Lost to the West

by Lars Brownworth

  There was some hope that Leo III’s son, Constantine V, would resolve the matter, but he proved even more inflammatory than his father. Steeped in the hatred of icons since birth, he emerged as the most ferocious iconoclast ever to sit on the Byzantine throne. In his view, the church was festering with idol worship, and he demanded that the entire clergy take an oath not to venerate icons. So firm was he in the belief that Christ alone was deserving of worship that the very mention of titles like “saint” or “holy”—even as an expletive—would send him into fits of rage. His hatred of monks who resisted was such that he would on occasion smear their beards with oil and set them on fire. When the patriarch objected to the harsh treatment and refused to take the oath, the emperor had him whipped and incarcerated, then humiliated the man by parading him around the Hippodrome on the back of a mangy donkey. Declaring war on the powerful monasteries in the empire, he forced monks and nuns to marry, confiscated church property, and lodged imperial troops in monastic houses.

  The emperor employed theologians to press his case, but he was a highly educated man who was also perfectly capable of defending his beliefs himself. He would often point out that the great fourth-century saint Basil of Caesarea had condemned the veneration of images, when he had written that the worship of a likeness of the emperor was just as bad as worshipping the emperor* Constantine V, however, wanted more than old quotes to bolster his claims; he wanted official sanction for his war against icons. Church opinion was hopelessly split over the issue and not likely to support the extremist emperor, but there was more than one way to force the issue. Invoking a great council of the entire church, Constantine V packed it with his supporters and refused to let any dissenting opinion be represented. Not surprisingly, the council handed down a ringing endorsement of the emperor’s position. Icons, relics, and prayers to the saints were all forms of idolatry and therefore condemned. Even the emperor’s most savage purges could now claim the trappings of ecclesiastical support, and public executions took on a momentum of their own. Those who refused to embrace iconoclasm were beaten, mutilated, and even stoned in the streets, all with the tacit encouragement of the throne.

  Constantine V was able to prosecute his personal war so ferociously because he—like his father—had the great advantage of being militarily successful and therefore popular. Even the appearance of the plague—the last recorded appearance of the black death in Constantinople until the fourteenth century—couldn’t disrupt his success. In nine brilliant campaigns, Constantine V shattered the Bulgars, restoring some control over the impoverished Balkans. Taking advantage of the overextended and internally divided Muslims, the emperor chased them from Asia Minor, even managing to restore some semblance of control over the island of Cyprus.*

  The unexpected victories were certainly welcome, but even Constantine’s most vehement supporters nervously watched the damage that his religious policies were wreaking. Hopelessly split between those who loved icons and those who wanted to destroy them, Byzantium was deeply unsure of itself and breaking apart at the seams. Even worse, Constantine’s ferocious war on icons estranged the West at the very moment that Byzantine power depended on loyalty. Abandoned by an emperor who considered him a heretic, the pope could only watch as the Lombards annihilated the imperial government at Ravenna. Byzantine power was reduced to a last bastion in the heel of Italy, and even that seemed vulnerable. After nearly eight centuries, the Caesars had finally been expelled from their ancient capital; never again would a soldier of the Roman Empire set foot in the Eternal City. Casting around for a new protector to shield him from the Lombards, the pope found the perfect candidate in the Frankish king Pépin the Short. Answering the call, Pépin swept into Italy, destroyed the Lombards, and turned over control of what would become the Papal States to the pope.† Constantinople was humiliated by the developments, but worse to the empire than the loss of territory was the spiritual damage.

  In Constantine V, the empire at last had a strong, capable emperor on the throne, and if not for his zealotry might have been poised on the edge of a spectacular recovery. As the heir of Constantine the Great, he was in theory the temporal leader of Christendom. Every citizen of the old empire of Rome—even those buried by the shifting barbarian kingdoms of the West—owed him their allegiance and, at least in principle, had always recognized his authority. Political realities may have forced them to acknowledge local petty kings, but there was only one God in heaven and only one emperor on earth. For those in the lost lands that had fallen in the Muslim conquests, the situation was even clearer. The majority of the population was Christian, and they dreamed and prophesied of a time when the emperor would return and deliver them from their bondage. So devoted were they to Constantinople that the Arabs called them the “emperor’s church” and lived in fear of a mass uprising. All that was needed was a strong figure who could deliver the counterstroke and satisfy their deep longing to return to an empire that shared the true faith.

