The Apogee - Byzantium 02

by John Julius Norwich

  Considering the circumstances, the peace terms were both merciful and moderate. The Sultan demanded no extensive territories - not even Armenia, to which he believed that he possessed at least as much right as did the Empire. All he asked was the surrender of Manzikert, Antioch, Edessa and Hieropolis, together with one of the Emperor's daughters as a bride for one of his own sons. There remained the question of a ransom. Alp Arslan first suggested that 10 million gold pieces might be appropriate; but when Romanus objected that since the fitting out of his great expedition the imperial treasury simply did not possess such a sum, the Sultan willingly reduced his demand to a million and a half, with a further 360,000 in annual tribute. He also took the point that the Emperor should return to Constantinople at the earliest possible moment; there was otherwise a very real danger that he might be dethroned in his absence, in which case his successor would be highly unlikely to recognize the validity of the agreement that had just been made. It was thus only a week after the battle that Romanus set out on his homeward journey; Alp Arslan rode with him on the first stage, and for the remainder granted him an escort of two Emirs and a hundred Mamelukes. He had left his capital as an Emperor; as an Emperor he would return.

  Or so, at least, he hoped. His feelings were not however shared in Constantinople, where the news of the defeat had come as the second shattering blow in this most catastrophic of years. The previous April -just a month after Romanus had left for the East - the Normans under Robert Guiscard had captured Bari. Since the days of Justinian Bari had been capital of Byzantine Apulia and headquarters of the imperial army: the largest, wealthiest and best defended of all the Greek dues of the peninsula. By the time the siege had begun, it had also been the only one still remaining under imperial control. The Bariots had resisted valiantly, for no less than thirty-two months; but surrounded as they were by an impenetrable blockade by land and sea, they finally had no choice but to surrender. It was the end, after more than five centuries, of Byzantine Italy.

  The reports from Bari had, however, at least been clear; from Manzikert, they were hopelessly confused, creating at the court of Constantinople an atmosphere of uncertainty and indecision. On one point only was everyone — with the possible exception of the Empress herself - in unanimous agreement: that even if Romanus were alive and at liberty he was now defeated and disgraced; there could be no question of his being allowed to continue as basileus. But who was to take his place? Some called for Eudocia to resume the supreme power that she had wielded before her marriage; others favoured Michael, her son by Constantine X - perhaps as a co-ruler with his younger brothers Andronicus and Constantine; yet others saw in the Caesar John Ducas (who now hurriedly returned from Bithynia, whither Romanus had exiled him before his departure) the best hope for the Empire in this moment of crisis. In the event, it was John who acted - though not, ostensibly, on his own behalf. There can be no doubt that he coveted the throne; on the other hand his own faction was not large enough to give a direct attempt upon it any real hope of success. Fortunately his nephew Michael was a weak-willed youth, with whom - once his mother were out of the way - John could do as he liked. Fortunately too he had the Varangian guard behind him. While the rest were still debating what was best to be done, he divided it into two groups. One, under the command of his recently-returned son Andronicus, charged through the Palace proclaiming Michael Emperor; with the other he marched straight to the Empress's apartments and arrested her.

  It was all over quite quickly. The terrified Eudocia was exiled to a church she had founded at the mouth of the Hellespont, where she was shortly afterwards tonsured and compelled to take the veil. A similar sentence was passed on Anna Dalassena, sister-in-law of the late Emperor Isaac Comnenus, as a warning to the only other family in the capital from whom trouble might be expected.1 Michael VII Ducas was crowned with due ceremony by the Patriarch in St Sophia. It remained only to deal with Romanus Diogenes.

  Romanus's movements after his departure from the Seljuk camp are hard indeed to trace: our authorities are few, and tend more often than not to contradict each other. All that we can deduce with any certainty is that he somehow managed to gather together what remained of his once-great army, with the intention of marching on the capital. John Ducas was, however, ready for him. There seem to have been two battles: one near Dokeia (Tokat) against a force commanded by the Caesar's youngest son Constantine, and one near Adana in Cilicia in which Romanus found himself confronted with the general who had betrayed him at Manzikert, Andronicus Ducas. In both he was defeated. After the second he finally gave himself up to Andronicus, agreeing to renounce all claims to the throne and to retire to a monastery, and receiving in return a guarantee from the new Emperor - endorsed by the Archbishops of Chalcedon, Heraclea and Colonea — that no harm would come to him.

  It could perhaps be argued that the decision of Andronicus to mount the ex-Emperor on a mule and to parade him in his degradation the 500-odd miles from Adana to Cotiaeum - the modern Kiitahya - was not actually harmful, though it seems a curious interpretation of the terms of his undertaking. In the light of what happened afterwards, however, the question seems academic. Referring to the archbishops, Scylitzes writes:

  Although they wished to help him, they were weak and impotent when cruel and harsh men took him and pitilessly, mercilessly, put out his eyes. 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 a few days in pain with a foul stench all about him until he gave up the ghost, being buried on the island of Proti where he had built a monastery.

