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Title: The Byzantines
Author: Thomas Caldecot Chubb
Illustrator: Richard M. Powers
Release Date: April 19, 2023 [eBook #70596]
Language: English
Produced by: Bob Taylor, Tim Lindell and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BYZANTINES ***
Transcriber’s Note
Italic text displayed as: _italic_
THE BYZANTINES
OTHER BOOKS ABOUT
MAJOR CULTURES OF THE WORLD
THE SUN KINGDOM OF THE AZTECS
by Victor W. von Hagen
THE ARABS
by Harry B. Ellis
THE BYZANTINES
BY THOMAS CALDECOT CHUBB
ILLUSTRATED BY _Richard M. Powers_
[Illustration: Byzantine people]
THE WORLD PUBLISHING COMPANY
CLEVELAND AND NEW YORK
_Published by_ The World Publishing Company
2231 West 110th Street, Cleveland 2, Ohio
_Published simultaneously in Canada by_
Nelson, Foster & Scott Ltd.
_Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 59-5919_
COWP
Copyright © 1959 by Thomas Caldecot Chubb
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any
form without written permission from the publisher, except for brief
passages included in a review appearing in a newspaper or magazine.
Printed in the United States of America.
For Rosamond Caldecot Chubb
CONTENTS
A Crusade That Went Astray 13
Byzantium, Crossroads of the World 22
The Roman Empire and Constantinople 39
The Holy Augustus 46
A Roman Army on Horseback 58
One Religion, One Church 68
Golden Bezants 81
The Byzantine Way of Life 93
Last Days of the Empire 107
CHRONOLOGICAL CHART OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE AND WORLD EVENTS 117
BOOKS FOR FURTHER READING 123
INDEX AND GLOSSARY 124
_Pronunciations for unfamiliar words are given in the Index_
THE BYZANTINES
[Illustration: Boats]
A CRUSADE THAT WENT ASTRAY
More than 750 years ago—the exact date was May 24, 1203—a mighty and
crowded armada sailed away from the beautiful island of Corfu just
off the northwest corner of Greece.
It headed southward toward a brilliant blue sea.
The weather was balmy. The myrtle was in bloom. The leaves on the
twisted gray olive trees flashed silver. The sky was fine and
clear. The wind was gentle and favorable. Indeed, it barely ruffled
the water. But it filled hundreds and hundreds of sails of every
possible color. Red sails. Golden sails. Lavender sails. Green sails.
Orange sails. And sails of a wonderful bright yellow. Even Geoffrey
of Villehardouin, a bold French baron and famous historian who was
one of the passengers, could not say how many they were. But he did
know that they took his breath away.
“I, Geoffrey,” he scratched out slowly, “to my knowledge have not
ever lied by one word, and I bear witness that never was yet seen
so fair a sight. As far as the eye could reach, there was no space
without sails, and ships, and vessels.”
Certainly there were enough ships to cover miles of ocean. Flat,
broad-beamed palanders, built especially to carry troops and
horses—the 4,500 knights with their fiery steeds, the 9,000 esquires,
and the 20,000 foot soldiers who made up the expedition.
Swift galleys to protect the mighty convoy. These galleys had oars
as well as sails, and they lashed the waters to foam as they hurried
about their tasks. There were even some fat, slow merchant vessels.
Just as it is today, business was business in the Middle Ages, even
when you went to war.
But business or no business, the men crowding the rails were carried
forward by another, nobler purpose. And before each of them had left
his drafty castle in Normandy or France or Italy, he had sworn this
solemn oath: “I will put on the cross, and march to redeem the land
where Jesus lived, and where He died for us.”
Once before it had been redeemed by Godfrey of Bouillon and the
other saints and heroes of the First Crusade. But then the famous
Arab leader Saladin had won it back, and not even Richard the
Lion-Hearted, the knightly king of England, could defeat Saladin.
“We will succeed where Richard failed. _Deus vult!_ God wills it!”
The crusaders had a plan. Instead of landing on the enemy-held
beaches of Palestine, they would sail to Egypt and fight their way
across the desert and up through the famous Gaza strip, about which
we read even today, to Jerusalem. The back door would be easier than
the front door. They could not fail.
Their hearts, therefore, were high as they sailed along the rugged
coast with its deep inlets and its violet mountains—past rocky
Ithaca, the legendary home of the wily Ulysses; past yellow beaches
where the ancient Greeks drew up their craft before they sailed to
rescue Helen of Troy; finally, past the southernmost tip of Greece
where the storms were supposed to meet. Then suddenly something
happened. Instead of continuing toward the Holy Land, the mighty
fleet altered its course and turned north. What possibly could be the
reason? The leaders knew, but most of the fighting men were puzzled.
Soon a whisper ran from lip to lip. There was a new destination.
Constantinople the Golden—the fabled Byzantium! The capital of the
Greek, or Eastern Roman, Empire! The legendary El Dorado city with
its glitter and its glory which was set on the Bosporus, a narrow
little body of water that divides Europe from Asia, separating the
West from the East.
It was the tough old doge of Venice who had changed the crusaders’
minds for them. Henry Dandolo was eighty years old and blind, but he
knew that ducats did not grow on trees, and he was just as eager to
get back the money he had loaned them as any Venetian merchant over
whom he ruled. The crusaders had promised to give the Venetians four
silver marks for each man and two silver marks for each horse that
they transported to the East, but now after months of borrowing and
begging and promising instead of paying, they still owed them 34,000
marks. What could be done about it?
Facing the knights and barons in the great, glittering church of
Saint Mark, the old doge stroked his white beard and had an answer.
“You are fighting men. Pay us back with fighting. The king of Hungary
has taken Zara from us. Take it back again and give it to us.”
They did, but even then the Venetians were not satisfied.
“There is a richer prize ahead. Win us Constantinople. Capture _it_
for us, and we will really call quits.”
The leaders agreed. The Holy Land would have to wait a while to be
redeemed.
It would be impossible to exaggerate the excitement of the crusaders
when they heard the magic name of Constantinople. For they all knew
about the fabulous city. Minstrels told about it in the long sagas
they sang before huge crackling fires on winter nights. They spoke of
its shining metal towers and called it Micklegarth, or Bigtown.
Its fame was also spread throughout the West by Russian traders. In
those days, the Russians were like the vikings who roved the oceans
from America to the Greek Sea. They had enslaved the backward Slavic
tribes of Kiev and Moscow and once a year, when the ice melted, these
snub-nosed, green-eyed marauders made their vassals cut down huge
trees and hollow them into boats. Aboard these, they floated down the
great rivers, and then sailed across the foggy Black Sea and up the
Bosporus until they reached the enormous city, the biggest they had
ever seen. There they traded honey and marten skins and dried fish
and even caviar for pepper and brocades and carved ivory and delicate
enamels. These Russians, too, were dazzled by Constantinople and had
their own name for it. They called it Tsargrad, or Caesar City.
But long before there were Russians or any other kind of vikings, the
city had amazed our ancestors. “I see before my eyes something I had
often heard about but would never believe!” exclaimed Athanaric,
a guttural-speaking king from the forests of Germany. “Look at the
walls. Look at the buildings, look at the harbor filled with ships!
Look at the men of every nation crowding the alleys and bazaars. Look
at the disciplined soldiers! Surely God himself must be the emperor!”
said Athanaric.
The mighty Charlemagne, who had been crowned emperor of the West,
once sent an embassy to Constantinople to discuss the possibility of
marrying the Byzantine empress Irene. Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela, a
learned Spanish Jew, was astonished at its splendor. It was richer,
he said, than any other city in the world. Why, the ordinary merchant
wore garments of silk ornamented with gold and precious stones! He
rode about his business on horseback as a prince does!
It was the city of Justinian, the great lawgiver, whose book of laws
was still studied in the crusaders’ own cities of Paris and Bologna
700 years after his reign.
Only the wisest of them knew that he was much more than a lawgiver.
A tall towheaded country boy from what is modern Yugoslavia, he was
more than just one of the great Byzantine emperors. He was one of the
great rulers of all time. It was his generals who reconquered Africa,
Italy, and parts of Spain, and almost restored the ancient Roman
Empire. It was he who ordered the most famous architects of the time
to build the church of Santa Sophia. Most of the finest Byzantine
mosaics were done during his reign, and the Orthodox Christian Church
was first firmly established then. The Age of Justinian was the first
great age of the Byzantine Empire when its power affected the whole
Mediterranean world.
It was the city of great soldiers like the cruel Basil the Bulgar
Slayer, who had cold-bloodedly blinded 15,000 of his Bulgarian
enemies, but who had permanently broken the power of these wild
raiders; like John Kercuas, an Asia Minor Napoleon; and like
Nicephorus Phocas, who had rolled back the Arabs, the deadliest foes
of the Byzantines, whether they fought on camel back or on a warship
at sea.
[Illustration: Man standing in boat]
It was the city of foxy Alexius Comnenus, and his dark-eyed daughter,
Anna, who wrote even better histories than Villehardouin.
The crusaders knew about _him_! By his quick thinking and crafty
talking this same Alexius, Emperor Alexius I, had not only persuaded
their grandsires and great-grandsires of an earlier crusade to stay
out of Constantinople, but he had also talked them into fighting the
Turks for him. He had even talked some of them into becoming his
vassals. He had received the leaders in the Sacred Palace, however,
and they told the other barons what they saw there. From then on
Constantinople was a city of marvels to the men of the Middle Ages.
They also began to covet its wealth.
To be sure, not all the crusaders were happy at the thought of
attacking another Christian city, especially when they remembered how
angry the Pope had been at the taking of Zara, also a Christian city.
But the doge of Venice had an answer for every objection.
The Byzantines, the people of Constantinople, were not really true
Christians at all, he said. They were heretics.
The crusaders were not conquering Constantinople; they were restoring
it to its rightful ruler. On board was the young Alexius, who ought
to sit on the throne as Alexius IV. Alexius was a worthless young
man, but his father had been emperor until he was deposed and blinded
by his own brother.
Besides that, how could the crusaders pay back Venice all they owed
her if they did not take Constantinople?
The young Alexius not only promised that he would settle all their
debts if they took the city for him, but that he would give them
enough money to go on to their destination. He said that he would
ride with them at the head of a Byzantine army of 10,000 soldiers. He
promised that as long as he lived he would equip and maintain out of
his own treasury 500 of their knights.
A majority of the brave knights were convinced by these arguments
and by the thought of all the fighting men and gold. Among them was
Geoffrey of Villehardouin who tells us most of what we know about the
Fourth Crusade.
It took almost a month to make the voyage. After the crusaders
rounded the tip of Greece, they sailed past the remains of ancient
Sparta, past Athens, and at the island of Andros they stopped for
water. A little later, they drifted past the site of the ancient town
of Troy. Finally, they touched at Abydos on the historic Dardanelles,
where they raided the countryside and filled their holds with grain.
“Great was the need thereof!” muttered Geoffrey.
On June 23, 1203, they dropped anchor within sight of Constantinople.
The snow-covered Thracian mountains lay to the west, and
grape-colored Asia Minor to starboard. “And be it known to you,”
scratched out Villehardouin, his pulses beating, “that no man among
us was so hardy that he did not tremble.” For in every direction,
there was nothing but high walls and towers and rich palaces and
mighty churches.
The next morning banners and pennants were flown from the castles of
every ship. The coverings were taken from the shields. The bulwarks
were made ready for action. Then the sailors weighed anchor and
spread sails to the wind.
“Thus we passed before Constantinople and so near that we shot at
their vessels. There were so many people on the walls and towers that
it seemed as if there could be no more people in the world.”
Four weeks later the city was in their hands, and although Geoffrey
and his fellow crusaders did not realize it, this event marked a
turning point in history. For 900 years Constantinople had stood
proudly and safe, ruling her empire and giving orders like a queen.
But from now on she would be at the mercy of others.
That is not what Geoffrey and his companions were thinking about as
they rode into the fabled streets, however. They were remembering all
they had heard about the magic city. They were wondering if even half
of it was true.
BYZANTIUM,
CROSSROADS OF THE WORLD
They found that it was true indeed.
On that hot July day when the crusaders and Venetians at last forced
their way with young Alexius into Constantinople, it was neither as
rich nor as powerful as it had been when the earlier Alexius let the
leaders of the First Crusade cool their heels outside its gates more
than a hundred years before.
But if you wanted to find a more fabulous city, you would have had
to go all the way across Asia to distant Cathay. There, of course,
was Khansa (modern Hangchow), which was so enormous that it took one
medieval traveler three days merely to cross from one side of it to
the other. There, too, was Khan Baliq (modern Peking) where “twice
five miles of fertile ground with walls and towers were girdled
round” just to make a playground for the Chinese Son of Heaven, or
emperor. But since Marco Polo would not even be born for another
fifty years, most of the crusaders knew very little about Cathay,
that is, if they had even heard of it at all!
Their idea of a big city was London with its gloomy smoke-blackened
houses, and in those days London was really a little town. Even
Westminster Abbey was a mile in the country and surrounded by green
fields. Or Paris with its streets so narrow that you could hardly
see the sky between overhanging gables, and with the great Cathedral
of Notre Dame not yet finished. Paris hardly extended a mile in any
direction. Or Bruges with its bent and wizened wool merchants and
the damp smell of its canals. Even Rome, the most famous city in the
West, could not have had much more than 30,000 inhabitants. Most of
these were ruffians and bandits who robbed pilgrims, fought each
other, and even battled the Pope from castles made of marble stolen
from the ancient monuments.
But Constantinople, at the crossroads of the world, gleamed in the
sun and was proud and mighty. Even then it had a population of at
least 800,000. Possibly a million people lived there.
They were of every kind and race, for like modern New York, the
Byzantine city was a melting pot.
Swarthy Armenians looking for the fortune that had enabled more than
one of their number to mount the Byzantine throne.
Intellectual Greek scholars moving toward the lecture room with a
precious copy of Plato or Aristotle under their arms.
Blond-haired Anglo-Saxons, described by one who saw them to be
“tall as palm trees.” Ever since William the Conqueror had ruled
in England, they had come in growing numbers to join the famous
Varangians, or imperial bodyguard.
Russian traders bursting out of their own Saint Mamas quarter in the
city to drink the unfamiliar Greek wine which made them quarrel and
brawl.
Strikingly handsome Asbagians from Colchis, the land of the legendary
Golden Fleece, and probably of rich placer gold mines almost like the
ones in California.
Jewish merchants from the Pera quarter, on the other side of the
Golden Horn. They were not allowed to live in the city itself which
they had to reach by water, and they were often oppressed and
persecuted; but they were rich, benevolent, and pious.
Unwashed, but shaven Bulgarians, who wore an iron chain for a belt.
Wild, half-Mongol Patzinaks, and somewhat more civilized Khazars from
the Ukraine and the Caucasus.
Dark-eyed Asiatics with pointed beards and black hair, and usually
wearing turbans, who had come by camel caravan from Syria or even
Baghdad.
Iranians. Spaniards. Copts from ancient Egypt. Ethiopians from
fabled Axum. Franks and Lombards. In the old days, there might also
have been Indians and men from China, but no longer. Bankers and
sea captains from Amalfi, Pisa, and Genoa. The latter in particular
looked about them nervously. They could not help wondering what their
fate would be now that their archenemy and rival, Venice, had taken
over.
Finally, there were the Byzantines themselves. Proud and haughty
noblemen with strange titles you could hardly pronounce. These
noblemen moved through the streets arrogantly and did not seem to
know that their great days were over. Sometimes a slave walked beside
them, carrying a bright-colored umbrella or parasol. Lovely ladies,
beautifully dressed, jeweled and painted, and probably with a smile
for the tall, fair-haired northerners. Byzantine families, the wife
on a donkey, the husband and children on foot. Fierce-eyed monks, of
whom there were more than 30,000, and priests who swarmed everywhere,
led by their hegumens and archimandrites. And, of course, the famous
Byzantine peddlers with their purposely ragged clothes, gesticulating
hands, and whining cries. The place was still a happy hunting ground
for hucksters.
