Justinian

by Harry Turtledove

  "You may depend on me for that," Stephen the Persian said. "I should also note that my colleague Theodotos, whom I commended to you before, has proved most ingenious in gaining for the fisc all taxes due it."

  "Good," I told him. "Congratulate him on his diligence. Gold will be scarce when the Arabs leave off paying tribute. However large a store of nomismata we can build in advance will help us pay for the war. We must get this money, by whatever means prove necessary."

  "By whatever means prove necessary," Stephen repeated. "You may depend on me- and on Theodotos- for that."

  He was as good as his word, and so was Theodotos, who proved so capable, I promoted him to general logothete, a position of equal rank to Stephen's. Over the next few months, petitions pertaining to the collection of taxes increased sharply. So did the anguished tone of those petitions. When handing me one sheaf of them, the logothete in charge of petitions, a white-bearded bureaucrat named Sisinniakes who might have served the Empire since the days of my great-great-grandfather, said, "Emperor, these people hate your tax collectors so much, they and others like them are liable to end up hating you, too."

  If I had not heeded that advice from my mother, I would not heed it from Sisinniakes, either. I stared at him until he lowered his eyes and muttered in embarrassment at having spoken out of turn. "The fisc must be served," I said. "Those who seek to cheat it of its rightful due must be discovered and made to pay in full. Remember, your pay comes from the treasury, too." He bowed and withdrew, leaving the petitions behind.

  More soon came in to the palace: fools kept grumbling because the state that protected them from the ravages of the barbarians and the followers of the false prophet could not do so free of cost. But Sisinniakes was right at least to the extent that even the grumbling of fools could prove dangerous. And so, summoning Stephen and Theodotos to the throne room in the grand palace, I allowed some of those alleging my officials had wronged them to come before me and try to convince me they were right.

  Stephen, as was his wont, dressed richly: he had the love of ostentation so common among eunuchs. His undertunic was of gold silk, the robe he wore over it of green. Gold rings gleamed on his fingers; a heavy gold chain stretched around his fat neck. The buckles of his sandals were also of gold.

  Theodotos, by contrast, wore a plain black wool robe, as if he were still back in the Thracian monastery from which he had come. He was tall and thin and pale, a pallor accentuated not only by the robe but also by his hair (one lock of which kept flopping down over his forehead) and his long, thick, beard, which were both the color of pitch. His cheeks were hollow, he continuing to practice an ascetic way of life here in Constantinople, while his eyes, though dark, glowed as if from an inner fire.

  The first to protest against his exactions was a certain Artavasdos, a wine merchant. After prostrating himself before me, he pointed at Theodotos and said, his voice quivering with fury, "Emperor, inside that monkish robe dwells a wolf. Do you know what he did to me? Do you know?"

  "I collected the monies due the fisc," Theodotos said calmly. He sounded, as he usually did, as if he knew precisely what he was doing and would proceed on that course without hesitation. No wonder, then, I favored him, my own mind running in similar channels.

  Artavasdos leaped into the air, a remarkable turn for such a short, plump man. "He came to my shop, Emperor, with soldiers. They tied my hands together with ropes and hung me up over a beam. Then they piled sawdust and chaff and such under me and lighted them with a lamp. They smoked me, Emperor, like a ham they smoked me over the fire, till I thought I was going to die, to make me tell them where I hid my money."

  I turned to Theodotos, who was sorting through sheets of papyrus. "What have you to say about this matter?"

  "Emperor, Artavasdos son of Symbatios owed the fisc the sum of "- a long, pale finger slid down the list of names he was holding-"twenty-four and seven-twelfths nomismata, said arrears having accumulated over the period of four years. After my visit to him, his debt to the treasury was paid in full."

  "Did you owe this sum?" I asked Artavasdos.

  His already swarthy face grew darker yet, rage suffusing it. He pointed at Theodotos again. "What he did, Emperor, only a monster would do, not a human being. I was choking in the smoke, coughing, wheezing, my shoulders like to be torn out of their sockets, and he stood there laughing- laughing, I tell you."

