During the interval of six years which elapsed from the death of Justinian II to the accession of Leo the Isaurian, the imperial throne was occupied by three sovereigns. Their history is only remarkable as proving the inherent strength of the Roman body politic, which could survive such continual revolutions, even in the state of weakness to which it was reduced. Philippicus was a luxurious and extravagant prince, who thought only of enjoying the situation which he had accidentally obtained. He was soon dethroned by a band of conspirators, who carried him off from the palace while in a fit of drunkenness, and after putting out his eyes, left him helpless in the middle of the hippodrome. The reign of Philippicus would hardly deserve notice, had he not increased the confusion into which the empire had fallen, and exposed the total want of character and conscience among the Greek clergy, by re-establishing the monothelite doctrines in a general council of the Eastern bishops.
As the conspirators who had dethroned Philippicus had not formed any plan for choosing his successor, the first secretary of state was elected emperor by a public assembly held in the great church of St. Sophia, under the name of Anastasius II. He immediately re-established the orthodox faith, and his character is consequently the subject of eulogy with the historians of his reign. The Saracens, whose power was continually increasing, were at this time preparing a great expedition at Alexandria, in order to attack Constantinople. Anastasius sent a fleet with the troops of the theme Opsicium, to destroy the magazines of timber collected on the coast of Phœnicia for the purpose of assisting the preparations at Alexandria. The Roman armament was commanded by a deacon of St. Sophia, who also held the office of grand treasurer of the empire. The nomination of a member of the clergy to command the army gave great dissatisfaction to the troops, who were not yet so deeply tinctured with ecclesiastical ideas and manners, as the aristocracy of the empire. A sedition took place while the army lay at Rhodes; Joannes the Deacon was slain, and the expedition quitted the port in order to return to the capital. The soldiers on their way landed at Adramyttium, and finding there a collector of the revenues of a popular character, they declared him emperor, under the name of Theodosius III.
The new emperor was compelled unwillingly to follow the army. For six months, Constantinople was closely besieged, and the emperor Anastasius, who had retired to Nicæa, was defeated in a general engagement. The capital was at last taken by the rebels, who were so deeply sensible of their real interests, that they maintained strict discipline, and Anastasius, whose weakness gave little confidence to his followers, consented to resign the empire to Theodosius, and to retire into a monastery, that he might secure an amnesty to all his friends. Theodosius was distinguished by many good qualities, but on the throne he proved a perfect cipher, and his reign is only remarkable as affording a pretext for the assumption of the imperial dignity by Leo III, called the Isaurian. This able and enterprising officer, perceiving that the critical times rendered the empire the prize of any man who had talents to seize, and power to defend it, placed himself at the head of the troops in Asia Minor, assumed the title of emperor, and soon compelled Theodosius to quit the throne and become a priest.
During the period which elapsed between the death of Heraclius and the accession of Leo, the few remains of Roman principles of administration which had lingered in the imperial court, were gradually extinguished. The long-cherished hope of restoring the ancient power and glory of the Roman Empire expired, and even the aristocracy, which always clings the last to antiquated forms and ideas, no longer dwelt with confidence on the memory of former days. The conviction that the empire had undergone a great moral and political change, which severed the future irrevocably from the past, though it was probably not fully understood, was at least felt and acted on both by the people and the government. The sad fact that the splendid light of civilisation which had illuminated the ancient world had now become as obscure at Constantinople as at Rome, Antioch, Alexandria, and Carthage was too evident to be longer doubted; the very twilight of antiquity had faded into darkness. It is rather, however, the province of the antiquary than of the historian to collect all the traces of this truth scattered over the records of the seventh century.
The disorganisation of the Roman government at this period, and the want of any influence over the court by the Greek nation, are visible in the choice of the persons who occupied the imperial throne after the extinction of the family of Heraclius. They were selected by accident, and several were of foreign origin, who did not even look upon themselves as either Greeks or Romans. Philippicus was an Armenian, and Leo III, whose reign opens a new era in Eastern history, was an Isaurian. On the throne he proved that he was destitute of any attachment to Roman political institutions, and any respect for the Greek ecclesiastical establishment. It was by the force of his talents, and by his able direction of the state and of the army, that he succeeded in securing his family on the Byzantine throne; for he unquestionably placed himself in direct hostility to the feelings and opinions of his Greek and Roman subjects, and transmitted to his successors a contest between the imperial power and the Greek nation concerning picture worship, in which the very existence of Greek nationality, civilisation, and religion, became at last compromised. From the commencement of the iconoclastic contest, the history of the Greeks assumes a new aspect. Their civilisation, and their connection with the Byzantine Empire, become linked with the policy and fortunes of the Eastern church, and ecclesiastical affairs obtain a supremacy over all social and political considerations in their minds.
The geographical extent of the empire at the time of its transition from the Roman to the Byzantine Empire affords evidence of the influence which the territorial changes produced by the Saracen conquests exercised in conferring political importance on the Greek race. The frontier towards the Saracens of Syria commenced at Mopsuestia in Cilicia, the last fortress of the Arab power. It ran along the chains of mounts Amanus and Taurus to the mountainous district to the north of Edessa and Nisibis, called, after the time of Justinian, the Fourth Armenia, of which Martyropolis was the capital. It then followed nearly the ancient limits of the empire until it reached the Black Sea, a short distance to the east of Trebizond. On the northern shores of the Euxine, Cherson was now the only city that acknowledged the supremacy of the empire, retaining at the same time all its wealth and commerce, with the municipal privileges of a free city. In Europe, Mount Hæmus formed the barrier against the Bulgarians, while the mountainous ranges which bound Macedonia to the northwest, and encircle the territory of Dyrrhachium, were regarded as the limits of the free Slavonian states. It is true that large bodies of Slavonians had penetrated to the south of this line, and lived in Greece and Peloponnesus, but not in the same independent condition with reference to the imperial administration as their northern brethren of the Servian family.
Istria, Venice, and the cities on the Dalmatian coast, still acknowledged the supremacy of the empire, though their distant position, their commercial connections, and their religious feelings, were all tending towards a final separation. In the centre of Italy, the exarchate of Ravenna still held Rome in subjection, but the people of Italy were entirely alienated from the political administration, which was now regarded by them as purely Greek, and the Italians, with Rome before their eyes, could hardly admit the pretensions of the Greeks to be regarded as the legitimate representatives of the Roman Empire. The loss of northern and central Italy was consequently an event in constant danger of occurring; it would have required an able and energetic and just government to have repressed the national feelings of the Italians, and conciliated their allegiance. The condition of the population of the south of Italy and of Sicily was very different. There the majority of the inhabitants were Greeks in language and manners; but at this time the cities of Gæta (Caieta), Naples (Neapolis), Amalfi, and Sorrento (Surrentum), the district of Otranto, and the peninsula to the south of the ancient Sybaris, now called Calabria, were the only parts which remained under the Byzantine government. Sicily, though it had begun to suffer from the incursions of the Saracens, was still populous and wealthy. Sardinia, the last possession of the Greeks to the westward of Italy, was conquered by the Saracens about this time (711 A.D.).[c]
FOOTNOTES
[39] Eutychius, 2, 339. Ockley, i. 325.
[40] [At Constans’ coronation a compact was made with the army under whose terms Heracleonas’ brother David was crowned emperor, and assumed the name of Tiberius. “What became of the emperor Tiberius,” says Bury,[b] “we are not informed.”]