BOOK TWO - CHAPTER I

SECTION III

ALEXANDER (912-913)

MINORITY OF CONSTANTINE VII PORPHYROGENITUS (913-920)

ROMANUS I LECAPENUS, (912-944)

Reign of Alexander

Alexander, who succeeded to the throne, or rather to the government of the empire, on the death of his brother Leo, (for he had long borne the title of Emperor), was more degraded in his tastes, and more unfit for his station, than Michael the Drunkard. Fortunately for his subjects, he reigned only a year; yet he found time to inflict on the empire a serious wound, by rejecting the offer of Simeon, king of Bulgaria, to renew the treaty concluded with Leo. Alexander, like his predecessor, had a taste for astrology; and among his other follies he was persuaded that an ancient bronze statue of a boar in the Agora was his own genius. This work of art was consequently treated with the greatest reverence; it was adorned with new tusks and other ornaments, and its reintegration in the hippodrome was celebrated as a public festival, not only with profane games, but even with religious ceremonies, to the scandal of the orthodox.

Leo VI had undermined the Byzantine system of administration, which Leo III had modeled on the traditions of imperial Rome. He had used his absolute, power to confer offices of the highest trust on court favorites notoriously incapable of performing the duties entrusted to them. The systematic rules of promotion in the service of the government; the administrative usages which were consecrated into laws; the professional education which had preserved the science of government from degenerating with the literature and language of the empire, were for the first time habitually neglected and violated.

The administration and the court were confounded in the same mass, and an emperor, called the Philosopher, is characterized in history for having reduced the Eastern Empire to the degraded rule of an Oriental and arbitrary despotism. Alexander carried this abuse to a great extent, by conferring high commands on the companions of his debaucheries, and by elevating men of Slavonian and Saracen origin to the highest dignities.

The only act of Alexander's reign that it is necessary to particularize, is the nomination of a regency to act during the minority of his nephew Constantine. The Patriarch Nikolaos, who had been reinstated in office, was made one of its members; but Zoe Carbopsina, the young emperor's mother, was excluded from it.

Minority of Constantine VII

Constantine VII was only seven years old when he became sole emperor. The regency named by Alexander consisted of six members exclusive of the Patriarch, two of whom, named Basilitzes and Gabrilopulos, were Slavonians, who had attained the highest employments and accumulated great wealth by the favor of Alexander. The facility with which all foreigners obtained the highest offices at Constantinople, and the rare occurrence of any man of pure Hellenic race in power, is a feature of the Byzantine government that requires to be constantly borne in mind, as it is a proof of the tenacity with which the empire clung to Roman traditions, and re­pudiated any identification with Greek nationality.

It is difficult, in the period now before us, to select facts that convey a correct impression of the condition, both of the government and the people. The calamities and crimes we are compelled to mention tend to create an opinion that the government was worse, and the condition of the inhabitants of the empire more miserable than was really the case. The ravages of war and the incursions of pirates wasted only a small portion of the Byzantine territory, and ample time was afforded by the long intervals of tranquility to repair the depopulation and desolation caused by foreign enemies. The central government still retained institutions that enabled it to encounter many political storms that ruined neighboring nations; yet the weakness of the administration, the vices of the court, and the corruption of the people during the reigns of Constantine Porphyrogenitus and his father-in-law Romanus I, seemed to indicate a rapid decay in the strength of the empire, and they form a heterogeneous combination with the institutions which still guaranteed security for life and property to an extent unknown in every other portion of the world, whether under Christian or Mohammedan sway. The merits and defects of the Byzantine government are not found in combination in any other portion of history, until we approach modern times.

Hereditary succession was never firmly established in the Byzantine empire. The system of centralization rendered the prime-minister, who carried on the administration for a minor or a weak sovereign, virtually master of the empire. Against this danger Alexander had endeavored to protect his nephew, by creating a regency of six members, no one of whom could aspire at becoming the colleague of young Constantine. But the arbitrary nature of the imperial power created a feeling of insecurity in the minds of all officials, as long as that power was not vested in a single individual. This feeling inspired every man of influence with the hope of being able to render himself sole regent, and with the desire of assuming the title of Emperor, as the only method of permanently maintaining the post of guardian to the young prince.