“The city guarded by God”—the name given by the Byzantines to
Constantinople—was big enough to hold all of them and splendid enough
to make them glad that it could.
A medieval traveler said that the circumference of its walls was
eighteen miles, and although he was probably just as good at telling
tall stories as present-day travelers are, he may have been right. At
least if you included such flourishing suburbs as Galata (once called
Sycae, or Figtrees) and Scutari (formerly Chrysopolis, or Gold City).
Galata (like Pera) and Scutari were separated from Constantinople by
the Golden Horn and the Bosporus, respectively, which were narrow
bodies of water, not as wide as the Hudson River or the East River at
New York City.
Constantinople itself was large enough. Like old Rome, New Rome (for
that was its official name; Constantinople, or Constantine’s City,
was only a nickname which had stuck) sprawled over seven rolling
hills and down to every body of water it could find.
[Illustration: THE GREAT PALACE IN CONSTANTINOPLE]
That was what a visitor remembered most about Constantinople: One was
never far from the water. It was shaped like a hitchhiker’s thumb
pointed toward the shore of Asia Minor, and it was bounded by sea
on every side except where the thumb joined the hand. On the north
was the famous Golden Horn—an arm of the Bosporus—which is still a
wonderful harbor. It is so deep that ships can moor with their
prows against the warehouses ashore and still be comfortably afloat.
On the north and northeast was the narrow Bosporus with its twisting
channel and its dangerous currents. Jason and his Argonauts had
supposedly sailed through the Bosporus. On the southeast and south
was the Sea of Marmara. On the Marmara shore there were many small
man-made harbors, at least one of which was reserved for the emperor.
Through the Sea of Marmara, one could reach to the Dardanelles, the
Aegean Sea, and finally the Mediterranean; and then on to Egypt, the
Red Sea, and India in one direction, and to Spain and even England in
the other.
Guarded by these seas and by the great walls which protected it from
the west, some of which still stand, was an _Arabian Nights’_ fantasy
of lovely vales and gardens, glittering roofs and towers, and, of
course, resplendent buildings that were beyond anything that the
adventurers from the cold and foggy north could even imagine.
Among the crusaders was another knight who could write as well as
fight. His name was Robert of Clari.
“I do not think,” said Robert, “that in the forty richest cities of
the world there is as much treasure. In fact, the Greeks said that
two-thirds of all the wealth there is, is in Constantinople. The rest
is scattered elsewhere.”
Then he went into details.
Most glittering of all, he noted, was the Palace of Bukoleon. “Within
it,” he said, “there were fully five hundred halls, all connected
with one another and all made with gold mosaic. In it, there were
fully thirty chapels. One of them was called the Holy Chapel, which
was so rich and noble that there was not a hinge or band or any part
such as is usually made of iron that was not all of silver. And there
was no column that was not of jasper or of porphyry or some other
precious stone.”
The Palace of Bukoleon had got its name from a statue showing a fight
between a bull and a lion. It had been the Great, or Sacred, Palace
of the earlier emperors. It covered 25 or 30 acres and was really a
collection of buildings, for a Byzantine palace was never a single
edifice.
There were too many buildings in the Great Palace to tell you about
all of them. Among them was the Daphne Palace. It was the oldest one,
having been built by Constantine the Great when he founded the city.
There was the Building of the Nineteen Beds where the emperor could
hold a state dinner for 218 important people. Another building was
the Chalké where the emperor received his parade troops. It was 650
feet long, and in the old days it was guarded by Khazars with drawn
bows. It got its name because its roof was a huge sheet of polished
copper. A fourth building was the Magnaura, or Fresh Breeze, Palace
where the empress went in stately procession to take her ceremonial
baths.
It was at the Magnaura Palace that an Italian visitor discovered what
the Byzantines would do to impress strangers. Liutprand, the bishop
of Cremona, was led before the emperor, whom he found seated upon a
golden throne. There he was told to bow himself three times, each
time with his face to the ground.
He did so; then he looked up. No emperor.
By a clever device, the latter had been lifted to the ceiling, and
now clad in entirely new clothes, he looked down upon the bishop.
In the meantime, gilded mechanical birds began to sing, and gilded
bronze lions beat the ground with their tails and roared terribly
with open mouth and quivering tongues.
Part of the palace group, too, was the renowned church of Santa
Sophia. It was known as the Great Church, and although it was not
as big as Saint Peter’s in Rome, it was one of the largest sacred
buildings ever made by man. Even today, with most of its mosaics
covered with whitewash—this was done by the Turks—it is like nothing
else in the world. To Robert of Clari, its great height, equivalent
to a modern eighteen-story building, its many chapels, its lacelike
balconies, and its beautifully carved pillars made it like the work
of an enchanter. Its dome was so vast that the architects had to try
twice before they could make one that would not fall down. When they
did, it was so graceful that it seemed to be floating on air.
[Illustration: Byzantium city]
But what impressed Robert of Clari most of all was its
more-than-Oriental splendor. The principal altar was beyond price,
he said. The altar table was 14 feet long. It was made of gold and
precious stones crushed up together. Above it was a solid silver
canopy held up by solid silver columns. The whole ceiling was
overlaid with pure gold. Robert did not even speak of the mosaics
which we now know were as fine as any ever made, but he did say that
there were more than 200 chandeliers. Each of these had twenty-five
or more lamps, and was hung from a silver chain as thick as a man’s
arm.
Last but not least of the palace buildings was the Hippodrome, or
Circus. This was a tremendous stadium about 2,000 feet long and 600
feet wide. On three sides of it were thirty or forty rows of seats,
and at the north end was the Cathisma, or balcony, where the emperor
and empress sat in state. It must have held 100,000 people.
In the days of old the Hippodrome was the center of almost every
kind of citizen activity. Here were held wildly exciting chariot
races during which the Green and Blue factions (they were like the
Democrats and Republicans in the United States) forgot their politics
to bet on their favorites, and were ready to fly at each other with
stones or swords if the wrong one got ahead. Here there were wild
beast fights, bearbaiting, acrobatic feats, performances by clowns,
jugglers, trained dogs, and even a trained, gilded crocodile. But not
fights by gladiators, for the Christian Byzantines did not think it
was right for one man to kill another in the name of sport.
Here, too, the emperor-elect stood to hear the crowds proclaim him,
and it was here that more than once he had to face the people and
promise to obey his own laws. Some very bloody riots, called the Nika
revolt, started at the Hippodrome, and it was there that they were
put down with a loss of 30,000 lives.
But Robert of Clari did not limit his sightseeing to the Great Palace
and its grounds. He went everywhere. He visited the new Palace of
Blachernae by the Golden Horn and saw that it was almost as splendid
as the Bukoleon, even though it had _only_ twenty chapels and two
or three hundred chambers! He stood at the Golden Gate with its
two life-sized elephants made of copper. This gate was only opened
when the emperor, called the Augustus, returned from a victory.
Then he was taken through it seated on a golden throne on a golden
four-wheeled chariot. The clergy scattered incense, and the crowd
shouted, “Life eternal to our holy Augustus!”
Robert also saw the Gate of the Golden Mantle with its shining globe
which was supposed to protect the city from being destroyed by
lightning. A statue on the globe proclaimed in large letters: “Anyone
who lives in Constantinople a year can be rich enough to afford a
golden mantle like the one I wear.”
He saw the great monument to Justinian. It towered into the air,
and on top of it was a bronze statue of this mighty emperor. He was
on horseback and wore a headdress very much like that of an Aztec
chieftain.
He also saw the holy relics with which the city was filled—two pieces
of the true cross, the head of the lance that pierced Christ’s side,
two of the nails used in the Crucifixion, a vial containing the
Saviour’s blood, the tunic that He wore on the first Good Friday, the
crown of thorns itself, and the famous “handkerchief of Edessa” on
which His portrait had been imprinted by a miracle.
Last of all, Robert of Clari gawked at the two columns each of which
prophesied the city’s doom. “Even our coming was predicted,” he said.
But no one in Constantinople understood what the ships and soldiers
on the columns meant until the crusaders were actually there. Then
the frightened people realized that short-haired warriors with iron
swords would come from the West to conquer them. By that time, it was
too late.
But there was much more to this Byzantine city than palaces and
monuments and churches. It was a city of people as well as the city
of the emperor, and it was all noise and excitement, hustle and
bustle, and activity.
No part of it was busier than the long avenue that started at the
Augustaion, or Emperor Square, in front of Santa Sophia, and went
three or four miles to the city walls. It was called the Mesé, or
Midway, and it was really like a modern midway in the variety of
wares it offered.
Here, for example, under its colonnades and porticoes were the
workbenches of the goldsmiths. In plain sight of everybody, they
manufactured lovely gold boxes, gold jewelry, and intricate enamel.
Near the goldsmiths were the money changers with their long tables or
banks heaped with the coin of every nation. Next came the provision
sellers, those who sold every kind of food from meat and cheese to
bread and honey. The sellers of silk had their booths between the
Forum of Constantine and the Taurus Forum, with its tall column
and statue of Theodosius. The perfume sellers did their business
in front of the Great Palace. In other places—but I could not name
them all—there was a bazaar so filled with gleaming wares that
it was called the house of lamps, a street of the tinsmiths and
coppersmiths, a bazaar for household goods, a pig-and-sheep market, a
cattle market, and, of course, a horse market.
Noisier than all the others, and more filled with bargaining in
twenty Near East languages was the fish market, located on the quays
by the Golden Horn.
The Mesé was a respectable place and one was safe, at least in
daylight, when visiting the booths and markets; but to go anywhere
else in the city was another matter. To be sure, there was nothing in
the world as magnificent as the glitter and the gold of Caesar City.
But outside of the native quarter in a city in Algiers or Morocco,
there were no slums like the slums of Constantinople. They spread
all over, covering acre after acre of ground, and they made up a
miserable network of filthy side streets and dark, damp, and dirty
tenements. There was absolutely no sanitation. The gutters were the
only sewers. Household refuse, including spoiled meat and vegetables
and ancient and decaying fish, were thrown out of slitlike windows to
be trampled under foot by every passerby. In rainy weather the mud
was more than ankle deep. One can imagine how it smelled.
Here lived the working population of the city—porters with calluses
on their hands and padded coats, donkey drivers with shrill cries and
quick, short steps like those that can be seen even today in many
a city in the Balkans. Carpenters. Water carriers. Day laborers.
Here too lived an even more wretched riffraff who lived off doles
and charity, when they didn’t live off murder and crime. Here was
the poor creature with sore eyes who sat with his wooden begging
bowl in front of a church or on the sunny side of a square. Here was
a one-eyed scoundrel who would cut throats for a copper obol. Yet
sometimes they gathered together and formed a mob that marched to the
Hippodrome and demanded a new emperor, and more than once they got
what they wanted.
This was what Constantinople was like in the late Middle Ages and for
600 years before that. But it was also much more than a seething pot
of emperors and rich men, poor men, beggarmen, and thieves.
It was the capital of a very famous empire which took over the
eastern half of the old Roman Empire and became known as the
Byzantine Empire because it stood on the site of the ancient Greek
city of Byzantium. In spite of all its enemies, this empire lasted
1,123 years and eighteen days. And at a time when half a dozen other
empires crumbled, including ancient Persia and ancient Rome!
[Illustration:
THE EMPIRE UNDER JUSTINIAN 550 A.D.
]
Sometimes it was a very big empire indeed. Under the mighty Justinian
it ruled from the Euphrates, which flows into the distant Persian
Gulf, to the Straits of Gibraltar, and from the Nile in one direction
and the Crimea of South Russia in the other to Switzerland. It ruled
all of Italy, and all of the Balkans, and all of Asia Minor, and all
North Africa.
Sometimes the empire was so small that it was little more than the
city itself.
But whether it was big or little, it was almost always the most
important and the strongest nation west of China. Sometimes it was
the only important one!
How did it get that way?
How was it able to keep strong when so much of the rest of the world
was breaking into pieces?
What did it do for the world? For it did a great deal.
Why should you and I care about Constantinople and the Byzantine
Empire?
I will try to tell you.
[Illustration: Four people]
THE ROMAN EMPIRE AND CONSTANTINOPLE
The beginning o£ the story took place a long time ago, and not even
in the same land.
Back in the days when our ancestors still dressed in skins and hides
and had just given up stone weapons for bronze, a group of people
moved out of central Europe to the north of Italy. They stayed there
for a thousand years, made pottery and grew beans, beets, barley, and
millet and finally learned how to use iron. They also grazed cattle
and herded sheep, and so one day when they learned that the coastland
from the Tiber River to the Bay of Naples was so lush with tall
green grass that it was called Vitelia (the name Italy comes from
mispronouncing this), or Calfland, they moved south again.
There they settled in the rugged blue hills, and there they became
the various Italian tribes. Most important of these to our story
were the Latins. For reasons of safety, these Latins, like the
others, lived in the craggiest places they could find, but they
always came down to the _campania_, as the level land was called,
to fatten their lowing herds. And in 754 B.C., according to Roman
legend, twin brothers, Romulus and Remus, decided to stay there. They
became chieftains of a band of robber cattle-herders, and at the
exact spot where the twins said they had been nourished as babes by
a she-wolf (who some say was a woman named Lupa, the Latin word for
“wolf”), they founded a small town of mud-and-wattle houses.
They named it Rome after Romulus, the older twin. Little did anyone
dream that one day it would be one of the most famous cities in the
world! Still less did anyone imagine that the Romans would march out
of it to conquer the world!
But that is just exactly what they did. In the beginning, they had
troubles and trials. In fact, an old story says that when the Gauls
from France invaded the city, the capital was saved only when a
gaggle of geese cackled and warned the senators.
But the Romans were stubborn, good fighters, well-disciplined, and no
matter how bitterly they battled each other in more than one bloody
civil war, they always stood together when they faced an enemy. By
the time of Julius Caesar 700 years later, they had reached the
English Channel in one direction and the Caspian Sea in the other.
When Trajan was emperor (about 100 A.D.), practically every part
of the known civilized world was included in their empire. Of the
eighty-two countries in the United Nations at the time this book was
written, all or a part of at least thirty were in Trajan’s empire,
and a great majority of the other fifty-two countries are in lands,
like America, that hadn’t been discovered. They were ruled by one man.
What is more, soon all the inhabitants of all these lands were Roman
citizens. _Civis Romanus sum._ I am a Roman citizen. This could be
said by longhaired Celts walking the heather in Britain; by Berbers
in the Atlas Mountains in Africa; by haughty Spaniards (Trajan
himself was born in Spain); by Gauls in France, Egyptians, Greeks,
Syrians, Arabs; even by Scythians and Sarmatians from South Russia,
and by Germans from across the Rhine.
This was a great achievement that had never happened before, but it
also made a lot of difficulties.
Take size alone. The Roman Empire was now too big to manage. In
those days, you couldn’t fly a general (or a tax collector, or an
imperial officer, or the emperor himself) from York, England—that’s
where Constantine the Great was when he started toward Rome to become
the Roman emperor—to the Persian border in a matter of hours. You
couldn’t even put him on a fast train. The Roman roads were famous,
but the only way you could travel them was on foot, on horseback, or
in a litter or chariot. And from one end of the empire to the other
was 3,000 miles!
Two centuries after Trajan, an emperor called Diocletian decided to
do something about it. Diocletian was the son of a freed slave, but
he became the first absolute ruler the Roman Empire ever had. Before
that the emperor was merely _princeps_ (from which the English word
“prince” is derived), or first citizen. But once Diocletian had all
this power, he proceeded to divide it up. He appointed a co-emperor
(a second Augustus) with an assistant emperor called a _caesar_ to
help him, and put him in charge of the Roman Empire in the West.
Diocletian himself, with his own _caesar_, kept the East. Although
he was still head emperor and the other emperor was supposed to obey
him, the Roman Empire was now divided into two parts.
About forty years later, another emperor took an even more important
step. Constantine the Great decided that the empire needed a second
capital as much as it needed two rulers, and since he was a Christian
emperor—actually he was the first Christian emperor—he decided it
must be a Christian city.
