Lars Brownworth - Lost to the West - The Forgotten Byzantine Empire That Rescued Western Civilization

The disaster ruined Zoë’s credibility, but since Constantine was still only thirteen, she had to find some way to remain in power to protect him. Deciding that a marriage was the only possible solution, she settled on the dashing Leo Phocas, whose recent defeat had only slightly dented his military reputation. It was not by any means a universally popular choice. The Phocas family was well known for its ambition, and the young prince would be easy prey for the unscrupulous Leo. For the worried friends of Constantine VII, there was only one alternative. Gathering together in secret before the marriage could take place, they wrote a hasty letter to the only man with enough prestige to save the young prince.

Admiral Romanus Lecapenus was enjoying the popularity of being the highest-ranking military official without the stain of a Bulgarian defeat (although that wasn’t saying much since the Bulgarians lacked a navy), and when he got the letter he immediately agreed to become young Constantine’s protector. Upon entering the city, he appointed himself head of the imperial bodyguard; a month later, he had the emperor marry his daughter. The outmaneuvered Leo Phocas furiously started a civil war, but Romanus—now calling himself hasileopater (father of the emperor)—had control of Constantine VII and easily won the propaganda war. *Leo’s men deserted him en masse and the hapless rebel was captured and blinded.

Having dispatched his rivals, Romanus now moved to secure his own power. Within days of Constantine VII’s fifteenth birthday, he was appointed Caesar, and just three months later he was crowned coemperor. Those watching could reflect that it had been a remarkably gentle rise—Romanus I Lecapenus had reached the throne without a single murder—but they couldn’t help but wonder how long Constantine VII would survive the new emperor’s “protection.”

They were right to be worried. Romanus had at least eight children and was determined to start a dynasty. After all, the current imperial family had gained the throne by usurpation, so Romanus was only following the example of Basil the Macedonian. Within a year, he elbowed Constantine aside, declaring himself the senior emperor, and crowned his eldest son, Christopher, as heir—relegating Constantine VII to a distant third place. There were limits to the usurper’s ambition, however. Romanus wasn’t a violent man by nature, and he lacked Basil’s ruthlessness. Constantine VII could be ignored and pushed around, but Romanus would never raise a hand against him.

In Bulgaria, Simeon was still fuming at his change in fortunes. As long as Constantine VII had remained unmarried there was a chance he could get close to the throne, but with the prolific Lecapeni brood firmly installed in the great palace, any hope of that had been rudely snatched away. Vowing to pull down the walls of Constantinople if necessary, he gathered a massive army and swept down onto the European side of the Bosporus. Finding the delightful little church of the Pege—a particular favorite of Romanus—he burned it to the ground, fouling its healing waters with the blood of those monks not spry enough to get away. He rampaged his way through the houses clustered outside Constantinople’s land walls, hoping to lure the emperor out of the city, but Romanus looked out impassively. He was well aware that he was perfectly safe behind the walls—and after a few weeks, Simeon realized it too.

The emperor was willing to negotiate—he had always preferred diplomacy to fighting—and a meeting was soon arranged between the two monarchs. Simeon arrived dressed in his finest armor, attended by soldiers bearing golden and silver shields, proclaiming him emperor loudly enough to be heard by the senators watching from the walls. Romanus, by contrast, came on foot, dressed simply and clutching a relic, every inch seeming to say that the glory of the Roman Empire was splendid enough attire to put his opponent’s garish display to shame. Addressing Simeon, he spoke with a subtle dignity: “I have heard you are a pious man and a true Christian, but I see deeds which do not match those words. For it is the nature of the pious man and a Christian to embrace peace and love since God is love…. Mankind is awaiting death and resurrection and judgment….Today you are alive, but tomorrow you will be dissolved into dust…. What reason will you give to God for the unjust slaughters? If you do these things for love of wealth I will sate you excessively in your desire…. Embrace peace, so that you may live an untroubled life …” *

Simeon didn’t miss the emperor’s offer of tribute—cleverly disguised as it was as an appeal to his better nature—and after a show of acceptance and a small gift exchange, he turned around and headed for Bulgaria. The next year, in a fit of pique, he took the impressively empty title of Emperor of the Romans and Bulgarians (at which Romanus merely laughed), but he never crossed the imperial frontier again. A year later, his armies suffered a bloody defeat trying to annex Croatia, and Simeon died a broken man, leaving his crippled empire to his uninspired son Peter. A marriage alliance was hastily arranged with one of Romanus’s granddaughters, and a welcome peace descended between the formerly bitter opponents. The Bulgarian menace had been the most frightening danger to the empire since the Arabs had besieged Constantinople, but under Romanus’s deft guidance, the threat had dissolved with barely a whimper.

At last freed from the specter of a barbarian horde sweeping down on his back, Romanus could turn to administration. His central concern was the alarming growth of aristocratic power, and he feared with good reason what would happen if the rich kept expanding at the expense of the poor. Imperial defense depended on the peasant farmer who made up the backbone of the militia, but large areas of the frontier were now being converted to wealthy estates as nobles gobbled up land at a frightening rate. Determined to put an end to such sharp practices, Romanus passed various land laws designed to protect the impoverished farmers. These measures inevitably earned the emperor the undying hatred of the nobility, who continued to try to undercut him, but for the rest of his reign he refused to back down. The damage to the militia system could hardly be undone, but he was determined to at least put a halt to its spread.

While the domestic war against aristocratic growth rumbled in Constantinople, Romanus launched his armies in the East. There was no hope of a similar diplomatic triumph on the Arab frontier. The coming of Islam had brought three centuries of unending war, retreat, and disaster, and only force was understood. The Macedonian dynasty had stopped the bleeding and begun to turn the tide, but it had been too distracted by the Bulgarians to make any real gains. Now, however, the empire could afford to throw its entire weight against the Arabs. John Curcuas, the empire’s most gifted general, was given command of the eastern field armies and ordered to march toward Armenia—the ancestral homeland of the Lecapeni family.

Squeezed between the great powers of the caliphate and Byzantium, the Kingdom of Armenia had passed back and forth between them more times than any Armenian cared to remember. With Christian power in the area seemingly broken, the kingdom had once again fallen under the sway of the Abbasid caliphate, but Curcuas swept in and expelled the Muslims, frightening the local emir so badly that he agreed to provide troops for the imperial army. The next year, the general plunged south, spreading a ripple of fear along the entire length of the Arab frontier. Marching to the foot of the Anti-Taurus Mountains—the craggy range that separated Asia Minor from Asia proper, that had long been the border between Christianity and Islam—Curcuas captured the pleasant city of Melitene, the first major city to be recovered from the Muslims. Leaving its pleasant apricot orchards, the general led a quick raid into northern Mesopotamia, but was recalled to the capital in 941 to chase away a huge Russian fleet that suddenly appeared in the Black Sea. *Thanks to a copious amount of Greek fire that seemed to light the very waves on fire, the Russians were soon in full retreat, but when they fled to the shore, Curcuas appeared out of nowhere, forcing the panicked Russians to leap back into the burning waters.