The Early Centuries - Byzantium 01

by John Julius Norwich

  There remains the question of why the Pope acted as he did. Not, certainly, to engineer a deliberate split in the Roman Empire, still less to bring about two rival Empires where one had been before. There was, so far as he was concerned, no living Emperor at that time. Very well, he would create one; and because the Byzantines had proved so unsatisfactory from every point of view - political, military and doctrinal -he would select a westerner: the one man who by his wisdom and statesmanship and the vastness of his dominions, as well as by his prodigious physical stature, stood out head and shoulders above his contemporaries. But if Leo conferred a great honour on Charles that Christmas morning, he bestowed a still greater one on himself: the right to appoint, and to invest with crown and sceptre, the Emperor of the Romans. Here was something new, perhaps even revolutionary. No Pontiff had ever before claimed for himself such a privilege - not only establishing the imperial crown as his own personal gift but simultaneously granting himself implicit superiority over the Emperor whom he had created.

  If, however, there was no precedent for this extraordinary step, by what authority was it taken? And so we come to what was arguably the most momentous - and the most successful - fraud of the Middle Ages: that known as the Donation of Constantine, according to which Constantine the Great, recognizing the primacy of his contemporary Pope Sylvester, had diplomatically retired to the 'province' of Byzantium, leaving his imperial crown for the Pope to bestow on whomsoever he might select as temporal Emperor of the Romans. This totally spurious document, fabricated around the turn of the century within the Curia, was to prove of inestimable value to papal claims for well over 600 years, its authenticity remaining unquestioned - even by the enemies of Rome - until it was finally exposed, in the middle of the fifteenth century, by the Renaissance humanist Lorenzo Valla.1

  1 Dante, that staunch upholder of imperial claims, deplores it in a famous passage:

  Abi, Costantin, di quanto mal fu matre,

  Non la tna conversion, ma quilla dote

  Che da te prese il prima ricco patre!

  [Ah Constantine, how great an evil sprang

  Not from thine own conversion,

  but that gift

  That first rich Father did receive from thee!)

  Inferno, xix, 115-17

  Historians have long debated whether the imperial coronation had been jointly planned by Leo and Charles or whether, as appeared at the time, the King of the Franks was taken completely by surprise. Of the two possibilities, the latter seems a good deal more likely. Charles had never shown the faintest interest in claiming imperial status, and for the rest of his life continued to style himself Rex Francorum et Langobardorum. Nor, above all, did he wish to owe any obligation to the Pope; there is reason to believe that he was in fact extremely angry when he found such an obligation thrust upon him, and at any other time in his career he would almost certainly have refused with indignation. But now, at this one critical moment of history, he recognized an opportunity that might never be repeated. Irene, for all her faults, remained a marriageable widow - and, by all accounts, a remarkably beautiful one. If he could but persuade her to become his wife, all the imperial territories of East and West would be reunited under a single crown: his own.

  The reaction in Constantinople to the news of Charles's coronation can easily be imagined. To any right-thinking Greek, it was an act not only of quite breath-taking arrogance, but also of sacrilege. The Byzantine Empire was built on a dual foundation: on the one hand, the Roman power; on the other, the Christian faith. The two had first come together in the person of Constantine the Great, Emperor of Rome and Equal of the Apostles, and this mystical union had continued through all his legitimate successors. It followed inevitably that, just as there was only one God in heaven, so there could be but one supreme ruler here on earth; all other claimants to such a title were impostors, and blasphemers as well.

  Moreover, unlike the princes of the West, the Byzantines had no Salic Law. However much they might detest their Empress and even attempt to depose her, they never questioned her fundamental right to occupy the imperial throne. So much the greater, therefore, was their anxiety when they realized that Irene, far from being repelled by the very idea of marriage with an illiterate barbarian - for Charles, though he could read a little, made no secret of his inability to write - and insulted that he should even have presumed to advance such a proposal, appeared on the contrary to be intrigued, gratified and, in principle, disposed to accept.

  In view of what we know of her character, her reasons are not hard to understand. Irene was a deeply selfish woman; she was also a pragmatist. By 802, when Charles's ambassadors arrived in Constantinople, she had reduced the Empire to degradation and penury. Her subjects loathed and despised her, her advisers were at each others' throats, her exchequer was exhausted. Sooner or later - more probably sooner - a coup was virtually inevitable, in which event her very life would be in danger. Now, suddenly and unexpectedly, there came a chance of salvation. It mattered little to her that her suitor was a rival Emperor, nor that he was in her eyes an adventurer and a heretic; if he were as uneducated as the reports suggested, she would probably be able to manipulate him as easily as she had manipulated her late husband and her son. Meanwhile by marrying him she would preserve the unity of the Empire and - far more important - save her own skin.

  There were other attractions too. The proposal offered an opportunity to escape, at least for a while, from the stifling atmosphere of the imperial court. Irene, though twenty-two years a widow - during which time she had lived largely surrounded by women and eunuchs - was still, probably, only in her early fifties, and perhaps even younger: what could be more natural than that she should look favourably on the prospect of a new husband at last - particularly one rumoured to be tall and outstandingly handsome, a superb hunter with a fine singing voice and flashing blue eyes?