He looked around him carefully. First he thought of Nicomedia (now
Ismid in modern Turkey) where Diocletian had had his camp; but it had
been the capital of a heathen king. Then he considered ancient Troy,
for the Romans were supposed to be descended from the Trojans. He
even began to build walls there. But one day somebody reminded him of
the ruined city of Byzantium with its wonderful location.
“That is the place!” he cried.
On foot, with lance in hand and followed by a solemn procession, he
marched over pleasant hills and valleys that were still covered with
vines and greenery.
As they tried to keep up with him his panting courtiers asked him how
big he planned to make the place.
“I shall walk,” he replied, “until God, my invisible Guide, bids me
to halt.”
An emperor could get things done in those days. Not much more than
four years from the day, hour, and minute that Constantine ordered
his architects and engineers and builders to get to work, the city
was completed and ready to live in. It was equipped with theaters,
public baths, senate houses, a university, courts of justice,
granaries, palaces, and magnificent private dwellings, many of them
the very ones described by Robert of Clari. It had broad squares,
paved avenues, classic porticoes, and aqueducts that brimmed
with clear, cool water. It was decorated with marbles, statues,
and priceless works of art; at the emperor’s command, the cities
of Greece and Asia Minor had been rifled of their most precious
treasures to make sure of this.
It was filled with people too. Constantine invited (that was the same
thing as _ordered_) senators to move from Rome. He presented costly
buildings to his favorites. He confiscated the estates of many of
his rich subjects, especially in Asia Minor, and gave the income to
those of his subjects who agreed to live in the new city. Of course,
a lot of people came of their own accord. They wanted to get in on
something good.
It was lucky indeed that Diocletian and Constantine had taken these
steps. For suddenly the Roman Empire began to quake and tremble. All
through recorded history and long before, the barbarians from the
northern swamps and forests of Europe kept pouring down upon the
lands to the south of them. As a matter of fact, the Romans, as well
as the Greeks whom Homer wrote his poems about, were from the north.
When Homer spoke of the “golden-haired Achaeans,” he was talking
about the Greeks. But the men around the Mediterranean—the original
Greeks—were dark, as they are today. The Achaeans came from the north.
For a long time Roman might had kept these tribesmen back, and
civilization and a comfortable life had flourished. As many men lived
in peace or happiness as ever have before or since.
But now all at once Rome grew weak almost as fast as it had grown
powerful, and the barbarians rode again. Almost immediately they were
able to cross the frontiers whenever they wanted to. Soon the empire
couldn’t hold them off at all.
Less than a century after Constantine, Alaric the Goth marched into
Rome and burned a great deal of the city. Forty-five years later
another tribe, the Vandals, destroyed the rest. We get the word
“vandalism” from the Vandals. It means the willful destruction of
something beautiful, which is what the Vandals did. After the Vandals
other Germanic tribes, with their horned helmets and their long
yellow hair, came streaming in, bringing their women and children
with them. They were followed by the Mongolian Huns and Avars.
In 476 A.D., one of the barbarian chiefs decided it was foolish
to pretend any longer. He deposed the then Roman emperor, Romulus
Augustulus (a Latin name meaning “Romulus, the little Augustus”), and
proclaimed himself king of Italy. Thus ended the Roman Empire in the
West.
If it had not been for Diocletian and Constantine, it would also
have ended the Roman Empire everywhere. It might have ended Western
civilization, too.
But the emperor of the Roman Empire in the East stood safe behind his
mighty walls, and he announced as quickly as possible that he was now
emperor of the whole Roman Empire. He ordered this barbarian king of
Italy and all the other barbarian kings to acknowledge him as emperor
and overlord.
Many of them did.
That is probably the most important thing to remember about the
Byzantines. They considered themselves Romans. Most people in the
West called them Greeks, and indeed they spoke Greek and were Greek
in many other ways. They were also Orientals in their splendor.
But for at least the first 900 years of their history they thought
of themselves as Romans and were proud of it. Their emperor was
still the Augustus, and his other title _autokrator_ was a Greek
translation of the Latin _imperator_, or commander in chief. Even
when he later took the proud title of _basileus_, a Greek equivalent
for the Persian “king of kings,” he was _basileus tou Romaion_, king
of the Romans. To call him “Greek emperor,” as did some Westerners,
was to use a fighting word.
The second most important thing to remember about the Byzantines was
that Constantinople never fell into the hands of the enemy. This
means that the empire never fell into the hands of the barbarians,
for in those days the capital was even more important than it is
today, and so in spite of all the lands it governed, Constantinople
_was_ the empire. As long as it stood, the empire stood. The
Byzantines had plenty of troubles, and more than once saw the turbans
and scimitars of the Arabs, and the felt hats and yellow faces of the
followers of some steppe-riding khagan, right beneath their walls.
But except when he was invited, no foreign invader had ever set foot
in the streets of Constantinople until Geoffrey of Villehardouin and
Robert of Clari came with their fellow crusaders.
It is a fact that for century after century, when almost every other
important city in the world was sacked and looted over and over
again, the Byzantines were able to make and keep Constantinople
safe. It was a place of refuge for men and for ideas and for the
civilization the Greeks and Romans had given them and for the ideals
of Christianity in the midst of a stormy world.
[Illustration: Man standing]
THE HOLY AUGUSTUS
The Byzantines were able to keep Constantinople safe because they
were one of the few peoples living in the time between the fall of
Rome and modern days who had a strong government and one that worked.
The rest of the Roman Empire had been divided by conquest into a
good hundred or more independent units. These were ruled by kings,
princes, dukes, marquises, and counts, and some cities were even free
republics headed by wrangling priors. Their boundaries were always
changing, and nobody ever knew just who was governing whom today, and
who would be tomorrow. But the eastern half of the Roman Empire had a
single government which was almost always orderly.
The Byzantines were able to do it because they had a fine army, and
when they needed it, a swift and deadly navy—to say nothing of a
diplomatic corps with a well-paid staff of skillful, highly trained
diplomats.
They were able to do it because of their Christianity. After Antioch
(in Syria) and Alexandria (in Egypt) had been captured by the Arabs,
Constantinople was the most important Christian city except Rome.
And as far as the Byzantines were concerned, the state worked for
Christianity, and Christianity worked for the state.
Finally, the Byzantine Empire was able to stand firm and to last so
long because the Byzantines could afford to spend what they needed
to. Their government was tremendously expensive. Their army and their
navy with its _strategoi_ and _drungariuses_ (generals and admirals)
cost them a lot of money and so did their extravagant ambassadors.
The church with its own mighty army of high officials and lesser
functionaries was very expensive too.
But as long as the Byzantines were not only able to support emperor,
army, navy, diplomats, and the church, but were _willing_ to do so,
the Byzantine Empire flourished and was great. It was only after
they began to economize, when a lot of Byzantines decided they were
spending too much on the army, that their troubles began.
At the head of the government was the emperor, and he was certainly
the most absolute ruler there could possibly be. Even in the earliest
days of the empire, he was chief of the Byzantine state, commander in
chief of the army and navy, the only one who could make laws, and the
head of the Byzantine courts. In other words, he was equivalent to
the President, Congress, and the Supreme Court of the United States
rolled into one.
When he became _basileus_, he was even more than that. The Great
King was master and owner as well as sovereign, and his subjects
became slaves. They had to humble themselves on the ground before
him, and foreigners had to as well. Beside that, he was the head of
the Byzantine church (now known as the Greek, or Orthodox Eastern,
Church), and in this connection took on another title, _isapostolos_,
which is Greek for “equal to the Apostles.”
But in spite of his great power, in many ways he was a democratic
emperor who was elected or at least chosen by a process carefully set
down by law. First he had to be named by either the senate or the
army. Then he had to be approved by whichever of those two bodies
that had not named him in the first place. Finally he had to be
hailed by the people. (This was true even when the emperor seized
power or when an emperor named his son co-emperor so that he would
be sure to succeed him. He still had to be approved and hailed.) But
once the emperor was elected, he was “the emperor chosen by God,” for
the Byzantines firmly believed that God guided them in everything
they did. From then on, it was not only treason but wicked and sinful
to oppose the emperor. That is, unless you were successful. If you
led a successful revolution, it meant that God had chosen you to take
the old emperor’s place!
The empress—the Augusta, or _basilissa_, as she was also called—was
almost equally important. To be sure, in the long history of the
Byzantine Empire, only three women actually mounted the throne to
rule in their own name, and only one of these amounted to anything.
This was the wicked Irene who wanted to marry Charlemagne and who
blinded her own son so she could stay in power. However, she did not
call herself empress. She called herself emperor of the Romans just
as if she had been a man.
But even though she rarely ruled, the empress was not shut up in a
harem, and many empresses had great power and even greater influence.
Ariadne, the widow of an early emperor, went before the people and
told them that her husband was dead. “Choose us a new ruler!” they
clamored. She named a palace official, and then she married him. He
was a very good ruler.
Zoe, the daughter of another emperor, did even better. She married
three men, and each in turn became emperor.
More than that. The nephew of her second husband persuaded her to
adopt him and name him her co-emperor. Then he had her hair shorn and
shipped her off to the Princes Islands, in the Sea of Marmara, as a
nun.
The crowds surged around the palace. “Where is our lovely lady,” they
shouted, “whose father, grandfather, and great-grandfather ruled
before her?” The usurper had to bring her back, but even that did not
save him. He ended in a monastery himself.
Saint Theodora (the wife of an emperor and the mother of one) used
her influence to end a religious dispute that had disturbed the state
for more than 100 years, while another Theodora, who was far from a
saint, saved it from revolution.
This happened when the Greens and the Blues (the rival political
parties) joined forces and revolted against Justinian, the greatest
Byzantine emperor of all. After they had burned much of the city,
they surged into the Circus and called on the emperor to abdicate.
The mighty Justinian, who had even ordered a ship ready for a quick
escape, was about to give in when suddenly his empress, Theodora,
stood beside him. She was an ex-circus girl, one of the people
herself.
“You can do what you want to,” she told him, her eyes flashing. “I am
going to stay here. Anyone who puts on the crown must never take it
off. If I die, I am going to be buried in imperial purple!”
The emperor was ashamed of himself.
“Drive them back to their warrens!” he ordered two of his toughest
generals.
Within hours, the riots were put down.
But even when the empress did not do things like this, she was very
important. For this reason a widower emperor remarried as soon as
possible. Leo the Philosopher married four times and got into almost
as much trouble as Henry VIII. If an emperor didn’t remarry, he made
his daughter the Augusta.
“When there is not an Augusta,” wrote a Byzantine, “it is not
possible to celebrate holidays or give banquets or entertainments in
the manner prescribed by law.”
That may not seem important to us, but it was very important to the
Byzantines. Since the emperor was God’s representative on earth,
every official act of his life had to be like a church service, and
in almost every one of the more than eighty occasions described
in detail in an instruction book for emperors called _The Book of
Ceremonies_, the empress took part.
It was something to see the royal pair on any great Byzantine
holiday, for example, May 11, when they celebrated the founding of
the city.
On this day the statue of Constantine the Great was paraded
through the city in a golden chariot drawn by white mules, and the
emperor sat in the Hippodrome waiting to pay honor to it. He was
clad in robes that literally glittered. His principal garment was
a tunic which reached almost to his ankles. This was called the
_scaramangion_ and was so stiff with brocade that it could have stood
by itself. Over this was a shorter garment called the _saigon_. It
was purple, gold-embroidered, and seeded with pearls. On his head he
wore the _stemmata_, or imperial crown. It twinkled with rubies and
sapphires of the purest ray serene. On his feet were the _campagia_,
or special boots that only the emperor could wear. These too were of
imperial purple, although some people say this imperial purple was
really a deep crimsony red.
The empress sat at his side, just as splendid as he. Her garments
were much like his, but on her crown was a plume made of precious
stones. She wore earrings that dangled far below her shoulders, and
sometimes a neckpiece made of oval or pear-shaped pearls. If he was a
solid gold emperor, she was a solid gold empress too.
Yet in spite of all the splendor and glory (and this is only a little
bit of it), the Byzantine emperor did not have to be royally born.
In the Byzantine Empire it was just as easy to rise from a hovel to
the throne as it is to be born in humble circumstances and become
President of the United States.
Many of the emperors did.
An early emperor had been a butcher. Another had been a swineherd
from Macedonia, and the great Justinian was this swineherd’s nephew.
The savage Phocas was originally a centurion (a top sergeant). Still
another had once been a donkey trader who moved from one country fair
to another. Basil I was raised as a Balkan farm boy. He was very
tall and strong and attracted the attention of the reigning emperor
because he could tame horses. A later emperor had been a petty
officer in the navy. Still another was originally a dockyard worker.
Many of the empresses were humbly born too. Besides Theodora, the
circus girl, there was one who had been a cook, and a third who was
the daughter of a saloonkeeper. Even Saint Theodora was brought up
in poverty because her father, who had once been a courtier, had
given all his money to the poor.
[Illustration: Horse scenes]
Saint Theodora became empress when the emperor picked his bride by
following an old custom of the Byzantine emperors. Wishing to marry,
he sent messengers throughout his realm, telling them to bring back
the most beautiful young women they could find. Seventeen were
paraded before him, and when the one he was about to choose annoyed
him by a flippant answer she made, he chose Theodora.
Theodora did not intend to stay poor like her father. One day, her
husband, the emperor, looked out of the window and saw a rich,
heavily laden merchant vessel sail in and tie up to a wharf.
“I wonder who owns it,” he mused.
“It is mine,” said the empress.
The emperor flew into a fury. _His_ wife should not be engaged in
trade like some huckster. He made her sell it, but he did let her
keep the profits.
Because these rulers were the emperors chosen by God, the Byzantines
bowed their knee to them as the ancient Egyptians had to the
Pharaohs. But because they were from the people, and also because the
Byzantines had sharp tongues and liked to be sarcastic, the people
sometimes gave their rulers a rough time.
There were more than 100 emperors in the long period of the Byzantine
Empire, and many of them were given nicknames. Some of these
nicknames were far from flattering.
Here are just a few: Justinian Nose-Cut-Off. (This was Justinian II,
not the great Justinian.) Constantine the Stable Boy. Michael the
Stutterer. Michael the Drunkard. Constantine Born-in-the-Purple.
Basil the Bulgar Slayer. Michael Thinks-He’s-a-Soldier. Even one
empress had a nickname; Leo the Philosopher’s fourth wife was called
Zoe Black Eyes.
The emperors had to put up with sarcastic epigrams, disrespectful
poems, and uncomplimentary stories. Here is one of them: Michael
Thinks-He’s-a-Soldier had a passion for city planning, but he hated
to spend money. One day the Byzantines saw a principal avenue all
torn up. The pavement had been removed and workmen were everywhere.
“What is happening?” asked one of them. “Oh, yes! I remember! That’s
where the emperor lost one of his halfpenny dice when he was a small
boy. He’s tearing up the pavement to find it!”
But in spite of all this, or maybe because of it, the Byzantine
state was about as solid as was possible. Not even revolutions could
really shake it.
One reason may have been the fact that since the emperors came from
every class and were often changing, the Byzantines were constantly
getting new and vigorous blood in their government. But another
reason was the wonderful and well-organized body of bureaucrats
who helped the emperor govern the empire. When there was a strong
emperor, these men carried out his orders. When there was a weak
emperor, they did the best they could, until a new, strong emperor
mounted the throne.
There was really nothing like this group in any other government in
the world until modern times. They were trained public servants,
headed by high officials who were appointed by the emperor.
The most important of these officials was the Logothete of the
Dromos. (The word _logothete_ really means accountant, but it is like
a secretary in the United States Cabinet.) He was also known as the
Grand Logothete. He was secretary of state, minister of police, and
secretary of the interior.
