dere

,river

,361

Scholae (Scholarian Guards), 227 sq.

Sc ic li, 308

Sc ience,436 sqq.

Scriptor incerta s de Leone, 352, 357Sculpture, 152 sq.

,430

Seb astea (Sivas ), 244, 264, 281Seb astopolis (Sulu-serai), 282Selymbria, 356Semalouos, fort, 473Semender, 403

Senate, 110 sq.

,124, 125 , 160, 231, 349

Senate at Rome, 318

Senea ton (coinage ) 164Serantapéchos, see Leo Serantapéchos

Sergius, father of Photius, 156Sergius, brother of Photius, 156Sergius, Paulic ian leader, 276Sergius, Duke of Naples

, 310, 313, 314

Servia, 337 , 372, 373 sq.

Sevordik , 410, 424, 491

Shamkor, 410, 423Sic ard, 311 sq.

Sic ily, monks of, 183 ecc lesiasticalgovernment of, 194 sq. Saracen

invasion of,294 sqq .

Sieou, 311Siever

,412

Sigrene , 74

Sigriane, 74

Sikenolf, 312

Silention,113, 125, 146

Silistria, 335

Simeon, magister : chronic le, 136, 170,175, 176, 257 , 369 sq. , Appendix IV.

Simeon, monk, kinsman ofM ichael I 20

Simeon, monk,correspondent of Theo

dore Stud . , 33, 38

Simeon,abbot, c orrespondent of Theo

dore Stud. , 36

Simeon, Cretan bishop, 163Simeon, spatharios (in Sicily), 304Simeon Stylites ofLesbos

,33 ; persecuted

by Leo V. , 75 by Theophilus, 139interview with Theodora, 148

Simeon, Tsar, date of ac cession,373

story that he was killed by magic ,444

Sinan,fort

,473

Singidunum, 364, 365

Sinope, 252, 253, 282Sirica, 248

Sirmium, 365

Sis,248

Skeuophylax of S. Sophia, 198Skléros, see Leo Skléros

Skorta, 380

Skutelops, see Nic olas SkutelopsSkylitzes, John : Chronicle, 272, 278illustrations in Madrid MS. of, 28,45, 55 , 137 , 141, 143, 163 , 444

Skyros , 93Slaves, duties on, 217 traffi c in, 322Slavonic alphabets and early theologicalliterature, 396 sqq. , 487Slavs, of Macedonia, 92, 342, 371 , 399 ;

of Dalmatia,329 of Croatia

, 363

of Peloponnesus, sqq. of

Russia, 411 , 412Smoleanoi, Slavonic tribe, 373Smolensk , 413

Smyrna, Theodore Stud. at, 72

Soandos,473

Socrates, 441Sophene, L ittle, 260 sqq.

Sophia,sister of Theodora, 155

Sortes bib licae,390

Souls, heresy of two, 187Spain, 273, 287, 300, 304

Spanos, M ass of the, 163Spektas, see John SpektasSper, 261Stara Zagora, 347Stauracius, Emperor

,crowned

,14

marriage, 15 reign, 16 sqq .

Stauracius, son of M ichael I 14,29

Stenon (the Bosphorus ), 394, 419Stephanos, Domestic of the Schools, 16

alternately suspected, 17, and trustedby S

7

taurac ius, 19 ; under Michael

I 2

Stephanos, nephew of Theodora, 156

Stephanos, patric ian, 262Stephanos, St. , of Surozh, 417Stephen L , Duke of Naples

, 309

Stephen Duke of Naples, 310Strategoi in command of more than one

Theme, 10. See ThemesStrob ilos, 75

Studite monks, schism of, 36, 41

friendship with Manuel, 145, 146theory of Church and opposition toPatriarchs

,180 sqq. , 209 ; excom

municated by Methodius, 182

monastic reform, 208 (see Theodore,abbot of Studion)

Styl ite saints, 33Suda

,b ay of, 288

Sudae 264

Sugdaia, 417, 418

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528 EA S TE RN R OM AN EM P IRE

Theodore, abbot of Studion h is flatteryof Irene, 4 relations to Theoktistos,26 ; views on election of Patriarchin 806 A.D ., 32 sq. creates schismon Moechian question, 34 sqq.

genealogy of,35 ; godson of Theo

phanes, 36 ; exile, 37 c orrespondence

,ib. ; letter to Empress Theo

dosia, 56 ; opposition to Leo V . ,

64 protest against Caesaropapism,

65 ; theory of image-worship , 70 ;agitation against Leo V. , 71 exiledand persecuted, ib. sqq. on secondmarriage of M ichael II . , 111

released from prison,112 ; satisfac

tion at death of L eo V ib. worksfor image-worship under M ichael 11113 sqq. death, 116 ; body removedto Studion

,116 sq.