  "Do you deny owing the fisc these twenty-four nomismata?" I demanded.

  Suddenly getting my drift, Artavasdos stopped blustering. "No," he said in a small voice.

  "Did he and the fisc take any more money than was owed?" I asked.

  "No, Emperor," Theodotos said, and, most reluctantly, the wine seller agreed.

  "Get out of here!" I shouted. "Get out of here and give thanks to the merciful Mother of God that I don't tear out your cheating tongue. You dare to rob the treasury, and then complain when you're caught? Good Theodotos here should have smoked you into ham, for you're a swine wallowing in the trough of our generosity. Get out!"

  Court ceremonial forgotten, Artavasdos left at a dead run. He might even have been faster than John of Cyprus. Several men who I thought might be petitioners also hastily departed without pleading their cases before me. But one group in tunics plainly their best and as plainly none too good did come before me. Having completed their prostrations, they rose. Their spokesman, a loutish fellow as shabbily dressed as the rest, said, "Emperor, I'm called Ioannakis." Whoever had styled him little John had done so on the principle of contrariness, for he was large and burly, with a wrestler's shoulders. He went on, "I'm one of the heads of the carpenters' guild, and these here are some of my boys." His companions nodded.

  He spoke a rough Greek, of a kind seldom heard in the grand palace, but seemed to be doing his best to be polite with it. "Say on," I told him.

  Ioannakis pointed to Stephen the Persian; a lot of men pointed fingers in the throne room that day. "Emperor, that fellow is a bad one," he said. "He cut our pay for some of the repair work we've been doing here at the palace, and when we complained about it, he set ruffians throwing stones on us. Look and see for yourself." He pulled up one sleeve of his tunic, displaying a jagged, poorly healed scar on the big muscle of his upper arm.

  "Emperor, the pay for these workmen comes from your privy purse," Stephen said smoothly when I looked a question at him. "I discovered them working more slowly than they should have, and adjusted their wages accordingly."

  "That's a lie!" Ioannakis shouted, and several of the men with him shook their fists at Stephen and bawled coarse curses. "We were doing fine till he stuck his pointy nose in where it didn't belong, looking for ways to make us hungrier. Don't see him looking any too hungry," he added, staring insolently at Stephen's plump prosperity.

  Imperturbable, the eunuch said, "It is not a lie. The work to be completed would not be finished by the time assigned, necessitating the reduction in wages previously mentioned. Following the reduction, the workers threatened to damage such work as they had already done. I found a way to force them from the area without summoning soldiers and provoking worse bloodshed."

  Ioannakis and the other carpenters kept shouting and cursing, even after I raised my hand for silence. As Stephen's comments had already shown, they knew neither discipline nor respect for their betters. I gestured to the excubitores flanking the throne. Only when they slammed the butts of their spears against the marble floor did the carpenters come to their senses and quiet down.

  Now I pointed at them. "If you cannot do that which is required of you, you have no business coming here and complaining to me of it. Obey those set above you and you will do better. Now go." I pointed again, this time to the way out.

  But instead of obeying, as all subjects are obliged to do when the Emperor of the Romans commands, Ioannakis, hubris filling his spirit, shouted out to everyone who would listen: "This is a cheat! Do you see how he cheats us?" His vain, insane followers bellowed like nonsense.

  Rage rip
ped through me. I pointed first to the carpenters, then to the excubitores- yet more pointing fingers on that day. "Seize these men!" I told my guards. "Cast them into prison until we can properly decide their fate."

  Then Ioannakis and his henchmen did make for the door, but more excubitores stood there and prevented their leaving. The guardsmen who had been stationed to either side of the throne advanced on them, trapping them between two groups of soldiers. After a little scuffling, the arrogant, insolent, mannerless wretches were seized and taken away. Calm having been restored to the throne room, the rest of the day's audiences proceeded smoothly.

