Harald and his Vikings were welcomed into the ranks of the Varangians, and they pledged their loyalty to the imperial family. For their first mission Harald and his men were sent into the Mediterranean to hunt down a band of Arab pirates. They sank the pirates’ ships and laid waste to their coastal bases, killing everyone they found. The emperor was well pleased, and Harald was made commander of the Varangian Guard.
Harald’s Varangians were then sent to fight the Arabs in Asia Minor. It was said that at this time, Harald travelled all the way to the Holy Land, where he walked the streets of Jerusalem, and bathed in the River Jordan.
The Roman emperor sent Harald and his men on missions across the Mediterranean. They were given orders to take a town in Sicily with high fortifications. Harald noticed the sparrows flying out from the castle each day to fetch food for their young. He ordered his bird-catchers to capture the sparrows and fix a small chip of wood, doused in sulphur, to their backs, and set fire to them. The frantic birds flew back at once to their nests in the roof beams of the castle and ignited the whole building. The people inside the town surrendered.
HARALD WAS SOON WEALTHY beyond all his expectations. He longed to return home and use his riches to take the throne of Norway, but he had fallen out of favour with the emperor and was thrown into prison, either for theft or of murder, it’s not clear. Perhaps his real crime was seducing Maria, the empress’s niece, which excited the jealousy of the empress, who had her own designs on Harald.
Harald and his friends were rescued one night by some allies, who hauled them out of their prison tower with a rope. They had to escape Constantinople at once, but first Harald went to claim his revenge against the ungrateful emperor who had thrown him in prison. He led a contingent of Vikings into the imperial bedchamber, where they seized the screaming emperor and gouged out his eyes.
Harald and his men left the palace in great haste. On their way to the harbour they stopped by Maria’s house and abducted her. They brought her down to the Golden Horn, where they stole two galleys. As they pulled out, they saw the heavy protective chain stretched across the mouth of the harbour. Harald ordered his oarsmen to row towards the chain as hard as they could; the other passengers were sent to the stern of the boat with their luggage. Both galleys charged forward at full speed and pitched up onto the iron chain. Then he ordered his men to run forward to the bow. Harald’s galley teetered on the chain, and then tipped forward into the waters on the other side. The other galley fared less well; it splintered across the middle and broke apart.
Once they had cleared the harbour, Harald ordered his boat to pull over to the shores of Galata, where he released Maria, asking her to remind the empress that this proved she had no power over him. Harald then bid farewell to Constantinople forever. He had departed Miklagard on bad terms, but he would retain his admiration and affection for the great city for the rest of his life.
BACK IN NOVGOROD, Harald asked to marry the king’s daughter. Yaroslav consented to the union, and handed over the treasure that Harald had been sending to Novgorod for safekeeping.
Harald returned to Norway with a Russian princess on his arm, chests full of treasure and a string of tales of his adventures in Miklagard. His wealth and reputation helped him win the throne of Norway.
HARALD BECAME A BLUNT, uncompromising monarch. His subjects nicknamed him Harald Hardrada, ‘the Hard Ruler’. He died in 1066 at the Battle of Stamford Bridge in Yorkshire, while attempting to conquer England.
Harald’s death was foreseen before the battle, by one of his Viking warriors in a dream. The man said he saw the enemy’s bannered army, led by a huge, ghastly witch-wife riding a wolf. The witch-wife was feeding one bloody Viking carcass after another into the wolf’s mouth, all the while singing:
Skade’s eagle eyes*
The king’s ill luck espies:
Though glancing shields
Hide the green fields,
The king’s ill luck she spies.
To bode the doom of this great king,
The flesh of bleeding men I fling
To hairy jaw and hungry maw!
To hairy jaw and hungry maw!
Harald knew the witch-wife was his death coming for him. He was cut down in the heat of battle and struck in the throat by an arrow while in the grip of a berserker fury, with both hands clutched around his sword.
