The Apogee - Byzantium 02 (28 page)

It was from this somewhat lurid background that there sprang one of the most valuable - and certainly the most colourful - of our sources of tenth-century history in both the Eastern and the Western Empires. Liudprand, Bishop of Cremona — whose name has already appeared several times in these pages - had been born in 920 into a well-to-do Lombard family. Both his father and his stepfather had travelled to Constantinople before him, as ambassadors from King Hugh; Liudprand himself had served as a singing pageboy at the royal court at Pavia, for he had a beautiful voice and the King was passionately fond of music. Hugh's other pastimes were, unfortunately, rather less innocent: Liudprand's characteristic combination of prudishness and prurience may well stem from an adolescence spent among the courtesans who came flocking to Pavia from all over Italy and beyond. However that may be, he decided to enter the Church and soon afterwards found himself private secretary and chancellor to Hugh's effective successor, Berengar of Ivrea; and it was on Berengar's behalf, on 1 August 949, that he himself set off down the Po on the first stage of a diplomatic mission to the Bosphorus.

Most irritatingly, Liudprand nowhere explains the reasons for this mission; but it seems more than likely, since an ambassador from Otto -a certain Liutefred of Mainz - was travelling to Constantinople at the same time, that Berengar was anxious to make his presence felt and to ensure that as ruler of Italy he would be party to any understanding reached between his rival and Constantine Porphyrogenitus. At all events the two envoys — who had travelled together on the same ship from Venice - arrived on 17 September and were soon afterwards received by the Emperor in audience.

Next to the imperial residence at Constantinople there is a palace of remarkable size and beauty which the Greeks call
Magtaura,
the name signifying 'fresh breeze'... Before the throne of the Emperor there rose a tree of gilded bronze, its branches full of birds fashioned of the same material, all singing different songs according to their kind. The throne itself was so contrived that at one moment it stood low on the ground and the next moment it would suddenly be raised high in the air. It was of immense size, made of either wood or bronze (for I cannot be sure), and guarded by gilded lions who beat the ground with their tails and emitted dreadful roars, their mouths open and their tongues quivering. Leaning on the shoulders of two eunuchs, I was led into the Emperor's presence. Immediately the lions began to roar and the birds to sing, but I myself displayed no terror or surprise at these marvels, having received prior warning from others who were already well acquainted with them. After I had three times made my obeisance I raised my head and lol he whom I had seen only a moment before on a throne scarcely elevated from the ground was now clad in different robes and sitting on a level with the roof. How this was achieved I cannot tell, unless it was by a device similar to those we employ for lifting the timbers of a wine press. He did not address me on this occasion - in view of the distance between us any conversation would have been most unseemly - but inquired through his Logothete as to the life and health of Berengar. I made an appropriate reply, and then at a signal from the interpreter left the chamber and returned to my lodging.
1

After this description, Liudprand goes on to tell of his embarrassment on discovering that whereas Otto's ambassador and those from Cordova had brought the Emperor magnificent presents, his own master had sent nothing but a letter — 'and that was full of lies'. Fortunately he had with him a number of gifts that he had intended to offer to Constantine on his own account; and these, most reluctantly, he now pretended had come from Berengar. They consisted of

nine excellent cuirasses, seven excellent shields with gilded bosses, two silver-gilt cups, some swords, spears and spits, and - more appreciated by the Emperor than anything else - four
carz
ymasia,
that being the Greek name for young eunuchs who have been deprived not only of their testicles but of their penises as well - an operation performed by merchants at Verdun, who export them to Spain at huge profit to themselves.

This last item raises more questions than can be discussed here, not least why these luckless youths should have been so sought after -particularly by Constantine, whose sexual tastes were, so far as we know, entirely normal and who already enjoyed a virtually limitless supply of slaves of every kind. Alas, Liudprand is once again silent - though he goes on to make it clear that the Emperor was not always as unapproachable as he had been at that first audience. Three days after the delivery of his presents he received an invitation to a banquet.