Sedition of Constantine Dukas

The most popular man of the time was Constantine Dukas, who had fled to the Saracens with his father Andronikos, in order to escape the anger of Leo VI. His father had embraced Mohammedanism, but Dukas had thrown himself on the mercy of Leo rather than forsake his religion, and had been rewarded by a command on the south-eastern frontier. For three years he served with distinction, and his valor and liberality rendered him popular among the soldiers. The death of Alexander found him commanding a division of the Byzantine army in Asia Minor, with the rank of general of the imperial guard : and a party of the officers of state, knowing his boundless ambition, fixed their eyes on him as the man most likely to overthrow the regency. Even the Patriarch Nikolaos was privy to the schemes of those who urged Dukas to repair secretly to Constantinople, for this ambitious ecclesiastic expected more authority over a young man possessing absolute power, than over six wary statesmen experienced in every department of public business.

As soon as Dukas reached the capital, he was proclaimed emperor by his partisans, who had already prepared the troops and the people for a change; and he marched immediately to the palace of Chalke, where the young emperor resided, and of which he expected to gain possession without difficulty. His attack was so sudden that he rendered himself master of the outer court; but the alarm was soon given, and all the entries into the palace were instantly closed. John Eladas, one of the members of the regency, assumed the command of the guards on duty, and a furious battle was fought in the court. The rebels were repulsed, and the horse of Dukas slipping on the flags of the pavement he was slain. Three thousand men are said to have fallen in this short tumult, in which both parties displayed the most daring courage. The conspirators who fell were more fortunate than those who were taken by the regency, for these latter were put to death with inhuman cruelty; and the Patriarch was justly censured for the apathy he showed when men were tortured, of whose plots he had been cognisant. Several persons of high rank were beheaded, and some were hung on the Asiatic shore opposite the imperial palace. The wife of Constantine Dukas was compelled to take the veil, and banished to her property in Paphlagonia, where she founded a monastery. Stephen, her only surviving son, was made a eunuch, and every other male of the noble house of Dukas perished on this occasion. The family that afterwards bore the name, and ascended the throne of Constantinople, was of more modern origin.

The affection of the young emperor for his mother, and the intrigues of the different members of the regency, who expected to increase their influence by her favor, reinstated Zoe Carbopsina in the palace, from which she had been expelled by Alexander. As she had received the imperial crown, she shared the sovereign authority with the regents as a matter of right, and through the influence of John Eladas, she soon became the absolute mistress of the public administration. Zoe thought of little but luxury and amusement. Her administration was unfortunate, and a complete defeat of the Byzantine army by the Bulgarians created a general feeling that the direction of public affairs ought no longer to be entrusted to a woman of her thoughtless disposition.

Byzantine army defeated by Symeon, King of Bulgaria

The evils inflicted on the inhabitants of Thrace by Simeon, king of Bulgaria, after his rupture with Alexander, equaled the sufferings of the empire during the earlier incursions of the Huns and Avars. In the year 913, shortly after Alexander’s death, Simeon marched up to the walls of Constantinople almost without opposition; but he found the city too well garrisoned to admit of his remaining long in its vicinity : he retired after an ineffectual attempt to settle the terms of a treaty in a conference with the Patriarch. In 914 he again invaded the empire, and in this campaign Adrianople was betrayed into his hands by its governor, an Armenian named Pankratakas, who, however, as soon as the Bulgarians retired, restored it to the Byzantine government.

A Turkish tribe, called by the Byzantine writers Patzinaks, who had contributed to destroy the flourishing monarchy of the Khazars, had driven the Magyars or Hungarians before them into Europe, and at this period had extended their settlements from the shores of the Sea of Azof and the falls of the Dnieper to the banks of the Danube. They were thus neighbors of the Russians and the Bulgarians, as well as of the Byzantine province of Cherson. They were nomades, and inferior in civilization to the nations in their vicinity, by whom they were dreaded as active and insatiable plunderers,  always ready for war and eager for rapine.

