With Stylian Zautses as his political adviser and Stephen as his willing instrument in Church affairs, Leo was now admirably equipped to govern bis Empire. On the domestic front there were no major upheavals for the rest of the century, which was to end on a particularly happy note when an important synod — it may even have been a General Council - was summoned in 899 and did much to restore relations between the Eastern and Western Churches. (At the time it seemed also to have settled the still-smouldering dispute that divided the Photian and Ignatian factions; but this, as we shall shortly see, was soon to be rekindled by the affair of the Emperor's fourth marriage.) Leo was con-sequendy able to give his full attention to the tremendous work initiated by his father - the revision and recodification of the Roman law.
His reputation as a lawgiver - and indeed as the most, important in Byzantine history since Justinian himself - was, it must be said, partly due to Basil and his commission of distinguished legists, under the chairmanship of the protospatharius2 Symbatius, to whom he had entrusted the task of 'purification' mentioned in the preceding chapter. Not a little of the credit must also go to Stylian, who inspired him and drove him forward, and after whose death the whole project seems to have lost a certain impetus. But Leo too applied himself to the work, at least in those early years, with energy and enthusiasm; and there can be no doubt that it gained much from both his erudition and his literary skills.
1 Forty-seven years later, Romanus I was to elevate his own youngest son Theophylact, who was only a month or two older.
a One of the eighteen honorary ranks of the Byzantine imperial service. The three highest -Caesar, nobilissimus and curopalates — were normally reserved for members of the Emperor's family; they were followed by magister, antihypatus, patricius, protospatharius and eleven others.
The results were published in series over the years: known as the Basilica and consisting of six mighty volumes, each containing ten books, they were largely based on Justinian's Codex and Digest; they did, however, incorporate a good deal of later work - including parts of the Procheiron - and in addition possessed two inestimable advantages. First, the laws were systematically arranged: a given subject was treated in extenso in a given book, and nowhere else. Second, they were written in Greek rather than Latin, which for well over two centuries had been a dead language in Constantinople, comprehensible only to scholars. Thus, from the reign of Leo VI onwards, the work of Justinian was effectively superseded; it is henceforth the Basilica, rather than the Codex, Digest or Institutes, on which the medieval legal structure of Byzantium is founded.
For all their importance, however, the Basilica deal mainly with first principles of right and wrong; they tell us disappointingly little about their time. A good deal more illuminating in this respect are Leo's so-called Novels, the 113 separate decrees by which he revises or revokes older laws according to developments in political or religious ideas. Once again we must be chary of ascribing too much responsibility for them to the Emperor personally: the seventeen which deal with exclusively ecclesiastical matters may well be from his own hand; the remainder, however, though ostensibly addressed to Stylian, are more probably the work of the Logothete himself. Of the latter, the most significant are those revoking the ancient rights of the Curia and the Senate. For a hundred years and more these two institutions - whose functions had formerly been to provide checks on imperial power - had been declining in importance; at last, in Novels 46, 47 and 78, they received their quietus. This is not to say that they were dissolved. The Senate in particular remained active and was not afraid to express its opinions; and it is worth noting that when Leo was at the point of death he specifically committed his son to its care. But it no longer existed as a political force in the State, nor did it enjoy any constitutional power.
Only in ecclesiastical matters was the Emperor still something less than omnipotent. God's Vice-Gerent on Earth he may have been; yet he remained after all a layman, while the Church had its own leader in the Patriarch of Constantinople. Admittedly it was he who appointed the Patriarch; but the appointment, like that to all high ecclesiastical offices, required the consent of the clergy. He was also bound by the decisions of the Councils, his duty where matters of dogma were concerned being merely to safeguard the Orthodox creed as defined by those authorized to do so. In all other fields, however, his power was absolute: chosen by God, Equal of the Apostles, he was master of the government of the Empire, commander-in-chief of its forces, sole lawgiver and supreme judge, whose decisions were subject to no appeal and irrevocable by all but himself.
