What Constantine X and his government of intellectuals could never apparently understand was, first, that these were the very measures most likely to provoke further coups; second, that mercenaries were by their very nature unreliable, being loyal to their paymasters only for as long as they received their pay, or until someone else offered them more; third, and most important of all, that the enemy — the most formidable enemy that Byzantium had seen since the appearance of the Saracens 400 years before - was at the gates.
That enemy was a people who, being relatively new arrivals on the scene, have so far received only a passing mention in this book. The Seljuk Turks first appear as a distinctive tribe in the latter half of the tenth century in Transoxania, that region of Central Asia which lies between the rivers Oxus and Jaxartes south-east of the Aral Sea, where they quickly adopted the prevailing faith of Islam. At this time they were still entirely nomadic and leading a life of brigandage: fighting with neighbouring tribes, pillaging and plundering wherever the opportunity arose, finding amid the constant warfare of the local princes plenty of employment for their tough little war ponies, their swords and above all their bows, which they could string in the saddle; shooting as easily to the rear as to the front, they seldom wasted an arrow. By 104 j, under their leader Tughrul Bey, they had spread across Persia; ten years later they were to make themselves masters of Baghdad, establishing a protectorate over the moribund Abbasid Caliphate and proclaiming Tughrul 'Sultan and King of East and West'.
The Caliphate, however, had never been their ultimate objective. Still less had the Byzantine Empire, whose existence had always been accepted by the rulers of Islam. This history has already recorded raids and incursions aplenty, in both directions across the frontier; but the idea of annihilating Byzantium would have struck the Seljuk Sultans as completely unrealistic, even ridiculous. The final goal on which their attention was fixed was Fatimid Egypt, whose Empire now extended across Palestine and Syria as far as Aleppo. As orthodox Sunni Muslims, blazing with all the fervour of recent converts, they detested these Shi'ite upstarts, who represented in their eyes not only unspeakable heresy but - since they had actually dared to set up a rival Caliphate in Cairo - a rupture in the fundamental unity of Islam. They knew that the Fatimids would not rest until they had taken Baghdad; and they were determined to destroy them before they had a chance to do so. First, however, there were certain matters to be settled nearer home; and the most important of these was Armenia.
From 1045 onwards, according to the agreement that John Smbat, King of Ani, had made with Basil II nearly twenty years before,1 the larger part of Armenia was in Byzantine hands. Its annexation after John's death had been virtually the only diplomatic success of Constantine Monomachus; at the time he had made much of it, but it would have been better if he had left it alone - particularly since his subsequent policy, and that of Constantine Ducas, towards Armenia could hardly have been more short-sighted. The Empire's reason for
1 See p. 264.
acquiring this great mile-high mountain barrier on its north-eastern frontier can only have been strategic; yet one of Constantine's first acts after its acquisition had been to institute a fierce religious persecution of the staunchly monophysite Armenians, the surest possible way of turning them against him. His second successor Constantine X, while maintaining the persecution, was to go still further in idiocy. Armenia maintained a local militia of some 50,000 men, for the maintenance of which certain imperial taxes were remitted; in his constant search for new sources of money the Emperor ordered the taxes reimposed and the militia disbanded.
Thus it was that Byzantium lost an invaluable buffer state and gained instead, not an Armenian bulwark as it had hoped, but what might a century ago have been called an Armenian Question — a disaffected and discordant minority within the Empire which created more problems than it solved. The Armenian princes, left to themselves, would have put up as stiff a resistance to the Muslim invaders as they always had; now, demoralized and resentful, they found themselves wondering whether even conquest by the Turks would prove appreciably worse than their present subjection to the Greeks.
Tughrul Bey was not slow to turn this vastly improved situation to his advantage. His first attack on Vaspurakan as early as 1046 was a failure: the Byzantine Governor deliberately left a bait in the form of an undefended camp and ambushed the Turks as they were plundering it.-Two years later, however, his unruly half-brother Ibrahim Inal took advantage of the temporary removal of Byzantine troops at the time of Leo Tornices's revolt and overran the city of Ardzen. The Armenian historian Matthew of Edessa speaks of 150,000 massacred, and goes on to describe 'the sons taken into slavery, the infants smashed without mercy against the rocks, the venerable old men abased in public squares, the gentle-born virgins dishonoured and carried off'; Matthew doubtless exaggerates, but the Seljuk sack of a wealthy city cannot have been a pleasant sight.1 Thenceforth the raids continued almost annually. At one point Constantine Monomachus, obliged to withdraw troops from the East in order to deal with a more immediate threat from the Balkan Pechenegs, concluded a truce with Tughrul, but it did not last long: in 1054 the Seljuk Sultan personally led an expedition which ravaged
1 The survivors are said to have escaped to the neighbouring city of Theodosiopolis, which they renamed after their old home, Ardzen er-Rum (Ardzen of the Romans) - a name which over the years was corrupted into the modern Erzurum.
northern and central Armenia and the plain of Erzurum, pressing on to within some fifty miles of Trebizond itself. Although his entry into Baghdad in 1055 provided a brief interval of relief, the old pattern was resumed all too soon; now, too, the sufferings of the local populations were increased by the activities of the Turkomans - Turks who, though outwardly Islamicized, had never abandoned their nomadic habits, refused to accept the authority of the Sultan and cheerfully continued the brigand life of their ancestors.