  He was given a rich burial by his wife, the Empress Eudocia, leaving memories of trials and misfortunes too terrible to be told. But in all his

  1 Nicephorus Bryennius records that she was made the victim of a show trial, in which forged letters were produced to implicate her in a conspiracy to restore Romanus. Her action in suddenly producing from the folds of her gown an icon of Christ, and bidding those present behold the true judge of the proceedings, was applauded as a splendid theatrical gesture - but cut, we are told, no ice.

  misfortunes he uttered no curse or blasphemy, continuing always to give thanks to God and bearing courageously whatever befell him.

  Michael Psellus, who always detested Romanus and never loses an opportunity to denigrate him, predictably attempts to justify the blinding:

  I am reluctant to describe a deed that should never have taken place; and yet, if I may alter my words slightly [sic], it was a deed that should unquestionably have taken place. On the one hand the scruples of religion, allied to a natural unwillingness to inflict pain, would forbid it; on the other, the political situation and the sudden changes of both parties made it absolutely necessary . .. since the more enthusiastic element in the imperial council1 feared that Diogenes might succeed in his conspiracies and once again cause the Emperor embarrassment.

  Nor was that his last insult. A few days before his death in the summer of 1072, Romanus received a letter from his old enemy. It was couched in the friendliest terms, and congratulated him on his good fortune in losing his eyes - a sure sign that the Almighty had found him worthy of a higher light. As he lay in his final agony, the thought must have given him profound comfort.

  The battle of Manzikert was the greatest disaster suffered by the Empire of Byzantium in the seven and a half centuries of its existence. The humiliation was bad enough, the performance of the imperial army having been characterized by a combination of treachery, panic and ignominious flight; the fate of the Emperor, too, was unparalleled since the capture of Valerian by the Persian King Shapur I in AD 260, before Constantinople was even thought of. The real tragedy, however, lay not in the battle itself but in its appalling epilogue. Had Romanus Diogenes been permitted to retain his throne, all would have been well: he would have observed the terms of the treaty he had made with his captors, and Alp Arslan - who (let it never be forgotten) had no intention of making outright war on the Empire, far less of co
nquering it - would have resumed his expedition against Fatimid Egypt. Even had Romanus been succeeded by an Emperor worthy of the name, the damage could easily have been contained: a Nicephorus Phocas or a John Tzimisces - let alone a Basil II — would have restored the status quo in a matter of months, and the Seljuks did not begin any systematic move into Anatolia

  1 I.e., Caesar John Ducas. Psellus goes on to say that he gave the order for the blinding without consulting the Emperor Michael.

  until the summer of 1073 - two years after the battle. By then they can hardly be blamed for doing so. Michael VII's refusal to accept the obligations of the treaty signed with Romanus gave them a legitimate motive for their action, while the chaos that reigned within the Empire and the collapse of the old defensive system based on military holdings ensured that they met with no resistance.

  Thus it came about that tens of thousands of Turkoman tribesmen swarmed into Anatolia from the north-east, and that by 1080 or thereabouts the Seljuk Sultan Malik-Shah1 controlled a broad tongue of territory covering perhaps 30,000 square miles and extending deep into the heartland: an area which, in recognition of its former history as part of the Roman Empire, he named the Sultanate of Rum. The Empire still retained western Asia Minor and its former Mediterranean and Black Sea coasts; but it had lost, at a single stroke, the source of a considerable portion of its grain and more than half its manpower. And it had done so not because of the superior fighting power of the Seljuk Turks, but as the result of its own inefficiency and short-sightedness. The battle through which it had suffered that loss had been directed against an unwilling enemy; it need never have been fought and could easily have been won. Even after defeat, its long-term consequences might have been avoided by judicious diplomacy. But those in power in Constantinople, led by Caesar John Ducas and inspired by the odious Michael Psellus, systematically refused to take the steps that were so obviously necessary. Blinkered by their own smug intellectualism and obsessive personal ambition, they made every mistake, threw away every opportunity offered to them. In doing so they martyred a courageous and upright man who, though no genius, was worth more than all of them put together and could, with their loyalty and support, have saved the situation; and they dealt the Byzantine Empire a blow from which it would never recover.

  The reign of Michael VII continued as disastrously as it had begun. The

  year after Manzikert saw a serious uprising in Bulgaria as a result of

  which a certain Constantine Bodin, son of Prince Michael of Zeta,2 had

  ·

  The son of Alp Arslan who had been physically attacked by one of his junior commanders and had died of his wounds on 24 November 1071 at the age of forty-one.

  Formerly known as Dioclea and theoretically a semi-independent principality within the Empire, Zeta. had broken away in about 1055 and had refused to recognize Byzantine overlordship - the first Slav state in the Balkans to do so after the death of Basil II.

  been crowned Tsar in the city of Prizren. Thanks largely to the efforts of Nicephorus Bryennius the Empire eventually managed to reimpose control, but at a heavy cost; it was clear that further outbreaks could not be long delayed. Meanwhile Rome was steadily extending its influence beyond the Adriatic, in the lands over which Basil II had formerly claimed suzerainty. In 1075 the legates of Pope Gregory VII crowned a vassal named Demetrius Zvonimir King of Croatia, and in 1077 there came a further blow for Byzantium when Michael of Zeta also received a papal coronation. As the imperial hold weakened, the Pechenegs and Hungarians became increasingly troublesome. Thus, within half a century of Basil's death, his whole magnificent achievement in the Balkans was already crumbling away.

