[Aug. 20] [Aug. 29, A.D. 886] Leo VI, the idiom; and the Basilics, which were improved and completed by his son and grandson, must be referred to the original genius of the founder of their race.39 This glorious reign was terminated by an accident in the chase. A furious stag entangled his horns in the belt of Basil, and raised him from his horse; he was rescued by an attendant, who cut the belt and slew the animal; but the fall, or the fever, exhausted the strength of the aged monarch, and he expired in the palace, amidst the tears of his family and people.40 If he struck off the head of the faithful servant, for presuming to draw his sword against his sovereign, the pride of despotism, which had lain dormant in his life, revived in the last moments of despair, when he no longer wanted or valued the opinion of mankind. Of the four sons of the emperor, Constantine died before his father, whose grief and credulity were amused by a flattering impostor and a vain apparition. Stephen, the youngest, was content with the honours of a patriarch and a saint; both Leo and Alexander were alike invested with the purple, but the powers of government were solely exercised by the elder brother. The name of Leo VI.41 has been dignified with the title of philosopher; and the union of the prince and the sage, of the active and speculative virtues, would indeed constitute the perfection of human nature. But the claims of Leo are far short of this ideal excellence. Did he reduce his passions and appetites under the dominion of reason? His life was spent in the pomp of the palace, in the society of his wives and concubines; and even the clemency which he shewed, and the peace which he strove to preserve, must be imputed to the softness and indolence of his character. Did he subdue his prejudices, and those of his subjects? His mind was tinged with the most puerile 89 [See Appendix 11. For affairs in Italy, see chap. lvi.] 40 [He died on 29th August, not in March. See Muralt, Essai de Chron. byzant., p. 466. Nine days elapsed between the accident and his death; Vita Euthymii, C. 1, § 16.] 41 [Leo was a pedant. He reminds us of the Emperor Claudius and James I. of England. For the first ten years of his reign, his chief minister and adviser was Stylianus Zautzes-like Basil, a "Macedonian of Armenian descent-to whom Basil on his deathbed committed the charge of the state (Vita Euthymii, c. 1, §18). He received the title of Basileopator (A.D. 894), died two years later. His daughter Zoe was the second wife of Leo (A.D. 894-6). For the Bulgarian Tsar Simeon, the most formidable neighbour of the empire at this time, see chap. lv. The most strik ing calamity of Leo's reign was the descent of the renegade Leo of (the Syrian) Tripolis with a fleet of Mohammadan pirates on Thessalonica; 22,000 captives were carried off (A.D._ 904). The episode has been described in full detail by John Cameniates (ed. Bonn, Script. post Theoph., p. 487 sqq.). See Finlay, ii., 267 sqq. The reign of Leo has been fully treated in a Russian monograph by N. Popov (Imperator Lev vi Mudri, 1892).]} superstition; the influence of the clergy and the errors of the people were consecrated by his laws; and the oracles of Leo, which reveal, in prophetic style, the fates of the empire, are founded on the arts of astrology and divination. If we still inquire the reason of his sage appellation, it can only be replied that the son of Basil was less ignorant than the greater part of his contemporaries in church and state; that his education had been directed by the learned Photius; 42 and that several books of profane and ecclesiastical science were composed by the pen, or in the name, of the Imperial philosopher. But the reputation of his philosophy and religion was overthrown by a domestic vice, the repetition of his nuptials. The primitive ideas of the merit and holiness of celibacy were preached by the monks and entertained by the Greeks. Marriage was allowed as a necessary means for the propagation of mankind; after the death of either party, the survivor might satisfy, by a second union, the weakness or the strength of the flesh; but a third marriage was censured as a state of legal fornication; and a fourth was a sin or scandal as yet unknown to the Christians of the East. In the beginning of his reign, Leo himself had abolished the state of concubines, and condemned, without annulling, third marriages; but his patriotism and love soon compelled him to violate his own laws, and to incur the penance which, in a similar case, he had imposed on his subjects. In his three first alliances, his nuptial bed was unfruitful; 43 the emperor required a female companion, and the empire a legitimate heir. The beautiful Zoe was introduced into the palace as a concubine; and, after a trial of her fecundity and the birth of Constantine, her