The Walls of Constantinople

by B. Granville Baker

LET us go ashore under the sea-walls of Constantinople. We now approach the white Seraglio lighthouse, keeping a little south of it and yet a little more, rounding a slight bend of the coast to westward. Here, beyond a strong square tower which formerly showed a flare of Grecian fire to guide the mariner, is a stretch of beach, Author and Artist insist on landing. The tower we left on our right joins on to a large front of masonry, built stoutly of rough stones as you may see where the walls are broken, and where a few marble pillars frame hollow openings for the windows. This place is full of the memories of dark and strange events, it is the Palace of Justinian.

Old chroniclers called this the Palace of Hormisdas, or Hormouz, Prince of Persia, who sought refuge here with Constantine the Great. Others, again, suggest that this palace was built by Justinian himself before he began his long and useful reign.

At any rate, great and famous names occur to us as we survey these ruins. It is an astounding chapter of history this, which tells how Justinian came to inherit the Imperial Purple. His uncle Justin was the founder of his house, a simple Dacian peasant who left his native village and the flocks he tended to enter the military service of the Eastern Empire. Through his own strength, his own ability and valour in the field, Justin the Dacian peasant rose step by step until he took his place next to Cæsar himself in importance. Then when the Emperor Anastasius died, after carefully excluding his own kinsman from the throne, Justin was acclaimed Emperor by the unanimous consent of those who knew him to be brave and gentle, his soldiers, and by those who held him to be orthodox, the priests. So in his old age, for he was sixty-eight when Anastasius died, Justin climbed the throne and reigned for nine years. Strange, too, it is, that he and yet another ruler of his time, Theodoric, the King of Italy, even in those days when learning was by no means uncommon, should both have been unable to read and write. Justin had brought his nephew Justinian out of Dacia, and had him educated in Constantinople to be trained for the Purple.

His was a curious and eventful reign. Of great strength and comely of face, full of the best intentions and restless in his pursuit of knowledge, Justinian entered into his inheritance; he had been his uncle Justin’s right hand, and so was well acquainted with all the devious ways of statecraft. So everything promised well, and in a measure he succeeded. The wars he undertook were brought to a successful issue, the laws he framed should have earned him the people’s gratitude, yet Justinian was not beloved.

No doubt these walls could tell the reason—you may almost hear them whisper, “Theodora, the actress, the dancer, and Justinian’s empress.” Surely those were stirring times, when Justinian and Theodora sat side by side upon the throne, when circus and streets rang with the cries of factions, Blue and Green. And Theodora favoured Blue—her cause for doing so dates back to the day of her earliest appearance in Constantinople—in the theatre. Here she and her sisters, daughters of Acacius, whose office was to tend the wild beasts that the Green faction kept for the games, were brought by their mother in the garb of suppliants. The Green faction received them with contempt, the Blues with compassion, and hence the reason that Theodora favoured that colour.

Then some time elapsed, during which it were best not to follow Theodora’s fortunes. During this epoch a son was born to her. Years after, the father of the child when dying told him: “Your mother is an empress.” The son of Theodora hastened to Constantinople, hurried to the palace to present himself—and was never seen again. When in seclusion at Alexandria Theodora had a vision which told her that one day she would wear the Purple, so she returned to Constantinople, and ere long won Justinian’s love. So they reigned side by side, and Justinian first of that name is still called “the Great.” Let whatever evil she may have done be forgotten. Are not the scandals of that time softened by the mists of romance which enshroud them, for all but those who like to peer about among the secrets of dead men, and to cavil at their failings, and tear what tatters of reputation they can find into yet smaller shreds.

Nearly four centuries had passed, and yet again the Palace of Justinian was witness of Imperial weakness. The Greek fleet rode at anchor beneath the windows of the palace, and from his ship the Admiral Romanus Lecapenus made his way into the presence of the Emperor. There he demanded of Constantine VII, called Porphyrogenitus, a share in the government of the Empire, and was proclaimed co-Emperor. At one time during this reign five Cæsars wore the Purple; he who was born in it, Constantine VII, Porphyrogenitus, ranked least among them, but he survived them all in office to die of poison, it is said administered by Theophane, the wife of his son, Romanus II.

Again a woman plays a strong part in the history of these palace walls. A woman of low origin, this wife of the Eastern Emperor, son of Constantine VII, and under the careless reign of her good-natured husband, she made her vigorous personality a power in the land. Four years did Romanus II reign, and in that time did nothing that could afford the historian excuse for lingering on his name. Strongly built and fair to look upon, his time was spent in the pleasures he best loved. While the two brothers Leo and Nicephones triumphed over the Saracens, the Emperor’s days were spent in strenuous leisure. He visited the circus in the morning, feasted the senators at noon, and then adjourned to the sphæristerium, the tennis-court, where he achieved his only victories. From time to time he would cross over to the Asiatic side, and there hunt the wild boar, returning to the palace well content with what he probably considered a good day’s work.

Theophane tired of her useless spouse, and mingled for him the same deadly draught which killed his father. She then aspired to reign in the name of her two sons, Basil and Constantine, one five, the other only two years old, but found she could not support the weight of such responsibility, and looked about for some one to protect her.

She found the man in Nicephorus Phocas, who was then accounted the bravest soldier in the land. In other ways he appeared suitable, for he combined with the military genius that had led to many victories the reputation of a saint. For the rest, in person he was deformed, so that perchance Theophane’s spacious heart was aided by her head when she set about to choose the successor to Romanus in her affections. Another like him lived many centuries later and ruled over England, Richard of Gloucester—and through the hazy veil wherewith romance so kindly clothes the crude outlines of history, it is difficult to decide to what extent the religious practices and utterances of these two monarchs were prompted by sincerity or guile. For Nicephorus wore hair-cloth, fasted, and clothed his conversation with pious terms; he even wished to retire from the business of this world into the serene seclusion of a monastery. Whatever the value of the sentiments he expressed, the people and the Patriarch trusted him, and so he was invested with the command of the oriental armies.