  At home the situation was very little better. Inflation was rising, to the point where a gold nomisma would no longer buy a whole measure of wheat, but only three-quarters. Before long the Emperor became known as Michael Parapinaces, or 'Minus-a-quarter', a nickname which stuck with him until his death. Weak and feckless as always, he also allowed himself to fall under the influence of a sinister new arrival on the political scene, the eunuch Nicephoritzes, who took over the effective government of the Empire, cast aside Psellus and the Caesar John and rapidly became the same sort of power in the capital that John the Orphanotrophus had been forty years before. Determined still further to strengthen the centralized bureaucracy of the State, he went further than any of his predecessors by turning the corn trade into a government monopoly, building a vast official granary at the port of Rhaedestum on the Marmara at which all corn shipped to the capital was to be stored until resale. The attempt, predictably enough, proved yet another disaster. The landed proprietors in those areas of Anatolia still in imperial control sustained heavy losses, while the urban consumers found that Nicephoritzes was less interested in ensuring adequate supplies than in increasing state revenues by screwing up the price of bread. This in turn led to a general increase in prices and a further twist of the inflationary spiral.

  Then there were the military insurrections. The first of these was inspired by the leader of the Norman mercenaries, a soldier of fortune named Roussel of Bailleul. His fighting record was not unblemished, since he had been involved with Joseph Tarchaniotes in the mysterious events at Khelat; somehow, however, he had charmed his way back into imperial favour - it sometimes seemed that anyone who had betrayed Romanus Diogenes was by definition a friend of his successor - and had later been sent with a mixed force of Norman and Frankish cavalry against Seljuk marauders in Anatolia. Once deep in Turkish-controlled territory he had yet again betrayed his trust and, with 300 loyal followers, had set up a self-declared independent Norman state on the south Italian pattern. Had Michael VII and his advisers thought for a moment, they would surely have realized that, compared with the Turkish tide that threatened to engulf them, Roussel was little more than a mild irritant; instead, so determined were they to liquidate him that they turned to the Seljuks for aid, offering them in return the formal cession of territories that they already held and thus immeasurably strengthening their hold on Asia Minor. Even then Roussel managed to escape; only when an army was sent out from Constantinople under the command of the ablest of the Empire's younger generals, Alexius Comnenus, was he hunted down and brought back in chains to the capital.

  But Alexius Comnenus could not be everywhere at once and, owing to the neglect of the army during the previous half-century, experienced generals were in short supply; thus it was that, a year or two later, when the Empire was faced with two new and far more serious insurrections, one in the East and one in the West, Roussel was suddenly released from his captivity and found himself fighting at Alexius's side against the two new pretenders to the imperial throne. The first of these was Nicephorus Bryennius who, having fought with distinction at Manzikert, had been installed as Governor {dux) of Dyrrachium, where he had been principally responsible for putting down the Slav revolt of 1072. No longer prepared to accept the incompetence of Michael Parapinaces and his government - and having learnt that the eunuch Nicephoritzes had listed him for assassination - he raised the standard of revolt in November 1077 and marched to his native city of Adrianople, where he was acclaimed basileus. A week later he and his army were beneath the walls of Constantinople.

  His insurrection might well have succeeded had it not been for another, almost simultaneous, rising in the East. Its leader was the strategos of the Anatolikon Theme, Nicephorus Botaneiates. He has made one previous, passing appearance in this story as a prospective husband for the Empress Eudocia, before the arrival of Romanus Diogenes banished the idea from her mind. Presumably because he had doubts about his loyalty, Romanus had deliberately excluded Botaneiates from the Manzikert expedition; the general had returned to his extensive estates in Anatolia, where he had received his present appointment soon after Michael's accession; but now he too - probably, like Bryennius, for the highest motives - took up arms against the Emperor.

  Of the two rival claimants, Bryennius was first in the field; Botaneiates was, however, of
far nobler birth, being a kinsman of the Phocas and thus a member of the old military aristocracy; he was also the stronger, particularly since he had managed to suborn the Seljuk forces hired by Michael to oppose him. Neither made a direct attack on Constantinople, knowing full well from secret contacts within the capital that popular discontent over rising prices would soon bring matters to a head -which, in March 1078, it did. Riots broke out in every corner of the city. Many government buildings were burnt to the ground, among them Nicephoritzes's new granary. The eunuch himself was seized by the mob and tortured to death. The miserable Michael, lucky to escape with his life, quickly abdicated and withdrew to the Studium, and on 24 March Nicephorus Botaneiates entered Constantinople in triumph. His rival Bryennius was captured and blinded.