The Early Centuries - Byzantium 01

by John Julius Norwich

  The Council was to hold eighteen plenary sessions, spread out over the next ten months. Constantine himself presided over the first eleven of them - though he was careful to remain impartial throughout and to express no opinions of his own - and again over the last, when on 16 September 681 he formally endorsed the almost unanimous findings. The doctrine of the Single Will, the Council decided, was incompatible with that of the humanity of the Saviour - who possessed, on the contrary, 'two natural Wills and two natural Energies, without division, alteration, separation or confusion'. Those who had maintained otherwise were condemned and cursed - including the now defunct Pope Honorius, who had given his somewhat lukewarm approval half a century before.

  The problem of a canonically elected Pope being anathematized by his own successors has been a perennial source of embarrassment to Roman Catholic theologians - particularly those who have had to defend the later doctrine of papal infallibility; but it caused no anxiety to those gathered in the Domed Hall who, after the Emperor's closing speech, cheered him to the echo - hailing him as the Light of the World, the new Constantine the Great, the new Marcian,1 the new Justinian, and the Destroyer of all Heretics. None of these accolades were altogether justified, least of all the last; but when, four years later, Constantine died of a sudden dysentery at the age of just thirty-three, he could congratulate himself not only that he was leaving his Empire stronger, more peaceful and more united than at any time in the century, but that he had dealt the monothelite heresy a blow from which it would never recover.

  1 It was Marcian who summoned the Council of Chalccdon in 451, when the monophysites were first condemned (see Chapter 7).

  16

  The Emperor who Lost his Nose

  [685-711]

  Nort cuicunque datum est habere nasum.

  It is not given to just anyone to have a nose.

  Martial

  Constantine IV was barely seventeen when his wife Anastasia had given birth to their first-born son. Had he been a little older and wiser, he might not have named the baby Justinian; for the arrogant and obstreperous youth who, just sixteen years later, became lord and master of the Roman Empire was from the outset determined to model himself on his tremendous namesake and to leave, as Justinian I had left, the indelible imprint of his personality on every facet of the State. In some respects he was to succeed; intelligent, shrewd and politically perceptive, with all the driving energy of his great-great-grandfather, he showed in his youth all the makings of a capable and gifted ruler - perhaps even of a great one. His tragedy was to have inherited also, and in full measure, that streak of mental imbalance that had so clouded the last years of Heraclius and that was again apparent in the behaviour of the ageing Constans. If there was little sign of this defect in Constantine IV, this may be only because he died before it could become manifest; in his son Justinian, on the other hand, it appeared early and rapidly established its hold, robbing him of judgement and moderation alike and transforming him into an inhuman monster whose only attributes - apart from his spirit and undoubted courage - were a pathological suspicion of all those with whom he came in contact and an insatiable lust for blood.

  The beginning of his reign was promising enough. Successful military expeditions to Armenia, Georgia and Syria led the fifth Caliph, Abdul-Malik - who had assumed supremacy over the Faithful in the same year as Justinian's own accession - to seek in 688 a renewal of the treaty concluded by Constantine IV with Muawiya. This new settlement was, from the Byzantine point of view, a distinct improvement on the old: in addition to the down payment of 1,000 nomismata, the tribute of horses and slaves was increased to one of each every Friday. It was also agreed, with regard to- the revenues of Armenia and Iberia1 on the one hand and Cyprus on the other, that these should in future be divided equally between the two signatories - an arrangement that resulted in the demilitarization of Cyprus and a state of enviable autonomy for its people which was to endure for the best part of the next three centuries.2 A more dubious provision of the treaty was that the marauding Mardaites should be evacuated from Mount Lebanon and resettled in Anatolia. For years these wild tribesmen had been a continual thorn in Saracen flesh, and had served the Empire well; and there were many Byzantines who feared that their removal would result in a dangerous weakening of the Syrian frontier. But Justinian believed - probably rightly - that by transferring them to Attalia (Antalya) and several other key points along the southern coast he was in fact strengthening his defences rather than the reverse.

  Besides, he saw it as an integral part of a far larger and more ambitious plan: the repopulation of Anatolia, which had never really recovered from the depredations of his namesake Justinian the Great. This policy was not new; it had been spasmodically pursued ever since the introduction by Maurice of 30,000 Armenian cavalry a century before. But Justinian gave it new impetus, and it is in this light that we should probably see his large-scale military expedition of 688-9 into the Slav lands of the West. Having made a triumphal entry into Thessalonica, he somehow arranged for the transportation across the Aegean of vast numbers of Slav villagers and peasants, and for their resettlement in the Theme of Opsikion - the old Bithynia, occupying the entire south coast of the Sea of Marmara together with a considerable hinterland. In the year following he ordered several other similar transplantations of whole communities, from outlying lands in both East and West: it has been estimated that he was responsible, in the space of some five or six years, for the establishment of perhaps a quarter of a million new immigrants in Asia Minor.