,182 ; doctrine

of ecc lesiastical government, 180 squrges war with Bulgaria, 348 c ollec

tions of his letters, Appendix I .Theodore Krateros, 266, 267, 271Theodore Kupharas, 374, 385Theodore Mfiros, 197Theodore

,oekonomos of St. Sophia, 117

Theodore, protospatharios, governor of

Naples,310

Theodore, strategos , envoy of Michael11. to Lewis, 117

Th eodosia, Empress, wife of Leo V

Barca, 27, 50, 55 sq.,66

Theodosiopolis,261

Theodosius III . , Emperor, 339Th eodosius Bab utzikos, 273Theodosius, bishop of Chalcedon, 273Theodosius ofMelitene, Chronic le , 456 sq.

Theodosius Salib aras, 218, 342, 345Theodote, Empress (of Constantine

34 kinship to Theodore Stud . ,

35 ; brothers, 41Theodotos Kassiteras, Patriarch of Con

stantinople family of, 25 friend ofM ichael I . , 25 ; supports Leo V. in

iconoclasm,59

,67 ; Patriarch , 68

sq. , 75 death, 114 sq. caricatured,431

Theodotos, c ommander in Sic ily, 303 sq.

Theognostos , Exarch of Monasteries, 198sq” 469

Theognostos, historian, 479Theoktiste, mother ofEmpress Theodora,

126, 142 sq.

Theoktistos, quaestor, 5 ; joins in plotagainst Irene, magister, 16works for the c ause of M ichaelRangab é , 17 sqq. ; influence, 26 ;advises him not to abdicate , 27 ;urges war with Bulgaria, 348

Theoktistos, Logothete of Course,helps

in conspiracy against Leo V . , 52 ;regent for M ichael III . , 144, 154

sqq. share in restoring images, 145sqq. ; power under Theodora, 154sqq. house of

,in Palace

,155 ;

murder of, 157 sqq. expedition to

Abasgis , 274 ; expedition to Crete,

291 patronizes Constantine the'

Philosopher,394, 395 , 439 intro

duces Leo the Philosopher to Theo ~

philus, 437Th eoktistos Bryennios, 379Theophanes, chronographer : tendency

and partiality,6, 7 , 13, 34, 354 ;

on fi scal policy of Nicephorus, 217last portion of his work, 20, 352,354, 356, 357 ; disagreement withTheodore Stud . , 38

,181 perse

cution of,by Leo V. , 74 ; date of

death,ib .

Theophanes, brother of Empress Th eodosia, 67

Theophanes of Farghana , protovestiarios,157, 238

Theophanes G raptos, see TheodoreG raptos bishop of Nicaea, 138

Theophano, Empress : marriage to Staurac ius, 15 influence over him, 17 sq. ;retires to c loister, 21, 23

Theophano, daughter of M ichael I 14

Theophilitzes, see Theophilus Paideuo

menosTheophilus

, Emperor : coronation, 80 ;marriage, 80 sqq. ; activity againstThomas

, 95, 99 administration,120 sqq. love of justic e

,122 sq.

laws, 124 ; family, 126 and Ap

pendix VI . ; triumphs, 127 sqq.,

261 ; buildings , 129 sqq. iconoc lastic policy, 135 death

, 143

not anathematized,145 sqq. ; ad

ministrative changes in Themes,

222 sq. ; fi nanc ial solvency, 219 ,231 ; war with Saracens, 252 sqq472 sqq. life endangered in battle,257, 473 ; embassies to Sarac ens

,

476 embassies to the Franks, 273,331 embassy to Venice , 312

Slavonic movements in G reece

against, 379 relations with Khazarsand Ch erson

, 416 sqq. encourages

secular art, 430 sq. encourages

learning, 435 sqq. c oins, AppendixVI .

Theophilus Paideuomenos,166

Theophilus. one of Amorianmartyrs, 271Theophob os, General , 143, 146, 252 sq.