lover declared his intention of legitimating the mother and the child by the celebration of his fourth nuptials. But the patriarch Nicholas refused his blessing; the Imperial baptism [Jan. 6, A.D. of the young prince was obtained by a promise of separation; and the contumacious husband of Zoe was excluded from the communion of the faithful. Neither the fear of exile, nor the desertion of his brethren, nor the authority of the Latin church, 42 [For the Patriarch Photius see below, chap. liii. He was deposed by Leo, and the Patriarchate given to the Emperor's brother Stephen.] This 43 [Leo married (1) Theophano, who died 892; (2) Zoe, who died 896; (3) Eudocia Baianê, who died 900; (4) Zoe Carbonupsina. The Patriarch, Nicolaus Mysticus, who opposed the fourth marriage, was banished in February 907, and succeeded by Euthymius, who complied with the Emperor's wishes. Euthymius (whose biography, edited by de Boor, is an important source for the reign of Leo) was a man of independent character, and had been previously banished for opposing the marriage with the second Zoe. On the marriage laws cp. Appendix 11.] 906] [A.D. 912] [A.D. 920] Alexander, Constantine May 11 nor the danger of failure or doubt in the succession to the empire, could bend the spirit of the inflexible monk. After the death of Leo, he was recalled from exile to the civil and ecclesiastical administration; and the edict of union which was promulgated in the name of Constantine condemned the future. scandal of fourth marriages and left a tacit imputation on his own birth. In the Greek language purple and porphyry are the same word; VII. Porphy. and, as the colours of nature are invariable, we may learn that a rogenitus. A.D. 911, dark deep red was the Tyrian dye which stained the purple of the ancients. An apartment of the Byzantine palace was lined with porphyry; it was reserved for the use of the pregnant empresses; and the royal birth of their children was expressed by the appellation of porphyrogenite, or born in the purple. Several of the Roman princes had been blessed with an heir; but this peculiar surname was first applied to Constantine the Seventh. His life and titular reign were of equal duration; but of fifty-four years six had elapsed before his father's death; and the son of Leo was ever the voluntary or reluctant subject of those who oppressed his weakness or abused his confidence. His uncle Alexander, who had long been invested with the title of Augustus, was the first colleague and governor of the young prince; but, in a rapid career of vice and folly, the brother of Leo already emulated the reputation of Michael; and, when June 6, A.D. he was extinguished by a timely death, he entertained the project of castrating his nephew and leaving the empire to a worthless favourite. The succeeding years of the minority of Constantine were occupied by his mother Zoe, and a succession or council of seven regents,44 who pursued their interests, gratified their passions, abandoned the republic, supplanted each other, and finally vanished in the presence of a soldier. From an obscure origin, Romanus Lecapenus had raised himself to the command of the naval armies; and in the anarchy of the times had deserved, or at least had obtained, the national esteem. With a victorious and affectionate fleet, he sailed from the mouth of the Danube into the harbour of Constantinople, and was hailed as the deliverer of the people and the guardian of the prince. His supreme office was at first defined by the new appellation of father of the emperor,45 but Romanus soon dis Death of Alexander. 913] 44 [The most important and capable of the regents was John Eladas.] 45 [Romanus was made great Hetaeriarch (captain of the foreign guards) on March 25; Basileopator, April 27; Caesar, Sept. 24; Augustus, Dec. 17 (Theoph. Contin., p. 393-7, ed. Bonn).] Lecapenus. [A.D. 921], Constantine 924] dained the subordinate powers of a minister, and assumed, with Romanus L the titles of Cæsar and Augustus, the full independence of A.D. 919, royalty, which he held near five and twenty years. His three sons, Christopher, Stephen, and Constantine, were successively Christopher adorned with the same honours, and the lawful emperor was Stephen, degraded from the first to the fifth rank in this college of VIII. [A.D. princes. Yet, in the preservation of his life and crown, he might still applaud his own fortune and the clemency of the usurper. The examples of ancient and modern history would have excused the ambition of Romanus; the powers and the laws of the empire were in his hand; the spurious birth of Constantine would have justified his exclusion; and the grave or the monastery was open to receive the son of the concubine. But Lecapenus does not appear to have possessed either the virtues or the vices of a tyrant.46 The spirit