Besides that, there was a Logothete of the Treasury who was like the
Secretary of the Treasury of the United States; a Logothete of the
Military Chest, who was the paymaster general of the army and navy;
and a Logothete of the Flocks and Herds who was in charge of all the
vast imperial estates. Among other things, he ran the imperial horse
farms where practically all the horses needed by the empire and the
army were raised.
There was also the Sacellerius, or Controller General; the Quaestor,
or Minister of Justice; the Grand Domestic, or commander in chief of
the army; and the Grand Drungarius, or secretary of the navy. These
are only a few of the most important officials.
Under these department heads—and even more important—were the humble
clerks who really did the work of government. These clerks were
banded together into a body called the _logothesia_ which was almost
like our modern civil service. They were well paid, and even the
lowest-ranking workers had unlimited opportunities for graft. In
those days, graft was not considered dishonest; it was more like the
tip that you give to a waiter for his service.
The clerks were also rewarded with honors. Every Byzantine working
for the government had two titles. One described his job, such as
chief clerk to the third assistant to the _eparch_, or lord mayor
of Constantinople. The other was the rank given to him to recognize
his services. Around the emperor alone there were twenty-six ranks,
ranging in order of importance from _caesar_ down to _nipsistarios_,
a man who sprinkled symbolic holy water on the sovereign. In the city
and throughout the empire were sixty other ranks. The badge that was
the symbol of each of these was as important to a Byzantine as his
pay.
It was this government, and most of all its lower-rank employees,
that really ran the Byzantine Empire, for nobody could get on without
them. Emperors and even logothetes came and went, but the Byzantine
civil service clerks were always there. If an army had to be sent to
an overseas province, the clerks knew how many ships and how much
time it would take to get there. If there was a famine, they knew how
many bushels of wheat were needed to feed Constantinople, and where
to get them.
They were for the most part plain citizens from all over the
Byzantine state who had come to the capital not to get rich but just
to make a living. They were noisy. They liked to argue. They were
quarrelsome and jealous. As they jostled through the crowded streets
toward their homes or pushed their way onto the crowded Mesé to buy
silk for their wives or food for their larder, they reeked of garlic
and highly spiced fish. But they kept the empire alive.
[Illustration: Horse and rider]
A ROMAN ARMY ON HORSEBACK
The army kept the empire going too.
It called itself the Roman army; and this Roman army of the Greek
Byzantine Empire was about as efficient as any body of armed men
between the time of Julius Caesar and the days of gunpowder and
artillery.
Actually, though, Julius Caesar would have been astonished if he
had seen it. Who, he would have asked, were these swarthy-skinned,
black-bearded men with their quick and glinting Asiatic eyes? The
commands seemed to be given in Latin, but the accent made them hard
to understand. Why were so many of them on prancing, spirited horses?
Caesar would have remembered his legions like the famous Tenth
Legion with which he landed in Britain. Rome had conquered the world
with her legions. The legion was a body of from 4,000 to 6,000
citizen-soldiers. Except for a small handful who were mounted for
scouting, the legion was made up entirely of foot soldiers. The tough
men who fought in its ranks were clean-shaven, and each one carried a
large shield. He wore a round helmet and a leather cuirass, and was
armed with a short Spanish thrusting sword (that is, you didn’t hack
with it) and a short throwing spear called a _pilum_.
But when in 378 A.D., a mighty Roman emperor was surrounded and
crushed by barbarian horsemen in a Balkan valley not more than 150
miles from Constantinople, the infantry and the legion did not look
unbeatable any more.
The Byzantines decided not to rely on it.
So first Caesar would have seen a large array of well-equipped men
on sturdy chargers. These were the heavy cavalry, later known as
_cataphracts_. They were as renowned as any Byzantine troops. They
wore steel caps, and on each cap was a crest showing the colors of
that _bandon_, or horse regiment. They also wore long mail shirts,
steel gauntlets, steel shoes, and sometimes a light surcoat. Even the
horses, at least those of the officers and the men in the front rank,
had steel head armor and breastplates. For weapons, each man had a
broadsword, a dagger, a bow and a quiver of arrows, and a long lance
with a banderole, also in the _bandon_ colors. They could charge like
knights, or by acting as bowmen, they could fight a distant enemy.
Then Caesar would have seen the light troopers, or _trapezidae_.
These too were cavalry, but they were the light cavalry. They did
carry shields, but for body armor they wore only a cuirass of very
light mail or horn. For weapons, they had only a lance and a sword.
There was still infantry in the Byzantine army, but it was now
pretty unimportant. It was used mostly for holding ground which the
cavalry had won. But even the infantry was divided into two groups.
The heavy infantry were about as well armored as the _cataphracts_.
For weapons, they carried a short, heavy battle ax and a dagger.
They could stand off a barbarian cavalry charge. The light infantry
wore no armor, but carried long-range bows. The Byzantine method
of fighting was something like the German blitzkrieg, with cavalry
taking the place of swiftly moving tanks and the foot soldiers
following behind.
The Byzantines did much more than change their army into something
swift and moving, however. They did more than divide the old
clumsy legion into smaller units almost like our modern regiments,
battalions, companies, and platoons. They spent a lot of time
thinking about the whole business of fighting and may even have been
the inventors of carefully planned strategy. They would not have been
at all surprised at our modern war colleges where even generals are
taught in the classroom what to do on the field of battle.
As a matter of fact, at least three Byzantine emperors wrote very
good books on the art of war. These books included much more than
just how to equip and drill an army. They also told the general
exactly how he should fight his battles, and they emphasized that he
must have a different kind of warfare for each different kind of foe.
The Franks, for example—and by the Franks, the Byzantines
meant German and north Italian peoples quite as much as French
and Normans—believe, said the books, that a retreat under any
circumstances is dishonorable. Better die than show your back to the
enemy. They are also very careless about outposts and scouts. So if
you are fighting the Franks, you should try to trap them in a place
where they will be at a disadvantage. Then you can annihilate them.
With the Turks—and by the Turks, the Byzantines also meant the
Hungarians, the Patzinaks, and all the people of the Asiatic
steppes—it is another matter, the books continued. They are light
horsemen who carry bow and arrow as well as javelin and scimitar.
They are hard to surprise because they always post mounted
sentinels. Also you must be careful if you pursue them, for they
don’t stay defeated but rally quickly. However, the heavy Byzantine
_cataphracts_ can ride them down and cut them to pieces. They are
supposed to do so. And the Turks do not dare attack the Byzantine
infantry because of its strong and powerful bows.
The Slavs, on the other hand, are only dangerous when they are led by
Bulgarian khagans or by viking princes, and even then they are only
really dangerous when they are in the hills. The thing to do, said
the strategy books, is to lure them to the plains in hope of plunder.
And then destroy them.
But the really difficult enemy faced by the Byzantines were the newly
risen Arabs, or Saracens.
These wild sheiks from the desert were fanatically brave, for
Mohammed had taught them that the easiest way to get to heaven was to
die killing the unbeliever. Their numbers were limitless, for after
they had conquered Egypt and Syria they drew into their ranks every
discontented person in the Middle East. Once a year they poured, like
a horde of locusts, through the gates of the Taurus Mountains into
what today is southern Turkey. Nothing, including the Byzantine army,
could stop them.
But fortunately, if they were wild and brave, they were also greedy
for plunder, and besides that they could not stand cold or rain. So
once a year too, usually in October or November, they turned back
again, and their mules and camels, loaded down with booty, could not
move back as fast as they had come.
“This is the way to beat them,” said one of the strategy books.
“Always know where they are. Whether you are eating, taking a bath
or sleeping, never turn away a man who says that he has information.
Whether he is a freeman or a slave—no matter who he is!”
And then track them down, catching them in the narrow, snowy, chilly
mountain passes if possible. They won’t fight well when they are
trapped and shivering. Or if they don’t go back of their own accord,
raid their own country and in this way bait them back. But whenever
you fight them, or anyone else, be sure you know what you are doing.
Above all, don’t throw everything into the battle at once. The
general with the last reserves always wins.
The Byzantines also taught their generals not only how to fight
but when to fight, and also when not to fight, which was even more
important. They believed that it was better to be safe than sorry.
The Byzantine general was told that he must never be rash, and above
everything he must never throw his troops into battle where they
might be killed or wounded if he could win the day by stratagems or
tricks.
To be sure, he must always keep his pledged word. If he didn’t, who
would believe him next time? And the lives of captives must always be
spared if possible. One day they might be on the Byzantine side.
But it was all right to send an officer under a flag of truce and
have him pretend that he wanted to discuss terms for surrender,
when he was really acting as a spy. In the meantime, the Byzantines
could bring up reinforcements. It was all right to forge letters
showing that an enemy commander was turning traitor and then arrange
to have them fall into his general’s hands. It was all right to
disguise soldiers as innocent herdsmen driving bleating sheep and
lowing cattle, and have them lure the enemy into a prepared ambush.
Obviously, a feigned retreat was a recognized part of the game. Even
a real retreat did not disgrace a Byzantine general, although the
Byzantines were just as brave and proud as anyone else. At least the
general who retreated would have some soldiers left and could fight
and win another day.
The Byzantines also believed that if you wanted a good army, you
must pay it well and treat it even better. A general’s salary could
be as much as forty pounds of gold a year, and even a recruit had
cash in his pocket. When a soldier served his time he might also get
a grant of land. There was a well-organized supply department, and
the soldiers were always sure of beans, cheese, and wine, to say
nothing of what they could plunder from the country. A special corps
of engineers pitched their tents for them and set up huge baths.
The soldiers were even allowed to have slaves and servants. The
army itself provided a groom for every four cavalrymen, and every
sixteen foot soldiers had an attendant who drove a cart carrying all
they needed. There was even an ambulance corps of stretcher bearers
and surgeons. The stretcher bearers were paid a gold coin for every
wounded man they brought from the field.
This is what the Byzantine regular army was like, but besides that,
especially in the early days, there were regiments or even whole
tribes of Huns, Goths, Alans, and other barbarians who fought for the
emperor under their own chieftains. Later on, particularly in Asia
Minor, there were also the great feudal lords, or Border Men.
There is a wonderful Byzantine poem called _Digenes Akrites_ about
one of these men. Its hero is Basil Digenes Akrites, son of an Arab
emir named Monsour and a Greek lady of the noble Dukas family. For
this reason he is called Digenes Akrites, which means “border man of
two races.”
Basil was a valiant knight like Roland and Sir Lancelot, and in
spite of his Arab father, he was a faithful Christian. And so when
he wasn’t slaying lions, fighting cattle thieves, or rescuing lovely
damsels, he was ready to join forces with the emperor and lead his
men against the infidel.
But he only did this when he thought the emperor was right! When one
of the emperors came to visit his castle he was quite willing to give
him a lecture on how an emperor should act.
Both the barbarians, with their hard-riding horsemen, and the valiant
border lords played an important part in defending the Byzantine
Empire from its enemies, but the Byzantines never really trusted
either group. A barbarian chieftain was far too likely to ride off
with his hordes and found a kingdom of his own as Theodoric had done
in Italy. A border lord from Asia Minor was too likely to try to
become emperor himself. Indeed, more than one had.
The Byzantines also had a navy, one of the best navies of the Middle
Ages. But often they did not rely on it as they did on their army.
For one thing, the emperors were always afraid of the navy for the
same reason that they were afraid of the border lords of Asia. They
were fearful that some admiral would use it to take their throne
from them. Three admirals did just that. Another reason was that the
Byzantines liked to be sure of what they were doing. But in those
days, ships were flimsy and the seas were full of unknown rocks and
sudden storms. The best of plans might be upset by the violence of
nature, and so it was more dependable to fight on land.
Just the same, when the Byzantines had to, they were always able to
get together a fleet, and it was usually a good one. When Justinian
sent an invasion army to North Africa, he had enough ships to need
20,000 sailors. It was the navy that twice drove the Arabs from
Constantinople. In 853 A.D., the Byzantines were able to send 300
ships against Egypt. A little later, Zoe Black Eyes could order a
veritable armada all the way to Italy to drive Saracen sea raiders
from their stronghold near Naples. When the Byzantines attacked
the pirates in Crete, they were able to send 105 dromonds and 75
Pamphylians. The dromond was the battleship of the Middle Ages. It
sometimes carried 300 men and was a bireme, that is, it had two
decks of oars on each side, one under the other. A Pamphylian was
a lighter, swifter cruiser. The admiral’s flagship was usually a
Pamphylian. There were also galleys; they had only one bank of oars
but were the swiftest of all.
It was the Byzantine navy that developed and used what was probably
the first “secret weapon” of all history. This was the famous Greek
fire. Even today nobody knows exactly what it was, except that it
was a complicated mixture of chemicals, one of which may have been a
crude form of petroleum.
The Byzantines pumped it at the enemy through huge tubes or hurled it
at them from portable siphons almost like modern flame throwers. Even
water would not put it out. So it was fairly easy to destroy an enemy
fleet. Greek fire frightened the enemy even more.
But the Byzantines did not rely only on the army or the navy to win
their battles for them. Helping them in every way was the Byzantine
diplomatic service. For just as the Byzantines did not ever fight a
battle if they could find some other way of winning it, so too they
didn’t even begin a war unless they had to. Why fight if they could
persuade an enemy to become their friend and ally? Why fight, and
risk their own safety, if they could talk someone else into fighting
for them? To the Byzantines, this made sense.
It was up to their diplomatic service to do this, and the reason it
was able to do so very often was because here too the Byzantines knew
just what they were doing. Under the Logothete of the Dromos, they
had an almost modern intelligence system taken care of by a special
department whose one job was to collect information about foreign
nations.
How can such and such a country help the Byzantines and how can it
hurt them?
How can it best be won over by the Byzantines—by force, by honors and
favors, or by gifts?
If the last, by what kind of gifts?
Has it any enemies, and if so, who are they?
What were its origins? What is its history? What is its climate and
its geographical position?
Has it usually been a friend or an enemy of the Byzantines? Trace
this back to the day when it first appeared on the scene!
With this information—the questions had been carefully worked out by
the emperor Constantine Born-in-the-Purple in a book called _How To
Run the Empire_—the Byzantines could select the right method for the
nation they were interested in and then go to work on it.
If the ruler or his ambassador was easily dazzled, they could impress
him with court ceremony and with purple shoes and robes, and they
might even give out a title or two such as patrician or _archon_.
They might even take some northern duke or count and promote him to
be prince or king provided he swore allegiance to them.
If he was greedy and avaricious—and, said Constantine, “the tribes of
the north demand everything and hanker after everything”—they could
give him cash in hand or even pay an annual tribute.
As a last resort, the emperor could marry a foreign princess or
give a sister or a daughter in marriage to a foreign prince. The
Byzantines did not really approve of the latter, especially the
ladies who were shipped off to some outlandish country without
Byzantine comforts or conveniences! “I am being sacrificed to the
wild beast of the West!” wailed one of them. But it often worked
wonders. From distant Asbagia under the towering snow-crowned
Caucasus Mountains to distant Germany, where the “wild beast of
the West” lived, many and many a kingdom was made friendly to the
Byzantines because a Byzantine princess sat on its throne.
But of course when an emperor did this, he must never give the
barbarians all they asked for, and he must always think up a good
reason for not doing so. If they asked for an imperial crown or
an imperial robe, he must point out that these were sacred and
consecrated and tell of the horrendous death suffered by one emperor
who had given some to his Khazar relatives. If they asked for Greek
fire, he must tell them that it was given by an angel and that anyone
who gave it away would be struck down from heaven. If they sought to
marry a princess, he must tell them that the demand is monstrous,
even though the royal robe-makers were already embroidering the
wedding gown.
In that way he would not only save some of his valuable possessions,
but the barbarians would appreciate the ones he did give them all the
more.
[Illustration: Man talking]
ONE RELIGION, ONE CHURCH
Last of the things that made the Byzantine Empire strong and powerful
was the Byzantine church. In some ways, it was the most important of
all.
The Byzantine Empire was much more than just one half of the old
Roman Empire dragging out its days for another thousand years. It was
a new Roman Empire based on Christianity. Practically every Byzantine
was a Christian, and so it was Christianity that united all the
many races and languages into a single people. In spite of all the
arguments about this doctrine and that doctrine, practically every
Byzantine believed in the official Orthodox faith, and as the emperor
was head of this faith, that gave him additional power.