That blessed period of domestic quiet which accounts in large measure for the remarkable speed with which the new legislation was published , in the last decade of the ninth century was not, unfortunately for Leo, reflected by a similar degree of tranquillity abroad. In the Eastern Mediterranean and the Aegean, the Arabs kept up the pressure: some years were worse than others, but there had been few indeed since the fall of Sicily and Crete to Saracen arms when an imperial city had not been raided or imperial shipping attacked. A more immediate threat, however - and a very much more unexpected one - came in 894 from Bulgaria. After the conversion of King Boris twenty-nine years before, the Byzantines had hoped that the two Christian peoples might henceforth live together in peace; but Boris had abdicated in 889 and had retired to the monastery of St Panteleimon near Preslav, leaving the throne to his elder son, Vladimir; and Vladimir had proved a disaster. In a violent reaction against his father and all that he had stood for, he had identified himself with the once-powerful boyar aristocracy which Boris had done his utmost to crush. The boyars were old-fashioned reactionaries who detested Christianity and asked nothing better than to return to the bad old days of privilege and paganism; Vladimir agreed with them entirely, and with their support was rapidly undoing all his father's work and encouraging a return to the ancient tribal gods.
Had he waited another few years, he might even have succeeded. The Bulgarian Church had got off to a fairly shaky start and had had little time to take root; many of its members may well have felt a similar nostalgia. But he had reckoned without Boris, whose espousal of the contemplative life had not prevented him from closely following developments in the outside world. In an explosion of rage which can almost be heard down the centuries the old king burst out of his monastery, took over the government without a struggle, deposed and blinded Vladimir and, summoning a great conference from every corner of his kingdom, bade the assembled delegates acclaim his younger son, Symeon, as their ruler. Unhesitatingly, they did so; whereupon he returned to his cloister, never to leave it again.
Symeon was now twenty-nine. As a boy he had been sent to be educated in Constantinople, where he may have studied, along with Leo, at the feet of Photius himself. Returning to his homeland, he too had become a monk; but monastic disciplines had done nothing to curb a warlike and ambitious spirit, and when the call came to assume the throne of his father he was not slow to respond, In Byzantium, the news of his accession was received with considerable relief, and for a year all went well. Then in 894 Stylian Zautses, for reasons at which we can only guess, awarded the monopoly of trade with Bulgaria to two of his own proteges. Immediately they imposed a dramatic increase on the customs dues payable by Bulgar merchants on all goods imported into the Empire, simultaneously transferring the entrepot from Constantinople to Thessalonica, where sharp practices were a good deal less likely to be detected. The Bulgars were appalled. At a single stroke, the substantial freight trade from the Black Sea down the Bosphorus to the Golden Horn had been destroyed; to make matters worse, the Thessalonica road was rough and frequently impassable in winter, and meant far greater distances to cover. Symeon at once sent an embassy to Constantinople in protest, but Leo as always supported his Logothete and nothing was done.
He had underestimated Symeon; but he did not do so for long. Within weeks, a Bulgar army had invaded Thrace. The imperial forces were already fully occupied in south Italy and on the eastern frontier.
The Empire's one outstanding general, Nicephorus Phocas, was urgently recalled; and although the troops that he was given to command were raw and only semi-trained, he and the drungarius1 Eustathius - who blockaded the mouth of the Danube - were able to hold the situation while the Emperor, by now seriously alarmed, turned for assistance to the Magyars. These savage warrior people, after several centuries of slow westward migration from Siberia, were now occupying the Moldavian and Transylvanian lands beyond the Danube and were consequently the northern neighbours of the Bulgars, for whom they had no very great liking. They needed little enough encouragement to swarm across the river - the Byzantines providing the boats - into
1 The drungerius was the commander-in-chief of the imperial navy - though not of the local levies raised from the cities along the coast, which were under the authority of the strategoi of their respective Themes. At this period the drungarius, despite his importance, ranked below these strategoi; within another half-century, however, he would occupy a place in the military hierarchy second only to that of the commander-in-chief of the land forces, the Domestic of the Schools.
