The Byzantines

by Thomas Caldecot Chubb

THE HOLY AUGUSTUS

The Byzantines were able to keep Constantinople safe because they were one of the few peoples living in the time between the fall of Rome and modern days who had a strong government and one that worked. The rest of the Roman Empire had been divided by conquest into a good hundred or more independent units. These were ruled by kings, princes, dukes, marquises, and counts, and some cities were even free republics headed by wrangling priors. Their boundaries were always changing, and nobody ever knew just who was governing whom today, and who would be tomorrow. But the eastern half of the Roman Empire had a single government which was almost always orderly.

The Byzantines were able to do it because they had a fine army, and when they needed it, a swift and deadly navy—to say nothing of a diplomatic corps with a well-paid staff of skillful, highly trained diplomats.

They were able to do it because of their Christianity. After Antioch (in Syria) and Alexandria (in Egypt) had been captured by the Arabs, Constantinople was the most important Christian city except Rome. And as far as the Byzantines were concerned, the state worked for Christianity, and Christianity worked for the state.

Finally, the Byzantine Empire was able to stand firm and to last so long because the Byzantines could afford to spend what they needed to. Their government was tremendously expensive. Their army and their navy with its strategoi and drungariuses (generals and admirals) cost them a lot of money and so did their extravagant ambassadors. The church with its own mighty army of high officials and lesser functionaries was very expensive too.

But as long as the Byzantines were not only able to support emperor, army, navy, diplomats, and the church, but were willing to do so, the Byzantine Empire flourished and was great. It was only after they began to economize, when a lot of Byzantines decided they were spending too much on the army, that their troubles began.

At the head of the government was the emperor, and he was certainly the most absolute ruler there could possibly be. Even in the earliest days of the empire, he was chief of the Byzantine state, commander in chief of the army and navy, the only one who could make laws, and the head of the Byzantine courts. In other words, he was equivalent to the President, Congress, and the Supreme Court of the United States rolled into one.

When he became basileus, he was even more than that. The Great King was master and owner as well as sovereign, and his subjects became slaves. They had to humble themselves on the ground before him, and foreigners had to as well. Beside that, he was the head of the Byzantine church (now known as the Greek, or Orthodox Eastern, Church), and in this connection took on another title, isapostolos, which is Greek for “equal to the Apostles.”

But in spite of his great power, in many ways he was a democratic emperor who was elected or at least chosen by a process carefully set down by law. First he had to be named by either the senate or the army. Then he had to be approved by whichever of those two bodies that had not named him in the first place. Finally he had to be hailed by the people. (This was true even when the emperor seized power or when an emperor named his son co-emperor so that he would be sure to succeed him. He still had to be approved and hailed.) But once the emperor was elected, he was “the emperor chosen by God,” for the Byzantines firmly believed that God guided them in everything they did. From then on, it was not only treason but wicked and sinful to oppose the emperor. That is, unless you were successful. If you led a successful revolution, it meant that God had chosen you to take the old emperor’s place!

The empress—the Augusta, or basilissa, as she was also called—was almost equally important. To be sure, in the long history of the Byzantine Empire, only three women actually mounted the throne to rule in their own name, and only one of these amounted to anything. This was the wicked Irene who wanted to marry Charlemagne and who blinded her own son so she could stay in power. However, she did not call herself empress. She called herself emperor of the Romans just as if she had been a man.

But even though she rarely ruled, the empress was not shut up in a harem, and many empresses had great power and even greater influence.

Ariadne, the widow of an early emperor, went before the people and told them that her husband was dead. “Choose us a new ruler!” they clamored. She named a palace official, and then she married him. He was a very good ruler.

Zoe, the daughter of another emperor, did even better. She married three men, and each in turn became emperor.

More than that. The nephew of her second husband persuaded her to adopt him and name him her co-emperor. Then he had her hair shorn and shipped her off to the Princes Islands, in the Sea of Marmara, as a nun.

The crowds surged around the palace. “Where is our lovely lady,” they shouted, “whose father, grandfather, and great-grandfather ruled before her?” The usurper had to bring her back, but even that did not save him. He ended in a monastery himself.

Saint Theodora (the wife of an emperor and the mother of one) used her influence to end a religious dispute that had disturbed the state for more than 100 years, while another Theodora, who was far from a saint, saved it from revolution.

This happened when the Greens and the Blues (the rival political parties) joined forces and revolted against Justinian, the greatest Byzantine emperor of all. After they had burned much of the city, they surged into the Circus and called on the emperor to abdicate.

The mighty Justinian, who had even ordered a ship ready for a quick escape, was about to give in when suddenly his empress, Theodora, stood beside him. She was an ex-circus girl, one of the people herself.

“You can do what you want to,” she told him, her eyes flashing. “I am going to stay here. Anyone who puts on the crown must never take it off. If I die, I am going to be buried in imperial purple!”