Even a weak emperor could point to the Bible. “Render therefore
unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things
that are God’s.” But the emperor was _caesar_, and he was God’s
representative too. He had to be obeyed on both counts.
The Byzantines were by nature an intensely religious people. They
were Middle Easterners as well as Greek, and more than half of
the world’s great religions were born in the Middle East—Judaism,
Christianity, and Islam, to name just the most important three.
The Byzantines had been religious from the very beginning, and the
Greek side of their nature made them like to talk and argue about
their religion as well.
Saint Gregory of Nyssa visited Constantinople when it was only forty
years old, and even this holy man threw up his hands in astonishment.
The money changer who converted his Asiatic money into Byzantine
gold, the white-faced baker who sold him a loaf of bread, even the
slave boy who mixed hot and cold water for him at the public bath,
all wanted to discuss the fine points of Christian beliefs with him.
Saint Gregory shook his head. “Everybody in this city seems to be
a doctor of theology,” he said. “_Everybody!_ Even the slaves and
day laborers. There isn’t a man in the city who can’t preach a good
sermon, and they all do if you give them half a chance. If you don’t
believe me, just stand at any street corner! Just go into any shop!”
But it was not merely the servants and shopkeepers who were deeply
wrapped up in religion. High or low, virtually every Byzantine,
even including those who spent most of their time making money and
amassing worldly goods, had been taught from childhood and absolutely
believed that life in this world was a vain shadow and the important
thing was to win everlasting bliss in heaven. But this could only be
done through religion and the church.
That may have been why many rich Byzantines and even many a
Byzantine emperor or empress liked to endow monasteries, just as
in modern times many rich men set up foundations. In fact, so many
monasteries were set up in this way that it became necessary to pass
a law stating that if you wanted to found a monastery, you must sell
the land and only give the money. Many of the greatest estates were
being left to the church and since they then didn’t have to pay taxes
any more, it grew more and more difficult for the state to raise all
the money it needed.
Many Byzantines, including emperors, became monks before they died.
They felt more sure of their reward in the future if they actually
entered a monastery, had their heads shaven, and exchanged their
golden garments for a hair shirt or a cowl.
[Illustration: Boy pointing]
[Illustration Man speaking]
That may also have been why so many patriarchs—the title of the head
of the Byzantine church—did not fear the emperor, even though the
emperor had appointed them.
One patriarch boldly told an emperor that no one had to obey his laws
if they went against the church. The emperor exiled him but did not
dare to harm him.
Another went even further.
“I made you emperor, you ignorant fool!” he shouted at Isaac
Comnenus. “I can bring you down as easily.”
He even put on the imperial purple shoes, saying the patriarch had a
right to wear them. Of course, he didn’t get away with this, but at
least he had tried.
Sometimes, to be sure, Byzantine religion was very close to
superstition, particularly among women and children.
You could make yourself a saint by becoming a stylite like Saint
Simeon Stylites, who lived most of his life on top of a column sixty
feet high without ever coming down. Simeon was venerated and even
prayed to.
Many Byzantines were certain that cures could be effected by touching
the arms, legs, and even the congealed sweat of some holy man. On the
other hand, a doctor was howled down by the mob when he suggested
ending a plague by letting fresh air into the crowded tenements.
“Blasphemy!” cried the Byzantines. “God decides when a man shall die,
not fresh air!” When the doctor persisted, and died himself, they
said God had punished him.
Others believed that cities had been saved by the apparition of some
saint as much as by soldiers. For instance, when the Goths stormed
toward Thessalonica (modern Salonika), the second city of the empire,
Saint Demetrius appeared and led the East Roman army to victory. When
the Avars reached Constantinople, the khagan saw a majestic female
figure pacing the walls. It was the Theotokos, the Greek word for
“Mother of God,” which the Byzantines called the Virgin Mary. He
turned back in panic.
Almost all the Byzantines paid great attention to fortunetelling,
palm reading, and prophecies. Everybody believed in them. There
were even more than a few emperors of humble birth who would not
have even dared to try seizing the throne if it had not been for a
fortuneteller or a prophecy. But, although sometimes the monks and
abbots themselves told some of these fortunes, none of this had much
to do with the church.
The Byzantine, even the most superstitious Byzantine, was truly
Christian, but that did not mean he tolerated every kind of
Christianity in existence. The Byzantine did not believe, as most of
us do, that religion is a personal matter and that every man has a
right to worship God in his own way, according to his own conscience.
To the Byzantine, there was only one religion—the official religion.
And there was only one church—his own Orthodox Church. If you
believed anything else, you were a heretic and to be persecuted or
fought.
This had been so from the very beginning. Constantine himself had
called council after council to work out the details of the Christian
creed, and the emperors who followed carried on his work. In council
after council, they wrote down in black and white what every
Byzantine had to believe. When it was written down, that was _it_.
No further discussion about it, unless you enjoyed exile or having
insulting poetry branded on your forehead; and this last really
happened to one poor monk who refused to conform.
It was still true in the last days of the empire, but by then not
even the emperor could change what had been agreed on earlier. Some
of the later emperors tried to. They journeyed to France, Italy, and
even England seeking help against the Turks, and in order to get the
Western nations on their side they promised to make the Orthodox
Church join the Roman Catholic Church, with the Pope as head of both.
The Byzantine people rose in protest. Lucas Notaras, a relative of
the emperor and the last Megadux, or Great Admiral, shouted at his
cousin angrily. “Better a Turkish turban than a papal miter!” he
cried.
Although a huge Turkish cannon was already battering the walls, the
mob shouted its approval.
“The Latins are trying to destroy the Greek city, the Greek religion,
the Greek race, even the Greek language!” the people roared.
Even before there had been riots with the “democracy in rags,” the
poor people, joining the monks and abbots to make certain that the
old-time religion of the Byzantines was kept true and pure even if
this made the empire fall.
Nevertheless the old-time Orthodox Byzantine faith did not come
into being just as it was and all at once. Since religion was so
important, and since the Greeks loved to argue, the whole history
of the Byzantines is filled with violent discussions and bitter
differences of opinion about exactly what a man was supposed to
believe. Some of the arguments were so complicated that it does not
seem that the Byzantines themselves always understood them, even
though they were willing to rush into the streets and fight about
them. The arguments are even more hard to understand today.
One of the most bitter disputes was about the use of the single
letter _i_. There is a Greek word _homoios_ which means “similar,”
and another Greek word _homos_ which means “same.” Men and women were
sent to distant sunless provinces or shipped to lonely islands; they
were locked in damp, rat-infested cells; and volume after volume was
written and published over whether the Saviour was _homoi-ousion_
(similar to God) or _homo-ousion_ (the same as God). But this was
only one of many arguments and discussions. It would be impossible
to tell you even a small part of them. But that does not mean that
these differences were not important. Many people think that the
reason the Arabs conquered Egypt and Syria so easily and converted
the inhabitants to Islam was that most of the emperors were Orthodox
Christians who tried to make the Egyptians and Syrians Orthodox, too.
The most important controversy that troubled the Byzantines is
easier to understand. It is called the Iconoclast (image breaker)
controversy, and it agitated the empire for more than a hundred years.
Although the early Christians had opposed images and paintings,
calling them heathen idols, most Byzantines attached great importance
to them. In fact, some of their finest art went into the making
of statues, portraits, and even small portable mosaics of saints,
apostles, and other holy persons. They called these _eikons_, and
they certainly paid them great reverence. Their enemies said they
even worshiped them.
But not every Byzantine was an image worshiper. The hardy
mountaineers from Isauria and other parts of Asia Minor still held to
the Puritan-like thoughts of their ancestors. They hated images. Then
an Isaurian general seized the throne. In addition to hating images,
he realized that image worship greatly increased the power of the
monks and priests who were now just about as strong as the emperor.
Because they hated images, and also to break the power of the church
party, he and his son and the other emperors who followed ordered
every image to be torn down and many of them destroyed. Then they
abolished many monasteries. In some cases they made the monks and
nuns parade hand in hand before howling crowds in the Hippodrome,
forcing them to choose between marriage or torture and death.
These Iconoclast emperors were supported by the soldiers (most of
whom were also image breakers; and all wanted a chance to loot church
treasures) and by much of Asia Minor. But the monks would not give
in, many of them suffering martyrdom first, and _they_ were supported
by the people; by the superstitious sailors of the fleet; by all
the women; and by many of the empresses who were as stubborn as the
monks. Saint Theodora, for instance, although her husband was a
strong Iconoclast, never gave up image worship in private and she
taught her daughters and granddaughters to do the same. When she was
surprised by a dwarf who told the emperor, she said that the figures
they were praying to were really dolls and that she was playing
with her grandchildren. But later she had the dwarf beaten for good
measure.
With opposition like that, the Iconoclasts could not hope to win, and
in the end they compromised. The images were restored, but they were
to be placed high and out of reach. Worshipers could look at them or
reverence them, but they could not kiss them or touch them.
[Illustration: Men pulling down statue]
It was at this time, and probably because harmony now reigned, that
the Byzantine church at last felt powerful enough not only to take
care of its own peoples’ religion, but to set out to convert their
heathen neighbors. Particularly their Slavic neighbors! Many of these
still worshiped pagan gods 800 years after Christ.
It was Michael the Drunkard, a much better emperor than the name
seems to indicate, who ended the Iconoclast controversy. And it was
the same Michael who sent out Saint Cyril and Saint Methodius to do
their work. They were the most famous missionaries eastern Europe had
ever seen.
They prepared themselves like generals going into battle, and in a
way they were like generals. They carefully restudied the Slavic
languages, for since they were from a part of the empire where there
were many Slavs, they already knew some Slavic languages. They
learned all about Slavic culture and Slavic history. Finally they
invented what is known today as the Cyrillic alphabet, which is still
used in much of the Slavic world.
To be sure, their mission was not a complete success. They converted
Moravia, now a part of Czechoslovakia, without too much difficulty,
but when the Moravian king was defeated by a German king the country
became Roman Catholic. Cyril and Methodius or saints trained by them,
for they actually trained saints, went into Bulgaria, Macedonia,
and Serbia. The people there stayed converted and stayed Orthodox.
Indeed, Bulgaria soon boasted that it was the “eldest daughter of the
eastern church,” and had its own patriarch, and its own Santa Sophia,
too.
But the most important conversion made by the Byzantines took place
a hundred years later. It was the conversion of the Russians. The
Russians themselves say this was done more by Byzantine splendor
than by the talk of Byzantine missionaries, or even by the marriage
of the Russian Prince Vladimir to the emperor’s sister, Anna.
In 989, this huge ruler with his forest-shaking voice decided to
make his people abandon their Norse gods and goddesses. He sent
ambassadors to the four great religions that he knew about to find
out which one was the best to adopt.
First the ambassadors went to the Black Bulgars, who were Moslems.
But the mosques were smelly and dirty, and the Black Bulgars told the
Russians that they would have to give up wine.
“Drinking is the joy of the Russians!” roared Vladimir.
Next they visited the Jewish Khazars, but how, asked Vladimir, could
the Jews be God’s chosen people if he had scattered them all over the
earth?
Then they went to the German Roman Catholics.
“The Germans say that they worship the truth,” the ambassadors
reported, “but they have day after day of fasting, and there is no
magnificence.”
“I do not like to fast,” said Vladimir.
Finally, they visited the Greeks, that is, the Byzantines.
“The Greeks,” they said, “led us to the edifices where they worship
their God, and we knew not whether we were in heaven or on earth, for
nowhere have we seen such splendor and beauty. We are at loss how to
describe it, but we do know that God must dwell there.”
Then they added, “If the Greek faith was not good, your grandmother
Olga would not have adopted it.”
For they knew that this straw-haired princess had never stopped
talking about the domes of polished copper, the pavements of rare
stone, the magnificent decorations, the pearl-encrusted psalm books
and Bibles, the incense and the music in Constantinople. They knew
too that she had never stopped talking about the God-chosen emperor
who had wanted to marry her, and how she had tricked him into giving
her rich gifts instead.
Vladimir agreed. He ordered his subjects to be baptized, and told his
boyars to give up worshiping Odin and Thor, and to burn their idols
or cast them into the Dnepr River.
This conversion of the Slavs was as important to the Byzantines as
a victory by their army or by their diplomats, and indeed it was a
victory. For although they still fought with the Serbs and with the
Russians and particularly with the Bulgarians, these people were
gradually drawn into the Byzantine way of life and became more and
more friendly. Thus the flanks of the empire were protected.
It was, of course, far more lasting than any military victory. The
Byzantine Empire came to an end more than 500 years ago, but if you
were to go into the Balkans or Greece today, you would find that the
work done by Saint Cyril and Saint Methodius still remains. Even
after forty years of communism, you might find that the seeds of
Christianity, and particularly Greek Orthodox Christianity, which had
been sown by Vladimir’s conversion, were still living in some Russian
communist hearts.
[Illustration: Coin]
GOLDEN BEZANTS
It took a lot of money to be able to do all these things—to pay the
expenses of the emperor and his court and government, and of the
army, the navy, and the church, to say nothing of bribing foreign
rulers and their ambassadors. And this money did not come from
conquering fabulously rich lands and then making them hand over their
treasures as tribute or as booty.
This method was the way the old Roman Empire had become wealthy. In
fact, the famous Roman statesman Cicero, who had a rich province to
govern, boasted to his friend Atticus that the natives loved him
because he did not make them give him a well-furnished palace in
every city where he spent the night. They thronged from every village
and hamlet to cheer him because he did not force them to borrow money
and then pay him back with forty-eight per cent interest!
But in Byzantine days there were very few fabulously rich countries
left to conquer, and the Byzantines had to find some other source
of wealth. They had to rely on hard work and on their own skill
and cleverness. They supported themselves on the little farms that
nestled in every Balkan valley and the huge estates that sprawled
over Thrace and Anatolia (the Asiatic part of modern Turkey). They
earned a living, sometimes even amassing treasure, in the many
industries that were found in every Byzantine city. They became
wealthy from their world-wide foreign trade.
Nobody can say today just how wealthy they were. One historian says
that the Byzantine state had an annual budget of one hundred and
twenty million dollars in gold, but another says that it was only
twenty million.
No matter which was right, and it was probably the first, you would
still have to multiply the figure many times to find out what it
is worth in modern money. Anyway, this was only the money spent by
the government; it did not include the vast sums and the enormous
property owned by private citizens. There may have been fifteen
million people in the Byzantine Empire, and while some of them were
poor as poor could be, a great many of them were very rich indeed.
Of all ways of making a living, farming probably came first. Rich
or poor, almost every Byzantine had an eye for the land, that is,
everyone except the city mobs who couldn’t bear to be too far away
from the excitement of the Circus.
In fact, many people say that the reason the Byzantine Empire finally
lost its wealth was because the average Byzantine preferred to invest
his money in an estate rather than in foreign trade. The Byzantines
let foreign trade fall into the hands of the Venetians, Genoese, and
Pisans. Then when the Turks came and the richest provinces fell into
the hands of the invaders, there was nothing to fall back on, and no
money to pay soldiers to hold the Turks off.
If that is so, it was for the same reason that the Byzantines did not
like the navy; foreign trade was too uncertain and there was no way
to figure out your risks. Just take pirates alone. The Aegean Sea
and in fact the whole eastern Mediterranean was strewn with islands
behind which lurked swift ships, manned by swarthy corsairs. They
were as dangerous as Captain Kidd or Henry Morgan, and they kept
Byzantine traders terrified.
“What am I going to do?” jeered one of them, a Genoese, as he boarded
a heavily laden Byzantine merchant vessel. “Seize you and your goods,
_and cut off your noses_!”
But besides pirates, there was wind and weather, land robbers (if you
shipped your goods by caravan), and the possibility that some prince
or emir would confiscate your property and say that it was indemnity
owed to him by the Byzantine Government.