The regency of the Empress Zoe, in order to give the people of Thrace some respite from the ravages of the Bulgarians, concluded an alliance with the Patzinaks, who engaged, on receiving a sum of money, to act in co-operation with the imperial forces. They were to attack the Bulgarians in the rear, the means of crossing the Danube being furnished by the Byzantine government. Zoe, in the meantime, trusting to negotiations she was carrying on at Bagdad for securing tranquility in Asia Minor, transferred the greater part of the Asiatic army to Europe, and prepared to carry the war into the heart of Bulgaria, and compel Simeon to fight a battle, in order to prevent his country being laid waste by the Patzinaks. A splendid army was reviewed at Constantinople, and placed under the command of Leo Phokas, a man possessing great influence with the aristocracy, and a high military reputation.

Before the troops marched northward they received new arms and equipments; liberal advances of pay were made to the soldiers, and numerous promotions were made among the officers. The second in command was Constantine the Libyan, one of the conspirators in the plot of Dukas, who had escaped the search of the regency until he obtained the pardon obtained Zoe's government. The fleet appointed to enter the mouth of the Danube, in order to transport the Patzinaks over the river, was placed under the command of Romanus the grand admiral.

Leo Phokas pressed forward, confident of success; but Romanus felt no inclination to assist the operation of one whom a successful campaign would render the master of the empire. He is accused of throwing impediments in the way of the Patzinaks, and delaying to transport them over the Danube at the time and place most likely to derange the operations of the Bulgarians. The conduct of Leo was rash, that of Romanus treacherous. Simeon was enabled to concentrate all his forces and fight a battle at a place called Achelous, in which the Byzantine army was defeated, with an immense loss both in officers and men, (20th August 917).

Leo escaped to Mesembria, where he attempted to rally the fugitives; but Romanus, as soon as he heard of the disaster, sailed directly to Constantinople without attempting to make any diversion for the relief of his countrymen, or endeavoring to succor the defeated troops as he passed Mesembria. He was accused of treason on his return, and condemned to lose his sight; but he retained possession of the fleet by the support of the sailors; and the empress, who began to perceive her unpopularity, countenanced his disobedience, as she expected to make use of his support.

Intrigues at Constantinople

The partisans of Leo openly urged his claims to be placed at the head of the administration, as the only man capable by his talents of preventing a revolution; and the chamberlain Constantine urged Zoe to appoint him a member of the regency, and invest him with the conduct of public affairs. The empress began to distrust Romanus, from the preponderating power he possessed as long as the fleet remained in the vicinity of the capital. The fleet was therefore ordered into the Black Sea; but Romanus had already received secret encouragement to oppose the designs of Leo from Theodore, the governor of the young emperor, and he delayed sailing, under the pretext that the sailors would not put to sea until their arrears were paid.

The crisis was important; so the chamberlain Constantine visited the fleet with the money necessary for paying the sailors, determined to hasten its departure, and perhaps to arrest the grand admiral. This step brought matters to an issue. Romanus seized the money and paid the sailors himself, keeping the chamberlain under arrest. This daring conduct on the part of a man hitherto considered as deficient in ambition as well as capacity, spread alarm in the palace, for it revealed to the empress that there was another pretender to supreme power.

Zoe immediately despatched the Patriarch Nikolaos, and some of the principal officers of state, to visit the fleet in order to induce the sailors to return to their allegiance; but the populace, eager for change, and delighted to see the government in a state of embarrassment, attacked the envoys with stones, and drove them back into the palace. The empress, at a loss what measures to adopt, vainly sought for information concerning the causes of this sudden revolution. At last Theodore, the young emperor’s governor, declared that the conduct of Leo Phokas and the chamberlain Constantine had caused the popular dissatisfaction, for Leo had ruined the army and Constantine had corrupted the administration. He suggested that the easiest mode of putting an end to the existing embarrassments would be for the young Emperor Constantine to assume the supreme power into his own hands.

