[658-665 A.D.]
When the affairs of the European provinces, in the vicinity of the capital, were tranquillised, Constans again prepared to engage the Arabs; and Moawyah, having need of all the forces he could command for his contest with Ali, the son-in-law of Mohammed, consented to make peace, on terms which contrast curiously with the perpetual defeats which Constans is always represented by the orthodox historians of the empire to have suffered. The Saracens engaged to confine their forces within Syria and Mesopotamia, and Moawyah consented to pay Constans, for the cessation of hostilities, the sum of a thousand pieces of silver, and to furnish him with a slave and a horse for every day during which the peace should continue (659 A.D.).
During the subsequent year, Constans condemned to death his brother Theodosius, whom he had compelled to enter the priesthood. The cause of this crime, or the pretext for it, is not mentioned. From this brother’s hand, the emperor had often received the sacrament; and the fratricide is supposed to have rendered a residence at Constantinople insupportable to the conscience of the criminal, who was reported nightly to behold the spectre of his brother offering him the consecrated cup, filled with human blood, and exclaiming, “Drink, brother!” Certain it is that, two years after his brother’s death, Constans quitted his capital, with the intention of never returning; and he was only prevented, by an insurrection of the people, from carrying off the empress and his children. He meditated the reconquest of Italy from the Lombards, and proposed rendering Rome again the seat of empire. On his way to Italy the emperor stopped at Athens, where he assembled a considerable body of troops. This casual mention of Athens by Latin writers affords strong evidence of the tranquil, flourishing, and populous condition of the city and country around. The Slavonian colonies in Greece must, at this time, have owned perfect allegiance to the imperial power, or Constans would certainly have employed his army in reducing them to subjection. From Athens, the emperor sailed to Italy; he landed with his forces at Tarentum, and attempted to take Beneventum, the chief seat of the Lombard power in the south of Italy. His troops were twice defeated, and he then abandoned all his projects of conquest.
The emperor himself repaired to Rome. His visit lasted only a fortnight. According to the writers who describe the event, he consecrated twelve days to religious ceremonies and processions, and the remaining two he devoted to plundering the wealth of the church. His personal acquaintance with the affairs of Italy and the state of Rome, soon convinced him that the Eternal City was ill adapted for the capital of the empire, and he quitted it for Sicily, where he fixed on Syracuse for his future residence. Grimwald, the able monarch of the Lombards, and his son Romwald, the duke of Beneventum, continued the war in Italy with vigour. Brundusium and Tarentum were captured, and the Romans expelled from Calabria, so that Otranto and Gallipoli were the only towns on the eastern coast of which Constans retained possession.
[665-668 A.D.]
When residing in Sicily Constans directed his attention to the state of Africa. His measures are not detailed with precision, but were evidently distinguished by the usual energy and caprice which marked his whole conduct. He recovered possession of Carthage, and of several cities which the Arabs had rendered tributary; but he displeased the inhabitants of the province, by compelling them to pay to himself the same amount of tribute as they had agreed by treaty to pay to the Saracens; and as Constans could not expel the Saracen forces from the province, the amount of the public taxes of the Africans was thus often doubled, since both parties were able to levy the contributions which they demanded. Moawyah sent an army from Syria, and Constans one from Sicily, to decide who should become sole master of the country. A battle was fought near Tripolis; and though the army of Constans consisted of thirty thousand men, it was completely defeated. Yet the victorious army of the Saracens was unable to take the small town of Geloula (Usula), until the accidental fall of a portion of the ramparts laid it open to their assault; and this trifling conquest was followed by no farther success. In the East, the empire was exposed to greater danger, yet the enemies of Constans were eventually unsuccessful in their projects. In consequence of the rebellion of the Armenian troops, whose commander, Sapor, assumed the title of emperor, the Saracens made a successful incursion into Asia Minor, captured the city of Amorium, in Phrygia, and placed in it a garrison of five thousand men; but the imperial general appointed by Constans soon drove out this powerful garrison, and recovered the place.
It appears, therefore, that in spite of all the defeats which Constans is reported to have suffered, the empire underwent no very sensible diminution of its territory during his reign, and he certainly left its military forces in a more efficient condition than he found them. He was assassinated in a bath at Syracuse, by an officer of his own household, in the year 668, at the age of thirty-eight, after a reign of twenty-seven years. The fact of his having been murdered by one of his own household, joined to the capricious violence that marked many of his public acts, warrants the supposition that his character was of the unamiable and unsteady nature, which rendered the accusation of fratricide, so readily believed by his contemporaries, by no means impossible. It must, however, be admitted, that the occurrences of his reign afford irrefragable testimony that his heretical opinions have induced orthodox historians to give an erroneous colouring to many circumstances, since the undoubted results do not correspond with their descriptions of the passing events.
REIGN OF CONSTANTINE IV (668-685 A.D.)
Constantine IV, called Pogonatus, or the Bearded, has been regarded by posterity with a high degree of favour. Yet his merit seems to have consisted in his superior orthodoxy, rather than in his superior talents as emperor. The concessions which he made to the see of Rome, and the moderation that he displayed in all ecclesiastical affairs, placed his conduct in strong contrast with the stern energy with which his father had enforced the subjection of the orthodox ecclesiastics to the civil power, and gained for him the praise of the priesthood, whose eulogies have exerted no inconsiderable influence on all historians. Constantine, however, was certainly an intelligent and just prince; he did not possess the stubborn determination and talents of his father, and was destitute also of his violent passions and imprudent character.
[668-681 A.D.]