  MYAKES

  Yes, I was there, Brother Elpidios. Why didn't Justinian listen to the downtrodden workmen? I'll tell you why. He'd told Stephen and Theodotos to squeeze as much gold out of people as they could- he says as much; you've read the words. They were doing what he'd said. They were enjoying themselves doing it, true, but he didn't care about that one way or the other. He cared about obedience and about money. Anyone who got in the way of that had to look out.

  We took Ioannakis and the other carpenters down to the Praitorion, the city eparch's headquarters on the Mese, and threw them into cells there. What I figured would happen was that the eparch would let them stew for a couple of days, tell them what idiots they'd been for insulting the Emperor, and send them home. It looked like a neat, clean way to get free of the mess.

  Trouble is, I'd guessed wrong about Ju stinian. I thought he'd angry up and calm down and forget about things. But he didn't. The very next day, he sent an order to throw away the key for Ioannakis and his friends. They were still in prison- the ones who were still alive, anyhow- when he was cast down from the throne. And they were a long way from the only ones, too.

  You're right, Brother. So far as I know, nobody in the Roman Empire ever did anything like that before Justinian.. except for having people tonsured and shutting them away in monasteries, that is. What? It's not the same? I suppose not, especially if they let you keep your eyes before they shut you away.

  Bitter? Why on earth would I be bitter? I thank God every day that I'm alive. Well, almost every day. Some days, certainly.

  JUSTINIAN

  But for a few small raids by the Bulgars, the empire remained at peace over the next couple of years. And those raids were met promptly and well by the Mardaites whom I had resettled along the frontier with the Bulgars. My advisers had claimed I would tear down the brazen wall between the Roman Empire and the followers of the false prophet the Mardaites represented, but they were mistaken. The Mardaites did, however, build up a soldierly wall between the Empire and the Bulgars, a wall sorely lacking up to that time.

  Abimelekh, the Arabs' miscalled commander of the faithful, continued sending me the annual tribute the treaty to which I had made him agree required of him. Each year, though, more and more of the goldpieces contained within that tribute were neither proper Roman nomismata nor close Arab imitations of our coins, but rather their newfangled mintings with inscriptions in their own tongue. Furthermore, the papyrus the deniers of Christ sold to our chancery was now marked not with the holy and life-giving cross, as had always been the custom, but with passages from the lying works of their false prophet.

  Remembering my earlier conversation with Stephen the Persian, I summoned the engraver Cyril, saying to him, "I want you to ready for me new designs for our nomismata, these having inscriptions mocking Mouamet. Choose whatever texts you like, so long as they are properly insulting. If you have trouble coming up with ideas, talk with a priest or even with the ecumenical patriarch."

  Cyril being a fine and pious Christian, I had expected him to leap gladly on the orders I gave him. Instead, he looked troubled, saying, "Emperor, must I change the coins that way?"

  He did not speak disrespectfully, as the arrogant manikins who called themselves carpenters had done. The respect he showed helped me keep my temper. Instead of growing angry, as I might otherwise easily have done, I replied, "Good heavens, why on earth would you not want to do this?"

  His earnest face twisted. "I don't know if I can make you understand, Emperor." He thought for a little while, then said, "Let me put it like this: a nomisma isn't something just for the moment. It's something that lasts a long time. You look through a pile of goldpieces, you'll see coins struck in the reign of Herakleios, of the first Justinian, of Anastasios, of Theodosios, even of Constantine. Those are scarce, God knows, but they show up now and again. Five hundred years from now, people will find your nomismata the same way. Seems a shame to put slogans on 'em for the quarrels of a moment, if you know what I mean."

  Greek as it is customarily written, having many memories of ancient days in it, does not well reflect Greek as it is spoken by men of little education, as Cyril certainly was. In trying to call back to memory his words, I am certain I have made him more eloquent than he was. Yet sincerity blazed from him.