  But it was not to be. Her subjects had no intention of allowing the throne to be taken over by this boorish Frank, in his outlandish linen tunic and his ridiculously cross-gartered scarlet leggings, speaking an incomprehensible language and unable even to sign his name except by stencilling it through a gold plate - as Theodoric the Ostrogoth had done three centuries before. On the last day of October 802, while Irene was recovering from some minor indisposition at Eleutherius, a group of high-ranking officials took over the Great Palace, summoned an assembly in the Hippodrome and declared her deposed. Arrested and brought to the capital, she made no protest, accepting the situation with quiet dignity and, we may suspect, something very like relief. She was sent into exile, first to the Princes' Islands in the Marmara and afterwards to Lesbos; and a year later she was dead.

  With the overthrow of the Empress Irene, the first phase of Byzantine history is complete. Four hundred and seventy-two years had elapsed since that spring morning when Constantine the Great had inaugurated his New Rome at the mouth of the Bosphorus - a period of time approximately equal to that which separates us from the Reformation - during which both the Roman Empire and the city which lay at its heart had changed beyond recognition. The Empire itself was much diminished: Syria and Palestine, Egypt and North Africa and Spain had ail been engulfed by the Muslim tide, while Central Italy had fallen first to the Lombards and then to the Franks, who had passed it on in their turn to the Pope. Constantinople itself, on the other hand, had grown dramatically, and was by now incontestably the largest city, as well as the richest and most sumptuous, in the world. Periodic visitations of the plague had taken their toll, but by the dawn of the ninth century the population can have numbered not less than a quarter of a million souls - and in all likelihood considerably more.

  It remained, however, the beleaguered city that it had always been. To the East the Saracens, superbly trained and organized, were now a greater long-term danger than the Persians at their most menacing; to the West, though the Goths, Huns and Avars had all in turn been satisfactorily dealt with, the pressure now exerted by the Bulgars and the Slavs was as re
morseless as ever. Had Constantine selected any less strategic site for his capital, had Theodosius and his successors expended a jot less time and energy on the Land and Sea Walls, one or the other of those enemies would surely have smashed their way through - and this book would have been a good deal shorter than it is.

  But even at the worst of times - with the Persians encamped across the Bosphorus, the Avars at the gates, or the Saracen galleys thronging the Marmara - every Byzantine, from the Basileus down to the meanest of his subjects, had drawn strength and comfort from a single, unshakeable article of faith: that the Roman Empire was one and indivisible, its ruler chosen by God as His Vice-Gerent on earth. Other, lesser Princes of Christendom might not invariably show him the respect he deserved, might even on occasion take up arms against him; but never once had they laid claim to a similar title for themselves. Now, without warning, the unthinkable had occurred. A jumped-up barbarian chieftain was calling himself Emperor, and had been crowned as such by the Pope in Rome. Henceforth there would be two Empires, not one. The old order was gone. The Christian world would never be the same again.

  Byzantine Monuments Surviving in Istanbul

  [Dating from before ad 800]

  This is a history, not a guide book. Readers visiting Istanbul may however like to know what monuments still survive from these early centuries of Byzantium. The following list is not absolutely complete, but it includes all monuments, or remains of them, that could conceivably be of interest to the non-specialist.

  *** Buildings of world importance, worth going to Istanbul to see.

  ** Memorable.

  * Interesting, but too small or too ruined for the average short-term visitor.

  Unstarred items are ruins or vestiges, listed more for their curiosity value than anything else.

  NOTE

  This list would have been nowhere near as comprehensive as it is but for the encyclopaedic knowledge of Mr John Freely, whose Strolling through Istanbul (London, 1987) has been of invaluable assistance.

  * AQUEDUCT OF VALENS

  Built by the Emperor Valens in 375 as part of his new system of water supply to the capital, bridging the valley between the Fourth and Third Hills. It was originally some 1,000 metres long, of which about 900 metres remain.

  *CATACOMBS

  Behind the mosque of Murat Pasha at the corner of Millet Caddesi and Vatan Caddesi, a number of vaulted chambers only recently discovered and thought to date from the sixth century.

  CHURCHES

  *** St Sophia The seat of the Patriarch of Constantinople, the Church of the Holy Wisdom was first dedicated by Constantius, son of Constantine the Great, in 360. The present building is the third on the site, redesigned by Justinian after the Nika riots of 532 and dedicated by him on 26 December 537. There have been inevitable restorations, but the Great Church remains structurally much the same as in his day, the principal differences having been occasioned by it's conversion into a mosque after the Turkish conquest of 1453.

  *** St Eirene Just inside the first courtyard of Topkapi Palace, the Church of the Holy Peace was one of the earliest Christian churches in Byzantium. Rebuilt by Constantine the Great or his son Constantius, it served as the patriarchal cathedral until the building of St Sophia nearby. Like the latter, it was destroyed by fire in the Nika riots but was rebuilt again by Justinian and rededicated in 537. Usually locked, but permission to visit can be sought from the Director of St Sophia. The rewards are great.