There is a palace near the Hippodrome looking northwards, of wondrous height and beauty, known as the
Decanneacubita,
since
...
on the day of the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ nineteen places are laid at the table. On this day the Emperor and his guests do not sit at dinner in the usual manner but

1
If the golden tree was the same as that installed by the Emperor Theophilus a century earlier (see p.
44),
it says much for Byzantine standards of maintenance. The lifting gear, at all events, seems to have been a tenth-century innovation
.

recline on couches; and all the dishes are served in vessels not of silver but of gold. After the meal fruit is brought on in three golden bowls, too heavy for men to lift.
..
Through openings in the ceiling there hang three ropes, covered with gilded leather, with golden rings at their ends. To these rings are attached the handles projecting from the bowls and, with the help of four or five men standing below, the huge vessels are swung on to the table and removed again in the same manner.

Whether Liudprand's own invitation was for this Christmas feast is not altogether clear, but the occasion was certainly memorable in other ways.

A man entered, balancing on his head, and without touching it with his hands, a wooden pole more than twenty-four feet long, with a three-foot cross-piece a foot and a half from the top. There then appeared two boys, naked except for loincloths, who climbed up the pole, performed various tricks on it and then descended head first, the pole remaining all the time as steady as if it had been rooted in the earth
...
While they were both performing, the evenness of their weights gave the pole some equilibrium; but when one returned to the ground and the other, remaining on high, kept his balance so perfectly that he could both do his tricks and come down at last without mishap, I was so bewildered that the Emperor himself noticed my amazement. He therefore summoned an interpreter and asked me which seemed to me the more wonderful, the boy who had moved so carefully that the pole remained stable, or the man who had balanced it on his head so adroitly that neither the weight of the boys nor their performance had disturbed it in the least. I said that I did not know; he then gave a loud laugh and said that he was in the same difficulty: he did not know either.

Liudprand and Liutefred, the ambassadors from the Caliph of Cordova and their respective staffs were not the only foreign envoys to be received by Constantine Porphyrogenitus. In 946, a year after his coming to power, there had been a Saracen embassy from Saif ed-Daula to discuss an exchange of prisoners; in 949, the same year as the other three, the Magyars sent a high-powered delegation which not only concluded a treaty of non-aggression but actually submitted itself to Christian baptism. Most important of all, however, in its long-term effect was the visit in 957 of Princess Olga of Russia, Igor's widow and now Regent of the young Kievan state, on a mission of peace and good will. After a series of magnificent receptions, the climax came with her own christening by the Patriarch in St Sophia — in the course of which she adopted the name of the Empress Helena, who stood proxy.
1
If the Byzantines had hoped that this ceremony would be immediately followed by the mass conversion of her people, they were disappointed. But the seed had been sown; and thirty years later, under Olga's grandson Vladimir, it would become clear that it had fallen on fertile ground.

On the domestic front, too, C
onstantine gladly continued the policies that Romanus Lecapenus had initiated. Much of Romanus's legislation had been concerned with the protection of the small-holding peasant militia against the rich feudal aristocracy, who had for years been buying up more and more of their land. It had made him deeply - at times even dangerously - unpopular with the latter, whose influence had grown to the point where they were now universally known as 'the powerful'; but he had refused to be deflected from his object, knowing that ever since the days of Heraclius the small-holders, with their regular payments of state taxes and their obligations of armed service, had formed the foundation of the whole economic and military strength of the Empire.

It was inevitable that Constantine Porphyrogenitus should have felt a good deal more sympathetic to the aristocracy, to which he himself belonged, than did his Armenian
parvenu
father-in-law: as we have seen, he made no secret of his particular friendship for the family of Phocas, who represented everything that Romanus had most mistrusted. Yet from the moment that power was in his hands he had steadfastly continued the agrarian policy of his predecessor - in 947 going so far as to order the immediate restitution, without compensation, of all peasant lands that had been acquired by 'the powerful' since his effective accession. On earlier sales the purchase price was theoretically repayable, but even then only by those small-holders with a capital of more than fifty gold pieces. Other laws decreed that properties to which soldiers owed their livelihood and their means of equipping themselves for military service should be inalienable, and that no sale of a small-holding could be deemed incontrovertible and absolute until forty years after its first conclusion. Romanus's old law providing for the confiscation, again without compensation, of lands illicitly surrendered to 'the powerful' was confirmed, and certain loopholes closed up. Thus, by the end of