The emperor was ashamed of himself.

“Drive them back to their warrens!” he ordered two of his toughest generals.

Within hours, the riots were put down.

But even when the empress did not do things like this, she was very important. For this reason a widower emperor remarried as soon as possible. Leo the Philosopher married four times and got into almost as much trouble as Henry VIII. If an emperor didn’t remarry, he made his daughter the Augusta.

“When there is not an Augusta,” wrote a Byzantine, “it is not possible to celebrate holidays or give banquets or entertainments in the manner prescribed by law.”

That may not seem important to us, but it was very important to the Byzantines. Since the emperor was God’s representative on earth, every official act of his life had to be like a church service, and in almost every one of the more than eighty occasions described in detail in an instruction book for emperors called The Book of Ceremonies, the empress took part.

It was something to see the royal pair on any great Byzantine holiday, for example, May 11, when they celebrated the founding of the city.

On this day the statue of Constantine the Great was paraded through the city in a golden chariot drawn by white mules, and the emperor sat in the Hippodrome waiting to pay honor to it. He was clad in robes that literally glittered. His principal garment was a tunic which reached almost to his ankles. This was called the scaramangion and was so stiff with brocade that it could have stood by itself. Over this was a shorter garment called the saigon. It was purple, gold-embroidered, and seeded with pearls. On his head he wore the stemmata, or imperial crown. It twinkled with rubies and sapphires of the purest ray serene. On his feet were the campagia, or special boots that only the emperor could wear. These too were of imperial purple, although some people say this imperial purple was really a deep crimsony red.

The empress sat at his side, just as splendid as he. Her garments were much like his, but on her crown was a plume made of precious stones. She wore earrings that dangled far below her shoulders, and sometimes a neckpiece made of oval or pear-shaped pearls. If he was a solid gold emperor, she was a solid gold empress too.

Yet in spite of all the splendor and glory (and this is only a little bit of it), the Byzantine emperor did not have to be royally born. In the Byzantine Empire it was just as easy to rise from a hovel to the throne as it is to be born in humble circumstances and become President of the United States.

Many of the emperors did.

An early emperor had been a butcher. Another had been a swineherd from Macedonia, and the great Justinian was this swineherd’s nephew. The savage Phocas was originally a centurion (a top sergeant). Still another had once been a donkey trader who moved from one country fair to another. Basil I was raised as a Balkan farm boy. He was very tall and strong and attracted the attention of the reigning emperor because he could tame horses. A later emperor had been a petty officer in the navy. Still another was originally a dockyard worker.

Many of the empresses were humbly born too. Besides Theodora, the circus girl, there was one who had been a cook, and a third who was the daughter of a saloonkeeper. Even Saint Theodora was brought up in poverty because her father, who had once been a courtier, had given all his money to the poor.

Saint Theodora became empress when the emperor picked his bride by following an old custom of the Byzantine emperors. Wishing to marry, he sent messengers throughout his realm, telling them to bring back the most beautiful young women they could find. Seventeen were paraded before him, and when the one he was about to choose annoyed him by a flippant answer she made, he chose Theodora.

Theodora did not intend to stay poor like her father. One day, her husband, the emperor, looked out of the window and saw a rich, heavily laden merchant vessel sail in and tie up to a wharf.

“I wonder who owns it,” he mused.

“It is mine,” said the empress.

The emperor flew into a fury. His wife should not be engaged in trade like some huckster. He made her sell it, but he did let her keep the profits.

Because these rulers were the emperors chosen by God, the Byzantines bowed their knee to them as the ancient Egyptians had to the Pharaohs. But because they were from the people, and also because the Byzantines had sharp tongues and liked to be sarcastic, the people sometimes gave their rulers a rough time.

There were more than 100 emperors in the long period of the Byzantine Empire, and many of them were given nicknames. Some of these nicknames were far from flattering.

Here are just a few: Justinian Nose-Cut-Off. (This was Justinian II, not the great Justinian.) Constantine the Stable Boy. Michael the Stutterer. Michael the Drunkard. Constantine Born-in-the-Purple. Basil the Bulgar Slayer. Michael Thinks-He’s-a-Soldier. Even one empress had a nickname; Leo the Philosopher’s fourth wife was called Zoe Black Eyes.

The emperors had to put up with sarcastic epigrams, disrespectful poems, and uncomplimentary stories. Here is one of them: Michael Thinks-He’s-a-Soldier had a passion for city planning, but he hated to spend money. One day the Byzantines saw a principal avenue all torn up. The pavement had been removed and workmen were everywhere.

“What is happening?” asked one of them. “Oh, yes! I remember! That’s where the emperor lost one of his halfpenny dice when he was a small boy. He’s tearing up the pavement to find it!”

But in spite of all this, or maybe because of it, the Byzantine state was about as solid as was possible. Not even revolutions could really shake it.