  *** SS Sergius and Bacchus Now a mosque known as Kucuk Aya-sofya, standing just at the point where the Hippodrome, if projected further along its present axis, would meet the Sea Walls. Begun by Justinian and Theodora in 527, it is therefore earlier than St Sophia or St Eirene.

  St John of Studium Near the junction of the Land Walls and the Marmara, founded in 462 and thus the oldest church surviving in the city - insofar as it has survived, for it is now a ruin open to the sky. Of the famous monastery, perhaps the greatest spiritual and cultural centre of Byzantium, nothing remains.

  Martyrium of SS Karpos and Papylos Just below the modern Greek church of St Menas, where it now serves as a carpenter's shop. A large circular domed chamber of brick, dating from the fourth or fifth century.

  St Polyeuktos Beside the huge Sehzade Basi intersection just west of the Aqueduct of Valens, built between 524 and 527. A ruin, but an impressive one.

  Theotokos in Chalcoprateia Of the once great and splendid fifth-century church there remains only the aspe and a length of crenellated wall beside Alemdar Caddesi, some 100 yards west of St Sophia.

  CISTERNS

  ** The Basilica Cistern (Yerebatansaray) Built by Justinian after the Nika revolt in 532. The grandest and most beautiful of all the covered cisterns in the city, with 12 rows of 28 columns. Now magnificently restored, and not to be missed.

  ** Binbirderek Off Divan Yolu to the left, about a quarter of a mile from St Sophia. The name means 'The 1,001 columns'; there are in fact 16 rows of 14, the full height being some 14.5 m. The cistern may have been begun in the reign of Constantine the Great, though it was probably enlarged in the fifth or sixth century. Open to the public, but pitch dark, dank and filthy.

  Open Cistern of Aetios On the Fevzi Pasha Caddesi, just short of the Mosque of Mihrimar. Built in 421 and measuring 224 m by 85 m, it has now been converted into a sports stadium.

  Open Cistern of Aspar Immediately south-west of the Mosque of Sultan Selim I. Built in about 470 by Aspar, and covering 152 square metres, it is now occupied by a sunken kitchen-garden and farm buildings.

  Open Cistern of St Modus In the Altimermer district. Built during the reign of Arcadius (491-518) and extending over 25,000 square metres, it is the largest of the early Byzantine reservoirs in the city. Now vegetable gardens and orchards.

  Covered Cistern of Pulcheria Opposite the south-east corner of the Cistern of Aspar. The attribution is uncertain, but the date is almost certainly fifth or sixth century. Four rows of Corinthian columns. Not open to the public.

  Covered Cistern of the Studium At the south-east corner of the outer precincts. Now a junk store, but quite impressive with its 23 Corinthian columns in granite.

  COLUMNS

  Column of Arcadius On Cerrah Pasha Caddesi, in the second street on the right beyond the mosque. Only the plinth remains of the column erected in 402 by the Emperor, on the model of the Column of Constantine. Inside, a staircase leads to the top of the ruin, where a short length of the column (demolished in 1715) can still be seen.

  Column of Constantine Erected by Constantine to mark the dedication of the city. Still standing, but in a sorry state.

  Column of the Goths In Gulhane Park, behind and below the Palace of Topkapi. A granite monolith with a Corinthian capital, bearing the inscription FORTUNAE REDUCI OB DEVICTOS GOTHOS, 'To Fortune, Returned owing to the Defeat of the Goths'. Erected probably by Constantine the Great, but possibly by Claudius II Gothicus (268-70).

  * Column of Martian (Kiz Tasi) Some 200 yards south of the Fatih Mosque. Erected, according to the inscription, by the Prefect Tatianus in honour of the Emperor (450-57). It has since been credited by the Turks with the power of telling true virgins from false ones.

  ** THE HIPPODROME

  Now known as At Meydani, this centre of popular life in Constantinople has preserved its essential outline, together with the central spina containing the Obelisk of Tutmose III (1549-1503 BC), the base of the Serpent Column from the Temple of Apollo at Delphi and the rough pillar of stone which the inscription on its plinth compares, somewhat optimistically, to the Colossus of Rhodes.

  * HOSPICE OF SAMSON

  All that remains of this charitable foundation described by Procopius is a jumble of ruins (with a few reconstructed columns) between St Eirene and the outer wall of Topkapi Palace.

  PALACES

  * The Great Palace Built by Constantine the Great, it remained the principal residence of the Emperors until the Fourth Crusade in 1204. Little remains in situ except the ruins of the old
marine gate of the Bucoleon, marked by three large windows framed in marble, now part of the Sea Walls. The fascinating **floor mosaics can be seen in the new Mosaic Museum.

  Palace of Antiochus Some 300 yards west of St Sophia on Divan Yolu, the ruins are all that is left of the palace of a great fifth-century nobleman. It was later converted into a martyrium for the body of St Euphemia of Chalcedon.

  * Palace of Romanus Some 200 yards south of the Tulip Mosque are the ruins of what was once the Bodrum (Subterranean) Mosque, previously a Byzantine church which formed part of the monastery of the Myrelaion. The huge rotunda below the terrace next to it was built in the fifth century as the reception hall of a palace, but never finished.