1
There has been some controversy over Olga's baptism, certain historian; believing that it had already taken place in Russia some two or three years before. I follow my old tutor. Professor D. Obolensky.
(Cambridge Medieval "History,
Vol. IV,.)

the reign, the condition of the landed peasantry was better than it had been for a century and more. It says much for the aristocracy that it accepted the new dispensations with so little protest.

The darkest shadow over Constantine's fourteen years of undivided reign came in fact not from the ranks of the nobility but from the eunuch monk Polyeuctus, whom he was rash enough to appoint as Patriarch in 956, after the death of his disreputable brother-in-law Theophylact.
1
There are two schools of thought about Polyeuctus. Professor Toynbee considers him 'irreproachable'; for Professor Jenkins, on the other hand - whose view seems to come a good deal closer to the truth - he was a tiresome fanatic who from the moment of his appointment did nothing but make trouble: first by publicly accusing Basil the
parakoimomenos
of extortion and then, even more contentiously, by resurrecting the whole vexed question of Leo the Wise's fourth marriage and demanding the restitution of the name of Patriarch Euthymius -who, it may be remembered, had given Leo his longed-for dispensation - to the holy diptychs.
2

Forty years before, the Emperor might have welcomed such an initiative; by now, the last thing he wanted was to have the whole affair raked up again. On this occasion Polyeuctus was obliged to yield; but he continued his disruptive behaviour until at last Constantine could bear it no longer and in September 959 crossed over to Asia to consult his old friend the Bishop of Cyzicus on possible ways of getting rid of him. From Cyzicus he travelled to Bursa, in the hopes that its celebrated hot springs would cure him of a persistent fever from which he had been suffering, and when this treatment proved ineffective he passed on to the monastery high on the Mysian Mount Olympus (now Ulu Dag), some twenty miles outside the town. By this time, however, it was plain that he was mortally ill: the monks, seeing that there was no hope, warned him that the end was near and bade him prepare for death. He returned hurriedly to the capital where, on 9 November 959, he died in his bed, aged fifty-four, surrounded by his sorrowing family: his wife Helena, his five daughters and his twenty-year-old son Romanus, now Emperor of Byzantium.

No reign ever opened more auspiciously than that of Romanus II. His

1
The immense stables that Theophylact had built next to St Sophia for his
2,000
horses were convened into a home for the aged.

2
See
p. 125
.

great-grandfather Basil I, his two grandfathers Leo the Wise and Romanus Lecapenus and his father Constantine had built up the Empire to a point where its economic and military strength were greater than they had been for centuries; intellectually and artistically the Macedonian Renaissance was at its height. The indubitably legitimate son of a much-loved Emperor, born like his father in the purple, he had inherited both Constantine's magnificent build and his charm of manner, together with much of his mother's beauty. His detractors complained that he was frivolous, and that he spent too much time hunting, carousing and playing polo; but such faults are surely forgivable in the young, and there is no reason to believe that he would not have outgrown them had he only been given the chance to do so.