and activity of his private life dissolved away in the sunshine of the throne; and in his licentious pleasures he forgot the safety both of the republic and of his family. Of a mild and religious character, he respected the sanctity of oaths, the innocence of the youth, the memory of his parents, and the attachment of the people. The studious temper and retirement of Constantine disarmed the jealousy of power; his books and music, his pen and his pencil, were a constant source of amusement; and, if he could improve a scanty allowance by the sale of his pictures, if their price was not enhanced by the name of the artist, he was endowed with a personal talent which few princes could employ in the hour of adversity. VII. A.D. 945 The fall of Romanus was occasioned by his own vices and Constantine those of his children. After the decease of Christopher, his Jan. 27 eldest son, the two surviving brothers quarrelled with each 46 [Both Gibbon and Finlay seem to have done some injustice to Romanus in representing him as weak. He showed strength in remorselessly carrying out his policy of founding a Lecapenian dynasty; it was frustrated through an unexpected blow. In foreign politics and war, he was on the whole successful; and he kept down the dangerous elements, within the empire, which threatened his throne. Of great interest and significance is his law of A.D. 935, by which he attempted to put a stop to the growth of the enormous estates, which, especially in Asia Minor, were gradually absorbing the small proprietors and ruining agriculture. These latifundia, which increased in spite of all legislation, were an economical evil, a political danger, and even injured the army, as the provision for soldiers largely consisted in inalienable lands, and these were swallowed up by the rich landed lords. See the novel of Romanus in Zachariä von Lingenthal, Jus GræcoRomanum, iii. p. 242 sqq.; and cp. the further legislation of Constantine vii. (ib. P. 252 sqq.), A.D. 947, who found that notwithstanding the prohibition of Romanus "the greater part of the magnates did not abstain from bargains most ruinous to the poor with whom they dealt ". Cp. Appendix 11.] 14 VOL. V. [A.D. 944, Dec. 16] other, and conspired against their father. At the hour of noon, when all strangers were regularly excluded from the palace, they entered his apartment with an armed force, and conveyed him, in the habit of a monk, to a small island in the Propontis, which was peopled by a religious community. The rumour of this domestic revolution excited a tumult in the city; but Porphyrogenitus alone, the true and lawful emperor, was the object of the public care; and the sons of Lecapenus were taught, by tardy experience, that they had achieved a guilty and perilous enterprise for the benefit of their rival. Their sister Helena, the wife of Constantine, revealed, or supposed, their treacherous design of assassinating her husband at the royal banquet. His loyal adherents were alarmed; and the two usurpers were prevented, seized, degraded from the purple, and embarked for the same island and monastery where their father had been so lately confined. Old Romanus met them on the beach with a sarcastic smile, and, after a just reproach of their folly and ingratitude, presented his Imperial colleagues with an equal share of his water and vegetable diet. In the fortieth year of his reign, Constantine the Seventh obtained the possession of the Eastern world, which he ruled, or seemed to rule, near fifteen years. But he was devoid of that energy of character which could emerge into a life of action and glory; and the studies which had amused and dignified his leisure were incompatible with the serious duties of a sovereign.47 The emperor neglected the practice, to instruct his son Romanus in the theory, of government; while he indulged the habits of intemperance and sloth, he dropt the reins of administration into the hands of Helena his wife; 48 and, in the shifting scene of her favour and caprice, each minister was regretted in the promotion of a more worthless successor. Yet the birth and misfortunes of Constantine had endeared him to the Greeks; they excused his failings; they respected his learning, his innocence and charity, his love of justice; and the ceremony of his funeral was mourned with the unfeigned tears of his subjects. The body, according to ancient custom, lay in state in the vestibule of the palace; and the civil and military officers, the patricians, the senate, and the clergy, approached in due order to adore and kiss the inanimate corpse of their sovereign. Before the procession moved towards the Imperial sepulchre, an 47 [On Constantine and his literary works, see further chap. liii.] 48 [The military support of Constantine was Bardas Phocas and his three sons, Nicephorus, Leo, and Constantine.] |