The Apogee - Byzantium 02

by John Julius Norwich

  I cannot swear that it was these men who killed him, but I know that all those who tell the story maintain that, at the moment that the Emperor dived as was his custom, they held his head for a long time beneath the water, attempting at the same time to strangle him. Then they departed. Later the unhappy Emperor was found floating on the surface like a cork. He was still breathing feebly, and reached out his arm in an imploring gesture for help. Someone, seized with pity, picked him up in his arms, carried him from the bath and laid him on a couch.

  By this time the shouts of those who had first discovered him brought many people running to the spot, among them the Empress herself, unattended and making an immense show of grief. She gazed long at her husband; then, satisfied that he was past help, went away. Romanus moaned, looking round this way and that. He could not speak, and tried to express himself with signs and gestures; then, seeing that these were not understood, he closed his eyes and his breathing became faster again. Suddenly his mouth gaped open and there flowed from it some dark-coloured, coagulated matter. He gasped two or three times more, then gave up the ghost.

  It is a curious story, and not altogether conclusive. The murder — if murder it was — is unsubstantiated, with no eye-witnesses; Psellus's only evidence is based on hearsay, and the victim was unable to testify one way or the other before he died. For all we know, the Emperor might have suffered a sudden stroke or heart attack while bathing. On the other hand it is worth mentioning that Scylitzes states as a point of fact - though again without substantiation - that Romanus was strangled by Michael's men, in the main pool or kolymbithra in the Baths of the Great Palace, while Matthew of Edessa maintains that he died of poison administered by his wife. We are consequently left with two suspected murders of the same victim, and four separate theories. The first is that that there was no foul play at all: the Emperor was simply a very sick man, suffering in all probability from some cardiac or arterial complaint, which finally struck him down while bathing. The second also accepts that his sickness sprang from natural causes, but holds that the Empress and her friends administered - or caused to be administered -the coup de grace. According to the third, Romanus was dying of slow poison - Psellus suggests hellebore - which weakened him to the point where the swim was too much for him, so that he died, quite naturally, of his exertions.

  And so we come to the fourth theory: that Zoe, John and Michael at first planned to kill Romanus by poison but then, when he took much longer to die than they had expected, lost patience and decided to force the issue. This seems on the face of it the most probable of all, but there - once again we shall never know, and perhaps it hardly matters. The essential point is that unless we accept the first hypothesis - which surely strains our credulity too far - we must conclude that in some way or another Zoe killed her husband.

  Once he was dead, she made no pretence of grieving for him. At dawn on that Good Friday morning - it was 12 April 1034 — Alexis of the Studium, Patriarch of Constantinople, was summoned urgently from St Sophia to the Palace, where the first sight that met his eyes was the near-naked body of the dead Emperor. Scarcely had he recovered from the shock when a pair of enormous doors opened - and there, in the great Coronation Hall or Chrysotriclinium, sat the Empress enthroned in state. On her head was the imperial diadem, in her hand the sceptre, over her shoulders the gold brocade robe of the Emperors, heavy with jewels. And there at her side, to the unconcealed horror of the Patriarch, sat young Michael, similarly robed and crowned. She spoke firmly and steadily; Alexis could not fail to understand her commands, nor could he refuse them. There and then he joined the hand of the fifty-six-year-old Empress - widowed only a few hours before - with that of her fellow-murderer and paramour, an epileptic young Paphlagonian forger nearly forty years her junior;1 consecrated him as basileus, Equal of the Apostles; and called the blessing of God down upon them both.

  That same evening, after all the high functionaries of Church and State - bishops and abbots, senators and generals, ministers and bureaucrats - had filed past the sovereign pair, touching their foreheads to the ground and kissing Michael's hand (though not Zoe's) in homage, the body of Romanus Argyrus was carried in an open coffin through the streets of Constantinople to his own Church of the

  1 Scylitzes claims that for some time the Patriarch was too shocked to speak, and found his voice only after the Empress had thrust into his hand fifty pounds of gold for himself and fifty more for his clergy.