  But instead of seizing the opportunity, Constantine V threw it away. His harsh persecution cut off Asia Minor from the larger Christian community beyond the imperial borders.* Those in the East turned away, disgusted by an empire that had seemingly lost its mind, while those in the West began to question the imperial claims to universal authority. They didn’t yet dare to claim equality with Constantinople, but that day was fast approaching. The chance of a united Christendom, sheltered under a restored empire, slipped away forever. In their anger at icons, Constantine and his father had destroyed their own spiritual claims. Nothing would ever be quite the same again.

  * On the Venetian lagoon, the horrified citizens rebelled and appointed a local leader as dux, or doge, and the Venetian Republic—both an ally and an inveterate enemy of the empire—was born.

  *Western Europe went through its own version of iconoclasm during the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century. In defense of their destruction of images, the more extreme Protestants quoted the same church fathers that their Byzantine predecessors had.

  *The Greek island had seesawed from Christian to Muslim control since the late seventh century, and Constantine forced the Arabs to recognize joint custody with the empire. This arrangement—oddly foreshadowing the situation today—was eventually resolved in the empire’s favor, and Cyprus remained in Byzantine hands until Richard the Lion-Hearted conquered it at the end of the twelfth century.

  †The last remaining part of which is still with us today as Vatican City.

  *Christians in the Muslim-occupied lands of the East vehemently opposed the iconoclasts, and it’s fortunate that they did. Some of the most beautiful icons that survived the controversy came from Coptic monasteries that were located safely beyond the borders of the empire in the eighth century.

  14

  THE CRUMBLING EMPIRE

  By the time of Constantine V’s death on September 14, 775, the Byzantine Empire seemed thoroughly exhausted. The constant disruptions, both within and without, had taken their toll on every level of society. Under pressure from all sides, things were beginning to break down. Records weren’t kept as faithfully, family genealogies proudly guarded since the days of the Roman Republic died out, and the old traditions of senatorial rank all but disappeared.* Most cities dwindled to the size of towns, with the shrunken populations huddling amid the ruins of their former grandeur. Civic planning all but vanished, and the wide avenues and lavish public buildings of classical cities were replaced with twisting narrow streets and hastily constructed homes. Buildings were allowed to fall into ruin, and when walls were repaired at all, it was not by a trip to the long-abandoned quarries but by using the masonry of earlier structures. Even the more-important cities showed unmistakable signs of decay. Athens, once the foremost city in Greece, shrank to a provincial town with a few thousand citizens struggling beneath the shadow of the Acropolis, and Constantinople—though it still had its Hippodrome, theaters, and baths—allowed its aqueduct to remain in disrepair for more than a century.


  Sea trade remained strong, and the spices of India could still be found along with the silks of China in the markets of the capital, but merchants could no longer afford to cross the dangerous land routes in these insecure times, and much of the interior reverted to the barter system. As the urban populations declined in numbers and attacks came from every side, society became increasingly militarized. State land was turned over to the army in an attempt to reduce the costs of paying it, and political positions were turned over to military officials for greater efficiency. The result was an increasingly powerful political force that interfered in the government with unsettling frequency. In the century after Heraclius’s death, no fewer than eight emperors were put on the throne by the army, hopelessly blurring the line between civil and military authority.