THE VIKINGS who returned to Scandinavia from Miklagard were greatly celebrated. But many never came back. Today there are thirty or so tall runestones scattered around Sweden that commemorate the Vikings who left their villages to make their name and fortune in Grikkland – ‘the land of the Greeks’ – and never returned. The runestones are carved with ribbons of text, the inscriptions direct and unemotive, but implying a world of feeling for the lost sons and husbands who joined the Varangian Guard.
Folkmarr had this stone raised in memory of Folkbjörn, his son.
He also met his end among the Greeks.
May God help his spirit and soul.
Ástríðr had these stones raised in memory of Eysteinn, her husbandman, who attacked Jerusalem and met his end in Greece.
These landmarks are made in memory of Inga’s sons.
She came to inherit from them, but these brothers – Gerðarr and his brothers – came to inherit from her.
They died in Greece.
Manzikert
AT THE DEATH of Basil II in 1025, the Roman empire was once again the largest and strongest in Europe. But in the decades that followed, it was undermined by paralysis and intrigue, its economy weakened by inflation and a debased coinage.
Constantine X, among the most blinkered and incompetent of emperors, undercut the empire’s defences at a time when a new Turkish tribe, the Seljuks, were pressing at the border. Regiments of the tagmata were replaced by units of foreign mercenaries operating under contract. The regular troops were cashiered and the frontier fortresses fell into decay. Nearly all the remaining imperial lands in Italy were lost to the Normans. On his deathbed, the wretched Constantine forced his wife Eudocia to vow never to remarry, to ensure succession would pass to his sons.
Eudocia was installed as empress-regent but, overwhelmed by the poisonous intrigues of her dead husband’s family, decided to revoke her vow and marry an aristocratic general named Romanus Diogenes.
ROMANUS DIOGENES was said to be an exceptionally handsome man, with a strong frame and bright, pale eyes. When Eudocia called for him, he was actually languishing in prison for his part in a rebellion against the late emperor. When Romanus was brought before Eudocia, she wept. It’s not known whether her tears were brought on by profound relief or by a premonition of disaster. The Patriarch was persuaded to destroy Eudocia’s handwritten oath to her dead husband, and to give his blessing to the union. Romanus IV was crowned on 1 January 1068.
The new emperor turned his full attention to the long neglected army, and to the growing power of the Seljuk Turks, who were raiding imperial strongholds in Syria and Cappadocia. On paper, the empire’s forces were far superior to those of the Turks. Romanus intended to hit them hard. In the summer of 1071, he led a gigantic, multi-ethnic force of soldiers and mercenaries through Asia Minor to confront the Turks and their sultan head on.
ALP ARSLAN, the sultan of the Seljuk Turks, was, like Romanus, a fine physical specimen. Arab historians record that he was immensely tall and exhibited great physical strength. It was said that his moustache was so long, he had to knot it behind his head while riding into battle to keep it from flying into his eyes. Arslan’s court included mathematicians, philosophers and poets. The Persian scholar Omar Khayyam served in Arslan’s court as an astronomer, but his name would forever be associated with his sublime poetry:
Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night
Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight:
And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught
The Sultan’s Turret in a Noose of Light.
Despite the raids on Cappadocia, the sultan wa
sn’t really interested in taking on the might of the Roman empire. The Seljuks were newly converted to Sunni Islam and intent on waging holy war against the Shi’ite Fatamids of Egypt. While besieging the Fatamid stronghold of Aleppo, Arslan was brought news that the Romans were marching en masse towards them. He broke off the siege and turned back into Asia Minor to confront Romanus.
The two armies set up camp, a mile and half apart, near the fortress of Manzikert, north of Lake Van. That night, Seljuk skirmishers launched repeated assaults on the Roman camp, creating confusion and panic. When dawn broke the next morning, the Roman forces were appalled to discover their Uz mercenaries had defected to the Seljuks.
Arslan, still uncertain of his prospects for victory, proposed a peace treaty, which Romanus rejected out of hand. Romanus was commanding a 100,000-strong force of infantry, heavy cataphracts and artillery, including a wall-shattering mangonel, capable of hurling a stone weighing half a ton. The Seljuk forces were far smaller. As he prepared to go into battle, the sultan donned a white tunic resembling an Islamic funeral shroud, indicating his readiness to die a martyr’s death in the field. He made his officers swear an oath of allegiance to his son, if he should fall.