One reason may have been the fact that since the emperors came from every class and were often changing, the Byzantines were constantly getting new and vigorous blood in their government. But another reason was the wonderful and well-organized body of bureaucrats who helped the emperor govern the empire. When there was a strong emperor, these men carried out his orders. When there was a weak emperor, they did the best they could, until a new, strong emperor mounted the throne.

There was really nothing like this group in any other government in the world until modern times. They were trained public servants, headed by high officials who were appointed by the emperor.

The most important of these officials was the Logothete of the Dromos. (The word logothete really means accountant, but it is like a secretary in the United States Cabinet.) He was also known as the Grand Logothete. He was secretary of state, minister of police, and secretary of the interior.

Besides that, there was a Logothete of the Treasury who was like the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States; a Logothete of the Military Chest, who was the paymaster general of the army and navy; and a Logothete of the Flocks and Herds who was in charge of all the vast imperial estates. Among other things, he ran the imperial horse farms where practically all the horses needed by the empire and the army were raised.

There was also the Sacellerius, or Controller General; the Quaestor, or Minister of Justice; the Grand Domestic, or commander in chief of the army; and the Grand Drungarius, or secretary of the navy. These are only a few of the most important officials.

Under these department heads—and even more important—were the humble clerks who really did the work of government. These clerks were banded together into a body called the logothesia which was almost like our modern civil service. They were well paid, and even the lowest-ranking workers had unlimited opportunities for graft. In those days, graft was not considered dishonest; it was more like the tip that you give to a waiter for his service.

The clerks were also rewarded with honors. Every Byzantine working for the government had two titles. One described his job, such as chief clerk to the third assistant to the eparch, or lord mayor of Constantinople. The other was the rank given to him to recognize his services. Around the emperor alone there were twenty-six ranks, ranging in order of importance from caesar down to nipsistarios, a man who sprinkled symbolic holy water on the sovereign. In the city and throughout the empire were sixty other ranks. The badge that was the symbol of each of these was as important to a Byzantine as his pay.

It was this government, and most of all its lower-rank employees, that really ran the Byzantine Empire, for nobody could get on without them. Emperors and even logothetes came and went, but the Byzantine civil service clerks were always there. If an army had to be sent to an overseas province, the clerks knew how many ships and how much time it would take to get there. If there was a famine, they knew how many bushels of wheat were needed to feed Constantinople, and where to get them.

They were for the most part plain citizens from all over the Byzantine state who had come to the capital not to get rich but just to make a living. They were noisy. They liked to argue. They were quarrelsome and jealous. As they jostled through the crowded streets toward their homes or pushed their way onto the crowded Mesé to buy silk for their wives or food for their larder, they reeked of garlic and highly spiced fish. But they kept the empire alive.

A ROMAN ARMY
ON HORSEBACK

The army kept the empire going too.

It called itself the Roman army; and this Roman army of the Greek Byzantine Empire was about as efficient as any body of armed men between the time of Julius Caesar and the days of gunpowder and artillery.

Actually, though, Julius Caesar would have been astonished if he had seen it. Who, he would have asked, were these swarthy-skinned, black-bearded men with their quick and glinting Asiatic eyes? The commands seemed to be given in Latin, but the accent made them hard to understand. Why were so many of them on prancing, spirited horses?

Caesar would have remembered his legions like the famous Tenth Legion with which he landed in Britain. Rome had conquered the world with her legions. The legion was a body of from 4,000 to 6,000 citizen-soldiers. Except for a small handful who were mounted for scouting, the legion was made up entirely of foot soldiers. The tough men who fought in its ranks were clean-shaven, and each one carried a large shield. He wore a round helmet and a leather cuirass, and was armed with a short Spanish thrusting sword (that is, you didn’t hack with it) and a short throwing spear called a pilum.

But when in 378 A.D., a mighty Roman emperor was surrounded and crushed by barbarian horsemen in a Balkan valley not more than 150 miles from Constantinople, the infantry and the legion did not look unbeatable any more.

The Byzantines decided not to rely on it.

So first Caesar would have seen a large array of well-equipped men on sturdy chargers. These were the heavy cavalry, later known as cataphracts. They were as renowned as any Byzantine troops. They wore steel caps, and on each cap was a crest showing the colors of that bandon, or horse regiment. They also wore long mail shirts, steel gauntlets, steel shoes, and sometimes a light surcoat. Even the horses, at least those of the officers and the men in the front rank, had steel head armor and breastplates. For weapons, each man had a broadsword, a dagger, a bow and a quiver of arrows, and a long lance with a banderole, also in the bandon colors. They could charge like knights, or by acting as bowmen, they could fight a distant enemy.

Then Caesar would have seen the light troopers, or trapezidae. These too were cavalry, but they were the light cavalry. They did carry shields, but for body armor they wore only a cuirass of very light mail or horn. For weapons, they had only a lance and a sword.