,

261, 473

Theophylactus, Emperor, son of M ichaelI . , 14 ; coronation, 23 ; becomesmonk

, 29 death, 30Theophylactus, bishop of Nicomedia,

65, 75Theophylactus, archbishop ofOchrida, 451

INDEX

Theosteriktos,Vita Nicetas M ed iciani, 8,453

Thessalonica, 35, 223, 371 , 393, 399,438, 442

Th essalonica, vicariate of, 194 sq. , 197

Thir ty Y ears’

Treaty with Bulgari a,360 sqq. , 462 sq.

Thomas the Slavonian, birth , 11 ; supports Bardanes, ib . ; Turmarch of

the Federates, 46 ; revolt againstLeo V., 48, 54, 85 ; c ivil war withM ichae l 84 sqq. coronation at

Antioch, 88 sq. ; death, 105 sq. ;

attitude of leading image-worshippersto

, 116 ; 252 , 288 ; chronology of

revolt, Appendix V .

Thomas, patric ian, 66, 67T imok

,river, 337, 363

Tinnis, 293Tiver

’

tsi,412

Torcello,322, 327

T orture denounced by Pope N icolas I390

T oxaras,see Constantine Toxaras

Transmarisca, 366 sq.

Trapezus, 418Treasure-trove, 216T reasuries of State , 210 sqq.

Tr iphyllios, 345 (see Leo Triphyllios

and N icetas Triphyllios)T ripoli, 295Triptych of Stavelot, 434Trnovo-Seimen

,361

Troina,308

Tsepa, 370

Tserig, 336

T sok, 359Tundzha, river, 361Tunis , 295T areis, 329T urks in Saracen service, 237, 263

286

T urks, name for Hungarians, 492Turmarch of Federates, 46Tutrakan

, 366

T utsa, river, 367Tyana

, 245, 250, 264

Tyndaris, 305

Tyriaion, 473Tzakonians, 381

Tzantzes,166, 370 (there is probably

some c onfusion in the designation of

Tzantzes as strategos of Macedonia)Tziphinarites. 171

Uglichi, 412Uj aif ibn Anb as, 474Unigurs, 410

Urban taxes,212, 213

U rpeli, 261

U shtum, 293

U sury,216 sq.

Utigur s, 409

U zes, 411 415 424

Xerolopha, 112

Xerxes,283

Yahya al-Ghazzal, 83, 273

529

9 9

Valentine,Duke of Venice, 32489

Varangians, 422

Vaspurakan, 264 sq.

Veligosti, 376Venice : operations in defence of Sic ily,

301 sq. changes of seat of government

,321 sq.

,327 commerce ,

322, 326 history of,in ninth

c entury,323 sqq. ; churches

,327 ;

beginning of independence,328

warships, ib .

Verb its,pass of, 339, 344, 368

Veregava , pass of, 339, 368Verisa, 282

Versinic ia, battle of, 26, 350 sqq.

Vezir , Grand, 236

Viatichi, 4 12

Vigla see Arithmos

Vl adimir,son of Boris

,373

Vlastimir,Servian ruler

,372

Vyshegrad, 413Vytitshev, 413

Walachia, 337Waldrade

, Queen, 200W all , Long, of Thrace, 224, 228Wardrobe (T b Bamhmbv fi eafl dpiov ),

210, 212 Chartulary of , 211Wardrobe

,P rivate (7 6 olxeiaxbv Sean

dptov ), 210 (see P rotoves tiarios)Wardrobe of the Caesar

,171

Wathik, Cal iph, 234, 271, 274

Zacharias,bishop of Anagni, 193, 199

Zacharias, bishop of Chalcedon, 201

Zacharias , bishop of Tauromenium,184

Zagora, 384Zapetra, 244, 251, 254, 260, 262, 472Zara, 329Zatts, 276

Zela, 265 , 282Zélix

, 182

Zerkunes, 293

Zeugma, 472

ZiadatAl lah, Aghlab id Emir, 297 sq. , 304

Zichs,89

Zi-mmi,276

Zoe,Empress, wife of Leo VI 289

Zoropassos, 264

Zosimas, monk, 61Zubaidah

,Princess, 251

Zuhair, African general in Sic ily, 303Zupans , 334

Zvenitzes,451

EAS TE RN ROMAN EM P IRE

II. GREEK

dflvdixbs‘

,217

ddehmwolna ts, 166(garment) , 45

dfliw avos‘

, 40

da¢br epo¢ ( z all ), 83dvafipv

‘

rou 370Q

dr oaouebs o 127babdovha, 214 sq.