  Peribleptos, the new Emperor and his brother leading the procession. The eighteen-year-old Psellus, recendy arrived in the capital, watched it pass. Had it not been for the imperial insignia, he tells us, he would never have recognized the old man. The face was not wasted away but curiously swollen, drained of colour 'like those who have been poisoned', while the sparseness of the hair and beard reminded him of 'an empty cornfield after the harvest'. No tears were shed: the people of the city had cordially disliked Romanus while he was alive, and they were not sorry to see him go.

  If the Empress had hoped for a second husband who would in effect be little more than a crowned slave, ready to indulge her every whim and obey her every command, she was soon to be disappointed. For a few months she was indeed able to enjoy such a desirable state of affairs; but long before that fateful year of 1034 was at its end, Michael was beginning to show signs of impatience. He had never loved Zoe or even much respected her; and it soon became clear to him that he was capable of governing the Empire very much better than she. If, on the other hand, he were to take over the reins — which he was determined to do -might he not risk a similar fate to that which had befallen his predecessor? His brother the Orphanotrophus certainly believed so, and it was probably at his insistence that Zoe once again found herself confined to the gynaeceum under constant surveillance, forbidden even to receive visits from her friends without permission, her liberty - and her spending - even more curtailed than in the days of Romanus.

  There were other reasons too - apart from fear and personal dislike -why Michael should wish to distance himself from his wife. One was his health, which was fast deteriorating. His epileptic fits were becoming ever more frequent, to the point where he had red curtains hung about his throne, which could be drawn immediately his eyes began to glaze or his head suddenly to shake from side to side; but there was clearly no way in which he could conceal his humiliation from his family and close associates, and since on these occasions he minded the presence of Zoe more than that of anyone else, he preferred to avoid her altogether. He was also, despite his youth, becoming dropsical - a disability which apparently made him incapable of normal sexual relations. Finally there was his conscience. He owed everything to the Empress: his position, his wealth, his power. That debt, he knew, had been ill repaid, and he could not bear to meet her eye.

  But he also knew that this betrayal of his wife was as nothing compared to his faithlessness towards Romanus. The memory of it tortured him, and the rest of his short life was one desperate attempt to save his soul. He spent hours a day in church; he established monasteries and convents by the dozen; he set up a vast refuge for the pious poor together with another, even larger, for reformed prostitutes; he sought out holy men and ascetics from every corner of the Empire, washing their feet, personally tending their sores, even putting them to rest in his own bed, while he himself stretched out by its side on a humble pallet; and he transformed Justinian's old Church of St Cosmas and St Damian - the two doctor saints in whom he naturally took a special interest — into what, according to Psellus, must have been one of the loveliest buildings in the city:

  So far as the building of sacred churches was concerned, Michael surpassed all his predecessors, both in workmanship and in magnificence. The depths and heights of this edifice were given a new symmetry, and the new chapels harmonized with the church to give it an infinite beauty. The most wondrous stones were used in the floors and walls, and the whole church was made resplendent with gold mosaics and the painter's art. Images that seemed almost to
live, set in every comer of the building, filled it with glory. Besides all this, near the church and practically incorporated in it, were luxurious baths, countless fountains, beautiful lawns and whatever else could attract or delight the eye.1

  At those times when he was not preoccupied with spiritual matters (and once his wife was out of the way) the Emperor devoted himself to the business of government — at which, it must be said, he proved a good deal more adept than might have been expected. Suddenly he seemed to grow up: the Empire was no longer a plaything, but a responsibility. Psellus notes with approval that he made no dramatic changes in the administration after the manner of so many new Emperors: there were no abolitions of established customs, no reversals of policy, no removals of old or experienced advisers. Such changes as were made came about only gradually, while those men to whom he was under some obligation and who had hoped for high office under the new regime were started off in junior positions to gain experience until he felt them to be ready for promotion. Questions of finance and taxation

  1 In Michael's day the church was usually known as the Anargyroi — 'the unpaid ones' - owing to the tradition that the two saintly physicians never accepted tees for their services. Nothing, alas, remains of it today.

  he left to his brother the Orphanotrophus; everything else he kept firmly in his own hands, paying particular attention to local administration, to foreign affairs and to the army, whose shattered morale he managed in large measure to restore.