The Seljuks formed a broad arc in front of the imperial forces. As the Roman infantry slowly advanced from the centre, the Seljuk centre withdrew, firing volleys of arrows as they retreated, and a loop began to form around the Romans. Seljuk horsemen launched hit-and-run attacks on the Roman flanks. As dusk fell, the frustrated emperor ordered his men to withdraw. Seizing the moment, Arslan launched an all-out attack, and the Roman line was thrown into confusion. The officer in charge of the rearguard, a treacherous rival named Andronicus Ducas, deliberately misinterpreted the signal to withdraw, telling his men that the emperor was dead and the battle was lost. Ducas fled from the battle and his men followed.
In the last minutes of daylight, the Roman centre was overwhelmed. The emperor, surrounded by his personal guard, tried to rally his troops until his horse was cut down from under him. He surrendered only when his sword hand was wounded. All night, Romanus lay on the ground, among the wounded and dying.
The following morning, Romanus was picked up and brought to Arslan’s tent in chains. The sultan refused to believe the bedraggled man before him was the Roman emperor, until several other prisoners confirmed his identity. The sultan then rose from his throne and ordered Romanus to kiss the ground before him. As Romanus prostrated himself and placed his lips on the ground, the sultan placed his foot on the emperor’s neck.
It was an act of symbolic humiliation, but once it was over, Arslan quickly helped Romanus to his feet, embraced him and said philosophically, ‘That’s life’. For the next week, the emperor stayed in the Seljuk camp as an honoured guest, going on long walks with the sultan, and eating at his table.
Alp Arslan places his foot on the neck of Emperor Romanus IV.
public domain/Wikimedia Commons/Bibliothèque nationale de France
One night, Arslan asked Romanus, ‘What would you do if I was brought before you as a prisoner?’
‘Well,’ replied the emperor, ‘I would probably torture and kill you, then parade you through the streets of Constantinople.’
‘I have a worse punishment in store for you,’ replied the sultan. ‘I’m going to forgive you and set you free.’
Romanus was happy to agree to a treaty. In exchange for his freedom, the Seljuks would receive 1.5 million gold pieces, and one of the emperor’s daughters would be given as a bride to Arslan’s son. The sultan now told Romanus he should return to Constantinople as quickly as possible, while he still had a throne. Romanus wrote a report to the senate, then left the Seljuk camp for the capital, picking up the scattered remnants of his defeated army along the way.
IN CONSTANTINOPLE, the court was in an uproar. John Ducas, brother of the treacherous Andronicus, exploited the confusion to declare the throne vacant, and Eudocia’s young son Michael VII was proclaimed sole emperor. Eudocia was arrested and sent to a convent. The treaty with Arslan was repudiated.
John and Andronicus Ducas sent an army to intercept Romanus’s forces, and the ex-emperor was defeated. He agreed to resign the throne and retire to a monastery in return for a promise that no harm come to him. John Ducas reneged on the agreement, and sent soldiers to blind him on 29 June 1072.
John Scylitzes, a contemporary historian, records the last days of Romanus Diogenes, where he was ‘Carried forth on a cheap beast of burden like a decaying corpse, his eyes gouged out and his face and head alive with worms, he lived on for a few days in pain with a foul stench all about him until he gave up the ghost.’
The terrible thing about what was to follow was that it was all so unnecessary. If Romanus had been allowed to resume his throne and honour his treaty with Arslan, the Seljuks would have returned to stalking their real quarry: the Fatamid Egyptians.
But it was not to be. The repudiation of the treaty with Arslan was followed by a flood of Turkish tribesmen into Anatolia from the northeast. The degraded Roman defences were powerless to stop them.
Two years later, Michael VII chose to officially recognise the Seljuk hold on Anatolia in return for Turkish support against a Norman mercenary who had set up an independent state in central Anatolia. In this manner the Turks were granted control of Asia Minor, the empire’s heartland and the source of most of its food supply and manpower. Arslan’s successor Sulayman titled himself the ‘Sultan of Rum’.