flay/af oul) , 335 babxnvaa , 215

Bapobx (Dnieper) , 424Bfia

'

ahov, 416

fi onxas, 334

flovxohaflpds, 335BpoUr os (Pruth ), 424‘

yapaaboeibfis, 380Fefix (Ural) , 492

éyxbhm ov, 258“classical, 79

(cp. 439 , n. 5 ) (2) 441

éaneplax'

r os, 41

éEapxla (military) , 10EV xa l ijum

'

u (nickname), 54ésafi vblg

'

w,217

éwlayovpos, 22, 44, 167ebaefi la t, 221

fovpyov, 335

GaXao'a'a (garment) , 45Oper r ol dvdpmror

,335

Kaeoh ixbs, 166 r erpdflnka , 23KdMfl

'

OS, 351 rf‘

ov‘

trdms, 379

KK‘M T G , 404 (Cp. 415 ) f o8¢a 66xxoustoy , 132 r

45Tpouhhos (Dniester), 424

xokofipos, 335 679777 77, 334xovdl’r os,131

Kaua i/6s, 334K B 424ovfiov ( ug),

¢axn ovdpns, 262

xampmés, 131M m

,r d (Epiphany) , 51

havpd‘

rov,81

inrépdmaos, 368

xapn a‘

rmd,214

Mdgapm, 492 Xekdudia (Kalancha) , 425

P rinted by R . R . C LARK, L IM IT ED , Edz'

nbmyh .

r amps/1 09, 368napa dvuao

'reiiwv

,2,155

napaaovapios, 166

1repl'

ypa 1r‘

r os (theological term) ,1réx, 405

r ohi ‘rdpxa t, 128

r ohir evaa , 7 6, 128

npoaaoudpios, 166

upw'

rbdavaa , 128

Zafidp‘

roc da¢aho¢, 410cr‘

yvpés, 44 (see éntayoupos)adpdfi i

‘

rg‘

a, 345

aépflovhou, 381axapaad

‘

yyia , 128

aoé ba , 345 , 361

o r avbs, 22, 163

a r avpovrfi'

ytov, 209

a re’

aaa , 80

ar e¢d aa , 80

a r ocxei‘

ov, ar ocxetb, 444

0 1 01x6 163, ar ocxelwa ts, 443 sq.

arpofi lh ou,131

awpeéw, 343

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W ork s b y P ro fessor J. B . BU RY

THE ANC IENT GREEK HISTORIANS. (Har

vard L ec tures. ) 8vo . 7s. 6d. net.

OU TL OOK T hese eight admirable lec tures are good examples of the work ofth e new academic spirit in England . T hey are a monument o f learning and c ritic aljudgment , b ut they are to tally unblemished by pedantry in any of its fo rms , gross or

subtle . T he mind o f the lec turer moves with easy freedom in a world o f bygone menand things , b ec ause that wo rld is made alive and humanised by the c onstant play ofimagination and the fully developed sense o f the unity of all history. Theseprinted le c tures then are profoundly interesting as well as profoundly learned .

A THEN /E UM . T he author's great learning is manifest notwithstanding the

popular charac ter of the lec tures , and this , c omb ined as it is with a felic ity o f expression which is all his own, makes the book very welc ome .

THE NEMEAN ODES OF PINDAR . Edited,

with Introduc tion and C ommentary, b y Professor J. B . BURY,

L itt.D . 8vo . ro s . net.

A THEN /E UM . L overs o f P indar c annot b e too grateful to M r. Bury for thewealth of minute c ritic ism

,both philologic al and literary , which he has lavished upon

h is luxur ious edition. Every page evinc es a genuine enthusiasm for his author ,great ingenuity of exegesis , and lively poe tic imagination.

THE ISTHM IAN ODES OF PINDAR.Edited,

with Introduction and Commentary, by Professor J. B. BURY,L itt.D . 8vo . 9 5 . net.

A CADEM Y. W e have no t found one note that is not interesting nor one

translation that is not poetic and forc ib le .

SA T UR DA Y R E VIE I/V. It is marked throughout with scholarly acuteness ,and is in every respec t wo rthy o f the author's high reputation.

THE LIFE OF ST. PATRICK AND HISPLACE IN HISTORY . 8vo . 1 2 5 . net.

A THEN fi UM . A life of S t. Patrick , in which c areful and minute researchhas not quenched a b o ld and vivid imagination. In no book have we found more

ingenuity in prob ing for historic truth amid a c loud of absurdities , and such weighingo f evidenc es as the appendix offers seems to us a model or acuteness in conjec turalc ritic ism.

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