  Although he had had little formal education, Michael learned fast. Within months of his assumption of effective power he was ruling the Empire with a sure and steady hand. His advisers marvelled at his industry, his quickness of perception, his sure political instinct and, despite his epilepsy, his emotional balance: he never lost his temper or raised his voice - which was, we are told, unusually resonant — but spoke evenly and rapidly, with a ready wit and a natural ease of expression. In his presence, the baseness of his origins and his shameful path to the throne were alike forgotten. Men were conscious only of his intelligence, his gentleness of manner and his obviously genuine desire to serve his Empire to the best of his ability; and those who knew him well had nothing but admiration for the courage with which he struggled against his two cruellest handicaps - his health and his family.

  Of his four elder brothers, three were little better than parasites, living off the court and interested only in what they could get. The eldest, John the Orphanotrophus, was a far more formidable figure. He also lacked Michael's new-found selflessness and high moral principle; where intelligence and industry were concerned, however, he was cast in a similar mould. While the Emperor, progressively weakened by disease, was on occasion almost prostrate with exhaustion, John's energy was boundless. So, too, was his vigilance. He would work indefatigably late into the night, and then spend hours wandering through the streets of Constantinople, watching and listening, unrecognized in the monastic habit which he always wore. There was, it appeared, nothing that he did not know. Like his brother he was without malice, and would never do anyone a gratuitous injury; but he deliberately cultivated a fierce, intimidating manner, and if this did not make him hated it did at least ensure that he was almost universally feared. He drank heavily, and occasionally abandoned himself to unspeakable debaucheries; yet his shrewdness and watchfulness never left him, and his drinking companions soon discovered that every careless word spoken in their cups was remembered when, early the following morning, they were summoned into his presence to explain themselves. Psellus - who knew him well - was not the only man to conclude that the Orphanotrophus was still more dangerous drunk than sober.

  He differed from his brother the Emperor in one other important respect. While the latter strove for fairness and impartiality in all that he did, John thought only of the advancement of his family. To be sure, this failing had its advantages: without it, Michael would never have come to the throne in the first place, and once he had attained the supreme power he found in the Orphanotrophus a source of constant strength. It was not that the conduct of the other three brothers was a whit less embarrassing to John than to everyone else; it was simply that he felt bound to protect them. He would go to any length to keep the Emperor in ignorance of their misdeeds or, if this proved impossible, to minimize them or shift the blame elsewhere. This and this alone explains why Michael did not take firm action against them, as he would have been well capable of doing; but John had no similar excuse. Had he treated them as firmly as he treated everyone and everything else, all might have been well. By refusing to do so he did a serious disservice both to his brother's reputation and to his own.

  More serious still, he extended this family feeling to a certain Stephen, husband of his sister Maria. In his early days, before suddenly waking up to find himself the Emperor's brother-in-law, Stephen had exercised the humble profession of ships' caulker in the harbour of Constantinople. A man of no intelligence, education or aptitude, it would have been better had he remained there. Psellus gives us an unforgettable description:

  I saw him after the metamorphosis. .. His horse, his clothes, everything else that alters a man's appearance - all were out of place. It was as if a pygmy wanted to play Hercules... The more such a person tries, the more his appearance belies him — clothed in a lion's skin, but weighed down by the club.

  Had the Orphanotrophus been content to weigh his brother-in-law down with honours and titles and leave it at that, no great harm would have been done. Unfortunately, he went further. In 1038 he arranged for Stephen to be given command of the transport fleet for the most ambitious - and what, but for him, might have been the most triumphant - military undertaking of Michael's reign: the long-delayed Sicilian expedition.