There was still infantry in the Byzantine army, but it was now pretty unimportant. It was used mostly for holding ground which the cavalry had won. But even the infantry was divided into two groups. The heavy infantry were about as well armored as the cataphracts. For weapons, they carried a short, heavy battle ax and a dagger. They could stand off a barbarian cavalry charge. The light infantry wore no armor, but carried long-range bows. The Byzantine method of fighting was something like the German blitzkrieg, with cavalry taking the place of swiftly moving tanks and the foot soldiers following behind.

The Byzantines did much more than change their army into something swift and moving, however. They did more than divide the old clumsy legion into smaller units almost like our modern regiments, battalions, companies, and platoons. They spent a lot of time thinking about the whole business of fighting and may even have been the inventors of carefully planned strategy. They would not have been at all surprised at our modern war colleges where even generals are taught in the classroom what to do on the field of battle.

As a matter of fact, at least three Byzantine emperors wrote very good books on the art of war. These books included much more than just how to equip and drill an army. They also told the general exactly how he should fight his battles, and they emphasized that he must have a different kind of warfare for each different kind of foe.

The Franks, for example—and by the Franks, the Byzantines meant German and north Italian peoples quite as much as French and Normans—believe, said the books, that a retreat under any circumstances is dishonorable. Better die than show your back to the enemy. They are also very careless about outposts and scouts. So if you are fighting the Franks, you should try to trap them in a place where they will be at a disadvantage. Then you can annihilate them.

With the Turks—and by the Turks, the Byzantines also meant the Hungarians, the Patzinaks, and all the people of the Asiatic steppes—it is another matter, the books continued. They are light horsemen who carry bow and arrow as well as javelin and scimitar. They are hard to surprise because they always post mounted sentinels. Also you must be careful if you pursue them, for they don’t stay defeated but rally quickly. However, the heavy Byzantine cataphracts can ride them down and cut them to pieces. They are supposed to do so. And the Turks do not dare attack the Byzantine infantry because of its strong and powerful bows.

The Slavs, on the other hand, are only dangerous when they are led by Bulgarian khagans or by viking princes, and even then they are only really dangerous when they are in the hills. The thing to do, said the strategy books, is to lure them to the plains in hope of plunder. And then destroy them.

But the really difficult enemy faced by the Byzantines were the newly risen Arabs, or Saracens.

These wild sheiks from the desert were fanatically brave, for Mohammed had taught them that the easiest way to get to heaven was to die killing the unbeliever. Their numbers were limitless, for after they had conquered Egypt and Syria they drew into their ranks every discontented person in the Middle East. Once a year they poured, like a horde of locusts, through the gates of the Taurus Mountains into what today is southern Turkey. Nothing, including the Byzantine army, could stop them.

But fortunately, if they were wild and brave, they were also greedy for plunder, and besides that they could not stand cold or rain. So once a year too, usually in October or November, they turned back again, and their mules and camels, loaded down with booty, could not move back as fast as they had come.

“This is the way to beat them,” said one of the strategy books. “Always know where they are. Whether you are eating, taking a bath or sleeping, never turn away a man who says that he has information. Whether he is a freeman or a slave—no matter who he is!”

And then track them down, catching them in the narrow, snowy, chilly mountain passes if possible. They won’t fight well when they are trapped and shivering. Or if they don’t go back of their own accord, raid their own country and in this way bait them back. But whenever you fight them, or anyone else, be sure you know what you are doing. Above all, don’t throw everything into the battle at once. The general with the last reserves always wins.

The Byzantines also taught their generals not only how to fight but when to fight, and also when not to fight, which was even more important. They believed that it was better to be safe than sorry. The Byzantine general was told that he must never be rash, and above everything he must never throw his troops into battle where they might be killed or wounded if he could win the day by stratagems or tricks.

To be sure, he must always keep his pledged word. If he didn’t, who would believe him next time? And the lives of captives must always be spared if possible. One day they might be on the Byzantine side.

But it was all right to send an officer under a flag of truce and have him pretend that he wanted to discuss terms for surrender, when he was really acting as a spy. In the meantime, the Byzantines could bring up reinforcements. It was all right to forge letters showing that an enemy commander was turning traitor and then arrange to have them fall into his general’s hands. It was all right to disguise soldiers as innocent herdsmen driving bleating sheep and lowing cattle, and have them lure the enemy into a prepared ambush. Obviously, a feigned retreat was a recognized part of the game. Even a real retreat did not disgrace a Byzantine general, although the Byzantines were just as brave and proud as anyone else. At least the general who retreated would have some soldiers left and could fight and win another day.