Tughrul died in 1063, and was succeeded - after a good deal of family strife - by his nephew Alp Arslan, the son of his brother and co-ruler Chagri. Alp Arslan's moustaches were said to have been so long that they had to be tied behind his back when he went hunting; apart from that, the chroniclers tell us little about his personal appearance. As to his character, their accounts differ. Matthew of Edessa predictably calls him a drinker of blood, and Aristakes considers him one of the forces of Antichrist; in the opinion of Michael the Syrian, on the other hand, he ruled justly and well. The Arab historian Ibn al-Adim tells a story which suggests that he did not invariably observe the Prophet's strictures against the drinking of wine, but this failing was not unusual among Muslim princes of his day; all that we know of him for certain is that he was a superb commander in the field. At the time of his accession he was about thirty-three. Early the following year, 1064, he led a huge expedition against Armenia and besieged its capital, Ani.
No traveller visiting what remains of Ani today can fail to catch his breath in sheer astonishment at the splendour of the site: the towering walls, still partially standing, the rolling plain beyond it from which rise the ruins of some of the most magnificent churches of their time (Matthew of Edessa claims that there were a thousand and one of them) and - invisible until one is at the very brink - the sudden chasm formed by the river nowadays known as the Arpa Cay and one of its tributaries, thanks to which the city enjoyed one of the strongest defensive positions of any in the region. This was, however, of little use against the Seljuks. Unlike many of its neighbours Ani put up a show of resistance, holding out for twenty-five days before it surrendered. At the last moment its inhabitants are said to have sent out all their loveliest maidens and most handsome young men in an attempt to avoid a sack; but Alp Arslan was, as usual, merciless. The Arab historian Sibt ibn al-Gawzi quotes a purported eye-witness of what took place:
The army entered the city, massacred its inhabitants, pillaged and burned it; leaving it in ruins and taking prisoner all those who remained alive... The dead bodies were so many that they blocked al
l the streets; one could not go anywhere without stepping over them. And the number of prisoners was not less than 50,000 souls. I was determined to enter the city and see the destruction with my own eyes. I tried to find a street in which I would not have to walk over the corpses; but that was impossible.
Even the Armenian historians admit that the fall of Ani was largely due to the low morale of its inhabitants; there seems, too, to have been little love lost between the local population and the Byzantine officials. Be that as it may, the city constituted the only serious interruption to the Seljuks' progress. From there they were able to advance deep into the centre of Anatolia, where the state of the Byzantine defences by that time can be judged from the fact that in 1067 they penetrated as far as the Cappadocian Caesarea, which was subjected to another merciless sack, and to within a hundred miles of Ancyra (Ankara) before withdrawing. More shameful still, scarcely a sword was lifted against them.
That same year saw the death of Constantine X. Even on his deathbed he had done his best to perpetuate his catastrophic policies, obliging his young wife Eudocia to swear that she would not remarry and demanding from all those around him written commitments that they would recognize only a member of his own family as his successor. In this the dying Emperor was almost certainly abetted by his brother, the Caesar John Ducas, and by Psellus himself, who must have known that he would get short shrift if a member of the military aristocracy should come to power: he had already once - to his deep disgust - been exiled to a monastery and was determined not to repeat the experience. But by this time the fate of Caesarea was known and alarm was widespread throughout Constantinople. Even among the civil bureaucracy there were many who saw that the Empire could be saved only by a radical change of policy. The problem was that, short of a coup d’etat, the only way to ensure the kind of Emperor that was required was for Eudocia to marry him - the one thing that she had sworn not to do.
The Empress herself was perfectly willing to take another husband if she could be freed from her oath, but for this she needed a dispensation from both the Patriarch and the Senate. Unfortunately, since the former was Psellus's old friend John Xiphilinus - with-him virtually a founder member of the new bureaucratic party — while the latter was almost entirely composed of Constantine's appointees, her chances appeared slim. Eudocia, however, was nothing if not resourceful. Aided by one of the Palace eunuchs, she put it about that she was seriously considering marriage to the Patriarch's brother, a rather dashing man-about-town; and Xiphilinus, who knew that his brother had always enjoyed considerable success with women, believed the story. He therefore summoned the Senators one by one, explaining to each in turn the iniquity of the oath that Constantine had forced on his widow. It was, he told them, unlawful and unjust, an attempt by one man to gratify his own personal vanity without thought for the good of the State. This latter, he continued, could be achieved only by the Empress's remarriage to some nobleman of distinction who would then, through her, inherit the imperial crown. Certain of the Senators agreed wholeheartedly, others needed persuasion of one kind or another; but eventually all gave their consent. Now at last Eudocia could announce her true intention: she would marry, not the Patriarch's brother, but a man who seemed, more than anyone else, to epitomize the Anatolian military aristocracy. His name was Romanus Diogenes.