More seriously, but even more excusably, he fell in love. As a child he had been married off to Bertha, one of the countless natural progeny of the Italian King, Hugh of Aries; but she had died soon afterwards and in 9; 8 he had firmly rejected his father's next choice for him, King Otto's niece Hedwig of Bavaria, in favour of a Peloponnesian innkeeper's daughter who had taken the name of Theophano. History offers no more striking example of the
femme fatale.
Her beauty, for a start, was breathtaking: we have no reason to doubt Leo the Deacon when he assures us that she was the loveliest woman of her day. She was also intensely ambitious and, so far as we can judge, utterly devoid of moral scruple: a compulsive intriguer, she would stick at nothing - not even, as we shall see, at murder itself - to gain her ends. And although only just eighteen when her husband succeeded to the throne, she dominated him completely. No rivals were tolerated: almost her first action as Empress was to deal with her mother-in-law and her husband's five sisters. Helena was relegated to a distant corner of the Palace, where she was to die, alone and unheeded, in September 961; all five princesses -one of whom, Agatha, had for years never left her father's side, serving as his confidential secretary and, more recently, his nurse — were obliged to take the veil. They did not do so willingly: for days the Palace echoed with their lamentations. In vain did their mother and their brother plead for them; the young Empress was inexorable. She stood by grimly as Patriarch Polyeuctus himself sheared off their hair and, as a final blow, dispatched them to five different convents.

Thanks in large measure to Theophano, many of the senior officials of government and court also lost their posts; two of the most important, however, remained in power - although with different functions. Basil,
the former
parakoimomenos,
was given the new title of
proedrus,
which carried with it the presidency of the Senate and effectively made him the Emperor's right-hand man, while his previous post was inherited by the eunuch Joseph Bringas, who had combined the dudes of chief minister and High Admiral
(drungarius)
during the last years of Constantine's reign. Bringas emerges from the chronicles as an able yet somewhat sinister figure. Highly intelligent and perceptive, with immense energy and a seemingly limitless capacity for hard work, he was also greedy, rapacious, self-seeking and cruel. Gradually he had made himself indispensable to Constantine, whose dying wish had been that he should continue in charge of the government; with the accession of Romanus his power in the Empire became virtually absolute. It was he who initiated the campaign which was to lead to the most signal achievement of the young Emperor's brief reign: the recapture, after nearly a century and a half, of the island of Crete.

A late Arab chronicler claims that, after the collapse of the disastrous expedition of 949, Constantine Porphyrogcnitus tried to make terms with the Cretan Emir, according to which the latter would call a halt to his subjects' constant raiding in return for an annual subsidy amounting to twice the sum normally brought in by piracy. It may well be so, though no surviving Byzantine source confirms the fact. There can be little doubt, on the other hand, that the 949 fiasco rankled; and before the young Romanus had been more than a few weeks on the throne preparations were under way for a new expedition, conceived on a scale infinitely more ambitious than any that had gone before. We are not, unfortunately, given precise figures for the forces involved; but they included elements from all over the Empire, which were further supplemented by important contingents from Armenia — to say nothing of large numbers of Russian mercenaries and Varangian axe-men from Scandinavia. The total must have been well in excess of j 0,000. On the size of the fleet we are rather more precisely informed: 1,000 heavy transports, 308 supply ships and no less than 2,000 carriers of Greek fire. Command of this tremendous armament was entrusted to the ugly, austere and deeply religious man of forty-seven who had by now proved himself to be the Empire's outstanding general — one of the greatest, indeed, in all its history.

His name was Nicephorus Phocas. His grandfather and namesake had been responsible for the reconquest of south Italy during Basil I's reign; his uncle, Leo Phocas, had led the resistance to Romanus Lecapenus in

919 and had been blinded for his pains; his father, Bardas Phocas, had been appointed Domestic of the Schools under Constantine Porphyrogenitus and had commanded the imperial armies against the Saracens of the East until in 953 a hideous wound in the face had put an end to his military career. Nicephorus himself, hitherto military governor of the Anatolikon Theme, had immediately taken over the command and four years later had given spectacular proof of his abilities with the all-important capture of Adata. He was — friends and enemies alike agree -a superb soldier, through and through: cool and fearless in battle, of enormous physical strength, quick as lightning to seize an opportunity and unfailingly considerate of his soldiers, who adored him and would follow him anywhere. Outside the army he had no interests save his religion, leading a life of almost monastic austerity and spending his leisure hours in conversation or correspondence with holy men. (Of these his particular favourite was the future St Athanasius, who had deserted his monastery rather than become its abbot and was at this time living as a hermit on Mount Athos.) He had absolutely no social graces. He was, in short, a cold fish.