Jonathan Wright - The Ambassadors - From Ancient Greece to the Nation State

Some elephants travelled even further.

Greece, India and China were the triple pillars of our survey of the ancient world. Turning now to the early medieval centuries, Charlemagne’s Europe, the Abbasid caliphate of Baghdad and the Byzantine Empire take centre state. All three mistrusted one another, and such mistrust sometimes engendered hatred. But, as three of the greatest powers in the world, they all realized that they were obliged to maintain diplomatic relations. Their encounters forced a collision between Islam and Christianity, between the two squabbling halves of the Christian commonwealth – and, in the year 801, the despatching of yet another diplomatic elephant.

The death of Muhammad in ad 632 ushered in the era of the rashidun, the first four Islamic caliphs, all of them trusted companions of the prophet. From their Arabian stronghold in Medina, in present-day Saudi Arabia, they oversaw decades of staggering territorial expansion. Jerusalem was taken in 638, and by 641 the Muslim conquest of Syria, Palestine and Egypt was all but complete. Persia’s armies were crushed at the battle of Qadisiyyah in 636 and its capital, Ctesiphon, was seized: the prelude to the wholesale takeover of the entire Sassanid Persian Empire. Within a few more years Cyprus had been snatched from Byzantium, and Muslim armies had marched as far as Tripoli in the west and Afghanistan and the Indus River in the east.

Military adventures abroad could not disguise factionalism and theological bickering at home, however. Towards the end of the rashidun , rebellion brought Muhammad’s cousin Ali to power in 656. His authority was not universally recognized across the Muslim world, and a period of civil war was only ended by the arrival of the Umayyads, the first great Islamic dynasty descended from one of Muhammad’s closest companions. A new period of expansion began. By 750 Sicily and Crete had been welcomed into the Islamic fold and a Muslim kingdom had been established in Spain. It was in the year 750 that a new dynasty wrested control of the empire from the Umayyads. The Abbasid caliphate, descended from an uncle of the prophet, transferred the capital from Damascus to Baghdad and ushered in one of the golden ages of Islamic history.

Under Abbasid rule, Baghdad was to become a wonder of the early medieval world, a circular city of science and poetry, famous for its bookshops and bathhouses, its chess games and secret cabarets. One observer calculated that it had ‘no equal on earth either in the Orient or the Occident, it is the most extensive city in area, in importance, in prosperity, in abundance of water, and in healthful climate’. Merchandise flooded in from as far away as India, China and Tibet, and one might imagine that ‘all the goods of the earth are sent there, all the treasures of the world gathered there, and all the blessings of the universe concentrated there’. The water was sweet, the trees flourished, the fruit was of perfect quality, and the people were all blessed with bright countenances and open intelligences. No one was ‘better educated than their scholars…more solid in their syntax than their grammarians, more supple than their singers…more eloquent than their preachers, more artistic than their poets’. The only possible conclusion was that ‘Iraq is indeed the centre of the world.’ 8

Harun al-Rashid ( reigned 786–809) was the most famous of the Abbasid caliphs, his opulent court familiar to history through the pages of The Thousand and One Arabian Nights . A ruthless politician, patron of the arts, builder of magnificent palaces, Harun was an expert diplomatist.

During the reign of the Byzantine empress Irene, he had marched his troops to within sight of Constantinople and demanded the payment of a handsome yearly tribute in exchange for not attacking the city. Irene had acquiesced but her successor, Nicephorus I, thought it far below Byzantium’s dignity to humble itself before a Muslim ruler. In 802 he despatched an envoy to Iraq with a strongly worded letter, replete with an analogy to the game of chess that any Abbasid caliph was certain to appreciate: ‘The queen who reigned before me gave you the position of the tower and placed herself in the position of a simple pawn. She paid the tribute that was once imposed upon you…This was the result of the frailty and foolishness of women. When you receive my letter, send back the money that you have received from her, and ransom yourself by paying the sums that are incumbent on you. Otherwise, the sword will decide between us.’ For added emphasis, the Byzantine envoys then threw swords at the caliph’s feet. A furious Harun took up his sabre, smashed the swords to pieces and then penned the tersest of replies. ‘From Harun, commander of the faithful, to Nicephorus, the Roman dog: I have read your letter, son of an infidel woman. You will not hear my reply but will see it with your own eyes.’ Sure enough, Harun marched his army northwards and to halt his progress the emperor, distracted by other affairs, agreed to recommence tribute payments. But even before Harun had returned to Raqqa (his new capital), he learned that Nicephorus had reneged on his promise. Having lost all patience, Harun led his troops towards the Black Sea coast where he besieged and conquered the Byzantine city of Heraclea. 9

Happily, some of Harun’s other dealings with Christianity were more polite. In 801, Charlemagne’s ambassador Isaac the Jew returned from a diplomatic mission to Iraq with an elephant named Abu’l Abbas, after the founder of the Abbasid dynasty. It was a present from Harun to Charlemagne, king of the Franks.

The caliph was eager to recruit allies against rival Muslim rulers in Spain, Charlemagne hoped to make travel safer for Christian pilgrims in the Holy Land, and both rulers shared a mighty rival in the Byzantine Empire. Crossing the Alps so late in the year was impractical, but after wintering at Pisa the ambassador escorted the elephant to Charlemagne’s capital at Aachen. The Emperor would dote on Abu’l Abbas for years to come, regularly taking him along on military expeditions. The creature would die in 810 while crossing into Saxony, although his bones would be preserved at Lippenheim until the eighteenth century.

At other times Harun would send Charlemagne ivory chessmen, water-clocks and perfumes, but Abu’l Abbas was his most precious diplomatic gift, exchanged between two of the greatest powers in the ninth-century world. Harun referred to himself as the shadow of God on earth, but he did not underestimate the talents of his compeer in the west.

He was broad and strong in the form of his body and exceptionally tall without, however, exceeding an appropriate measure. As is well known, his height was equal to seven of his feet. The top of his head was round, his eyes were large and lively. His nose was somewhat larger than usual. He had attractive grey hair, and a friendly, cheerful face. His appearance was impressive whether he was sitting or standing, despite having a neck that was fat and too short, and a large belly. The symmetry of his other limbs obscured these points. He had a firm gait, a thoroughly manly manner of holding himself, and a high voice which did not really correspond to the rest of his body.

Einhard’s description of Charlemagne 10

In April 799, Pope Leo III approached the Flaminian Gate in Rome. An armed band descended upon him, threw him to the ground and, after trying to pluck out his tongue and eyes, left him bleeding in the street. His assailants, supporters of the previous pope, had hoped to disfigure Leo so severely that he would be unable to continue in his papal duties. They failed and, after recuperating at a nearby monastery, Leo travelled north, to Paderborn, to recruit the help of Charles the Great, king of the Franks. A few months later the pope returned to Rome in the company of an armed escort. It was not the first time that Charlemagne had served as guardian and protector of a vulnerable papacy.