The Byzantines also believed that if you wanted a good army, you must pay it well and treat it even better. A general’s salary could be as much as forty pounds of gold a year, and even a recruit had cash in his pocket. When a soldier served his time he might also get a grant of land. There was a well-organized supply department, and the soldiers were always sure of beans, cheese, and wine, to say nothing of what they could plunder from the country. A special corps of engineers pitched their tents for them and set up huge baths. The soldiers were even allowed to have slaves and servants. The army itself provided a groom for every four cavalrymen, and every sixteen foot soldiers had an attendant who drove a cart carrying all they needed. There was even an ambulance corps of stretcher bearers and surgeons. The stretcher bearers were paid a gold coin for every wounded man they brought from the field.

This is what the Byzantine regular army was like, but besides that, especially in the early days, there were regiments or even whole tribes of Huns, Goths, Alans, and other barbarians who fought for the emperor under their own chieftains. Later on, particularly in Asia Minor, there were also the great feudal lords, or Border Men.

There is a wonderful Byzantine poem called Digenes Akrites about one of these men. Its hero is Basil Digenes Akrites, son of an Arab emir named Monsour and a Greek lady of the noble Dukas family. For this reason he is called Digenes Akrites, which means “border man of two races.”

Basil was a valiant knight like Roland and Sir Lancelot, and in spite of his Arab father, he was a faithful Christian. And so when he wasn’t slaying lions, fighting cattle thieves, or rescuing lovely damsels, he was ready to join forces with the emperor and lead his men against the infidel.

But he only did this when he thought the emperor was right! When one of the emperors came to visit his castle he was quite willing to give him a lecture on how an emperor should act.

Both the barbarians, with their hard-riding horsemen, and the valiant border lords played an important part in defending the Byzantine Empire from its enemies, but the Byzantines never really trusted either group. A barbarian chieftain was far too likely to ride off with his hordes and found a kingdom of his own as Theodoric had done in Italy. A border lord from Asia Minor was too likely to try to become emperor himself. Indeed, more than one had.

The Byzantines also had a navy, one of the best navies of the Middle Ages. But often they did not rely on it as they did on their army. For one thing, the emperors were always afraid of the navy for the same reason that they were afraid of the border lords of Asia. They were fearful that some admiral would use it to take their throne from them. Three admirals did just that. Another reason was that the Byzantines liked to be sure of what they were doing. But in those days, ships were flimsy and the seas were full of unknown rocks and sudden storms. The best of plans might be upset by the violence of nature, and so it was more dependable to fight on land.

Just the same, when the Byzantines had to, they were always able to get together a fleet, and it was usually a good one. When Justinian sent an invasion army to North Africa, he had enough ships to need 20,000 sailors. It was the navy that twice drove the Arabs from Constantinople. In 853 A.D., the Byzantines were able to send 300 ships against Egypt. A little later, Zoe Black Eyes could order a veritable armada all the way to Italy to drive Saracen sea raiders from their stronghold near Naples. When the Byzantines attacked the pirates in Crete, they were able to send 105 dromonds and 75 Pamphylians. The dromond was the battleship of the Middle Ages. It sometimes carried 300 men and was a bireme, that is, it had two decks of oars on each side, one under the other. A Pamphylian was a lighter, swifter cruiser. The admiral’s flagship was usually a Pamphylian. There were also galleys; they had only one bank of oars but were the swiftest of all.

It was the Byzantine navy that developed and used what was probably the first “secret weapon” of all history. This was the famous Greek fire. Even today nobody knows exactly what it was, except that it was a complicated mixture of chemicals, one of which may have been a crude form of petroleum.

The Byzantines pumped it at the enemy through huge tubes or hurled it at them from portable siphons almost like modern flame throwers. Even water would not put it out. So it was fairly easy to destroy an enemy fleet. Greek fire frightened the enemy even more.

But the Byzantines did not rely only on the army or the navy to win their battles for them. Helping them in every way was the Byzantine diplomatic service. For just as the Byzantines did not ever fight a battle if they could find some other way of winning it, so too they didn’t even begin a war unless they had to. Why fight if they could persuade an enemy to become their friend and ally? Why fight, and risk their own safety, if they could talk someone else into fighting for them? To the Byzantines, this made sense.

It was up to their diplomatic service to do this, and the reason it was able to do so very often was because here too the Byzantines knew just what they were doing. Under the Logothete of the Dromos, they had an almost modern intelligence system taken care of by a special department whose one job was to collect information about foreign nations.

How can such and such a country help the Byzantines and how can it hurt them?

How can it best be won over by the Byzantines—by force, by honors and favors, or by gifts?

If the last, by what kind of gifts?

Has it any enemies, and if so, who are they?

What were its origins? What is its history? What is its climate and its geographical position?

Has it usually been a friend or an enemy of the Byzantines? Trace this back to the day when it first appeared on the scene!

With this information—the questions had been carefully worked out by the emperor Constantine Born-in-the-Purple in a book called How To Run the Empire—the Byzantines could select the right method for the nation they were interested in and then go to work on it.

