Details Of St. Sophia.
Though containing little that is memorable in itself, the reign of Irene must be noted as the severing-point of that connection between Rome and Constantinople, which had endured since the first days of empire. In the year 800 Pope Leo III. crowned Karl, King of the Franks, as Roman Emperor, and [pg 200] transferred to him the nominal allegiance which he had hitherto paid to Constantinople. Since the Italian rebellion in the time of Constantine Copronymus, that allegiance had been a mere shadow, and the papacy had been in reality under Frankish influence. But it was not till 800 that the final breach took place. The Iconoclastic controversy had prepared the way for it, while the fact that a woman sat on the imperial throne served as a good excuse for the Pope's action. Leo declared that a female reign was an anomaly and an abomination, and took upon himself the onus of ending it, so far as Italy was concerned, by creating a new emperor of the West. There was, of course, [pg 201] no legality in the act, and Karl the Great was in no real sense the successor of Honorius and Romulus Augustulus, but he ruled a group of kingdoms which embraced the larger half of the old Western Empire, and formed a fair equipoise to the realm now ruled by Irene. From 800, then, onward we have once more a West-Roman empire in existence as well as the East-Roman, and it will be convenient for many purposes to use the adjective Byzantine instead of the adjective Roman, when we are dealing with the remaining history of the realm that centred at Constantinople.
XVI. The End Of The Iconoclasts. (a.d. 802-886.)
The Iconoclastic controversy was far from being extinguished with the fall of the house of Leo the Isaurian. It was destined to continue in a milder form for more than half a century after the dethronement of Constantine VI. The lines on which it was fought out were still the same—the official hierarchy and the Asiatic provinces favoured Iconoclasm, the clergy and the European provinces were “Iconodules.”[22] Hence it is interesting to note that through the greater part of the ninth century, while emperors of Eastern birth sat on the throne, the views of Leo the Isaurian were still in vogue, and that the eventual triumph of the image-worshippers only came about when a royal house sprung from one of the European themes—the family of Basil the Macedonian—gained possession of the crown.
The treasurer, Nicephorus, who overthrew Irene, [pg 203] and so easily obtained possession of the empire, was of Oriental extraction. His ancestor had been a Christian Arab prince, expelled from his country at the time of the rise of Mahomet, and his family had always dwelt in Asia Minor. Hence we are not surprised to find that Nicephorus was an Iconoclast, and refused to follow in the steps of Irene in the direction of restoring image-worship. He did not persecute the “Iconodules,” as the Isaurians had done, but he gave them no personal encouragement. This being so, it is natural that we should find his character described in the blackest terms by the monkish chroniclers of the succeeding century. He was, we are told, a hypocrite, an oppresser, and a miser; but we cannot find any very distinct traces of the operation of such vices in his conduct during the nine years of his reign. He was not, however, a very fortunate ruler; though he put down with ease several insurrections of discontented generals, he was unlucky with his foreign wars. The Caliph Haroun-al-Raschid did much harm to the Asiatic provinces, ravaging the whole country as far as Ancyra, nor could Nicephorus get rid of him without signing a rather ignominious peace, and paying a large war-indemnity. A yet greater disaster concluded another war. Nicephorus invaded Bulgaria in 811, to punish King Crumn for ravaging Thrace. The Byzantine army won a battle and sacked the palace and capital of the Bulgarian king; but a few days later Nicephorus allowed himself to be surprised by a night attack on his camp. In the panic and confusion the emperor fell, and his son and heir, Stauracius, was desperately wounded. The [pg 204] routed army did not stay its flight till Adrianople, and left the body of the Emperor in the hands of the Bulgarians, who cut off his head, and made the skull into a drinking-cup, just as the Lombards had dealt with the skull of King Cunimund three hundred years before.[23]
Stauracius, the only son of Nicephorus, was proclaimed emperor, but it soon became evident that his wound was mortal, and Michael Rhangabe, his brother-in-law, who had married the eldest daughter of Nicephorus, took his place on the throne before the breath was out of the dying emperor's body.
Michael I. was a weak, good-natured man, who owed his elevation to the mere chance of his marriage. He was a devoted servant and admirer of monks, and began to undo the work of his father-in-law, and remove all Iconoclasts from office. This provoked the wrath of that powerful party, and led to conspiracies against Michael, but he might have held his own if it had not been for the disgracefully incompetent way in which he conducted the Bulgarian war. He allowed an enemy whom the East-Romans had hitherto despised, not only to ravage the open country in Thrace, but to storm the fortresses of Mesembria and Anchialus, and to push their invasions up to the gates of Constantinople. The discontent of the army found vent in a mutiny, and Leo the Armenian, an officer of merit and capacity, was proclaimed emperor in the camp. Michael I. made no resistance, and retired into a monastery after only two years of reign. [811-13.]