This was done, and the young prince, or rather his tutor Theodore in his name, invited the Patriarch and one of the regents named Stephen to consult on the measures to be adopted, though both were known to be hostile to his mother's administration. This produced an immediate revolution at court. The principal officers of state attached to the party of Phokas were dismissed from their employments, which were conferred on men pledged to support the new advisers of the young emperor.

Leo, not perceiving that Romanus was directly connected with the new administration, proposed a coalition, but received from that wary intriguer only assurances of friendship and support, while he openly obeyed the orders of the new ministers. Romanus, however, was soon informed by his friend Theodore that the Patriarch and Stephen had resolved to remove him from his command, that they might render him as harmless as Leo : bold measures were therefore rendered necessary, and without hesitation the admiral ranged his fleet in hostile array under the walls of the palace Bukoleon. His friends within, under the direction of the patrician Niketas, invited him to enter and protect the young emperor, and at the same time forced the Patriarch and Stephen to retire. The Emperor Constantine had been already predisposed in favor of Romanus by his tutor, so that he received the insurgent admiral in a friendly manner. The young prince, accompanied by the court, repaired to the chapel in Pharo, where Romanus took an oath of fidelity on the wood of the true cross, and was invested with the offices of and master and grand heteriarch, or general of the foreign guards, on the 25th of March 919.

Before a month elapsed, the fortunes of Romanus were further advanced by the charms of his daughter Helena. Constantine VII became deeply smitten with her beauty, and the ambition of the father precipitated the marriage in order to secure the title of Basileopater, which gave him precedence over every other officer of state, 27th April 919. He was now even more than prime-minister, and his position excited deeper envy. Leo Phokas took up arms in Bithynia and marched to Chrysopolis, (Scutari), declaring that his object was to deliver the young emperor from restraint; but his movement was so evidently the result of disappointed ambition that he found few to support him, and he was soon taken prisoner and deprived of sight. Another conspiracy, having for its object the assassination of the Basileopater, also failed. The Empress Zoe was accused of attempting to poison him, and immured in a monastery. The governor Theodore, perceiving that he no longer enjoyed the confidence of the friend he had contributed to elevate, began to thwart the ambitious projects of Romanus, and was banished to his property in Opsikion. Romanus, finding that there was now nothing to prevent his indulging his ambition, persuaded his son-in-law to confer on him the title of Caesar, and shortly after to elevate him to the rank of emperor. He was crowned as the colleague of Constantine Porphyrogenitus by the Patriarch Nikolaos in the Church of St Sophia, on the 17th December 919.

Romanus I makes himself emperor

Few men ever possessed the absolute direction of public affairs in the Byzantine empire without assuming the imperial title, even though they had no intention of setting aside the sovereign whose throne they shared. It was well understood that there was no other means of securing their position, for as long as they remained only with the rank of prime-minister or Caesar, they were exposed to lose their sight, or be put to death by a secret order of the sovereign, obtained through the intrigues of a eunuch or a slave. But as soon as they assumed the rank of emperor of the Romans, their person was sacred, being protected both by the law of high treason and the force of public opinion, which regarded the emperor as the Lord's anointed. Two of the greatest sovereigns who ever sat on the throne of Constantinople, Nicephorus II (Phokas), and John I (Zimiskes), shared the throne with Basil II and Constantine VIII. as Romanus I did with Constantine VII.

Romanus was a man whose character was too weak to admit of enlarged views. His vanity was hurt by the fact that he occupied only the second place in the empire, and to gratify his passion for pageantry, and secure the place of honor in the numerous ceremonies of the Byzantine court, he usurped the place of his son-in-law and conferred the imperial crown on his own wife Theodora, and on his eldest son Christophoros, giving both precedence over the hereditary emperor. Romanus had served in his youth as a marine, and he had risen to the highest rank without rendering himself remarkable either for his valor or ability; the successful career of his family, therefore, naturally excited the dissatisfaction of the aristocracy and the ambition of every enterprising officer.