If the ruler or his ambassador was easily dazzled, they could impress him with court ceremony and with purple shoes and robes, and they might even give out a title or two such as patrician or archon. They might even take some northern duke or count and promote him to be prince or king provided he swore allegiance to them.

If he was greedy and avaricious—and, said Constantine, “the tribes of the north demand everything and hanker after everything”—they could give him cash in hand or even pay an annual tribute.

As a last resort, the emperor could marry a foreign princess or give a sister or a daughter in marriage to a foreign prince. The Byzantines did not really approve of the latter, especially the ladies who were shipped off to some outlandish country without Byzantine comforts or conveniences! “I am being sacrificed to the wild beast of the West!” wailed one of them. But it often worked wonders. From distant Asbagia under the towering snow-crowned Caucasus Mountains to distant Germany, where the “wild beast of the West” lived, many and many a kingdom was made friendly to the Byzantines because a Byzantine princess sat on its throne.

But of course when an emperor did this, he must never give the barbarians all they asked for, and he must always think up a good reason for not doing so. If they asked for an imperial crown or an imperial robe, he must point out that these were sacred and consecrated and tell of the horrendous death suffered by one emperor who had given some to his Khazar relatives. If they asked for Greek fire, he must tell them that it was given by an angel and that anyone who gave it away would be struck down from heaven. If they sought to marry a princess, he must tell them that the demand is monstrous, even though the royal robe-makers were already embroidering the wedding gown.

In that way he would not only save some of his valuable possessions, but the barbarians would appreciate the ones he did give them all the more.

ONE RELIGION,
ONE CHURCH

Last of the things that made the Byzantine Empire strong and powerful was the Byzantine church. In some ways, it was the most important of all.

The Byzantine Empire was much more than just one half of the old Roman Empire dragging out its days for another thousand years. It was a new Roman Empire based on Christianity. Practically every Byzantine was a Christian, and so it was Christianity that united all the many races and languages into a single people. In spite of all the arguments about this doctrine and that doctrine, practically every Byzantine believed in the official Orthodox faith, and as the emperor was head of this faith, that gave him additional power.

Even a weak emperor could point to the Bible. “Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s.” But the emperor was caesar, and he was God’s representative too. He had to be obeyed on both counts.

The Byzantines were by nature an intensely religious people. They were Middle Easterners as well as Greek, and more than half of the world’s great religions were born in the Middle East—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, to name just the most important three.

The Byzantines had been religious from the very beginning, and the Greek side of their nature made them like to talk and argue about their religion as well.

Saint Gregory of Nyssa visited Constantinople when it was only forty years old, and even this holy man threw up his hands in astonishment. The money changer who converted his Asiatic money into Byzantine gold, the white-faced baker who sold him a loaf of bread, even the slave boy who mixed hot and cold water for him at the public bath, all wanted to discuss the fine points of Christian beliefs with him.

Saint Gregory shook his head. “Everybody in this city seems to be a doctor of theology,” he said. “Everybody! Even the slaves and day laborers. There isn’t a man in the city who can’t preach a good sermon, and they all do if you give them half a chance. If you don’t believe me, just stand at any street corner! Just go into any shop!”

But it was not merely the servants and shopkeepers who were deeply wrapped up in religion. High or low, virtually every Byzantine, even including those who spent most of their time making money and amassing worldly goods, had been taught from childhood and absolutely believed that life in this world was a vain shadow and the important thing was to win everlasting bliss in heaven. But this could only be done through religion and the church.

That may have been why many rich Byzantines and even many a Byzantine emperor or empress liked to endow monasteries, just as in modern times many rich men set up foundations. In fact, so many monasteries were set up in this way that it became necessary to pass a law stating that if you wanted to found a monastery, you must sell the land and only give the money. Many of the greatest estates were being left to the church and since they then didn’t have to pay taxes any more, it grew more and more difficult for the state to raise all the money it needed.

Many Byzantines, including emperors, became monks before they died. They felt more sure of their reward in the future if they actually entered a monastery, had their heads shaven, and exchanged their golden garments for a hair shirt or a cowl.

That may also have been why so many patriarchs—the title of the head of the Byzantine church—did not fear the emperor, even though the emperor had appointed them.

One patriarch boldly told an emperor that no one had to obey his laws if they went against the church. The emperor exiled him but did not dare to harm him.

Another went even further.

“I made you emperor, you ignorant fool!” he shouted at Isaac Comnenus. “I can bring you down as easily.”

He even put on the imperial purple shoes, saying the patriarch had a right to wear them. Of course, he didn’t get away with this, but at least he had tried.

Sometimes, to be sure, Byzantine religion was very close to superstition, particularly among women and children.

You could make yourself a saint by becoming a stylite like Saint Simeon Stylites, who lived most of his life on top of a column sixty feet high without ever coming down. Simeon was venerated and even prayed to.