The Emperor Romanus IV, who was probably married and certainly crowned on i January 1068, came of an old and distinguished military family with vast estates, in Cappadocia. Still only in his early middle age, he had already served as Governor of Sardica in which capacity he had won several victories over the Pecheneg invaders; while in Bulgaria, however, he had been accused of conspiracy against the throne. The sentence of death pronounced on him after his return to the capital was subsequently commuted to one of exile, but this too was lifted on the death of Constantine X; Romanus was released and brought before the Empress, who is said to have wept when she saw him. The significance of her emotion is uncertain; we can hardly attribute it to love at first sight, although Romanus - according to Michael Attaleiates, who served with him in the field and knew him well - was quite exceptionally good-looking, with broad shoulders and bright, flashing eyes.1 In any event, tears or no tears, the primary reason for the marriage was unquestionably one of policy: to raise a soldier to the throne and thus to save the State. Eudocia's earlier inclination had been towards the other leading general of the day, a certain Nicephorus Botaneiates, of whom we shall be
1 Attalciates also implies that Eudocia anyway disliked sex; but since her only experience of it had been with her first husband this - from what we know of him - is not altogether surprising. Somehow, in any case, she had contrived to bear him three sons.
hearing more in due course; as a result of this single audience, however, she changed her mind. Romanus, who had left for Cappadocia immediately afterwards, had not even reached his home before he was summoned to return; the marriage and coronation followed a few days later.
It is impossible not to feel sorry for Romanus Diogenes. Although an arrogant man with a strong sense of his own importance, he was also an able and hard-working administrator and a brave soldier; and he fully recognized the gravity of the Seljuk menace. Already once he had risked his life to overthrow an Emperor whom he believed to be leading the Empire to its destruction; now that he found himself to be that Emperor's successor, he set to with spirit and determination to restore imperial fortunes - and it was not his fault that he failed. Wherever he looked, whatever he tried, the dice were loaded against him. In Constantinople, he had to contend with Psellus - who loathed him - and the Ducas family, who bitterly resented his rise to power and were resolved, sooner or later, to bring about his destruction. In the field, he found a hopelessly demoralized army composed largely of vacillating mercenaries, ill-fed, ill-equipped and frequendy on the point of mutiny. Both 1068 and 1069 saw him leading military expeditions to the East, and it is a remarkable tribute to his powers of leadership that he achieved some degree of success - particularly in Syria, where he captured Hieropolis (the modern Mambij) and appreciably strengthened the Byzantine position; but the account of those expeditions by Attaleiates, who accompanied him as a member of his military tribunal, makes almost unbearably depressing reading. The Emperor's personal courage, his determination not to be defeated by conditions and circumstances that would have driven most generals to despair, shines out like a beacon in the darkness; for the rest, we have a seldom-interrupted saga of frustration and disorganization, of cowardice and chaos.
Fighting in the East continued through the first half of 1070, and was followed by a truce. This campaign was not, however, under Romanus's personal command. Every time that he left the capital there was a risk that his enemies - Psellus, the Ducas and their followers - might attempt a coup, and internal tensions during that year were such as to rule out any prolonged absence from Constantinople. In fact, his enforced stay had one major advantage: it enabled him to devote his energies to improving the lot of the army, settling arrears of pay, procuring new equipment, instituting training programmes and generally making good at least some of the damage wrought by Constantine IX and X and their predecessors. It also gave him time to recruit new forces. The experience of the past two years had shown him that the existing army of the East, even when in top fighting form, would never be sufficient to inflict on the Seljuk hordes a defeat decisive enough to ensure the safety of Armenia and, through Armenia, of Anatolia. The truce he had recently concluded with Alp Arslan was being continually broken by the raiding Turkomans and was, so far as he was concerned, a dead letter; he was therefore already planning a campaign for 1071 in which he would be able to throw some 60,000 to 70,000 men1 into the fray.
That expedition crossed the Bosphorus in the second week of March 1071, and immediately headed eastward. Once again, Michael Attaleiates was present; and his version of the events of that summer, while it leaves a tantalizing number of points unexplained and questions unanswered, remains by far the most
detailed and trustworthy account that has come down to us. As always, he makes no secret of his admiration for the Emperor; he notes, however, that after the army had gone some zoo miles Romanus's demeanour seemed to change:
He became a stranger to his own army, setting up his own separate camp and arranging for more ostentatious accommodation. When the army crossed the river Halys, for example, he did not cross over at the same time but remained behind and spent some days at a fortress which had recently been built at his command. Soon afterwards he issued an order to separate his private possessions from those of the army.
Scylitzes, whose narrative for this period clearly derives from Attaleiates, suggests that Romanus had been perturbed by various supposed portents, among them the sudden breakage of the central pole of his tent and an unexplained fire in which he lost much of his personal equipment, together with several of his best horses and mules. It may well be so — this was a superstitious age and the Byzantines were even more credulous than most; there seems little doubt, at any rate, that to his natural arrogance the Emperor now added several other faults which threatened to become liabilities in the days to come: remoteness, ill
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