And there was only the most primitive kind of insurance to take care
of you in time of trouble.
Of course, farming had its difficulties and dangers too. The farmer
was just as likely to have his crops ruined by drought or by heavy
rains as he is today. Also just as today, prices were only high
when there was little to sell. When the yield was plentiful and the
farmer’s storerooms were full, prices went down and so even if you
sold a lot, you didn’t get much in return. There were also wild
beasts to contend with. The Balkans and Asia Minor were far more
covered with waste and woodland than they are now, and you did not
have to go to the steppes of Russia to find ravening wolf packs. No
Byzantine herdsman dared go out without a sheepdog as savage as a
wolf itself. Sheepdogs were so important that a man who killed one
was given 100 lashes and had to pay double the dog’s value to its
owner. Life was often hard for the Byzantine farmer. We must never
think of the world in those days being like it is today. Boundary
lines were not rigidly fixed with customs officials at every point,
and even when the Byzantine Empire was strongest, savage bands and
even nations crossed the Danube and other rivers, roving to their
hearts’ content. They never captured Constantinople, and the big
cities of the empire—from Thessalonica and Athens to Antioch and
Berytus (modern Beirut)—were often safe. But a farmer who came back
from his fields was just as likely to find his farmhouse a smoking
ruin and his wife and children murdered or carried off, as a settler
in our own wilderness days was to find them scalped by Indians. The
conditions were about the same.
Nevertheless, at least in most periods, and in a great many parts of
the empire, the Byzantine farmer did prosper and was not only able to
feed the empire but to ship some of his surplus abroad as well.
This Byzantine farmer was very versatile. He grew wheat, olives,
every kind of fruit, and even flax and cotton. He maintained herds
of goats and sheep and cattle and horses. In his “more or less
self-governing” villages, there was not only uncleared woodland,
scrubby wastes, and unfenced pastures, but vineyards and garden
patches protected by deep ditches and palisades of pointed stakes.
The very existence of a special farmer’s law shows how important
he was. This law took care of everything from stealing or killing
livestock to accidentally plowing someone else’s land. The man who
did this lost his crop and also the time he had spent.
Another thing that shows how important the farmer was to the
Byzantine Empire is the size of a medium-sized farm: 100 yoke of
oxen, 500 grazing oxen, 80 horses or mules, 12,000 sheep. That was
what could be found on a typical farm!
Indeed, the main difficulties faced by the Byzantine farmer were
taxes, and the greediness of the big landowners. Taxes were high
and if one man did not pay them, the whole village was responsible
for his share. The greedy big landowner caused even more trouble.
Some of these “robbers in silk and velvet,” as they were called,
owned estates as big as provinces, but even that did not satisfy
them and they spent much of their time trying to get the land of the
neighboring small farmers.
They tried all sorts of tricks and schemes. For instance, if a small
farmer was sick or in trouble, his rich neighbor would offer to help
him out if the farmer would adopt him as his son. Then when the
small farmer died, the rich farmer inherited the land, and the small
farmer’s wife and his real children could beg or become farm hands or
slaves. Finally, an emperor who had been a small farmer himself made
a law to protect the small farmer. From then on the small farmer was
not allowed to give, sell, or even lease his land to a big farmer.
But this law did not last for long. The big farmer had too much
influence and had it repealed.
Next to farming in importance was Byzantine industry, and in the long
run this probably produced more wealth than the Byzantine farmers did.
It was, of course, necessary to feed the huge city population, and
in spite of all the produce grown and raised on their farms, the
Byzantines still had to import some of the things they needed. Wheat
was one of them, and sometimes salt fish, wine, and of course slaves.
It was also necessary to clothe the people, make shoes for them,
butcher their meat, bake their bread, cask wine for them, and build
and furnish their houses. This kept many hands busy.
But it was the luxury trades that brought the Byzantines their fame
and fortune. The goldsmiths made gold cups and chalices, gold inlaid
silver patens and plates, gold pectoral crosses (the cross worn by a
churchman upon his breast). They also made jewelry and enamel that
was so beautiful that people still say that the finest and most
exquisite craftsmanship of the Middle Ages was Byzantine.
The glassmakers made their famous Byzantine glass. It was noted for
its rich color, and no other glass equaled it until the Venetians
began making glass on the neighboring island of Murano in 1291. There
was a special kind of Byzantine glass called _fonde d’oro_. In this,
designs of pure gold were put between two layers of glass and then
fused together.
The Byzantines also made and exported the finest kind of china, ivory
carved with figures of saints and emperors, vases of honey-colored
agate, lawn and other delicate cloth, perfumes, strange and
sharp-smelling mixtures of spices and herbs, and too many other
things to mention. These Byzantine goods went all over the world.
Byzantine products have been found even in Scotland.
But perhaps the most important of all Byzantine industries was the
silk industry. Byzantine silks and heavy gold brocade were not
only needed throughout the empire for church services and imperial
functions. They, too, were widely shipped abroad.
In the days of the old Roman Empire, all silk came from China, where
Roman ambassadors had traveled 1,000 years before Marco Polo. The
silk was carried by caravan across the desert to Samarkand, and then
to the Persian border, where heavy duty had to be paid on it.
Silk still came from China—and there was still a heavy duty on it—in
the early days of the Byzantine Empire. But one day while Justinian
sat on his throne two Christian monks appeared before him, one of
them holding in his hand a hollow bamboo. He broke it open, and
inside were silkworm cocoons. They had been smuggled all the way from
distant Canton or Nanking.
From then on, the Byzantines had a silk industry of their own. The
silkworm was cultivated all over the empire, but especially in the
Peloponnesus, the peninsula of southern Greece, which now became
known as the Morea—the Latin word for mulberry leaf is _morus_—from
the mulberry trees grown there for the silkworms to feed upon. Silk
cloth was woven all over the empire, but principally in Greece and at
Constantinople.
As a matter of fact, some silk was even manufactured upon the very
grounds of the imperial Sacred Palace. This was a special royal silk,
and it was illegal to take any of it from the empire.
Bishop Liutprand of Cremona—the same one who saw the emperor
magically lifted up into the air at the Magnaura Palace—tried to
smuggle some out of Constantinople, but he was caught.
He tried to bluff his way through the customs by roaring, “Your
emperor Nicephorus came to his throne by lying and crime! He told me
I could buy all that I wanted to. Where is the imperial promise?”
But although Liutprand was an ambassador from the German emperor, the
Byzantines merely smiled at him.
“You poverty-stricken Italians and Germans are not meant to appear in
such gorgeous material. Only we Byzantines, who are unique in virtue,
have a right to wear them.”
They forced him to open his baggage and took five of the most
splendid pieces. But they did pay him back the money he had spent.
None of this Byzantine silk, and none of the other marvelous things
they made either, would have added very much to Byzantine gold and
glitter if the Byzantines had kept all for themselves. Little as the
average Byzantine liked to risk his money in foreign adventures, it
was foreign trade that brought most of their wealth.
Byzantine foreign trade reached out all over the world. The
Byzantines imported animal skins, slaves, and sometimes wheat from
Russia; precious stones from India; spices from Ceylon; embroidered
rugs from Spain and Morocco; ores and wrought metals from Italy and
Germany; wool and woolen goods from the Low Countries and England;
hemp, flax, and amber from the Balkans and the north. These were only
a few things they imported. Some of these things were shipped out
again; for instance, they shipped amber from the Baltic to the Far
East.
The Byzantines even penetrated darkest Africa. Not only did they do
business with the Ethiopian kingdom of Axum on the Red Sea where the
temperature sometimes went up to 120°, but they may even have gone
with the dark-skinned Axumite merchants to the mysterious city of
Zambabwe. There, in the heart of the jungle, Negro tribesmen built
towers, walls, and palaces so mighty that even today men look at the
ruins and wonder how they did it.
Gold seemed to be as plentiful as pebbles in Zambabwe, and you
traded with the natives in the following way: You built a thick
thorn breastwork, and on it you placed salt, iron, and the carcasses
of cattle. Then you went away, and the natives slipped out of the
forest and placed beans of gold upon each object. Later on you came
back and if you thought they had left enough, you took the gold and
the natives carried off the meat and salt and iron. If not, you
moved away and the natives were given a chance to leave more gold.
Sometimes this bartering went on for four or five days. Neither side
saw, or even talked to, the other.
The Byzantines were able to carry on this world business, because
their principal city, Constantinople, had one of the most strategic
locations in the known world of that time. It was like a spider in
the center of a spider web; practically every trade route in the
world passed through it.
The Byzantines also had a large number of unusually fine seaports
in other parts of the empire. Besides Constantinople itself, there
was Smyrna, Thessalonica, Patras, and in the early days, Alexandria.
There were several others, many of which are very good seaports even
today.
The Byzantines also knew how to promote business. We are apt to think
of a world’s fair as something modern, but the Byzantines knew all
about them. Every year, in October, they held an enormous trade fair
on the Vardar plain outside Thessalonica. There they built a huge
temporary wood-and-canvas city of booths and bazaars, and even amid
the troubled Middle Ages, merchants and peddlers flocked to it from
all over. It was only later, when the Byzantines became proud and
haughty, refusing to seek business while they sat on their doorsteps
waiting for business to come to them, that they got into trouble.
Then the energetic Venetians, Genoese, and Pisans took over.
But nothing had more to do with making the Byzantines successful in
world trade than the sound Byzantine money. Their gold coin, known to
us as the bezant, was one of the four most widely accepted pieces of
money the world has ever known. The other three are the Florentine
florin, which made the Medici bankers so rich, the English pound
sterling, and now the United States dollar. Any one of these would be
accepted anywhere in the world during the time it was in use.
[Illustration: GOLD BEZANT]
The reason the Byzantine coin was stable is that no one ever tampered
with the bezant. In the old days, kings used to clip their coins
(that is, use a little less gold in them), but no emperor ever
clipped the bezant. It was always kept at its full value.
An old Byzantine writer tells a story which shows both how valuable
the bezant was and how it traveled.
A Greek merchant was in Ceylon when he got into an argument with a
Persian merchant as to whose ruler was the more powerful.
“Mine,” said the Persian. “He is King of Kings.”
“Why argue?” asked the Greek. “They are both in the room. Compare
them.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I have some bezants, and you have some dirhams. Put them
beside each other.”
There was no need for further discussion. The portrait of the
_basileus_ of the Romans was on the bezant, and the bezant was the
much more valuable coin.
I, myself, had an experience which proves the same thing. On my desk
in front of me is a real Byzantine gold piece. It was coined in the
reign of Basil I and his son Constantine, and cannot be a day less
than 1,090 years old. But I was able to buy it at a price that I
could afford. I asked the coin dealer why.
“Bezants were used all over the world, and so you find them
everywhere!” he answered.
Because the Byzantine emperors made their gold coins so stable in
value that everybody wanted them, I am able to own one today!
[Illustration: Two women]
THE BYZANTINE WAY OF LIFE
What did the Byzantine Empire do for itself, and for the world, and
even for us, during the eleven long centuries when it was almost
always—but not _always_—so rich and powerful?
You would not really know about the Byzantines unless you had the
answer.
First of all, it defended a large part of the warm, civilized
Mediterranean lands from the Asiatic barbarians. The word “Asiatic”
is important, but maybe “barbarians from the Asiatic steppes” would
be better, for these were barbarians of a special kind.
Our ancestors were barbarians, too, and the barbarians that came from
the forests of Germany and the sandy shores of Denmark were capable
of cruel destruction. But they were also free and independent, with
a gift for self-government and an instinct that told them that one
man has just as many rights as another. They even elected their
kings, cheering and lifting them on their shields, and the kings
they elected were men like Theodoric of Italy, Alfred the Great,
and Charlemagne, all men who wanted to absorb the very best of the
civilization they had taken over, and not merely tear things down.
If, instead of them, men like Attila and Genghis Khan, with their
hard-riding, slant-eyed followers, had become the rulers of western
Europe, iron discipline and a firm government might have been
established a whole lot sooner. But our democratic way of living
could never have been born. In other words, the Byzantines defended
Europe from the Asiatic hordes and made it possible for Western
civilization to develop in its own way.
The Byzantines would hardly be worth remembering if they had done
nothing more than defend.
They also created a civilization of their own, and you can still see
its influence in Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, and even
Russia. And there are still traces of it all over Europe and Asia.
If a Byzantine had come to life and looked at the coronation of
Elizabeth II of England over TV, he would have felt perfectly at
home, for in many ways it was a Byzantine ceremony. The fact that
this young woman was not only sovereign of the realm but head of
the official church was Byzantine, too. She was following in the
footsteps of the empresses Irene and Zoe.
In the East, even the Turks who finally conquered the Byzantines
took over many of their ideas. In its early days the Turkish Empire
was very much like the Byzantine Empire, except that it practiced
Islam, the religion founded by Mohammed. The Turkish _sanjaks_, or
provinces, had almost the same boundaries as the Byzantine _themes_,
or provinces. Their grand vizier, or prime minister—but there is
a difference, for the vizier’s name means “he who bears burdens,”
rather than “accountant”—was practically the same as the Logothete of
the Dromos. A Turkish _bey_ was not too different from a Byzantine
_strategos_, or governor general.
The Turks even used Byzantines to help them rule. A large number of
the governors whom they sent out to their conquered territories were
Phanariote Greeks, those Greeks who remained in Constantinople after
the empire fell. All but twelve of their forty-eight grand viziers
were either Byzantines or from former Byzantine provinces such as
Albania, Dalmatia, or Greece.
Byzantine civilization affected much more of daily life than
merely ceremonies and government, however. It entered into every
phase of life. It was the Byzantines who invented the fork. From
Constantinople it was taken to Italy, and medieval English tourists
brought it back to Britain. But for a long time a man was considered
sissy and affected if he used one instead of his fingers.
High on the list of the great accomplishments of the Byzantines is
Byzantine art. In fact, many people think of it first, and sometimes
it is the only thing they think about when they think of the
Byzantines. Not long ago it was not very much appreciated, but we now
realize that it is one of the finest arts there ever was. Besides
that, it bridged the more than thousand-year gap in art between the
wonderful statues of the Greeks and Romans and the oil paintings and
frescoes of the Italian Renaissance.
[Illustration: Two men painting]
The most famous Byzantine art is the Byzantine mosaics. A Byzantine
mosaic is a picture made of little pieces of glass and gold and
precious stones. These mosaics were usually very large and set
right into the walls of churches, and so it is almost impossible to
see one unless you visit the church itself. You would have to go at
least to Italy where there are some very fine ones in Rome, Ravenna,
and Naples. These Byzantine mosaics are quite stiff, and the people
in them usually look straight ahead. But if you ever see a real one,
or even a good picture of one, you will never forget it.
The Byzantines also did oil paintings and frescoes, particularly in
their later days and particularly in the Balkans and Greece. There
are frescoes in Yugoslavia and in southern Greece that are almost
as good as those of the great Italian artist Giotto, and they were
done 200 years before him. Byzantine sculpture ranged from richly
carved marble, like the big throne of a patriarch in Ravenna, to
ivory caskets and plaques. Byzantine illuminated manuscripts are also
among the most beautiful ever made. Most of them are Bibles and other
religious books, but there are several about the travels of Cosmas
Who-Sailed-to-India. They are filled with saints in blue and scarlet,
and one manuscript has a picture of a boatload of escaping martyrs
showing what travel was like in Byzantine days.
Byzantine art is not only wonderful itself, but it shows how the
Byzantines helped themselves to everything good that had been done
before them. On the walls of a famous tomb in Ravenna, there is a
mosaic of two doves at a drinking fountain that might have come from
the ancient Roman city of Pompeii. There is also Byzantine art that
bubbles over with Greek love of life. Some of it is filled with
early Christian saints and symbols, like the peacock and the fish.
There is some with the lions and eagles of the ancient Hittites, and
others whose fierce, bearded saints are like Assyrian warriors. But,
of course, this practice of blending the ideas of different peoples
wasn’t limited to art. It applied to everything the Byzantines did.