Many Byzantines were certain that cures could be effected by touching the arms, legs, and even the congealed sweat of some holy man. On the other hand, a doctor was howled down by the mob when he suggested ending a plague by letting fresh air into the crowded tenements.

“Blasphemy!” cried the Byzantines. “God decides when a man shall die, not fresh air!” When the doctor persisted, and died himself, they said God had punished him.

Others believed that cities had been saved by the apparition of some saint as much as by soldiers. For instance, when the Goths stormed toward Thessalonica (modern Salonika), the second city of the empire, Saint Demetrius appeared and led the East Roman army to victory. When the Avars reached Constantinople, the khagan saw a majestic female figure pacing the walls. It was the Theotokos, the Greek word for “Mother of God,” which the Byzantines called the Virgin Mary. He turned back in panic.

Almost all the Byzantines paid great attention to fortunetelling, palm reading, and prophecies. Everybody believed in them. There were even more than a few emperors of humble birth who would not have even dared to try seizing the throne if it had not been for a fortuneteller or a prophecy. But, although sometimes the monks and abbots themselves told some of these fortunes, none of this had much to do with the church.

The Byzantine, even the most superstitious Byzantine, was truly Christian, but that did not mean he tolerated every kind of Christianity in existence. The Byzantine did not believe, as most of us do, that religion is a personal matter and that every man has a right to worship God in his own way, according to his own conscience. To the Byzantine, there was only one religion—the official religion. And there was only one church—his own Orthodox Church. If you believed anything else, you were a heretic and to be persecuted or fought.

This had been so from the very beginning. Constantine himself had called council after council to work out the details of the Christian creed, and the emperors who followed carried on his work. In council after council, they wrote down in black and white what every Byzantine had to believe. When it was written down, that was it. No further discussion about it, unless you enjoyed exile or having insulting poetry branded on your forehead; and this last really happened to one poor monk who refused to conform.

It was still true in the last days of the empire, but by then not even the emperor could change what had been agreed on earlier. Some of the later emperors tried to. They journeyed to France, Italy, and even England seeking help against the Turks, and in order to get the Western nations on their side they promised to make the Orthodox Church join the Roman Catholic Church, with the Pope as head of both.

The Byzantine people rose in protest. Lucas Notaras, a relative of the emperor and the last Megadux, or Great Admiral, shouted at his cousin angrily. “Better a Turkish turban than a papal miter!” he cried.

Although a huge Turkish cannon was already battering the walls, the mob shouted its approval.

“The Latins are trying to destroy the Greek city, the Greek religion, the Greek race, even the Greek language!” the people roared.

Even before there had been riots with the “democracy in rags,” the poor people, joining the monks and abbots to make certain that the old-time religion of the Byzantines was kept true and pure even if this made the empire fall.

Nevertheless the old-time Orthodox Byzantine faith did not come into being just as it was and all at once. Since religion was so important, and since the Greeks loved to argue, the whole history of the Byzantines is filled with violent discussions and bitter differences of opinion about exactly what a man was supposed to believe. Some of the arguments were so complicated that it does not seem that the Byzantines themselves always understood them, even though they were willing to rush into the streets and fight about them. The arguments are even more hard to understand today.

One of the most bitter disputes was about the use of the single letter i. There is a Greek word homoios which means “similar,” and another Greek word homos which means “same.” Men and women were sent to distant sunless provinces or shipped to lonely islands; they were locked in damp, rat-infested cells; and volume after volume was written and published over whether the Saviour was homoi-ousion (similar to God) or homo-ousion (the same as God). But this was only one of many arguments and discussions. It would be impossible to tell you even a small part of them. But that does not mean that these differences were not important. Many people think that the reason the Arabs conquered Egypt and Syria so easily and converted the inhabitants to Islam was that most of the emperors were Orthodox Christians who tried to make the Egyptians and Syrians Orthodox, too.

The most important controversy that troubled the Byzantines is easier to understand. It is called the Iconoclast (image breaker) controversy, and it agitated the empire for more than a hundred years.

Although the early Christians had opposed images and paintings, calling them heathen idols, most Byzantines attached great importance to them. In fact, some of their finest art went into the making of statues, portraits, and even small portable mosaics of saints, apostles, and other holy persons. They called these eikons, and they certainly paid them great reverence. Their enemies said they even worshiped them.

But not every Byzantine was an image worshiper. The hardy mountaineers from Isauria and other parts of Asia Minor still held to the Puritan-like thoughts of their ancestors. They hated images. Then an Isaurian general seized the throne. In addition to hating images, he realized that image worship greatly increased the power of the monks and priests who were now just about as strong as the emperor.

Because they hated images, and also to break the power of the church party, he and his son and the other emperors who followed ordered every image to be torn down and many of them destroyed. Then they abolished many monasteries. In some cases they made the monks and nuns parade hand in hand before howling crowds in the Hippodrome, forcing them to choose between marriage or torture and death.