  Education, like so much else, was a casualty of the troubled times. The capital still had private tutors and primary and secondary schools, and positions in administration and the army were still open to merit, but for most there was no time for extensive study in a century of war and disruption. Literacy dwindled, and with it the quality of civil servants. Faced with the unrelenting pressures of military disasters and social chaos, fields such as philosophy and literature were largely ignored as the luxuries of a more peaceful time. As the value of education declined, Byzantine culture began to wither and die. Each generation was less educated than the one before and less able to appreciate the intrinsic value of learning, and before long the decline had gained its own momentum. At the start of the eighth century, a law had to be passed making it illegal to cut up old texts, throw them away, or boil them into a perfume; by the middle of the century, emperors were complaining that they couldn’t find competent officials who could understand the law. With Constantine V adding the ravages of iconoclasm to the decay by declaring war on the monasteries and doing his level best to destroy the works of those who disagreed with him, education was in a deplorable state.

  Popular sentiment was turning against the iconoclastic emperor by the time of his death. The aura of military success that surrounded him ensured that he remained popular in the army long after his death, but in the eyes of most Byzantines he was a despicable tyrant, a monster who deserved only to be forgotten. They called him Copronymos—name of dung—and a century after his death his reputation was so blackened that a mob broke into his sarcophagus, burned his bones, and threw the ashes into the sea. His son Leo IV, by contrast, was a more mildly tempered man who supported iconoclasm but tried to smooth over his father’s worst excesses. Perhaps, had he lived longer, he would have been able to ease the tensions, but, unfortunately for the empire, he died after a reign of only five years. Effective power passed to his formidable spouse, a woman who had dominated him in life, and completely overshadowed him in death.

  Constantine V had chosen his son’s wife by holding an empire-wide beauty contest and had settled on Irene, a devastatingly attractive orphan from Athens. For the arch iconoclast, it was a remarkably bad choice. Having grown up in the West, Irene was a fervent supporter of icons who had no use for her father-in-law and secretly made it her life’s goal to restore icons to veneration. Her husband tried to rein her in, but a month after consigning her to a wing of the palace, he was dead, and Irene was spreading the suspicious rumor that his death was the result of divine retribution. Whether the citizens of Constantinople believed her or not, they grudgingly accepted Irene as regent for her ten-year-old son, Constantine VI, and in doing so gave the throne to one of the most grasping rulers in Byzantium’s long history. For those who stood in her way, the young empress had no mercy, and she was determined to cling to power no matter what the cost.

  For the next eleven years, the empress ruled with an iron hand, carefully removing iconoclasts from important posts and replacing them with her supporters. Unfortunately for the empire, most of its best officers and soldiers were iconoclasts, and their removal crippled the imperial army. Faced with a massive Muslim invasion two years into her regency, the demoralized and weakened Byzantine army simply defected and joined the Arabs. The humiliating and expensive peace Irene was forced to buy severely damaged her popularity, and insistent voices began calling for her to relinquish the regency.

  Military reversals and declining public support, however, meant little to Irene. She was focused on restoring icons to veneration and continued smoothly with her religious program. However powerful the iconoclast emperors had been, they had lacked the full authority of the church, and Constantine V’s hollow attempt at an ecumenical council had fooled no one. Irene would put the question of iconoclasm to the whole body of the church, sure that the weight of their one voice would bury the iconoclasts forever. Ambassadors were sent scurrying to the patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Rome, inviting them to what would be the eighth and final great ecumenical council of the church.

  It convened in the capacious Church of the Holy Wisdom in Nicaea, the scene of the first council 462 years before, and its findings were hardly surprising. Iconoclasm was condemned, but the faithful were admonished to take care that veneration didn’t stray into worship. The empire greeted the news with relief, believing that perhaps the long nightmare was over. Iconoclasm had been waning for decades, and had been driven largely by zealous emperors. When it was condemned, not a single voice was raised to defend it.