  Originally planned by Basil II for 1026 but indefinitely postponed as a result of bis death in the previous year, this expedition now seemed to Michael and his advisers more necessary than ever. The continual raids on Byzantine territory in south Italy by the Sicilian-based Saracens were no longer an annoyance; they were rapidly becoming a threat to imperial security. Nor was it only the coastal towns that were suffering from their depredations: the city merchants complained that the Middle Sea was alive with pirates, prices of imports were rising accordingly and the level of foreign trade was beginning to decline. To every Byzantine, Sicily remained part of the imperial birthright; it continued to boast a considerable Greek population. That it should still be occupied by the heathen after more than two centuries was an affront hot only to national security but also to national pride.

  But if the necessity of the expedition had increased in the twelve years since Basil's death, so too had its chances of success. Among the Arab Emirs of the island, civil war had broken out. The ruler of Palermo, al-Akhal, had suddenly found himself confronted with an insurgent army led by his brother Abu Hafs, stiffened by 6,000 warriors from Africa under the command of Abdullah, son of the Zirid Emir of Kairouan; in 103 j, growing desperate, he had actually appealed to Constantinople for help. Michael had agreed: such an opportunity, he knew, was unlikely to be repeated. The Emir's assassination almost immediately afterwards unfortunately removed this useful pretext for an unopposed landing; but revolt was now spreading throughout Sicily and the Saracens, more and more hopelessly divided, seemed unlikely to be able to offer much resistance to a concerted Byzantine attack.

  The expedition sailed in the early summer of 1038. It had been put under the overall command of George Maniakes, still glorious from his Syrian triumphs and by now the foremost general of the Empire. Psellus has left us a fearsome description:

  I myself saw the man, and marvelled at him; for nature had combined in his person all the qualities necessary for a military commander. He stood to the height of ten feet, so that to look at him men would tilt back their heads as if towards the top of a hill or a high mountain. His countenance was neither gentle nor pleasing, but put one in mind of a tempest; his voice was like thunder and his hands seemed made for tearing down walls or for smashing doors
of bronze. He could spring like a lion and his frown was terrible. And everything else about him was in proportion. Those who saw him for the first time discovered that every description that they had heard of him was an understatement.

  The army which this magnificent ogre was to command was as usual heterogeneous. Its strongest element was an impressive Varangian contingent, which had been joined by the almost legendary Norse hero Harald Hardrada, returning from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem; its weakest a body of grumbling Lombards from Apulia who made no secret of their disgust at having been forced into Byzantine service. Landing in the late summer, at first it carried all before it. Courageously as the divided Saracens fought, they could do little to stem the tide. Messina fell almost at once and was followed, after heavy fighting, by Rometta, the key fortress commanding the pass linking Messina with the northern coastal road to Palermo. Of the next stage of the campaign we know little;1 there seems however to have been a slow but steady advance on Syracuse, which fell to Maniakes in 1040.2

  The demoralization of the Byzantine forces and their collapse after the victory of Syracuse were so sudden and so complete that one can readily understand the Saracens' contention that Allah had intervened on their behalf. Everything seemed to go wrong at once. So far as we can judge, the fault lay partly with Maniakes and partly with the Emperor's brother-in-law Stephen, for whom the general had never bothered to hide his contempt and upon whom, after some particularly crass piece of ineptitude on Stephen's part, he forgot himself so far as to launch a violent attack, casting doubts on his masculinity and accusing him of being nothing but a purveyor of pleasures for his brother-in-law. Stephen - for whom, in view of his assailant's size alone, the experience must have been alarming in the extreme - determined to have his revenge, and sent an urgent message to Constantinople accusing Maniakes of treason. The general was immediately summoned to the capital where, without being given any opportunity to answer the charges against him, he was flung unceremoniously into prison. He was succeeded in his command by Stephen - with results that could have been foreseen - and then, on Stephen's death soon afterwards, by a eunuch named Basil, who proved very little better. The army had by this time lost its momentum and its morale; and the retreat began.