Conspiracies against his government

His reign was disturbed by a series of conspiracies, all having for their avowed object the restoration of Constantine Porphyrogenitus to his legitimate rights, though, probably, the real object of the conspirators was to gain possession of the power and position occupied by Romanus.

In the year 921, the great officers of the empire—the grandmaster of the palace, the minister of fortifications, and the director-general of charitable institutions—were discovered plotting. Shortly after, a patrician, with the aid of the captain of the guard of Maglabites or mace-bearers, undismayed by the preceding failure, again attempted to dethrone Romanus; and a third conspiracy, planned by the treasurer and keeper of the imperial plate, one of the chamberlains, and the captain of the imperial galley, was organized. All were discovered, and the conspirators were punished. In 924, Boilas, a patrician, rebelled on the frontiers of Armenia, but his troops were defeated by the celebrated general John Kurkuas, and he was confined in a monastery. Again, in 926, one of the ministers of state and the postmaster-general formed a plot, which proved equally abortive.

As years advanced, the feeble character of Constantine Porphyrogenitus became more apparent. His want of talent, and his devotion to literature and art, warned the ablest statesmen to avoid compromising their fortunes by supporting the cause of one so little qualified to defend his own rights. Romanus, too, having assumed his three sons, Christophoros, Stephanos, and Constantinos, as his colleagues, and placed his son Theophylaktos on the patriarchal throne, considered his power perfectly secure. The spirit of discontent was, nevertheless, very prevalent; the people in the capital and the provinces were as little inclined to favor the usurping family as the nobility.

An impostor, born in Macedonia, made his appearance in the theme Opsikion, where he announced himself to be Constantine Dukas; and though taken, and condemned to lose his hand like a common forger, he was enabled to raise a second rebellion after his release. He procured an artificial hand of brass, with which he wielded his sword; the common people flocked round him, and resisted the government with so much determination that he was captured with difficulty, and, to revenge the display he had made of the weakness of Romanus’s power, he was burned alive in the Amastrianon at Constantinople.

In early life Romanus had been a votary of pleasure, but when the possession of every wish for three-and-twenty years had tamed his passions, he became a votary of superstition. Feelings of religion began to affect his mind, and at last he allowed it to be discovered that he felt some remorse for having robbed his son-in-law of his birthright, in order to bestow the gift on his own children, who treated him with less respect than their brother-in-law. Christophoros was dead, and Stephanos, impelled either by fear that his father would restore Constantine Porphyrogenitus to the first place in the government, or excited by the usual unprincipled ambition that pervaded the Byzantine court, resolved to secure the possession of supreme authority by deposing his father.

Dethroned by his son Stephen.

Romanus was seized by the agents of his son and carried off to the island of Prote, where he was compelled to embrace the monastic life. Constantinos, his younger son, though he had not been privy to the plot, readily joined in profiting by his father's ill-treatment. Such crimes, however, always excite indignation in the breasts of the people; and in this case the inhabitants of Constantinople, hearing vague rumors of scenes of dethronement, banishment, and murder, in the imperial palace, became alarmed for the life of their lawful sovereign, Constantine Porphyrogenitus. They felt an attachment to the injured prince, whom they saw constantly at all the church ceremonies, degraded from his hereditary place; his habits were known, many spoke in his praise, nobody could tell any evil of him. A mob rushed to the palace, and, filling the courts, insisted on seeing the lawful emperor. His appearance immediately tranquillized the populace, but hopes were awakened in the breasts of many intriguers by this sudden display of his influence. A new vista of intrigue was laid open, and the most sagacious statesmen saw that his establishment on the throne as sole emperor was the only means of maintaining order. Every man in power became a partisan of his long-neglected rights, and a restoration was effected without opposition. The Emperors Stephanos and Constantinos were seized by the order of Constantine VII, while they were sitting at a supper-party, and compelled to adopt the monastic habit, 27th January 945.