The Seljuks had taken the Roman name for themselves.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Starlit Golden Bough
The empire at the summoning of the First Crusade by Pope Urban II, 1095.
Don’t Move – I’ll Be Back
THE SITE OF THE HIPPODROME is now a park in central Istanbul; the park maintains the outline of the historic racetrack. Its long central spine is still there, along with its original crop of ancient Egyptian and Greek columns.
Joe and I walk past a scowling man holding out flyers for a tourist cruise line. We see him here every day, half-heartedly chanting the same one-word phrase to sightseers, ‘Bosphoruscruz? Bosphoruscruz?’
An old man with a shoeshine box is sitting on one of the Hippodrome benches. My boots are dusty, but as a visitor, I feel uncomfortable asking a local to clean them for me. Then he says to me, ‘My God! Your boots are terrible! A disgrace! It’s an embarrassment for you.’
Joe laughs and pushes me towards him. Two minutes later my boots are gleaming. I pay the guy and he looks at me like I’m now fit to mingle in human society.
We catch one of Istanbul’s sleek new trams down to Eminonu on the Golden Horn. Walking along the crowded waterfront we see the tall, pencil-shaped Tower of Galata on the far side of the harbour, built by the Genoese in the fourteenth century, when the area was granted to them as a trading colony.
We decide to catch another tram over the bridge to take a look. The tram glides to a halt and the doors slide open. No one on the crowded platform is prepared to wait, they just push their way on board. I gesture to Joe to hang back for a moment to politely allow the disembarking passengers to come out. I board the tram, but the doors are now closing and Joe is still stranded on the platform. I reach through the crush of commuters to jam my arm between the closing doors, and Joe cries out ‘Dad?’ from the platform.
The tram starts to move. The system is automated and it doesn’t care that my arm is wedged in the door. This is why the passengers were pushing so hard to get in on time. I look directly at Joe and shout ‘DON’T MOVE. I’LL BE BACK.’ I yank my arm inside, the tram speeds along and my son disappears from sight.
Inside the carriage I’m breathing heavily, sick with worry. I promised Khym I would take good care of our son, and now I’ve abandoned him on a tram platform in Istanbul. And neither of our phones is working.
Several commuters around me see my distress and reassure me, in English, ‘It’s okay. He’ll be safe. You can get off at Karaköy and get the next tram back.’
These people are being so nice but I’m feeling shaky, and terrible scenes are playing out in my head. I’ve always been able to cope with mishaps in foreign countries before – theft, imminent violence. The rules: stay calm, be patient, remain polite, heighten your situational awareness and look all around you for opportunities to find a way out. I said something like that to Joe as travel advice before we left. But right now I’m badly frightened. Why am I so undone?
The difference is that it’s my boy’s wellbeing at stake, not mine. The tram trundles over the Galata Bridge. Being on the other side of the water makes it much worse somehow. The man next to me points to the electronic display above the doors. His eyes are kind. ‘Next stop is here: Karaköy. Your boy will be okay.’
The tram comes to rest and the doors swish open again. I thank the guy and push my way out. I run through an underpass to emerge on the other side of the tracks, then sweat it out for an agonising eleven minutes for the next tram.
Oh, the poor kid. I hope he’s not too scared. What if he’s not there? How will I explain to the Turkish police that I accidentally left my son on a platform? What kind of a father am I?
The loss of a child is something I’ve never allowed myself to contemplate for longer than a few moments, for fear the thought might haunt my life and spoil the pleasure I take in my children. Now, absurdly, I feel I’m right on the edge of that fathomless ravine of pain.
The tram arrives and takes me back across the bridge to Eminonu, where Joe is waiting for me. He’s fine, of course. I tell him he did the right thing by keeping calm and staying put, but I feel stupid because I’m gasping like I’m going to have a heart attack.
‘Next time we catch a tram, we barge on like everyone else, okay, son?’
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