  The religious victory should have provided a high note for Irene to end the regency and turn over effective power to her son. Traditionally, regencies ended when their charges were sixteen, and Constantine VI was now in his twenties. Irene, however, had always been more interested in power than anything else, and she was not about to relinquish it in favor of her pathetic son. Constantine VI was a weak-enough man to be easily manipulated, and all would have been well if Irene could have controlled her ambition, but such restraint wasn’t in her nature. Banishing her son’s face from the imperial currency, she issued coins that featured only images of herself on both sides.* Not content with this unnecessary insult, she then produced an imperial decree announcing that she was the senior emperor and as such would always take precedence over Constan tine VI. When several generals protested, demanding that the rightful emperor be given the throne, Irene angrily executed them and had her bewildered son savagely beaten and thrown into a dungeon.

  The empress could hardly have handled the situation more poorly. Even a successful emperor would have thought twice before antagonizing the army, and militarily Irene had been nothing short of a disaster. Thanks to her endless purges, the army had been performing poorly throughout her reign, and its loyalty to her was correspondingly weak. The last two years had seen major imperial defeats against the Arabs, the Bulgars, and the Franks, and there was a lingering suspicion that perhaps the iconoclasts had been right after all. Revolt swept through the ranks of the army. Soon angry mobs were swarming the streets of Constantinople, calling for Irene to step down in favor of her son. Transformed overnight from a prisoner to a folk hero, Constantine VI was swept from his jail cell to the throne, and Irene was placed under house arrest in one of her many palaces.

  But Constantine VI had taken no active role in events before he had been thrown into prison, and he would take none on the throne. Lacking a single shred of ambition, the young prince was content to let life happen and would soon prove to be hopelessly incompetent. When an Arab army invaded imperial territory, he was immediately frightened into negotiating a peace that managed to be both humiliating and prohibitively expensive. The resulting accusations of cowardice provoked him to take the field himself, but his first sight of the enemy caused him to lose his nerve and panic, further tarnishing his reputation. The disaster convinced him to restore his mother to power; then, having made this awful decision, he marched off to yet another disastrous defeat at the hands of the Bulgars. The disgusted imperial guards in Constantinople hatched a plot to get rid of both Irene and her incompetent son, but news of it somehow leaked out. The badly frightened emperor acted with all the vigor of a bully, ordering th
e tongues cut out of the offending men.

  Such mindless cruelty cost Constantine VI any remaining support in the army, and Irene decided to get rid of her pathetic son once and for all. Constantine was already blaming his Bulgar debacle on his soldiers, and it was easy for her to convince him to punish the frustrated troops by tattooing the word “traitor” on the faces of a thousand of them. As Irene had forseen, this act made him the most reviled man in the city. Stripped of any friends or allies, Constantine VI was now helpless before his most formidable enemy.

  In May 797, Constantine’s infant son died, and while the emperor was distracted in mourning, Irene struck. As he was riding home from the Hippodrome, some of her palace guard burst out of the underbrush and tried to seize him. He managed to escape to the docks but was soon caught and dragged to the Great Palace. There, in the very room where he had been born twenty-six years before, Irene had him blinded so brutally that he died.

  She had never really been a mother to him, busy as she was with the affairs of state, and like all imperial heirs he had been raised by a swarm of nursemaids and tutors with little time to grow close to either of his parents. Even so, the vile murder deeply shocked the empire. Irene had violated the maternal bonds that every member of society, from the highest patrician to the lowest stable hand, held sacred. She had lost a part of her humanity, and though her subjects tolerated her continued rule, they could never respect her. She was the first woman to rule the Roman Empire, not as a regent or an empress but as an emperor, but she wasn’t to enjoy it for long. Guilt robbed her of her energy, and when the Arabs sensed weakness and invaded, she immediately offered an immense tribute the empire couldn’t afford. Trying to bolster her flagging popularity, she took to riding around on a golden chariot pulled by the finest white horses and sprinkling gold coins to the crowd. The assembled populace took the money, but their love couldn’t be so easily bought. They were well aware that thanks to her promises of tribute to the Saracens, the treasury was quite empty, and flinging what was left into the crowds brought her only increased scorn. The only surprise was that the revolt, when it came, was sparked not by a disaffected Byzantine but by a barbarian in the far west.