These Iconoclast emperors were supported by the soldiers (most of whom were also image breakers; and all wanted a chance to loot church treasures) and by much of Asia Minor. But the monks would not give in, many of them suffering martyrdom first, and they were supported by the people; by the superstitious sailors of the fleet; by all the women; and by many of the empresses who were as stubborn as the monks. Saint Theodora, for instance, although her husband was a strong Iconoclast, never gave up image worship in private and she taught her daughters and granddaughters to do the same. When she was surprised by a dwarf who told the emperor, she said that the figures they were praying to were really dolls and that she was playing with her grandchildren. But later she had the dwarf beaten for good measure.

With opposition like that, the Iconoclasts could not hope to win, and in the end they compromised. The images were restored, but they were to be placed high and out of reach. Worshipers could look at them or reverence them, but they could not kiss them or touch them.

It was at this time, and probably because harmony now reigned, that the Byzantine church at last felt powerful enough not only to take care of its own peoples’ religion, but to set out to convert their heathen neighbors. Particularly their Slavic neighbors! Many of these still worshiped pagan gods 800 years after Christ.

It was Michael the Drunkard, a much better emperor than the name seems to indicate, who ended the Iconoclast controversy. And it was the same Michael who sent out Saint Cyril and Saint Methodius to do their work. They were the most famous missionaries eastern Europe had ever seen.

They prepared themselves like generals going into battle, and in a way they were like generals. They carefully restudied the Slavic languages, for since they were from a part of the empire where there were many Slavs, they already knew some Slavic languages. They learned all about Slavic culture and Slavic history. Finally they invented what is known today as the Cyrillic alphabet, which is still used in much of the Slavic world.

To be sure, their mission was not a complete success. They converted Moravia, now a part of Czechoslovakia, without too much difficulty, but when the Moravian king was defeated by a German king the country became Roman Catholic. Cyril and Methodius or saints trained by them, for they actually trained saints, went into Bulgaria, Macedonia, and Serbia. The people there stayed converted and stayed Orthodox. Indeed, Bulgaria soon boasted that it was the “eldest daughter of the eastern church,” and had its own patriarch, and its own Santa Sophia, too.

But the most important conversion made by the Byzantines took place a hundred years later. It was the conversion of the Russians. The Russians themselves say this was done more by Byzantine splendor than by the talk of Byzantine missionaries, or even by the marriage of the Russian Prince Vladimir to the emperor’s sister, Anna.

In 989, this huge ruler with his forest-shaking voice decided to make his people abandon their Norse gods and goddesses. He sent ambassadors to the four great religions that he knew about to find out which one was the best to adopt.

First the ambassadors went to the Black Bulgars, who were Moslems. But the mosques were smelly and dirty, and the Black Bulgars told the Russians that they would have to give up wine.

“Drinking is the joy of the Russians!” roared Vladimir.

Next they visited the Jewish Khazars, but how, asked Vladimir, could the Jews be God’s chosen people if he had scattered them all over the earth?

Then they went to the German Roman Catholics.

“The Germans say that they worship the truth,” the ambassadors reported, “but they have day after day of fasting, and there is no magnificence.”

“I do not like to fast,” said Vladimir.

Finally, they visited the Greeks, that is, the Byzantines.

“The Greeks,” they said, “led us to the edifices where they worship their God, and we knew not whether we were in heaven or on earth, for nowhere have we seen such splendor and beauty. We are at loss how to describe it, but we do know that God must dwell there.”

Then they added, “If the Greek faith was not good, your grandmother Olga would not have adopted it.”

For they knew that this straw-haired princess had never stopped talking about the domes of polished copper, the pavements of rare stone, the magnificent decorations, the pearl-encrusted psalm books and Bibles, the incense and the music in Constantinople. They knew too that she had never stopped talking about the God-chosen emperor who had wanted to marry her, and how she had tricked him into giving her rich gifts instead.

Vladimir agreed. He ordered his subjects to be baptized, and told his boyars to give up worshiping Odin and Thor, and to burn their idols or cast them into the Dnepr River.

This conversion of the Slavs was as important to the Byzantines as a victory by their army or by their diplomats, and indeed it was a victory. For although they still fought with the Serbs and with the Russians and particularly with the Bulgarians, these people were gradually drawn into the Byzantine way of life and became more and more friendly. Thus the flanks of the empire were protected.

It was, of course, far more lasting than any military victory. The Byzantine Empire came to an end more than 500 years ago, but if you were to go into the Balkans or Greece today, you would find that the work done by Saint Cyril and Saint Methodius still remains. Even after forty years of communism, you might find that the seeds of Christianity, and particularly Greek Orthodox Christianity, which had been sown by Vladimir’s conversion, were still living in some Russian communist hearts.