Bulgar territory, leaving the usual trail of devastation and destruction in their wake. But if Leo could summon a barbarian tribe to his aid, so too could Symeon. Beyond the lands of the Magyars, in the plains of southern Russia, dwelt another nomadic tribe, the Pechenegs. Bribed with Bulgar gold, they fell on the Magyar rear, with results even more catastrophic than their victims had inflicted on Symeon's kingdom. The Magyars, as soon as they heard the news, returned with all speed to save their wives and children from this new terror, only to find their way blocked by a huge Pecheneg host. Unable to remain in Bulgaria, where Symeon was now advancing against them, they had no choice but to continue their old westward migration through the Carpathian passes into the great Pannonian plain - the land which we now call Hungary, and which is still their home.
With the Magyars finally off his back, Symeon was able once again to devote his full attention to the Byzantines, on whom in 896 he inflicted a crushing defeat at Bulgarophygon, near the modern Babaeski, in European Turkey. Unfortunately for the Empire, Nicephorus Phocas had been recalled by Stylian to Constantinople; his successor Catacalon possessed little of his energy and strategic imagination. Somehow this lacklustre commander managed to escape with his life; few of those who fought with him were equally fortunate.1 Leo had no choice but to sue for peace; but it was only after five years of long and patient diplomacy, and a reluctant agreement to pay a large annual tribute, that he obtained it. The staple at Thessalonica was closed, and Constantinople once again became the centre for Bulgarian trade. The war, which had been caused by what should have remained a minor commercial dispute, had proved an unmitigated disaster for the Empire. It had also permanently and decisively changed the map of Central Europe. Bulgar susceptibilities could no longer be ignored: Symeon had shown that he was a force to be reckoned with.
He had also succeeded in dangerously reducing Byzantine military power at a time when the Empire needed to mobilize all its available resources against the Arabs. With the departure of Nicephorus Phocas, the Saracen advance in south Italy could no longer be held in check: 1 August 902 saw the fall of Taormina, the last imperial stronghold in
1 One of the other survivors was so revolted by the carnage that he retired to Mount Joannitsa near Corinth, where he spent the rest of his life on top of a pillar - earning later canonization as St Luke the Stylite.
Sicily; while in the East, Armenia was left practically defenceless and the Muslim forces began a new advance into Cilicia. The situation in the Aegean was no better; that same year also saw the destruction of the wealthy and well-defended port of Demetrias - now Volos - in Thessaly. The worst catastrophe of all, however, occurred two years later when a Greek renegade, Leo of Tripoli, led a Saracen fleet up the Hellespont and into the Marmara. Eustathius sailed out against him, but lost his nerve at the last moment and retired without risking an engagement. The command was hastily transferred to a certain Himerius, who succeeded in forcing the Saracens to retire; instead of returning to their home waters, however, they made straight for Thessalonica. The city resisted for three days, but its walls were in disrepair and its two commanders at loggerheads; the sudden death of one of them after a fall from his horse might in other circumstances have proved a blessing in disguise, but it came too late. On 29 July 904 the defences crumbled and the Saracens poured through the breach. The bloodshed and butchery continued for a full week; only then did the raiders re-embark with their priceless plunder and - we are told - more than 30,000 prisoners, leaving the second city and port of the Empire a smoking ruin behind them.
It was more than a disaster; it was a disgrace. Leo determined on revenge. The shattered fortifications of Thessalonica were rebuilt and strengthened; an intensive programme of ship-building considerably enlarged the fleet; and a plan was prepared for the autumn of 905 according to which Himerius, who had by now succeeded Stylian as Logothete of the Course, would sail round the coast to Attaleia — the modern Antalya - embark a land army under the command of the local military governor, Andronicus Ducas, and then continue to Tarsus, a port which was roughly commensurate with Thessalonica in size and importance and which would now, it was intended, suffer a similar fate. Himerius duly arrived at Attaleia with his fleet - only to find that Ducas had no intention of joining him and had effectively come out in open revolt against the Empire. At this point a lesser man, suddenly denied the forces he had been promised, might well have given up the whole operation; but Himerius, ill-equipped and inexperienced as he was, had no intention of doing any such thing. He pressed on regardless; and a few days later, having utterly destroyed the Saracen fleet that had sailed out to intercept him, he reduced Tarsus in its turn to ashes. Byzantine honour had been saved.