  And, when backed by such sincerity, his words, commonplace though they may have been, had their effect on me. For the point he was making was an important one. Unlike some barbarian kingdoms, the Roman Empire spans the centuries no less than it bestrides the civilized world, extending even in these sorry days from the southern Pillar of Hercules where the Mediterranean meets the great outer Ocean to the Caucasus Mountains. Seen from that longer viewpoint, concerns of the moment all at once seemed less pressing.

  I said, "Very well, perhaps mocking the Arabs' false prophet with slogans is not the best way to show we disapprove of what they are doing with their coins. But I do not intend to let them think they can get away with their outrages, either."

  "Oh, no, Emperor!" the engraver exclaimed. "I don't want that, either. Let me see if I can find a better way to do it, so that anybody who looks at your nomismata even a thousand years from now will see how splendid they are."

  "A thousand years from now," I murmured. I wondered who would be Emperor of the Romans then, and what his nomismata would look like. Surely they would be pure. From the days of Constantine the Great to my own, a span of more than three and a half centuries, the Roman Empire has struck coins of pure gold, seventy-two to the pound. I saw- and to this day see- no reason for that not to continue forever.

  "I'll come up with something good, Emperor," Cyril promised. "I'll think and I'll sketch and I'll pray till I do. God will put something in my mind so I can give Him the glory He deserves."

  "Let it be as you say," I said, dismissing him. And it was as he said, although two years passed before God graced him with the vision he immortalized in gold. The wait, though longer than I would have liked, was, I must say, worth it.

  MYAKES

  Somewhere right around the time he was writing those words, Brother Elpidios, the Arabs took the southern Pillar of Hercules away from us, and ran up into western Iberia, the land I've also heard called Spain. And nobody- nobody Roman, anyhow- knows how far to the east they've spread word of the false prophet. These are hard times for us Christians; if Constantinople had fallen in that last siege, there might not be any Christians left in the whole world today.

  What's that, Brother? On account of our sins, you say? Maybe, but aren't the Arabs sinners and followers of a false religion? Why do they flourish, when all we do is suffer? Eh, Brother Elpidios? Why is that?

  JUSTINIAN

  That same summer, churchmen began arriving for the synod that would make good the lack of regulations issuing from the fifth and sixth ecumenical synods. Indeed, because it was intended to be a supplement to those synods, the ecumenical patriarch styled it in his letter of announcement the fifth-sixth synod, penthekte in Greek, and, I learned from western arrivals who had had the letter translated into the Latin more commonly used there, quinisextum in that tongue.

  The synod itself was not to begin for another year. At first, I was surprised to learn of so many bishops coming so soon. But a moment's reflection sufficed to explain that. What man of sense, offered the choice between spending time in whatever dreary town he called home and in the
Queen of Cities, could fail to desire the latter?

  In that same otherwise quiet summer came a letter from the brother of Theodore of Koloneia, who served as bishop of the city from which Theodore had sprung. In it, he complained of the iniquities of the Paulicians, a heretical sect originating among the Armenians, by whose country Koloneia lies. Their crimes included not only misbelief by also idolatry.

  Not wanting my name for the orthodoxy tarnished at a time when bishops from throughout the known world were gathering in the imperial city, I ordered the bishop to suppress these heretics (against whom, in an earlier outbreak, my father had also moved) by whatever means proved necessary, up to and including summoning troops from the Armeniac military district to break up their robbers' nests. Any who refused to recant their error or who returned to it after such recantation were to be burned alive.

  After their leader, who, to help him escape detection, went by two names, Sergios and Titus, met death in this fashion, these Paulician heretics ceased to trouble the borders of the Roman Empire. To this day, I remain proud of having succeeded in putting them down once for all and in restoring the area to perfect allegiance to the orthodox faith.

  MYAKES

  What's that you say, Brother Elpidios? There are still Paulicians around, and they're still heretics and still bandits? I should be sad- I am sad, for I don't love heresy, not even a little bit. But that's not what I meant. I'm sad for Justinian's sake: it's one more thing he thought he did that turned out to be built on sand. That's the way of the world, isn't it?

  Faith lasts, you say? God lasts? I pray you're right.