  Such immense movements of population could hardly fail to bring radical changes in their train. The backbone of the administrative structure remained the Themes, first introduced by Heraclius; but within

  The region immediately to the north of Armenia, between the Black Sea and the Caspian.

  They were, intre alia, exempt from compulsory military service, and would also be unaffected by the iconoclast persecutions of the eighth century.

  them the social conditions were very different from those of his day. At the beginning of the century, the dominant influence was that of the great land-owners - the prototypes of the feudal barons of Western Europe; by the end, the emphasis is on the new class of free and independent peasants, cultivating their own fields but bound to their neighbours by the woods, meadows and pastures held in common. So sudden an improvement in living conditions led, predictably, to a rising birthrate and a steady increase in the amount of land under cultivation; and the growing population produced in its turn - since Heraclius's institution of compulsory military service for the head or eldest son of each family was firmly maintained - an ever-stronger provincial militia ready for action at short notice. This social revolution - for it was nothing less -is reflected in one of the two most revealing pieces of legislation to have come down to us from the period: the so-called 'Farmers' Law', which most modern scholars date to Justinian (though it may be slightly later). Though the punishments laid down for various misdemeanours in the village community are often savage - flogging or blinding for the theft of corn, loss of a hand for setting fire to a barn or granary - it gives a wonderfully vivid picture of rural life in the otherwise shadowy seventh century.1

  By this time, too, it is clear that taxes were levied not on the individual villager but on the village as a whole. There was nothing wrong with this principle in itself; each man paid his share, in a proportion decided by the community. The trouble came only when Justinian began - as he very soon did - to make demands far above the ability of his subjects to fulfil. The majority of these subjects, it must be remembered, were foreigners recently arrived, uprooted against their will from their homeland and with no inborn feelings of loyalty to their Emperor. It was doubtless for this reason that, after the outbreak of fresh hostilities with the Arabs in 691, we find some 20,000 Slav soldiers deserting to the enemy - so ensuring a major defeat for the Empire at Sebastopolis2 in the following year and the consequent loss of Armenia. It was on this occasion, acc
ording to Theophanes, that Justinian gave the first proof of the savagery that was to make his name infamous. He is said to have rounded up all the Slav families in Bithynia - many hundred miles from the scene of the betrayal - on the shore of the Gulf of Nicomedia and then to have ordered a general massacre, with men, women and children

  1 An English translation may be found in the Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. XXXII (1912), pp. 87— 95-

  2 The present Sulusaray, between Sivas and Amasya.

  by the thousand being slain in cold blood and flung into the sea.

  It is only fair to record that some doubts have been cast on this allegation, as a result of the discovery of a lead seal datable to 694-5 -that is, two or three years after the massacre - and identifying its owner as an administrator of the Slav mercenaries in Bithynia. This certainly suggests that the Slavs in the region were not all murdered; on the other hand, it could equally easily be explained by a new influx of settlers, brought in to replace those who had been killed. One modern historian goes so far as to state categorically that 'Theophanes cannot be believed';1 alas, everything we know of the Emperor's later life suggests that his story may be all too true.

  Fascinating as are the provisions of the Farmers' Law, there is one other document that tells us even more about the manners and customs prevailing in Justinian IPs day: the record of the great Synod of 165 Eastern bishops, summoned by the Emperor in 691 and known as the Quinisextum. The proclaimed purpose of this gathering - which explains, incidentally, its rather curious name - was to regulate all those matters left outstanding after the Fifth and Sixth Ecumenical Councils; but it was also yet another example of the Emperor's determination to leave his mark on ecclesiastical affairs as on every other branch of government. Thus, in the absence of any major issues to be discussed, the delegates were compelled to spend much of their time on matters of little real importance - and sometimes, indeed, of quite astonishing triviality.

  They are, however, not a jot less interesting on that account. We read, for example, in Canon 3 that second marriages for the clergy are forbidden, and that no man who, after his baptism, has married a widow, a prostitute, a slave or an actress may enter the priesthood; in Canon 11, that no priest might consult a Jewish physician or take a bath in company with a Jew; in Canon 24, that the clergy were banned from the races and the theatre, and that if invited to weddings they must retire 'before the games began'; in Canon 42, that 'those hermits who dress in black, wear their hair long and go about the towns visiting laymen and women' must cut their hair and enter a monastery and, if they refuse, must be chased away to desert places; in Canon 50, that playing at dice, even for laymen, was punishable by excommunication; in Canon 61, that six years of penitence were to be imposed on all who consulted fortune-tellers, 'showed bears or other animals to deceive the simple', or sold lucky

  1 Ostrogorsky, in the ist cd. of translation; in the and ed., the sentence has been amended (pp. 131-i) to read: 'It is not of course possible to credit Theophanes . . .' The change of nuance is intriguing.

  charms and amulets; in Canon 62, that all pagan festivals such as the Bota (in honour of Pan) or the Brumalia (in honour of Bacchus) were prohibited, as were all dances by women and all by either sex in honour of pagan gods, all comic, tragic or satyrical masks, all transvestites, and all invocations to Bacchus during the grape harvest; in Canon 65, that it was forbidden to dance round bonfires at the new moon; in Canon 79, that Christmas presents were forbidden; in Canon 91, that abortionists and their patients should be punished in the same way as murderers; and in Canon 96, that the ban of the Church would fall on all those who 'curled their hair in a provocative or seductive manner'.