Andronicus Ducas had meanwhile retired, with as many of his army as he had been able to persuade to follow him, some 150 miles northeast to a fortress near Iconium (the modern Konya). There he remained throughout the winter until March 906 when, learning of the approach of an imperial army, he withdrew with his son Constantine across the Saracen frontier and, after a brief pause in what was left of Tarsus, sought refuge in Baghdad. His story is neither edifying nor, in itself, particularly important; but it serves admirably to illustrate a grave new danger that was beginning to threaten the Empire: the rise of an increasingly powerful social class which had grown up in the course of the ninth century and was to cause serious problems during the tenth and eleventh. It consisted of a number of immensely rich families - in view of their size and ramifications, perhaps 'clans' would be a better word — possessed of extensive estates all over Asia Minor and sharing a long militaristic tradition, intermarrying among each other and showing little loyalty to the crown - if only because many of them had designs on it for themselves. Of these clans, that of the Ducas was probably the largest and certainly the most formidable; and Andronicus stood at its head. In the past he had given good service to the Empire, notably in 904 when he had led an expedition into Syria with extremely satisfactory results; but his sudden betrayal - prompted so far as we know by nothing more than resentment at finding himself subordinated to a commander whom he considered his inferior — demonstrates clearly enough the tenuousness of the ties that attached him, and many others like him, to the throne.
As things turned out it was the Emperor himself who was to be responsible, all unwittingly, for the ultimate downfall of Andronicus Ducas. He had arranged for an embassy to be dispatched to Baghdad, there to negotiate with the eleven-year-old Sultan al-Muqtadir an exchange of prisoners; and to it he now entrusted a secret letter to his former strategos, offering him pardon and reinstatement if he would only return to his old allegiance. Unfortunately, the letter was discovered; and its discovery proved Andronicus's undoing. Until then, the Sultan had believed him worthy of his trust; now, he was not so sure. Summoning the renegade into his presence, he gave him the choice between death and immediate conversion to Islam.
Not altogether surprisingly, Andronicus chose the latter, but even this did not secure his freedom. He was placed, if not in confinement, at least under close surveillance; and shortly afterwards he died.
Leo's struggle against the Saracens was not quite over: it was to continue, indeed, for the rest of his life. The time has now come, however, to return to Constantinople, there to trace the vicissitudes of his emotional life during the second half of his reign.
His troubles had begun with his wife Theophano. During his father's lifetime the pair had been obliged to keep up appearances as best they could; after his own accession, however, relations between them had deteriorated fast. He had never liked her at the best of times, but now -perhaps to compensate for the love he could never give her - she had turned all her thoughts to religion, growing more and more devout until she became, even by Byzantine standards, mildly ridiculous. 'With morbid zeal,' writes her own biographer, the Augusta applied herself to the salvation of her soul, treating all the pleasures of worldly life as dirt beneath her feet. Day and night her soul ascended to God in the chanting of psalms and in constant prayer; and unceasingly she drew near to Him through her works of charity. In public she wore the flowers of the purple and was clad in all the splendour of majesty. In private, secretly, she dressed in rags. Preferring the ascetic life to all others, she despised sumptuous food, and when delicate dishes were set before her she took bread and vegetables instead. All the money that she received, all the things so highly esteemed by people of this world, she distributed to the poor; her magnificent robes she gave to the needy; she ministered to the needs of widows and orphans; she enriched the monasteries, and loved the monks as if they were her own brothers.
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