The Byzantines preserved classic culture. They preserved Greek
literature, Greek science, Greek learning, and even the Greek
language. And this at a time when almost everybody in the West had
completely forgotten Greek, and as a matter of fact, only churchmen
and a handful of ragged scholars even knew Latin.
This was a very important contribution. No civilization ever starts
from scratch, and our modern one is based on the renewed interest in
classic culture that is called the Revival of Learning. During that
time, great writers like Petrarch and Boccaccio were willing to spend
a fortune to get the services of some bearded ruffian who could teach
them Greek. When Constantinople fell, the Byzantine scholars who
escaped to Europe could sell any manuscript they brought with them
for enough money to live on for a long time.
The Byzantines never had to rediscover Homer, or Plato, or Euclid,
who invented geometry, or Eratosthenes, who knew the world was round
1,700 years before Columbus, even measuring its circumference as
25,000 miles, which is almost right. They never had to rediscover the
ancients; they knew about them all the time.
Another thing the Byzantines did was to insist on education. Even
the mighty French emperor Charlemagne had a hard time if he wanted
to spell his way through a book and sign his name. Most Byzantine
emperors could not only read and write but were thoroughly educated.
Theophilus studied everything from Greek to natural history. Leo
the Philosopher composed poems, sermons, and a life of his father.
Constantine Born-in-the-Purple was famous for his books on the
barbarians and on his empire. John IV and Manuel II, and above all
Anna Comnena, a princess, wrote astonishingly good histories.
It was not merely the emperors and some of their courtiers who were
learned. Although a few poor men—like the saint from Asia Minor who
had to tend his father’s swine and did not learn to read until he was
forty-seven—did not have the chance to be educated, most Byzantines
went to school or a university from the time they were five until
they were twenty.
If you had been a Byzantine, you would have trotted off to your
classes accompanied by a pedagogue—in the old days, he was a
slave—who carried your books and saw to it that you obeyed your
teachers. Until you were ten, you would have studied reading,
writing, and spelling. The last was very important because the way
words were pronounced was always changing, although the spelling
remained the same. After this you would have studied what the
Byzantines called grammar. But it was not exactly like our grammar.
It was more like literature. For instance, you would have had to
learn Homer by heart and been able to explain everything he had
written word by word. You were in trouble if you weren’t able to do
this. The teacher merely nodded to the pedagogue, who always had a
rod in his hand. After grammar, you would have studied rhetoric,
and to pass your rhetoric courses you had to be able to discuss
eloquently anything from a fable by Aesop to the pictures on the
walls of the city council. Finally, and this was especially important
if you were going to be a churchman or go into the government, you
would have gone on to a university. That was the case only if you
were a boy. Although many Byzantine women were as well educated as
the men, everything they learned was in the home. None of them went
to college or even to grammar school.
Besides giving us great art, keeping alive Greek culture and
civilization, and seeing to it that there was at least one place
in the world where everyone who wanted to be was educated, the
Byzantines protected and preserved the Christian faith.
Long before the word “crusader” was ever heard, the Byzantine emperor
Heraclius was fighting the Saracens in Damascus, Homs, Jerusalem,
and Antioch just as the crusaders did in the days of Richard the
Lion-Hearted 500 years later. Almost every Byzantine emperor who
followed him did the same. Among the caliphs whom they fought, but
could not defeat, was Harun al-Rashid, the hero of _The Arabian
Nights_.
They did defeat many another Moslem leader, however, and so although
the Arabs often advanced through the empire, they were never able to
pour into the Balkans as they had poured into France and Spain.
But the Byzantines did more than just battle the enemies of
Christianity, and they also did more than argue over the fine points
of religion.
They tried to practice Christianity as well as preach it. They
believed that _philanthropia_—from which our word “philanthropy,” or
“love of mankind” is derived—was the first duty of those who were
rich or had power. There were no people before the Byzantines, and
only a few since, who believed so sincerely that every man was really
and truly his brother’s keeper. And by being his brother’s keeper
they meant taking care of him in every kind of need.
In the Byzantine Empire there were homes for travelers and pilgrims.
There were homes for orphans. There were homes for the sick. There
were homes for foundlings. There were old-age homes.
All of these institutions were heavily endowed when they were not
actually supported by the government, and the officials in charge of
them were important people. Take the orphan homes, for example. There
were forty orphan homes in Constantinople alone. Each was headed by
an _orphanotrope_. The Grand Orphanotrope who was over all of them,
was appointed by the emperor himself. He held one of the highest
offices in the empire.
Many of the Byzantine laws were Christian as well. In the old days
of the ancient Roman Empire, the father was the absolute master of
the family. His wife’s property, including her dowry, became his, and
if he did not like her, he could divorce her with little more than a
word. At least in the very early days, he had power of life and death
over his slaves and almost as much over his children. If a son did
not please him, he did not have to leave him a penny in his will.
But the Byzantines did not want laws like that. They wanted laws
that the Saviour would approve of. In their opinion, Christ would
not have approved of divorce, and so although they could not stop
it altogether, they made it much more difficult to get. At one time
there were only four recognized reasons for divorce. One of them
was that you could get a divorce if your husband (or wife) tried to
murder you!
Women were given many other rights by the Byzantines. If a child
wanted to marry, he had to get his mother’s permission as well as
his father’s. A woman’s property did not belong exclusively to her
husband; her property and her husband’s property now belonged to both
of them. If the father died, the mother could become her child’s
guardian.
The child also got some new advantages. If you got a job in the old
Roman days, your earnings went to your father. Under the Byzantines,
you could keep them yourself.
Slaves also had to be treated with justice. Under Christianity, even
the most wretched slave was a human being with a soul which he could
lose or save. He was no longer cattle, and his master could not slay
him at will. He could not even treat him inhumanely.
Even the laws about business were based on the idea that the good
of everybody was more important than the good of any individual. In
fact, the Byzantines had an almost socialistic control of everything
and everybody that made money.
Every branch of Byzantine industry was organized into corporations
or guilds, and these corporations had the right to fix prices and
wages down to the last penny. They had the right to decide who could
go into a trade or business. They had the right to decide the exact
place where a shop or booth or factory could be set up; for example,
no shop selling wax and candles could be less than seventy yards from
another candle shop. They also had the right to decide what goods
could be imported, and what kind of goods, and in what amounts, could
be shipped abroad.
But even at that, the corporations did not have absolute control of
everything, for over them was the _eparch_, or lord mayor, and over
the _eparch_ was the emperor.
The emperor was supposed to be for all of the people and not for any
group of them, and the emperor had the last word.
In spite of all they accomplished and their charitable principles and
humane ideas, the Byzantines also had faults, however. There was a
black side to their civilization just as there was a bright side, and
some of it was very black indeed.
The Byzantines were very cruel. They were Greek, but they were also
Oriental, and had in them a ferocious streak that not only was
indifferent to suffering but seemed to take a fiendish pleasure in
it. Most mobs are savage, but the Byzantine mob was even more savage
than usual. Only the mobs of the French Revolution can compare with
it.
For instance, when the Byzantines overthrew the emperor Andronicus,
they were not satisfied with just tossing him from his throne. A
howling crowd of men and women tore out his beard, broke his teeth,
beat him, and dragged him through the streets at the tail of a mangy
camel while shouting fearful curses at him. He was seventy years old,
but although he begged to be put out of his misery, it was many hours
before a soldier who was not one of the crowd took pity on him and
killed him.
He was by no means the only emperor who died cruelly. As a matter of
fact, it was a very rare thing for an emperor to die peacefully in
his bed. Usurpers and would-be emperors were often treated just as
savagely as Andronicus had been.
Byzantine laws could be cruel, too, although their cruelty was in
the name of Christianity and mercy. The Byzantines thought it was
against the teachings of Christ to condemn a man to death, and so the
death penalty was rare. Instead, a criminal was mutilated; they tore
out his tongue or cut off his nose or a hand. Blinding was a common
punishment. The Byzantines actually thought it was merciful to blind
a man instead of executing him.
The Byzantines were treacherous, and, in fact, “Byzantine treachery”
became a well-known saying. Probably they were not as treacherous
as their enemies said they were, and their enemies, including the
crusaders, were also treacherous. But in everyday life just as when
they went to war, the Byzantines were always ready to plot, trick,
deceive, and lie. When they did tell the truth, it was usually
because honesty happened to be the best policy, and not because they
thought that honesty was the only right thing.
The emperors often gained the throne by trickery. Michael the
Drunkard made Basil I his co-emperor in the kingdom because Basil had
deceived him into thinking that Michael’s uncle, the _Caesar_ Bardas,
was a traitor. _Caesar_ Bardas was executed. Then Basil waited until
Michael was asleep, and had him murdered.
Michael’s grandfather, Michael the Stutterer, had come to the throne
in the same way. As a matter of fact, he was in prison when he
succeeded in outwitting a boyhood companion who was then the emperor.
He actually still had chains on his wrists and ankles when he was
crowned.
The Byzantines were corrupt and prospered on graft. Although most
of this graft and corruption centered around the imperial court,
business and the church were often corrupt. In all three of these
places, you got ahead by giving—and receiving—favors.
The Byzantines were high-strung, excitable, and fiery.
The Byzantines were very fond of luxury whether in dress, food,
jewelry, furniture, or even horses and chariots.
They craved entertainment. One emperor even told his signalmen not to
light the beacons that carried news of an approaching enemy from hill
to hill until it reached Constantinople. He was afraid it would cast
gloom upon the horse races.
The Byzantines were much too fond of pleasure.
Even so, when you add the pluses and subtract the minuses for the
Byzantines, it turns out that you have something pretty good,
particularly for those troubled times.
Besides, not all the Byzantines were unprincipled and evil. The mob
at the bottom and the courtiers and noblemen on top had glaring
defects, but the middle-class Byzantines, of whom there were more
than any other group, were often brave, high-spirited, and loyal;
and they were always intelligent. The Byzantine father was steady
and hard-working, and the mother sincerely pious and devoted to her
children. Their life was sometimes hard, but it was often happy. And
there always was a chance for self-respect.
[Illustration: Man and four horses]
LAST DAYS OF THE EMPIRE
Geoffrey of Villehardouin and Robert of Clari—the two
writer-crusaders—were among the last people to see Constantinople in
all its glory, and even they were not able to walk through streets
filled with magnificence for very long.
The knights and barons of the Fourth Crusade had promised to put the
young Alexius on the throne. This they did, and for good measure they
put his old blinded father back on the throne beside him too. They
let the rulers wear the imperial purple shoes and the glittering
brocaded robes, pretending to have restored the imperial power.
Alexius and his father could indeed wield the scepter and wear the
crown and be absolute monarchs, provided they did everything the
crusaders told them to.
In return, the young Alexius had promised to pay the crusaders
200,000 marks of silver, to lead an army to the Holy Land with them,
and to maintain and equip 500 of their knights in armor for as long
as he lived.
[Illustration: Men pulling horse statue]
This, however, was another matter, and when the two emperors made
even a half-hearted attempt to live up to their promises, the
Byzantines revolted. Another Alexius—Alexius Bushy Eyebrows—was made
emperor and he made it known that the Venetians and the crusaders
could whistle for their money. Not a single copper coin, let alone
200,000 silver ones, would they ever get from him!
This gave the crusaders the chance they had long been waiting for
and probably planning for, and they didn’t waste any time in taking
it. Proclaiming Bushy Eyebrows, as they called him, a traitor and
a caitiff villain, they attacked the city with ships, ladders,
and men-at-arms. On April 13, 1204, after five days of desperate
fighting, they burst into it. There for three days and nights, the
Christian soldiers—wearing the cross upon their shoulders—burned,
robbed, and murdered the Christian Byzantines.
“Even the followers of Mahound, the false prophet, were more merciful
when they took Jerusalem!” cried a Byzantine.
He was right. Little like it has ever happened anywhere else, except
during the invasions of Attila the Hun. Constantinople has never been
the same since.
The robbery was even more wholesale than the slaying. Churches,
private homes, and palaces were stripped to their bare stone walls,
and then all that was not hidden by private looters was piled where
it could be seen and divided.
“The booty was so great that no one could tell you of it,” said
Villehardouin.
It included gold and silver; vessels and precious stones; silk and
samite; robes of vair and robes of ermine; rare and irreplaceable
books; icons; beautiful carved chests; and, of course, all the
coinage in the treasury. In fact, everything that was not too heavy
to move.
The Venetians were immediately paid the 50,000 marks reckoned to
be their share. Even after that, not counting what had been stolen
and hidden, there may have been 400,000 silver marks’ worth of rare
prizes. To say nothing—and there was no knight who didn’t want one—of
10,000 fiery steeds!
There was no one who was too lofty or too pious to take his share
of this booty. The abbots and the warrior-bishops laid their hands
on every holy relic they could find. Most of these went to France,
where they disappeared during the French Revolution. The doge took
the four famous bronze horses of the Hippodrome, and even today the
Venetians point to them on the façade of the church of Saint Mark
just as proudly as if they had not helped themselves to them. There
was hardly a knight who did not wear rich fur-trimmed robes. There
was hardly a common foot soldier or even a jackallike camp follower
who did not have a fat purse, and a heavy chain of gold to boot.
The proud Byzantines returned to ruined churches and to charred and
plundered houses. Fabled Byzantium had become an empty shell.
The Byzantine Empire became an empty shell too. The crusaders
captured the new emperor and made him jump from the top of one of the
tall marble columns. Then, after a lot of bickering, they elected one
of their own number to succeed him. There was an empire, but it was
now a Latin empire and no one but the crusaders recognized it. Even
they did not leave it all its territory. Venice took over a third of
Constantinople and most of the Byzantine islands in the Aegean and
Ionian seas. Every knight or baron who wanted it was given a fief
or a principality in southern Greece. Besides that, three Byzantine
“governments in exile,” each claiming to be the real one, sprang into
being. One was at Trebizond near the eastern end of the Black Sea.
One was in Epirus, which is more or less the same as modern Albania.
The third and most important was at Nicaea, which was just across the
straights in Asia Minor.
So for fifty-seven years, there was not one Byzantine Empire, but
four of them, plus half a dozen other small states that all squabbled
with each other. Then, in 1261, Michael Paleologus, a great-grandson
of one of the old emperors recaptured Constantinople and put on the
imperial crown.
But although there was only one Byzantine Empire again, it was little
more than a shadow. Nor could any of the nine Byzantine emperors
who followed Michael restore the old-time glory. The crusaders had
done too good a job. Constantinople was now too poor and shabby. Its
trade was gone. Its famous bazaars were filthy, and their booths
were empty of wares. Most of the population had moved away. Even
the emperors themselves lived hand to mouth. Although they tried to
keep up the ancient ceremony, they couldn’t do it. At the wedding
of a daughter of one of the emperors, the guests had to eat off
earthenware plates.
Besides that, and probably because of it, anarchy reigned during the
200 years that the empire somehow lingered drearily on. Mercenary
bands moved about the countryside robbing and stealing, instead of
fighting for the emperor. They even moved on Constantinople when they
weren’t paid, or thought they were not paid enough.
The Byzantines also had to fight off outside enemies. The Bulgarians
renewed their old-time warfare and nibbled away at the shrinking
empire. A great Serbian king proclaimed himself Roman emperor as well
as Serbian monarch. He almost succeeded. The Byzantines had to fight
the Genoese, and sometimes the Venetians, and even the Frank barons,
descendants of the crusaders.
Finally the Ottoman Turks appeared upon the scene, and that was the
last blow. These wonderful fighters conquered all of Anatolia and
then step by step they worked their way into Europe. It was not long
before the Byzantine Empire was only Constantinople itself with a
few square miles of the surrounding countryside. The Byzantines soon
couldn’t even raise an army without Turkish permission, and usually
that permission wasn’t granted.
In 1453, which is one of the famous dates in history, even that much
freedom seemed too much to the Turks, and their young ambitious
sultan, Mohammed II, decided to take the city. Slowly and carefully
he laid plans to do so.