  Now most of this was harmless enough, and we may be sure that the deliberations of the Quinisextum made little or no difference to the habits and superstitions of the country folk of Anatolia and the Balkans, who have maintained many of them up to the present day. All might have been well had not Justinian - who had not troubled to invite any special representatives from Rome to his Synod - sent the 102 approved Canons to Pope Sergius I, with somewhat peremptory instructions to endorse them. Since several of these Canons - such as those permitting marriage among the secular clergy or condemning fasts on Saturdays in Lent -were directly contrary to Roman usage, the Pope very naturally refused;1 whereupon Justinian ordered the Exarch of Ravenna, one Zacharias, to arrest him forthwith and bring him to Constantinople for judgement.

  In doing so, he clearly had in mind his grandfather's treatment of Pope Martin and - even more, perhaps - the first Justinian, who had behaved in similar fashion to Pope Vigilius. But times had changed. Pope Sergius was a good deal more powerful, and more popular, than his tw'o unfortunate predecessors. On receiving their orders, the imperial militias of both Ravenna and Rome flatly refused to obey. Soon after Zacharias reached the Lateran Palace, the building was surrounded; and the unfortunate Exarch found himself a prisoner of his own troops and of the Roman populace, all hurling imprecations on the Emperor and himself for presuming to lay hands on the Pontiff. Only, we are told, after Sergius had personally intervened on his behalf could he be persuaded to emerge from under the papal bed and make good his escape.2

  When the news reached Constantinople, Justinian flew into one of those ungovernable rages for which he was already famous. It is unlikely,

  1 Another Canon to which the Pope took particular exception was that which forbade the popular metaphor of Christ as a Lamb. Sergius, we are told, had a special affection for this image, and expressed his displeasure by deliberately adding the Agnus Dei to the Mass. 1 Liber Pontificalis, I, J73-4.

  however, that the majority of his subjects felt much sympathy. In the seven years since his accession the young Emperor - he was still barely twenty-three — had acquired a degree of unpopularity previously equalled, perhaps, only by Phocas. His high-handed treatment of the recent settlers had already, as we have seen, resulted in a massive mutiny that had cost him Armenia. The old aristocracy, fully aware of his hostility, had been obliged to stand impotently by while he had steadily shorn them of their powers and privileges in favour of a free peasantry responsible only to himself; and even that peasantry had been antagonized by his insatiable demands for money.

  Here was the one field in which Justinian II could equal, or even surpass, his great namesake. He too had a passion for building, on a scale which threatened to reduce his subjects to penury. His tax-collectors - above all his Grand Logothete (and defrocked priest) Theodotus and his Sacellarius Stephen of Persia, a huge and hideous eunuch never seen without a whip in his hand - had quickly shown themselves to be as brutal and merciless as John of Cappadocia at his worst, thinking nothing of torturing their victims (often by hanging them over a slow fire and smoking them into unconsciousness) if they could thereby extract a few additional pieces of gold for their master. Inevitably, it was the wealthy aristocracy that suffered most: Justinian made no secret of the fact that he hated them and was determined to destroy them as a class. They bore the extortions till they could bear them no more; then they rose in revolt.

  Their leader was one of themselves, a professional soldier named Leontius who, after distinguishing himself in the Armenian and Caucasian campaigns, had been disgraced in 692 - he may have commanded the army that had been defeated at Sebastopolis - and thrown into prison. While there, so the story goes, he had been visited by two monks, one of whom had foretold that he would one day wear the imperial diadem. This prophecy had so preyed on his mind that when in 695 he was suddenly set at liberty and nominated military governor of the new Theme of Hellas, he marched on the Praetorium, overpowered the Prefect and released all the prisoners that were being held there - many of them his old comrades-in-arms, who declared for him at once. Together they then moved on to St Sophia, calling on all whom they passed to gather at the Great Church. On their arrival the Patriarch, who had recently given the Emperor some offence and was already fearing the worst, unhesitatingly declared in their favour, with the wor
ds, 'Here is the day which the Lord hath ordained!' By morning, thanks to the enthusiastic support of the Blues, Leontius had been proclaimed Basileus and the revolution was over. Justinian was taken prisoner and led in chains round the Hippodrome, while his erstwhile subjects screamed insults and abuse. In token of the new Emperor's long friendship with his father Constantine IV, his life was spared; he suffered instead the by now usual mutilations to nose and tongue1 before being sent off to eternal exile in the Crimean city of Cherson. His rapacious ministers were less fortunate: tied by the feet to the backs of heavy wagons, they were then dragged down the Mese from the Augusteum to the Forum Bovis - the modern Aksaray - and there burnt alive.

  Ten years and two Emperors later, the people of Byzantium would have bitter cause to regret that they had not consigned Justinian II to a similar fate.