First he built one tower here and another there, ringing the city
and cutting off escape from it. Then he brought up a mighty navy of
493 ships, and a great army of 200,000 men. It was the first army in
history to be equipped with siege guns, and one of these was so big
it took 100 oxen to drag it. Mohammed, too, was so determined to take
Constantinople that when his ships could not break through the iron
chain the Byzantines had laid across the Golden Horn, he had a whole
fleet of them dragged overland, with the crew still sitting at the
oars—and all this in a single night.
What could the Byzantines do against all this power? They had only
8,000 soldiers, and many of these were monks and untrained citizens.
To be sure, they were led by two heroes, one an Italian mercenary,
the other the last Byzantine emperor, Constantine XI. Both of them
heroically lost their lives in the battle to defend Constantinople.
But heroism was not enough, and the city’s walls, mighty as they
were, could be smashed by cannon balls. After a month of siege the
howling Janizaries entered it. Once again, Constantinople was sacked
and looted, and although the Turks were not nearly so ruthless as the
crusaders had been, this time it did not rise again.
The empire did not rise again either. On May 29, 1453,
Constantinople, which had once been Byzantium, became Istanbul. It
has been Istanbul ever Since.
On that day, the Byzantine Empire ended too.
For more than a thousand years, it had carried the torch of Western
civilization, a torch that had been given to it by the Greeks and
Romans. Now, new nations took up the burden. Spain, France, and
England had become united and powerful. Italy was filled with all
the wonderful art and thought and writing and wealth that came with
the Italian Renaissance. Germany was stirring with new ideas. Even
in distant Poland, Copernicus would soon be looking through his
telescope and teaching us that the sun did not revolve around the
earth, but rather that the planets revolve around the sun. In only
forty years Columbus would discover America.
[Illustration: Boats and city]
So their job became our job, and it still is. They were not perfect,
but let us hope that we do it as well as they did. Let us hope that
our civilization lasts as long.
CHRONOLOGICAL CHART
OF
THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE
AND
WORLD EVENTS
CHRONOLOGICAL CHART OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE AND WORLD EVENTS
| | ENGLAND AND
| BYZANTINE WORLD | WESTERN EUROPE
—————————+——————————————————————————————————+—————————————————————————
A.D. |Constantine the Great establishes |Teutonic and Asiatic
300-400 | capital of Roman Empire at | barbarians overrun Roman
| Constantinople on site of | Empire |
| ancient Byzantium, 330 | |
| | ↓
| First division of Roman Empire into East and West, 364
| |
| Final division of Roman Empire into East and West, 395
| |
| |
400-500 | | Visigoths sack Rome, 410
| |
| | Huns under Attila invade
| | Europe, 445-453
| |
| Period of decline | Western Europe lost to
| | Roman Empire
| |
| | First Saxon kingdom in
| | Britain, 477: Clovis I
| | founds Frank kingdom in
| | France, 481
| |
500-600 | Justinian the Great (Great | Beginning of modern
| advancement of Byzantine | Western European
| civilization), 527-565 | civilization
| |
| Laws codified |
| |
| Empire reaches greatest |
| territorial extent |
| (from Spain to Persia) |
| |
| Santa Sophia built, 532-537 |
| |
| First great age of |
| Byzantine art |
| |
600-700 | Persians defeated by Heraclius, |
| 641; end of Persian dominion |
| |
| Byzantines drive Arabs away from |
| Constantinople with “Greek |
| fire,” 677 |
| |
700-800 | Iconoclast controversy; image | Charles Martel defeats
| worship forbidden by Leo the | Moslems at Tours,
| Isaurian, 726 | France, 732; stops Arab
| | | expansion into Europe
| ↓ |
800-900 | Image worship restored, 843 | Charlemagne crowned
| | emperor of Holy Roman
| | Empire at Rome, 800
| |
| Byzantine missionaries convert |
| Bulgarians to Orthodox |
| Christianity, 864 |
| |
| Macedonian dynasty (founded by |
| | Basil I), 867-1056 |
| | |
| | Second great advancement |
| | of Byzantine civilization |
900-1000 | | | Arab rule in Spain at
| | | height; Cordova
| | | greatest intellectual
| | | center in Europe
| | Russians converted to |
| | Orthodox Christianity, 989 |
| | |
1000-1100| |Basil II conquers Bulgarians; | William the Conqueror
| | rules from Asia Minor to | invades England, 1066
| | southern Italy, 1014 |
| | |
| |Defeat by Seljuk Turks in | Crusades against Moslems
| | Armenia, 1071; decline of | in Holy Lands,
| ↓ Byzantine military power | 1096-1270
| | |
1100-1200|Comnenus dynasty unable to | |
| restore Byzantine power | |
| | |
1200-1300|Crusaders take Constantinople, | Magna Charta in England,
|1204 | 1215 |
| | |
|Michael VIII reconquers | |
| Constantinople; restores | |
| Greek rule, 1261 | ↓
| |
1300-1400|Ottoman Turks invade Europe, |
| defeat Serbs, 1389; Byzantine |
| Empire reduced to Constantinople|
| and surroundings |
| |
1400-1500|Tamerlane defeats Ottoman Turks | Renaissance
| at Ankara, 1402; delays fall of |
| Byzantine Empire |
| |
|John VIII agrees to unite Greek | Invention of printing,
| and Roman churches to gain | 1439
| Western aid, 1439; plan fails |
| |
|Ottoman Turks capture |
| Constantinople; end of |
| Byzantine Empire, 1453 |
| NEAR EAST AND ASIA | WESTERN HEMISPHERE
—————————+——————————————————————————————————+—————————————————————————
A.D. |Successive wars between Persians |
300-400 | and Romans |
| |
|Golden Age of Hinduism in India |
| |
|Divided empire in China (Tartar |
| and Chinese rule) |
| |
400-500 | |
| |
| |
500-600 | |
| |
| |
600-700 |Beginning of Arab Empire, 632 |
| |
|Byzantines defeat Persians, 641; |
| end of Persian dominion |
| |
700-800 |Moslem defeat at Tours, 732, |
| stops Arab expansion into |
| Europe |
| |
|Golden Age of Arab Empire, |
| 750-1258: Revival of Chinese |
| Empire under Tang dynasty |
| |
800-900 |Bulgarians converted to Orthodox |
| Christianity, 864 |
| |
|Beginning of Russia |
| |
900-1000 |Arab rule in Spain at height; | Maya civilization in
| Cordova greatest intellectual | Mexico and Central
| center in Europe | America
| |
|Russians converted to Orthodox | Eric the Red discovers
| Christianity, 989 | Greenland, about 985
| |
1000-1100|Baghdad seized by Seljuk Turks, | Leif Ericson visits
|1055 (Vinland), about 1000 | America
| |
|Crusades against Moslems in Holy |
| Lands, 1096-1270 |
| |
| Jerusalem captured by |
| crusaders, 1099 |
| |
1100-1200| |
| |
| |
1200-1300|Genghis Khan conquers central | Inca civilization in
| Asia and China, 1206-1221 | Peru
| |
|Mongols destroy Baghdad; |
| overthrow Arab Empire, 1258 |
| |
|Marco Polo at court of Kublai |
| Khan in China, 1271-1295 |
| |
|Ottoman Empire (Turks) founded, |
|1288 |
| |
1300-1400|Tamerlane ruler of Asia from | Aztec civilization in
| Russia to Persian Gulf, | Mexico
| 1369-1405 |
| |
| |
1400-1500|Ottoman Turks conquer most of |
| Asia; block trade routes to |
| Far East |
| |
|Moors expelled from Spain: | Columbus discovers
| Beginning of Spanish | America, 1492
| exploration in New World |
Baynes, Norman H., _The Byzantine Empire_. New York, Oxford
University Press, Inc., 1926.
Diehl, Charles, _Byzantium: Greatness and Decline_. New Brunswick,
Rutgers University Press, 1957.
Duggan, Alfred, _The Lady for Ransom_. New York, Coward-McCann,
Inc., 1954.
Hussey, J. M., _The Byzantine World_. New York, Rinehart & Company,
Inc., 1957.
Kielty, Bernardine, _The Fall of Constantinople_. New York, Random
House, 1957.
Lamb, Harold, _Constantinople: The Birth of an Empire_. New York,
Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1957.
——, _Theodora and the Emperor: The Drama of Justinian_. Garden
City, Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1952.
Masefield, John, _Conquer, A Tale of the Nika Rebellion in
Byzantium_. New York, The Macmillan Co., 1941.
Schoonover, Lawrence, _The Gentle Infidel_. New York, The Macmillan
Co., 1950.
Scott, Walter, _Count Robert_. New York, The Macmillan Co., 1953.
INDEX AND GLOSSARY
Alexius Comnenus (Alexius I), 19-20, 22
Alexius IV, 20, 22, 107-109
Alexius Bushy Eyebrows (Alexius V), 109
Andronicus, 104
Anna Comnena, 19, 100
Ariadne, 49
army, 46, 47, 57-63
art, 95-99
Augusta, the, 48
Augustaion, 34
Augustus, the, 32
_autokrator_ (ô-tok’rƏ-tēr), 44
_bandon_ (ban’dƏn), 59
Bardas, 105
Basil I, 51, 105
Basil the Bulgar Slayer (Basil II), 17
_basileus_ (bas’i-lūs), 45, 47
_basilissa_ (bas-i-lis’Ə), 48
bazaars, 34, 89
Benjamin of Tudela, Rabbi, 17
bezant, 91-92
Blachernae, Palace of, 32
_Book of Ceremonies, The_, 50
Bosporus, 15, 25-26
Bouillon, Godfrey of, 14
Building of the Nineteen Beds, 29
Bukoleon, Palace of, 20, 28-32, 34, 87
Byzantine Empire, 17, 35, 38, 47,
fall of, 111-116
national traits, 44-45, 54, 68-69, 74, 103-106
origin of, 39-44
people of, 23-25
royalty, 33, 47-54
significance of, 93-103
Byzantium. _See_ Constantinople.
_caesar_ (sē’zēr), 41, 56
Caesar, Julius, 40, 58-59
_campagia_ (kam-pā’ji-Ə), 51
_cataphracts_ (kat’Ə-frakts), 59, 60, 61
Cathisma, 32
ceremonies, 33, 50-51
Chalké, 29
Charlemagne, 17, 99
Chrysopolis. _See_ Scutari.
Circus. _See_ Hippodrome.
Clari, Robert of, 28-29, 31-34, 43, 45, 107
Constantine the Great (Constantine I), 29, 41, 42-44, 73
Constantine Born-in-the-Purple (Constantine VII), 66-67, 99
Constantine XI, 113
Constantinople, 15, 16-17, 21, 25-35, 42-43, 45, 89
occupation during Fourth Crusade, 16-21, 107-111
seizure by Turks, 112-116
Cosmas Who-Sailed-to-India, 98
costume (military), 59; (royal), 50-51
crafts, 86
Crusades (First), 14, 20, 22;
(Fourth), 13-22, 45, 107-111
Cyril, Saint, 78, 80
Dandolo, Henry, 15-16, 20, 110
Daphne Palace, 29
Demetrius, Saint, 72
_Digenes Akrites_, 63-64
Diocletian, 41-42, 43, 44
diplomatic corps, 47, 65-66
_drungarius_ (drun-gâr´i-Əs), 47
Eastern Roman Empire. _See_ Byzantine Empire.
education, 99-101
_eikons_ (ī´kons), 75
_eparch_ (ep´ärk), 103
farming, 82-85
foreign trade, 82-83, 88-89, 91
Galata, 25
Golden Horn, 25-26
government, 46-56
officials, 55-56
Great Church. _See_ Santa Sophia.
Great Palace. _See_ Bukoleon, Palace of.
Greek Church. _See_ Orthodox Christian Church.
Greek Empire. _See_ Byzantine Empire.
Greek fire, 65
Gregory of Nyssa, Saint, 69
Harun al-Rashid, 101
Heraclius, 101
Hippodrome, 32, 35, 49, 50, 75, 110
Holy Chapel, 28-29
_homoiousion_ (ho-moi-ōō´si-Ən) = _homoousion_ (ho-mō-ōō´si-Ən)
controversy, 74
_How To Run the Empire_, 66-67
Iconoclast controversy, 74-76, 78
industry, 85-88, 103
Irene, 17, 48
_isapostolos_ (īs-Ə-pos´tƏl-Əs), 48
Istanbul. _See_ Constantinople.
John IV, 99-100
Justinian, 17, 38, 49-50, 51, 65
Kercuas, John, 17, 19
Khazars, 29
laws, 102-103, 104
Leo the Philosopher, 50, 99
Liutprand, Bishop, 29, 87-88
_logothesia_ (log-ō-thē´zhi-Ə), 56
_logothete_ (log´ō-thēt), 55
Logothete of the Dromos, or Grand Logothete, 55, 66
Lucas Notaras, 73
Magnaura Palace, 29
Manuel II, 99-100
Marmara, Sea of, 28
Mesé, 34
Methodius, Saint, 78, 80
Michael Paleologus, 111
Michael the Drunkard, 78, 105
Michael the Stutterer, 105
Michael Thinks-He’s-a-Soldier, 54
Micklegarth. _See_ Constantinople.
Midway. _See_ Mesé.
Mohammed II, 112-113
monuments and statues, 33, 34, 50
mosaics, 17, 95-98
navy, 46, 47, 64-65
New Rome. _See_ Constantinople.
Nicephorus Phocas, 19
Nika revolt, 32
_nipsistarios_ (nip-sis-ta´ri-ōs), 56
_orphanotrope_ (ôr-fan´Ə-trōp), 102
Orphanotrope, Grand, 102
Orthodox Christian, or Orthodox Eastern, Church, 17, 47, 48, 68-80,
101-103
patriarchs, 71
Pera quarter, 24, 25
Phocas, 51
politics, 32, 49
recreation, 32, 105
Richard the Lion-Hearted, 14
Roman Empire, 39-42, 81. _See also_ Byzantine Empire and Western
Roman Empire.
Romulus Augustulus, 44
Sacred Palace. _See_ Bukoleon, Palace of.
_saigon_ (sī’gƏn), 51
Saint Mamas quarter, 24
Saladin, 14
Santa Sophia, 17, 31-32, 34
_scaramangion_ (ska-rƏ-man’ji-Ən), 50
Scutari, 25
silk, 86-88
Simeon Stylites, Saint, 72
slaves, 103
statues. _See_ monuments.
_stemmata_ (stem’Ə-tƏ), 51
_strategoi_ (strƏ-tē’goi), 47
_strategos_ (strƏ-tē’gos), 95
superstitions, 71-72
Sycae. _See_ Galata.
_themes_ (thē’mƏs), 95
Theodora, 49-50
Theodora, Saint, 49, 53-54, 75-76
Theophilus, 99
Theotokos (thē-ot’ō-kos), 72
Trajan, 40-41
_trapezidae_ (trƏ-pē’zi-dē), 59
Tsargrad. _See_ Constantinople.
Turkish (Ottoman) Empire, 94-95, 112-113
Vandals, 44
Varangians, 23
Villehardouin, Geoffrey of, 14, 19, 20-21, 45, 107, 110
war, art of, 60-63
wealth, 82-83, 88, 91-92
Western Roman Empire, 41-42, 43-44, 46
Zoe, 49
Zoe Black Eyes, 65
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
THOMAS CALDECOT CHUBB, internationally known author, scholar, and
literary critic began his writing career while still a student at
Yale with the publication of two books, one of which won him the
Albert Stanborough Cook award for poetry, and a poem which won him
the John Masefield Award. Since that time he has published a number
of books which are outstanding for both scholarship and writing—among
these his well-known biography _Aretino: Scourge of Princes_. Mr.
Chubb’s interest in the Byzantines, awakened during his college days,
has continued throughout his life. _The Byzantines_, his first book
for young people, reflects his intimate knowledge of the subject.
World traveler, sportsman, and civic leader, Mr. Chubb lives in
Greenwich, Connecticut, with his wife and their three teen-age
children.
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